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Michael Lujan Bevacqua comes from the Bittot and Kabesa clans and is the father to the mas ñangñang na nene giya Guahan Sumåhi, who is notorious on island for ruining numerous R-rated movies for childless adults. He has way too many websites and is involved in too many different activist projects, that all keep him from finishing his Ethnic Studies dissertation. Michael has many dreams some of them possible, others needing lots of work in order to become possible. He dreams of an independent Guam, and a Guam where the Chamorro language is more pervasive than yellow-ribbon-car-magnets, watching a Test Cricket series between India and Pakistan in India, and becoming the front-man for a Chamorro language Ska Band.

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Searching for Shiro at Borders In Hawai’i

July 7th, 2009 • Related • Filed Under

My daughter Sumahi and I are in Hawai’i for a few days, visiting family and also doing some solidarity work with different demilitarization groups. While driving through Honolulu yesterday I recalled a post that Kel had put on Guamology a few months back noting that Shiro’s Head DVD’s were now available at the Borders at the Ward Center.

So we decided to stop by and see if we could find a copy of it there. We headed upstairs to the DVD and music section and stopped by the first computer that we saw to run a search for the film.

No such luck. This wasn’t a good sign. I began to wonder if either the DVD’s were sold out or if Kel was lying about the whole thing! (j/k)

Not being in the inventory, we checked the special interest section since it might be considered a unique or special item and not properly inventoried. Nothing again. We then tried the Foreign Film section since it is from Guam and Guam is regularly thought to be “foreign” even by people in Hawai’i. We searched in the “S” sections.

Again no luck. We walked by the comedy section, and we searched it just in case it was completely mis-inventoried. Taya’ ta’lo. Assuming that it wasn’t in either the kids section or the music DVD section, drama was the last hope.

Lana, by this point it wasn’t even funny. Again, no Shiro’s Head. Just as I was about the go and ask an employee to explain to me the absence of Shiro’s Head both on the shelves and in the computer inventory, when something on a nearby self caught my eye. Instead of the usual DVD’s stacked, so only their spines show, they had a set of movies arranged to show their covers on a top shelf. There, I finally found it, and it had some truly interesting move neighbors.

After buying the copy I found, on my way out of the store, I noticed a section that I had seen before, titled “Hawaiian DVDs.” After glancing over the shelves I realized that the section had far more than just “Hawaiian DVDs,” but actually was a Pacific DVD section, and so there was Shiro’s Head again, along with some more interesting neighbors.

There Are 4 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Jayton Okada on 8 July 2009:

    Haha, awesome scavenger hunt eh Miget?

  2. Comment by Kel Muna on 10 July 2009:

    “Turtle…you made this? You made a big gun?!”

    BVOX – thanks so much for this post. I would never in my wildest dreams think of seeing my movie in a store on a shelf stacked next to one of our all-time favorite cult classics…NORTH SHORE!! Pretty cool.

    and one more for good measure…

    “Scrub it kook!“

  3. Comment by Michael Lujan Bevacqua on 13 July 2009:

    It was a cool little hunt, I was seriously pissed at first that I couldn’t find it, but then calmed down when I thought, that maybe it was a good sign, since it meant all the copies were sold.

    I was proud to see Shiro’s Head placed next (in addition to North Shore), other Pacific Islander or Pacific Islands’ movies such as Once Were Warriors.

  4. Comment by Aleta on 27 July 2009:

    WOW! Awesome! =) Thanks for sharing!

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