What’s new with the Brothers Cazimero!

Nothing.

Same jokes, “we’re raised in Kalihi …,” they still don’t perform on cue but at least now they tell you “we don’t hana hou” and same sublime soaring notes that they, and we, are so taken with. They are as smart as ever as we watch them fish in the best stocked loko i'a in all of Hawaii: Waikiki.

Sunday on the “Grand Lanai” of the Embassy Suites Waikiki Beachwalk as part of the Na Mele No Na Pua Kama`aina concert series, Robert and Roland sang and talked and Robert talked some more—perhaps his way of his reeling in his certain-to-be-new catch—for about 90 minutes. For free. The crowd is an overflow event on “The Grand Lanai” above Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, next to the pool in the shadow of the growing Trump Tower. Confronted with an overflow crowd, I sit behind a column. No matter, after twenty years I know what they look like; some years a few more pounds, some years less.

So, I sit behind this big fat column and attached to its right, propped open, is the slender fancy hotel folding glass door leading into the pavilion from which they sing. As Robert speaks of deep meaning and affection for the land, the rocks, all of Hawaii inanimate, here are Robert and Roland manifested in the very physical building structure of Waikiki. Robert, The Fancy Folding Glass Door opens and closes, is shiny and kinda skinny—compared to the column—and the more transparent of the two. When Robert, the Brother, said of the cute stage hand after he delivered some much needed items, “I love that boy,” like Robert, The Fancy Glass Door, we see right through him. He, like the door, can open up and lets us in when he wants. Roland, the Column, never appears to waver and holds steadfast, anchors the structure to the ground and provides firm support for the Fancy Folding Glass Door mounted on its right; as Roland, The Brother, does so well.

From the back, amid lots of tourists and many of locals, a haku crowned Auntie sits, smiles and listens intently as the best of Aunties do and then still seated dances hula to Hawaiian Lullaby (“where I live there are rainbows”, that one) while what surely must be The Hairiest Tourist in Waikiki walks past in his bathing suit from the pool to the room elevator beyond, somehow oblivious to The Brothers bait.

Sometimes nothing new, like the rocks and the 'aina or The Brothers Fancy Door and Column, is simply the best.