(music) Today Spectrum will pay a visit to Hawaiʻi's most famous political cartoonist Corky Trinidad.

Making mischief with the leading personalities that make the news, Corky Trinidad will discuss his cartoons and his approach to world events.

Then Spectrum looks at a Portuguese dance company called Folclorico de Camoes.

Here members both young and old performed the traditional dances of Portugal in step with rhythmic Portuguese music, while dressed in native costumes of festive design.

But first, Spectrum takes you to a bamboo forest with a mysterious flute music of shakuhachi is heard.

Traditionally carved from bamboo, the shakuhachi flute is now created in glass by expert craftsmen Bill Cooper.

Here to play an ancient Japanese melody is Riley Lee.

(flute music) The shakuhachi is an emblem flute Japanese design.

It has been a musical tradition in Japan for hundreds of years.

I recently formed a society devoted to the art of playing the shakuhachi.

We call ourselves Chikuho Ryu, which means the organization for the preservation of bamboo.

But not long after the Chikuho Ryu Society was formed, I was faced with a problem.

The bamboo shakuhachis are made by master artisans in Japan.

They are costly, especially for a beginner.

The prices for bamboo shakuhachi began at $250 to $300.

Then one day, a shakuhachi student of mine told me about Bill Cooper, who was a glassblower.

After Bill had seen an example of an emblem flute, he felt challenged to try and make one out of glass.

I became very interested.

Bill gave it a test run and after working out the bugs, we finally had a flute of acceptable quality for a price that was most appealing.

I was curious about to shakuhachi.

I'd always wanted to take flute lessons, and was happy to see a society for him for just that purpose.

I realized that the bamboo shakuhachi a very fine instrument was priced at a prohibitive level.

At least for beginners like myself.

And there are more now since then who are experienced shakuhachi players here in Hawaiʻi.

So, I developed this idea about making glass flutes.

I just use Pyrex glass tubes obtained from the Corning Corporation and began shaping them.

The factory sends me glass tubing in a standard four-foot length.

I reduce that down to two feet.

I begin the flute with its mouthpiece.

Using a graphite tool, I'm able to ensure that the diameter of every fluid is identical.

With a measuring fixture, I determined the exact location of the finger stops as well as the length as a final length of the total flute.

I heat the tube at the measured finger stop location.

Using a glass rod, I pull the molten glass up into a thin shaft which you may be easily broken off.

Once the cinch shaft is removed, a small opening is created.

By heating this small opening and inserting it tool, it can be re-reamed to the exact diameter.

If further refinements the glass shakuhachi is to cut the mouthpiece at an angle similar to the one used on the bamboo shakuhachi.

Then polishing is required.

I like to fire polish the flute to eliminate superficial irregularities.

When polishing with flame, an exacting degree of skill is necessary, or else a flute would melt into a formless lump.

Just the surface of the flute is slightly melted.

The resulting finish gives the flute a look of smooth polished glass.

The jigs and fixtures are helpful, but without the necessary level of skill, the creation of a glass shakuhachi cannot be controlled.

One of the reasons I was pleased with the choice of glass for a flute is its high silica content.

This makes for a very hard material, which has adequate residence.

I noticed that the interior bore of the bamboo shakuhachi was coated with lacquer.

When hardened, lacquer is very similar to glass.

I was attracted to the shakuhachi because of its tone quality and the complexity of sounds that it is able to produce.

I spent seven years in Japan learning to play the shakuhachi.

(Flute playing) The glass flute actually approaches the bamboo flute in tonal quality.

There's no rival, but at least it surpasses the plastic flute.

Coming up on Spectrum is the Portuguese club Folclorico de Camoes.

Now Spectrum's executive producer Nino J. Martin visits with Corky Trinidad, the Honolulu Star Bulletin's political cartoonist.

Corky, you were born in the Philippines.

And what was it about the Philippines and what did you do there to make you become a journalist and a political cartoonist?

My training was journalism.

I, but my desire for cartooning started from childhood I think I've always been doing cartoons.

Even when I was taking journalism as a vocation.

I was doing cartoon on the side for a pastime.

So, I didn't set out to be a cartoonist.

But were you working in the Philippines as a cartoonist?

Yeah.

After graduation, I still did cartoons.

I, cartoons sent me to college.

What made you decide to become a political cartoonist?

I've always loved political cartoons.

Even when I was a little kid I remember instead of collecting, you know, drawings of Batman, Robin and all these kinds of Superman, I was collecting, I remember, reprints of Newsweek and Time Magazine.

Political again, putting them in yeah, in putting them in scrapbooks.

How much of the political scene in the Philippines affected you as a youngster?

To make you become a political cartoonist?

Oh, very much first of all, the Philippines at the time, too.

I can't say for now, the Philippines is really a very political country.

First, families, clans, they all run the country, the oligarchy there so that everything even social life and, and political life are really fused in one.

So that growing up in an atmosphere where people naturally know the political implications of any act of anybody, I guess I, I acquired that first love for politics in the sense of what we call a miron, somebody who's looking not, not as a politician.

Well now couldn't you have continued your career as a political cartoonist in the Philippines?

Did you have to come to America?

Did you want to what, what brought you over here?

Well, first, what brought me to Hawaiʻi was Hawaiʻi.

I was here in 1968, and 65 and 67, all passing through.

And I've always wanted to live here.

So that and at the same time by 66, my cartoon was syndicated in the mainland papers.

And I was more really at ease with American politics more than more than... Did you disagree with the Philippine politics?

Oh, a lot.

Did you just decide to... Real strong political cartoon there.

But Philippine politics, at the time, the Philippine press was so free, everything was so freewheeling and I had two political cartoons at the time one on the front page on local Philippine issues, then one in the editorial page and that was the one that was syndicated.

Well, how do you get your ideas Corky?

I get my ideas from, from reading, everything that's going on.

And at first, when you start doing it, it's, it's a very journalistic decision.

It's like a news desk deciding what's the best story for the day.

So, on my own I, I, based on what's happening in the day, I decide what's the best use of the day for the cartoon, that kind of thing.

And then I think about it.

Analyze that particular news item.

Come up with a concept about it.

The best cartoon ideas come from a slant that you had decided upon, you have to take a stand.

I think all the work is done in in finding out what stance you should take on a particular item.

Do you find that people disagree with you?

Oh, a lot.

A lot.

How about agree?

Oh, a lot too.

I think it was only good 50% of the time.

Let you take a specific case.

If, if I do a cartoon today that's seems to favor let's say Democrat, the Democrats position of a specific issue, the Republicans all think you're all wet and ignorant and should be kicked back to the Philippines.

And the next day if I do a cartoon on, on, on an issue that seems to agree with a Republican stand all the Democrats will say he's no good.

The same Democrats who say that you're so great the day before will say you're no good today because and should be kicked out back to the Philippines so I don't really try to because most people have set stance.

The Democrats have a set stance Republicans have set stance and they cannot really understand a field of work, or a person that actually comes in with every issue with no stand yet until he reads it and analyzes what standards he has to take.

So, you tried to keep it as balanced as possible then?

Yeah.

Okay.

Would you consider most of your cartoons negative?

In the greater percentage, are they kind of a cynical look at a particular subject or a character?

Well, if that's the definition of negative I would consider most of the cartoons negative.

It's not, I don't think it's the cartoonist, it's not our job to, to praise.

I think that all the politicians have flacks enough for that.

I mean, let’s say President Reagan has, has millions of budget, has a million in his budget on an office that sets out to praise him to the media anyway.

So that it's not, that's not my job.

They have they have their own job for that.

I think because we have only one space a day, our job is to look for the bad side, you know, for a view as Bill Mo than said my job is if I see a staff shirt I want to punch a hole in it.

I think it's nice to be able to do a brace cartoon and an uncritical cartoon at the same time at the same day to instance, but if space allows you only one I take the negative side.

Is a cartoonist like a poet, in that he reaches below the everyday surface of things?

Or do you generally look at the everyday things and talk about that?

The subtleties.

I don't know about being a poet.

The political cartoon is a very concise, rhetorical argument I think more That's what it is.

It's just a rhetorical argument visually.

If you look at the principles of cartooning, you will find that it's really a visualization of all the principles of rhetoric.

What we, they set out to do is to in one instance, in one or two seconds, they want to convince you of a particular slant that they have in their own head.

So where do you fall back on accepting rhetoric?

While poetry seems to signify a more flowery way of looking at it?

Or, or a more aesthetic way of looking at things?

That that one that looks for beauty, I think the two are just different in the approach.

Corky, when, when you first take a look at someone's, you're in a situation, you're in a room or cocktail party, whatever you look at someone, when you first see them what do you see?

First, I see the two ways to look at it with people, is the physical part and then when I have an opinion of people, then the physical part becomes tempered by my opinion.

So, when I look at people the first time, I really look at all the physical of the face in terms of caricature.

I think I've made it so it's becoming a bad habit, because people think that I'm always staring at them or peering at them.

But this, the first part of the caricature, is to know the, I mean, really look at the physical part.

We all see each other all the time but in a matter-of-fact way.

We don't really look.

I don't think if you get 10 people, I don't think five will really see how your nose goes down that way, then goes down by how your eyes are peering more than just dull, you know, that kind of thing, while I do.

Often in cartoons, I noticed that cartoons tend to emphasize the defects in people, for example, they have big jowls or bags under their eyes.

What is it?

Why is it that you do that?

It's really not emphasizing the bad parts.

It's emphasizing the features that would help your general picture of the cartoon, your main idea of the picture, or the main face of the, of the person.

For example, you take President Carter.

Everybody's seeing President Carter every day, you know, once he acquires this public face to people.

There, they're actually parts of Carter that the people don't realize they had retained more than other parts.

So that actually when we do a caricature of Carter, what the caricature does is not to say, I think I will look for Carter's faults and magnify it.

What it's saying is, I wonder what in Carter's face has become etched in the memory of people.

And that's the only thing that I will emphasize.

Because as soon as I put this people know it's Carter, that kind.

So, it's not emphasizing.

If you have a, let's say, if you have a wart here, and it's really not part of your face, it's really not.

It doesn't help in the remembrance of people about your face.

I won't, I won’t draw it.

Do you mind if I asked you to draw a cartoon for us?

There was a situation a little while back where President Reagan gave his famous Star Wars speech.

And our own Senator Dan Inouye did a, the democratic rebuttal.

And I'm wondering if perhaps you could characterize the two of them in a cartoon with Inouye talking to Reagan about the speech that Reagan just gave.

Okay.

Could you, could you draw that for us?

Okay, on the Star Wars thing?

On the Star Wars thing.

Well, first you have to decide on who's going to be Darth Vader.

How does Darth Vader go?

Who would you consider Darth, Darth Vader here?

Oh well the guy who wants to do all, all the Star Wars weapons, you know.

So that would be the president.

Yeah.

In this case.

So, you will be taking off a Darth Vader mask.

Yeah and let him hold it.

See?

So that then people will still recognize the Darth Vader thing like that.

Make ah, make him recognize as soon as he takes off this futuristic weapon, it's Reagan inside or something.

I don’t know.

So here you have Senator Dan Inouye with a sword, talking to Ronald Reagan is Darth Vader taking off his mask and here you've got futuristic weapons.

And that's a quirky interpretation.

I think I'm losing a lot of readers by this lousy drawings I'm doing.

Speaking of that, would you release something like this?

Or would you do something different?

Not yet, no.

Yeah, I have a rule that what like something like this.

Usually, I follow a personal rule of throwing away the first concept that comes into my mind.

Because as soon as you do the first concept that comes to mind, to your mind, you have to assume that 113 other political cartoonists in the United States thought of the same concept.

So, I usually throw away the first idea.

Have you ever had a situation where another cartoonist did exactly what you did?

Oh, yes many times.

And what do you do in a case like that?

Nothing.

Just let it go?

Yeah.

Because sometimes I conceive of this very same idea as somebody in New York on the same day, sometimes Conrad in LA Times, I get my LA Times late, two days late.

And I see a cartoon that he did on the day that I did my cartoon on very same subject, almost the same slant and idea.

But different execution, of course.

How about the future, Corky?

What do you see the future you'll be taking some of your talents onto some other media?

Yeah, well, right now, I have a comic strip called Zeus.

And I don't know if I should reveal it.

But right now, it's being executed in in animation form by one of the animation firms in the mainland.

So, we plan to have it out by February.

First introduced this, I don't do anything to I just did the first drawings.

They are doing the pilot, they're doing the storyboard.

I think the medium of tomorrow is TV, even in cartooning.

Hawaiʻi has always been known for its richness and ethnic heritage expressed through dance.

For over 100 years, the Portuguese have contributed many traditions to the unique blend of cultures in Hawaiʻi.

Showing us a glimpse of those traditions through the music, instruments, dance and costumes of Portugal is Josephine Carreira, Executive Director of Folclorico de Camoes.

The first large group of immigrants came from Portugal in 1878.

With them they brought their traditions, their music and their dance and their musical instruments.

From each province there's a different type of music and different type of dance and a different costume.

I would like to show you now a costume from the Minho province in northern Portugal.

Cindy is wearing a typical, Minho costume.

The vest is very ornate and it's hand embroidered.

All women in Portugal wear shawls and they wear it in any unique way.

They pull it over their head in case it is too warm or it's raining.

The embroidery goes all the way down to the bottom of her skirt and her two textured stockings down to the mules on her feet.

In addition to the costumes and the dance and the music, the Portuguese introduced their instruments to Hawaiʻi.

One of the most important contributions I think, to Hawaiʻi that the Portuguese made was the cavaquinho.

Mr. Nunes brought this on the Ravenscrag when he came in in 1879.

It was later renamed as you all know, the ʻukulele.

Another instrument that came with the Portuguese comes from the island of Madeira, where most of the immigrants first came.

This instrument is called the brinquinho.

The little dancers around in the ring here have the typical costume of Madeira.

The little castanets, little blocks of wood here, make the sound of the castanets in the back and the little tambourine sound comes from the bottle caps right back here and it is played by drawing back down on the shaft like so.

(rattling sound) In order for us to maintain our traditions here in Hawaiʻi, being that the immigrants did not come after 1913, we would have to perpetuate our culture by handing our dances and our music down through the generations.

In 1974, we formed a club called The Camoes Players.

We have two groups of dancers, the adults do dances from the islands of Azores, and they do traditional dances that were brought here 100 years ago.

We formed a group of young people in 1976 and they do dances from all over Portugal all throughout the 11 provinces and the islands as well.

Now wouldn't you like to see a dance from one of these provinces and in the traditional costumes?

The Folclorico de Camoes will do a dance from the Ribatejo area called the Fandango.

(Traditional music) When we are caught up in an art form, time may vanish and our pleasure suspends us for a while, but it soon ends and we long to return to it.

We'll look for your return to our next Spectrum.

(instrumental music)