“Hey Paul, you’re from Hawaii… what’s making the volcanoes there go crazy right now?”
Well, I’m no scientist, so I will offer an alternative (but still probably correct) explanation: Stupid Tourists.
Hear me out. In Hawaiian legend, Pele is the Goddess of Fire. She created the islands, she lives in the volcanoes. Do not mess with Madame Pele. Or bad things will happen to you.
Do you remember when The Brady Bunch kicked off the trend of filming TV episodes in Hawaii? It was a trend Sanford & Son, Full House and even Mad Men followed. In that 3-episode arc, Mike Brady’s ENTIRE family (Including their maid, for reasons unexplained to viewers. I mean, why not also their butcher?) was sent on an all-expenses paid trip to paradise because his company liked him so much.
Then the Brady kids proceeded to take a sacred tiki and treat it like a souvenir, causing all kinds of misery to befall them, like Greg almost dying while surfing, and Peter almost dying from a tarantula, and Jan almost being sold into prostitution. Haha okay that last one never happened, but also there are no tarantulas in Hawaii, since we’re being arbiters of truth here.
In real life, tourists love to take lava rocks from Hawaii back to their homes as a keepsake. This, despite all the locals telling them not to because of the bad luck it would bring them. Also despite the fact that vacation suitcases are heavy enough without ADDING GODDAMN ROCKS to them.
Then the tourists get back home, bad things inevitably ensue, and they desperately feel they have to make things right again. I know this because years ago I used to work at the greatest nightclub Hawaii has ever known: Wave Waikiki, a.k.a. The Wave.
The Wave was a glorious gathering of the fringe, a safe space for the odd, a place where anything could happen (and it usually did). The kind of place where I could close my comedy show by beating the ever-loving crap out of a Saddam Hussein lookalike with a steel chair. Above all, The Wave was a great venue for live rock and roll music. Legendary for that. (And also for the heavy pours of Ivan, the upstairs bartender.)
Throughout the year, we’d receive in the mail lava rocks sent by former visitors who hoped to assuage their current ill fortunes. We never could understand exactly why, until one day yet another package arrived, this time with a letter explaining that they had called information (this tells you how long ago it was) and asked for a local rock club. And could we please, please, please help them to put this lava rock back and stop the curse.
Apparently, back in the day when you dialed information and asked for a “Hawaiian rock club” the operator instantly thought of The Wave, not a gathering of geologists eager to discuss igneous minerals. Man, The Wave was SEO even before there was a Google.
So there you have it. On top of stealing parts of Madame Pele’s home, you have visitors generally acting a fool and being disrespectful in the sacred home of a power they do not understand:
Clearly, Madame Pele has had enough.
So Cut. It. Out.
Interesting side note of life imitating art imitating life: the first episode after the Brady family left Hawaii, Peter had to make a volcano for a school science project. Maybe it was because Peter was a shitty science student, or maybe it was Madame Pele’s wrath for the Bradys beginning a trend of filming stupid visitors doing stupid things in her home, but Peter’s volcano explodes all over Marcia and her classmates.
Don’t screw with a Goddess.