This is an interview with Lance Kamaka, a Hawaiian deafblind musician. It is a part of the Cool Cats: Voices from the Disability Community series, in which Meriah interviews cool people from the disability community so you can get to know them. Lance Kamaka https://youtu.be/4uDFhlTJ1MA?si=gF-5mXWAz0ibPAEK The clip that Lance mentioned at the end of his interview, in which he plays Queen Liliuokalani's piano at the Iolani Palace https://youtube.com/shorts/UHTvoS69cgc?si=n5edgFk-sCwwTwN0 Here is Lance singing in a praise worship with a friend of his: https://youtu.be/ekSVx4PRNjE?si=uYd86onEb2Z6Syxr Transcript of Interview: Lance Cool Cat Meriah: [00:00:00] I wanted to thank you for meeting with me and for agreeing to be the very first cool cat in the Cool Cat video series, which. Really seeks to introduce interesting people across the disability spectrum, and I ask the same set of questions to everyone and the differences in the responses really emphasize how different we all are and how we. Meriah: Our perspectives on things and what we enjoy and and all the rest of it is that's all. Okay. Lance: Sounds good to me. Meriah: Okay. Thank you. So first of all can you start by introducing yourself? Lance: Sure. My name is Lance Kamaka. Actually, my whole name is [00:01:00] Lance. Like the night of the round table and Lance Kamaka, my mom named me at that. Lance: So blame it on my mom. But I prefer people to call me Lance 'cause it sounds more ordinary Hey Lance, some people will call me Lance a lot like my stepdad. Like he's addressing the king or something. I like, one time I told him, bow the knee, and he says, no, I don't bow to anybody. Lance: Yeah. I have been born blind and as I, when I graduated, I started to lose some hearing. But at that time, only my doctor and my mom knew, and at that time they told me that there was no [00:02:00] cure for my hearing loss. It's sensory neuro. At that time I was in denial, but it was so gradual that. Lance: Hardly anybody knew. Only, like I said, only my mom and my doctor knew about it. I kept it on the wraps for I say eight to 10 years. Until it became noticeable. And then people started saying, I would try to block my way through by thinking I could hear when I. Here, and people would tell me things like, aren't you paying attention, Uhhuh? Lance: And I would rather, I was thinking, man, I would rather have a hearing loss than, having a brain loss, not paying attention. So that, and [00:03:00] certain people who persistent. That I try wearing hearing aids. I decided I'm gonna do that. And I was with a a vocational rehab counselor at that time, and she said that I would they would get me one hearing aid. Lance: Which is not really looking at hindsight. Wasn't a good thing because after all we hear we are two ears. And being blind, I rely so much of my ears not only to hear, but to perceive where I am in relation to where other things are. There's that spatial awareness of direction. So when I got one hearing aid, I only wore once. I put it in the drawer and that was it. Then my counselor, why did she only Meriah: give you one? I'm [00:04:00] sorry? Was there a reason she only gave you one? Why did she only give you one? Lance: I don't know. I'm not sure if it was just like try out kind of thing. Lance: I don't know. But then she kept asking me, have you been using your hearing aid? I said, I can't. I can't because when I wear one hearing aid, it throws me off. I get disoriented. And so she said would it do better if we get two, another one? I say, yes. Try that. So I got another hearing aid. Lance: And then I decided I'm gonna get used to the hearing aids because after all, our brain adapts to what we hear. So I decided, okay, I'm gonna wear these two hearing aids as long as I can all day. Every day. Except when I take a shower or [00:05:00] go to sleep.