Hawaii
Kona Carmack
NOW what on earth, you may ask, is Playboy "Playmate" Kona Carmack doing at R. Field Wine Co.'s "Generous Smoker" event tomorrow night at the Pacific Club. Well for one, it's a benefit for Easter Seals, where her mom, Billy Gabriel-Zito, works. And secondly, she tells me she smokes cigars herself. Kona says she got turned on to cigars in Martinique about a year and a half ago and has been puffing away contentedly ever since. Not as often as the late George Burns, perhaps, but now and then. Another "Playmate" pal of Kona's is flying in to appear at the smoker - actually a dinner with wines and cognacs as well as cigars. She's the June issue's Karen Taylor, a stunner originally from Jamaica, where they also know something about cigars ...
IF you like jazz, mark Saturday on your calendar. That's when the Rich Crandall Trio performs at the Academy of Arts for the third consecutive year. And guesting with him once again will be extraordinary jazz guitarist Sam Ahia and the striking singer Rocky Brown, who moved here two years ago after leaving the cast of "Miss Saigon." Her newly recorded "Love Song of Kalua" is Hoku-nominated as single of the year. ...
MOST folks might think $3.5 million for an apartment with monthly maintenance fees of $4,395 would hardly be considered a sweet deal. But that's what former Halawa Housing resident Bette Midler plunked down for a pad on New York's Upper East Side, and the New York Observer called it a "great deal." The 5th Avenue pad is a 12-room, three-floor, pre-war co-op that includes six bedrooms and 4-1/2 baths over 7,000 square feet and a 2,249-square-foot wraparound terrace. The third floor is one huge master bedroom. Why was it considered such a deal? Apparently it needed a lot of work. The Observer notes a single-floor apartment in the same building is currently listed at $2.9 million. Bette's come a long way since that day in 1969 when I showed her the Plaza Hotel.KONG King: Bob Zix, who (as Kamasami Kong) does a daily radio show in Osaka, Japan, and features music and news from Hawaii, conducted an on-air interview the other day with local D.J.'s Ed Kaahea and Ed Kanoi of KONG-FM on Kauai. They, too, were on the air, so it was a two-way live broadcast. And it was the first time for Kong on KONG ...
