James Burns, Nancie Caraway
IF turning land over to OHA is going to result in the kind of hare-brained, money-gouging schemes chairman Clayton Hee-Hee-Hee is coming up with, perhaps we'd be better off leaving it as is. It's appalling to think of a toll booth at the base of Diamond Head charging people $1 to climb to a point where they can see over all the Japanese-owned hotels in Waikiki and enjoy the kind of Hawaii vista they've spent hundreds of dollars to reach. And Hee also envisions a kind of Starbucks Diamond Head to serve cappuccino at $4 a pop. And if you should want to get married up there, be prepared to spring for big bucks. Heaven knows what King Hee has in mind for the other properties he'd like to take over -- Molokini, Iolani Palace and Ford Island. Though the latter would make a dandy used car lot for a certain brand of automobile ... Paying for paradise
not an answerCBS turned down a request from Emme Tomimbang to visit the set of the new "Hawaii Five-O" pilot and do some behind-the-scenes filming for her TV show. The fact her show is on the Fox network station locally may have had something to do with it, but you'd have thought Emme would have more juice than to take a thumb's down. After all, they were filming in the courtroom of her husband, Judge James Burns ... Emme does have an interesting trio of guests lined up for her next "Island Moments" show, namely Miss USA Brook Lee, now focusing on the upcoming Miss Universe Pageant, and two former "Brown Bags to Stardom" winners, actress Tia Carrere and singer Glenn Medeiros. It'll air April 23 on KHNL ...
LOTS of soap suds in the air these days. Brenda Dickson, who played Jill Abbott on "The Young and the Restless" over a 13-year period is now living here and being represented by the Kathy Muller Agency ... Then there's Steve Burton of "General Hospital" and Deidre Hall from "Days of Our Lives," each dining at Planet Hollywood and departing with some of the chain's new black-and-silver merchandise that looks like something Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders would love ...
THE news story out of Washington at first glance made Hawaii seem even more like paradise than usual. It reported that Honolulu's streets were among the safest to walk in the nation. If you just skip the next sentence, that we rank just behind New York City, the news sounded even better ... Then there was yesterday's front page story about the roars of protest over people in San Diego eating lion meat for dinner. Oldtimers will recall that Lahaina, Maui, of all places, was years ahead of its time. A restaurant there, Rene's on Front Street, used to serve up lion along with other wild game. I tried it some 20 years ago, and no, it didn't taste like chicken ... What's news?
THE Washington Post's "Backstage" column mentions a series of readings of new plays, "Act Out '97," happening around the nation's capitol, and says "Backstage's favorite title so far is 'Just Plain Tired of Tweezing,' by Nancie Caraway, an absurdist satire on the '90s ideal of feminism." The Post didn't mention it, and feminist Caraway hates it when I do, but for purposes of identification for those who don't know her, she's the wife of Rep. Neil Abercrombie ...
SPEAKING of playwrights, in about 1960 a play I wrote called "The Door" was produced as one of four one-acts by the University of Hawaii drama department. On the same bill, I recall, was a funny local play called "In the Alley" by Ed Sakamoto. Now Kumu Kahua Theatre has announced that its next production opening May 1 will be "A'ala Park," by the now more formal Edward Sakamoto, the 14th of his full-length plays they've produced. The most recent was "Stew Rice" featuring Jason Scott Lee ...
THERE'S no smiling today in the household of the "Smilepower" dentist, Dr. Bob Gibson. On Sunday he lost his wife, Dr. Gina Whest, an innovator in chiropractic medicine, to complications from systemic scleroderma, a skin disorder. Services will be tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. at Calvary By the Sea Church ... The smile is extinguished
Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.