Gary Burghoff, Tom Papandrew
THERE was a shake-up in the Oval Office the other day, but fortunately nobody was occupying it at the time. In fact, President Bill Clinton has never laid eyes on this particular Oval Office. It's the set piece being used in Joe Moore's play, "The Buck Stops Where?" and it was being transported from Manoa Valley Theatre to the Hawaii Theatre downtown where the play opens tonight. The truck carrying the Oval Office set blew a tire and it got banged around pretty well. Gary Burghoff, who directs the play and appears in it, will fly to Maui after the run ends Sunday. In addition to his acting and directing talents, the former "M*A*S*H" regular is also an artist whose work is displayed at the Addi Gallery in Lahaina ... The Oval Office
didn’t ‘Buck’le upSPEAKING of Clinton, one non-fan of his, watching the President walk aided by two walking canes to the pitcher's mound at Shea Stadium Tuesday quipped, "Looking more like Franklin Roosevelt every day, isn't he?" ... And Butch Huskey missed a chance for a moment, perhaps a lifetime, of fame. Acting baseball commissioner Bud Selig announced that Jackie Robinson's No. 42 was being retired for all time by every team in baseball, and only those now wearing the number can do so throughout their careers. Huskey could have called time at his next at-bat, pulled off his No. 42 jersey and presented it to Jackie's widow, Rachel Robinson, revealing a second jersey with a new number underneath. But no, he (or his agent) wasn't that smart. Instead, after the game, he was quoted as saying, "I'll walk alone." Wrong! He'll be one of 12 players still wearing No. 42 instead of being the one guy with the class to change numbers on the spot. It would have been a nice tribute to Robinson, and it would have put Huskey's picture on every newspaper in the country. Instead, he strode to the plate with his No. 42 and struck out. In more ways than one! ...
WHEN "real life" reporters become "reel life" reporters, they tend to ham it up. At least that was the experience of Cynthia Yip of KITV. She and Dave Carlin had been picked to be the two reporters with lines in the new "Hawaii Five-O" pilot being filmed, and they found themselves with a number of extras who make their living as TV reporters playing just that in the show -- people like Lynne Waters, Angela Keene and Rob Young. Yip found this bunch so eager to impress that in one scene where she and Carlin were yelling questions at "Nick Wong" (actor Russell Wong) the other "reporters" got so aggressive she ended up bruised, her feet black and blue, something that never happened to her when covering a real news story. An assistant director for the pilot, Matt Locey, called them the best reporter crowd he'd seen in his 15 years in the business. Reel life trauma
NO free rides: Othmar Grueninger, the Indianapolis travel executive who pledged $125,000 to continue the King Kamehameha Celebration Floral Parade, has accepted an invitation to be grand marshal for this year's 81st parade. Grueninger will donate $25,000 annually for five years starting with this June 7's event, said Keahi Allen of King Kamehameha Celebration Commission ...
IT'S a safe bet a prize in the Honolulu Symphony's "Opus 17 Fun Run" April 27 will be a baseball autographed by St. Louis skipper Tony LaRussa. The Symphony's marketing director is Maureen McNamara, daughter of John McNamara. LaRussa not only played for her dad with the Oakland A's, but also was her baby sitter when she was kid. ...
THERE wasn't a lot of hands-on landscaping going on when Belt Collins chairman Tom Papandrew attended a meeting of top landscape-architecture firm CEO's in Boston. The meeting at Harvard took place during the region's worst ever blizzard for April. Snowmen were about all anyone could muster up for show and tell. Papandrew did learn that if you go by the number of landscape architects on the payroll, his is the second largest such firm in the country ... Snowpiary?
Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.