No moss on these Stones
YESTERDAY being Veteran's Day, things were pretty quiet around the office, so it made for a time of reflection. Rather than ruminate about the Veterans of Foreign Wars (whose "buddy poppy" I wore) I got to thinking about some other veterans -- the Rolling Stones. Much has been written about the aging Brits as they set out on their "Bridges to Babylon" tour, which plays here Jan. 23 & 24 (making us "Babylon," I guess) and nowhere more so than in the San Francisco Bay area where the group performs this week. There was a great cover story on the group in the Sunday Examiner magazine in which a reader was quoted after Budweiser sponsored their 1989 tour as saying, "If they wait another eight years to go on tour, Rogaine ... can sponsor it." The article's author, George Powell, a year younger than 54-year-old Mick Jagger, notes that here it is eight years later and this tour is "sponsored by Sprint -- not Rogaine or Depends, or even Budweiser. I guess me and Mick aren't really getting older, just better." ...
THAT same issue of the Examiner had a piece called "Kicking the Nostalgia Habit" by author Joyce Maynard in which she discusses her sole vice: Buying records. The woman has eclectic taste, as she demonstrates. She recalls hearing a song from Paul Simon's "Graceland" one night, after which she could scarcely wait until morning when she could get to a store and buy it. She goes on, "I got that feeling again last winter, when I was driving home on Interstate 580 one evening, and a song came on the radio that was so beautiful I had to pull over to the shoulder. It was a Hawaiian singer named Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, accompanying himself on the ukulele, nothing more, singing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.' I headed straight for a record store and ordered his CD ('Facing Future')." Amazing how a local boy could reach out touch somehow so totally removed from him as Joyce Maynard ...
Aloha spiritual
WHILE we're letting others have their say, here's former isle resident Mike Sweetow, now living in State College, Penn., writing a "Dear Team" letter to the 15 doctors who treated him after he was diagnosed with cancer and thanking them for allowing him to reach his third anniversary of survival. And while he's abided by their medical directions, Mike added that in February, "I am headed for that incredible healing spirituality in the Waipio Valley of the Big Island. A few hours a day sitting next to the stream and just being at peace, enriches my soul to the point of bursting. I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or scream, or do all as I usually do. Who says you can't sit in God's lap?" ...
Showbiz vets
THE subject of Channel 17's "Intimate Portrait" the other day was Shirley MacLaine, who remembered her first big break in show business. In classic Hollywood movie "understudy takes over" fashion, MacLaine had to sub for star Gwen Verdon in "The Pajama Game" back in 1954. She told of the big show-stopping dance number "Steam Heat," in which she dropped her hat, uttered the first expletive that came to mind and won the heart of Alfred Hitchcock, who was in the audience, as luck would have it. Local angle: Dancing with her in the number were the legendary Peter Gennaro and Hawaii's own Jim Hutchison, who's currently directing "Finian's Rainbow" for Army Community Theater. MacLaine made a lasting impression on Hutch as well as Hitch -- he still has a clicking jaw created when Shirley's cartwheel caught him in the cheek ...
Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.