Ex-Playmate calls
Hawaii homeYOU never know who you might run into in the middle of the sidewalk on Nuuanu on a Saturday night. In my case, it was ex-Playboy "Playmate" Barbi Benton, who'd been dining at Indigo with her husband, developer George Gradow, and their two kids. We reminisced about the good old days a couple of decades back, when she was my New Year's Eve date at a party thrown by Alfred Goldman at his Portlock estate, all arranged through Hugh Hefner in a story too complicated to relate. Gradow, who I'd never met, remembered me from an item years ago relating the incident. The couple and their delightful children live the good life, alternating between homes in Aspen, L.A. and Honolulu. Barbi, who's become "prematurely blonde," revels in the fact that they now spend four months a year here. She became good friends with the Goldmans after that party and while her husband and kids sat impatiently in the car ready to leave, we stood there discussing the tragic end of Alfred and his brother Monte, both of whom died by self-inflicted gunshot wounds two years apart. For the record, Barbi still looks like a doll ...
I'D been in Indigo chatting with filmmaker Edgy Lee, along with Sue & Gordon Damon. They'd been expecting slack-key guitarist and falsetto singer Leabert Fernandez to perform Saturday night, but he got laryngitis. Indigo G.M. Peter Dietrich found a "super sub" in George Kuo, the slack-key artist who got the best notice from the L.A. Times of anyone in the big Hollywood Bowl program that included Keali'i Reichel, Keith Ikaia-Purdy and the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. Kuo was great and entertainers young (Kalani Keale, son of singer Moe Keale) and old (Boyce Rodrigues) joined in him dance and song, respectively ...
Oh, to be in S.F.
SPEAKING of filmmaker Edgy Lee, her "Paniolo O Hawaii" is having a special screening April 9 at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in Golden Gate Park. Featured will be artists from the Warner Brothers' record, "Songs of the Hawaiian Cowboy," and overseeing the paniolo-style reception will be Chef Alan Wong. It's the San Francisco premiere of the film and never did the traditional invitation warning seem so appropriate: "Gentlemen must check all firearms at the door. Ladies please, no Derringers." ...GOLFING great Tiger Woods will be welcoming the Oahu Junior Golf Association to the All Star Cafe in Waikiki at 4 p.m. tomorrow, but don't get too excited. It'll be via a satellite hookup from Orlando at the grand opening of yet another All Star Cafe in which he's a partner ...
IT was a whirlwind weekend for concert promoter Tom Moffatt. He was in Osaka visiting former isle D.J. Kamasami Kong, who played tour guide. Aside from visits to several restaurants, the two attended the "Face to Face" concert featuring Elton John and Billy Joel, and they had a chance to hang out with the two piano-playing superstars backstage before the show. Moffatt is now back to resume his "oldies" show on 107.9 ...
Audy-o engineering
JAPAN'S Agnes Kimura, one of the top woman slack-key guitarists anywhere, is in town and is recording a new Hawaiian CD. It's most appropriate that the recording is being engineered by local entertainer Audy Kimura. He's not related to Agnes, whose real name is Michiyo Shishikura, but she so admired Audy, who's still popular in Japan, that she chose her stage name to honor him. Audy performs nightly at Hy's Steak House's in Waikiki ...
Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.