White House
jokes hit homeSCANDAL is so much in the papers and magazines and on TV these days that we're mistaking it for news. Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr is even trying to get a list of books White House intern Monica Lewinsky bought recently. Maybe someone heard Bill Clinton ask, "Read any good books lately?" The latest titters from Washington even found their way into Hawaii's State House Journal. In it, Rep. Cynthia Thielen is quoted as saying to the House Speaker, "I neglected to mention yesterday that I got my black eye and my arm injury when I fell down a slippery marble stair in Washington, D.C." To which the chair responded, "Very glad to hear that, Representative, that it wasn't from some amorous person in Washington, D.C." Thielen then got a big laugh when she said, "Mr. Speaker, I didn't get into the White House." ...
AND we're told that even that bastion of bad taste, the National Enquirer, has an article in the issue due to hit supermarket checkout counters today that deals with Don Ho. But apparently even the Enquirer is sick of scandal because it's a positive, straight piece without so much as a whiff of impropriety. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if Don got a subpoena from Ken Starr asking what books he's bought recently ...
From 1 to 100
WHILE Lance Abe, sales manager of The Catering Experience, has prepared many a feast for 1-year-olds at their luaus, it isn't every day he caters a 100th birthday. But that's what he did recently when Manuel Nobriga reached the century mark. Nobriga was a union leader who signed the first sugar industry agreement between Oahu Sugar and the ILWU in 1945. He was born in 1898, and if he can hang in there another 20 months, his life will have spanned three centuries ...NO sooner did we mention former Hugh Hefner girlfriend and "Playmate" Barbi Benton and the multimillion-dollar home she and husband George Gradow own in Koko Kai, than the Wall Street Journal's new weekend edition came out with a story about their huge, 27,500-square-foot Aspen pad, called "The Copper Palace," complete with a photo of Barbi peeling a banana. The story mentions they have two kitchens in the home, one residential and the other a commercial-sized kitchen with a 30-by-50-foot work space in which their private chef can orchestrate dinners for 220. The paper quotes the chef's first words on seeing the kitchen: "Holy man, I can't believe this." They may have been playing fast and loose with the actual quote ...
SPEAKING of kitchens, Alan Wong will personally take charge of his when he celebrates the restaurant's third anniversary with a "Tribute to the Hawaiian Pineapple," with proceeds going to the Wahiawa Town Centennial Celebration and "Plantation Days" ho'olaulea. Chef Wong grew up in Wahiawa with pineapple fields right in his back yard ...
Five grand prize winner
MAYBE Honolulu's Kim Kau should name the twins she's expecting Rand and McNally. She was an avid player in the Perry & Price KSSK contest, "Where in the World is the $5,000 Hidden?" With the help of her handy atlas, she took a clue hinting at the longitude and latitude of the secret hiding place and pointed her forefinger at Uliastaj, Mongolia. She now wins a trip for two to the West Coast on Hawaiian Airlines and $5,000. Not one to go on a big shopping spree, however, Kim and her husband are putting the money in savings to be divided between the two kids when it's college time ...
Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings
in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968.
His columns run Monday through Friday.Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.