Carpet cleaners
sub for swabbiesOLD Bob Dylan was right: The times, they are a'changin'. Back when I was in This Man's Navy, as it was so quaintly called, sailors were usually referred to pejoratively as "swabjockies." (Mind you, I hadn't touched a mop since boot camp, but many people did.) Cut to 1998: The phone rings at ServiceMaster of Honolulu and a voice asks if they do carpet cleaning? (Yes.) Do they take charge cards? (Yes.) Do they do carpets in submarines? (Say what?) So owner Stanton Haugen sends out a crew to do an estimate and the job will be done today, while everyone's ashore celebrating the Independence Day weekend. Maybe the Mighty Mo is next? ...
SPEAKING of the Navy, as a young teenager I used to give tours of the USS Arizona, long before the Memorial was built, when all that was there was a ramp, platform and plaque. Even then, there were worries that the ship below was deteriorating badly and might soon fall apart. So it was deja vu yesterday when the NBC "Today" show did a story on the Arizona, spouting those same fears. I have a feeling the Arizona will be there long after most of us are gone ...
DON'T ask what KGMB anchorman Russell Shimooka was thinking about when introducing a story the other night. He set it up by saying a certain task appeared to be "an exercise in fertility." He realized immediately what he'd said and tried to quickly counter with, "Uh, that's an exercise in futility," but his face had already started to redden ...
All that jazz
JUST when we'd come to believe that big band jazz was completely dead, Jimmy Borges is making moves to prove otherwise. He's lined up the 18-piece Citrus College Jazz Band to perform Friday, July 10, at the Monarch Room of the Royal Hawaiian. Not only is the evening affordable -- just $12, which includes one drink -- but Borges will be taking advantage of the gig to front the band vocally. After the one-nighter here, the band and Borges move over to the Hyatt Maui where they'll do four nights, July 11-14. So if you're looking for an excuse to get to the neighbor islands, this is it! ...AND David Paul's Diamond Head Grill is offering what they call "Absolut Jazz & Absolut Bistro" (as in Absolut Vodka) Tuesday through Saturday nights with vocalists Azure McCall, Anita Hall and Nohelani Cypriano alternating at the mike from 9 to midnight ...
FRIENDS of Ruth Lin from the Chinese Women's Club will be throwing her a birthday bash tomorrow night at the Chart House, where they've promised to put on a massive fireworks display. Think she'll bite it's just for her? She's not admitting her age, but if you check when she was Narcissus Queen, you know she wasn't 10 at the time ...
Dumb and Dumber
THERE'S a TV show these days dedicated to really dumb criminals, and I've got the perfect candidate, though he got away undetected. He couldn't have been charged for much more than property damage anyway. Seems this would-be mastermind thief, probably inspired by parking meter bandits, got the idea he could make something of a killing by ripping open the coin collector on one of those Safeway carts that cost a quarter to use. He must have figured that with so many people using the carts, the accumulation of quarters should be massive. So he ripped one open. Inside? Nothing, of course. Every time you insert a quarter to use the cart, you get it back when you return the cart. Our mastermind appears to have overlooked that one minor fact ...
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.