Many bewitched by
gender switchSATURDAY was Halloween, and Honolulu was awash with strangely garbed folks wandering the streets and moving from pub to pub, many seeming to have taken the route written about in a Star-Bulletin feature about cross-dressing. I spotted many women dressed as men and vice versa on Halloween. In other words, it was like any given Saturday night in San Francisco. You have to wonder about the "fee-males" who ply their cross-gender wares in tiny minis and high heels nightly on Merchant Street, appropriately enough. They must have felt people were moving into their turf. It was loads of fun, complete with a block party on Nuuanu Avenue, and after Honolulu's Finest shut it down at 10p.m., people dropped into the many clubs on that newly come-to-life entertainment venue for live music at the likes of O'Toole's, Punani's, Hank's, Havana Cabana and especially Indigo, which had the most costumed crowd on the block ...
THE Hawaii Theatre's Friday presentation of Amy Gilliom and Willie K plus a host of Aunties -- Kealoha Kalama, Irmgard Aluli & Puamana, Genoa Keawe and Amy's grandma, the venerable Jennie Napua Woodd, was a blast. I liked the ante-aunty portion of the evening best, with Willie K. putting Amy down with a passel of loving insults, as usual, and she accepting it in the spirit of fun. After her show, Amy went to join friends at Punani's, and revealed that when Willie accuses her of having a big mouth, he isn't kidding. She acknowledged she can fit her fist into her mouth, though no one asked her to prove it ...
Casbah kids
INVETERATE golfer Al Souza Jr. is playing in one big sand trap this week. He and pal Nathan ("Ho Chi") Minn, are in Morocco as guests of King Hassan to play in his golf tournament. Souza is paired with pro Steve Jones and Minn with Bill Glasson. On the way home, the two will stop at Trump International as guests of "The Donald," billionaire Donald Trump, who they met during the Miss Universe contest here ...RETIRED Marine Bob Kinney celebrated his 65th birthday at Murphy's yesterday and felt all was put in perspective when attorney Carol Egan told him, "In 12 years, you can go into space." ... And wasn't it a great contrast during the space launch of the rocket that carried 77-year-old John Glenn and crew aloft, that ex-CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, who's even older than Glenn, was joined at the CNN microphone by singer (and now author) Jimmy Buffett, wearing a T-shirt and ball hat ...
ANOTHER old musician was in town last week. Stopping in Havana Cabana and taking the microphone with Bluzilla on "Blues Night" at the club, was Eric Burdon. The only Animals on hand during this performance, however, were in the audience. Despite repeated pleas to sing "House of the Rising Son," his biggest hit, Burdon begged off ...
Critics be damned
LOCALITE Dean Pitchford's Broadway production of "Footloose," an adaptation of the film version of his show, got something less than good reviews when it opened the other night, but as befits a show featuring dancing, it has good box office legs. Even the New York Times, which panned the show, calling it a "flavorless marshmallow of a musical," admits now that it shows vigor at the box office. And since the backers, Dodger Endemol Theatricals, who somehow kept "Titanic" afloat at the box office despite its being a "critical pariah," the new show might well be marketed into a financial success, though it's too early to tell ...
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.