Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger

---

Bumatai: Da stand-up guy

Being a humor columnist is something like being a cultural anthropologist, except without the Indiana Jones hat and bullwhip. So I was excited when I heard rumors that a largely mythical creature had been sighted in the islands' heart of weirdness, the "concrete jungle" sometimes referred to in hushed tones as "Waikiki."

Andy Bumatai » On stage: 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Fridays » Place: Esprit nightclub, Sheraton Waikiki » Cover: $10 » Call: 922-4422

This phantasm was known to be a regular denizen decades ago, and there had been confirmed sightings just a few years back at the old Polynesian Palace. But the palace disappeared in a puff of urban-renewal smoke, and our friend seemingly along with it.

Upon hearing he might have returned to his natural habitat, I put aside my fears of this strange place where tourists roam in packs dressed in matching aloha attire, and where bartenders stick bizarre objects like paper umbrellas and back-scratchers in your drinks for no apparent reason.

Eventually, through the eerie darkness of a completely non-smoke-filled nightclub, I spied him onstage in full Armani plumage crooning into a microphone to the tune of the Eagle's song "Desperado":

"Filipino ... why do you drive de purple Civic ... with nine people in it ... and you go so damn fast ... and your girlfriend ... de one with the blue eye shadow ... sapose you make her a widow bepoor you are wed ..."

Andy Bumatai. Back in the jungle. Not an apparition after all. The mostly local crowd at the Esprit nightclub in the Sheraton Waikiki hotel convulses in laughter as he sings, "Don't you drive so past on the preeway boy ... the car you drive's not stable ... the wing on de back is only just por show ... So go more slow gun pun it boy ... or stay home and watch cable ... more better you help your pader clean de yard ... Filipino."

His jokes and stories are a mix of new, old, older and bits of "All in the Ohana," probably the best comedy special ever to air on Hawaii TV.

But that "All in the Family" takeoff in which Andy played every character came out 27 years ago. As I look around the audience, at least half weren't even on Earth then. Both youngish locals and oldish tourists have no idea that Andy was part of the legendary sketch comedy group Booga Booga.

So he feels his way through the early part of the show, testing the crowd, seeing what they're in the mood for. At 52 he has a deep file of comedic material that has been subjected to trial by fire from Honolulu to Las Vegas to L.A. For the visitors he tells them about when the Republicans sent Vice President Dick Cheney to campaign in Hawaii in hopes of turning it from a blue state into a red state.

"It backfired," he says. "They hadn't counted on how much Cheney looks like Captain Cook. And you remember what happened to him."

Later, after he forces me at gunpoint onto the stage to do five minutes of my vast file of seven minutes' worth of comedic material (he seems to get a sort of sadistic pleasure out of watching bad comics fail), I ask him why he has returned to the jungle after a three-year hiatus.

"It's that pesky making-a-living thing," he says.

Pretend you don't know me, I say, and tell me what you've been up to.

"Everything I was working on, I was working with you," he says. Which, sadly, is more or less true. A few years ago we wrote a Hawaii-based comedy/drama screenplay called "The Paradise Effect" in which a rogue North Korean agent tries to set of a dirty nuke off Waikiki. And can you believe it? No one bought it. Then we worked with another partner developing a TV pilot for island comedy that is still looking for a champion.

"Pretending I don't know you, I'd say I basically ignored promoting myself in Hawaii and pursued, quote, national television opportunities, unquote. But don't quote me on that."

Talk slower, I say, scribbling notes on which not to quote him.

When money did get tight, he called his old friend, comedian Paul Rodrigues, who set up a quick show tour for them through Texas and on to Vegas.

"We did this thing in Austin, and the second show was supposed to be in Spanish. Paul said, give it a shot. I tell the audience I don't speak Spanish, and I get booed for 30 seconds solid. I just stood there until it stopped. Then I said, 'I'm not Mexican, I'm from Hawaii. My father was Filipino Hawaiian. He loved to clean his yard, but he had no land."

He knows he could have made a career of performing on the mainland.

"I made the choice to stay home and raise my kids," he says. "Well, basically, my wife still raised them. But I didn't want to be that daddy on the phone from Vegas."

Even though he hasn't been doing any big Waikiki shows while screenwriting, he's kept busy helping young local comedians get stage time around town. It's tough being a humor coach.

"I ask them, 'Hey, when something doesn't get a laugh, does it ever occur to you to drop it?' and the answer is, 'No.'"

Hawaii's entertainment world hadn't forgotten about him. A few weeks ago he was named best in show at Johnny Kai's Music Foundation of Hawaii annual Legacy Awards.

Pretend you don't know me, what are your plans for the future? I ask. He's had it with the pretend stuff. Just tell them what I'm doing, he orders.

Aside from still hoping his adventures in screenwriting haven't been for naught, he's back in Waikiki, in case you didn't catch that earlier. And digging it.

"I'd like to really get this show going," he says. "I love working in Waikiki and performing stand-up. And the only way to get better is by doing it."