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Honolulu Lite
Charles Memminger
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COURTESY SERGIO GOES
Columnist Charles Memminger picks up a pig head as a photo prop during a stroll through Chinatown. CLICK FOR LARGE
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'Lite Report' not the whole hog, but a mixed bag of news
The Tuesday Lite Report:
» Of all the feds I've known before: John Peyton was one of the most gentle and dignified federal criminal prosecutors I ever met.
It was a notorious criminal case in the 1980s that brought us together. He was chief of litigation for the CIA and I was a novice investigative reporter, just sinking my teeth into the case of Ronald Rewald, who ran a fake investment company called Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham and Wong. Rewald claimed it was CIA front, but it appeared he had scammed the CIA just as he had bilked more than 400 investors out of $22 million.
In what the U.S. Attorney's office claimed was just a coincidence, John Peyton was hired as one of the assistant U.S. attorneys to prosecute Rewald. Rewald went to prison in 1985. Peyton stayed on in Hawaii and I got to know him pretty well. He and his wife even came to our house for a going-away party for a mutual friend.
He eventually went to Bosnia-Herzegovina, but returned to head the state Department of Public Safety. After running that department for several years, he ended up in the African country of Malawi, where he helped set up the legal system. Sadly, he was killed last week in a car crash while visiting Victoria Falls with his wife, who survived.
John Peyton was one of those career government lawyers that you don't hear much about. But he was a normal guy who worried about his weight and liked to have a few beers with the guys. He found personal fulfillment working in exotic far-flung places like Africa, the Balkans and, yes, even, Hawaii. Aloha, John.
COURTESY SERGIO GOES
Columnist Charles Memminger lectures a pig head during a stroll through Chinatown. CLICK FOR LARGE
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» Where's the Pork? The April/May edition of Hana Hou!, the magazine of Hawaiian Airlines, contains an embarrassingly nice article on yours truly written by freelance writer Sue Kiyabu.
The photos, including a two-page spread of me sitting alone on a flooded sandbar in Kaneohe Bay under a beach umbrella, were taken by Brazilian-born Sergio Goes. Sergio's a great photographer, but even he couldn't help that I look more like a beach buoy than a beach boy. Speaking of pork ... Sergio dragged me to Chinatown and made me pose holding an enormous pig head in a meat market, even though I was just recovering from a vicious stomach flu. As I stood holding the pig head, surrounded by entrails and other pig parts, I said, "Sergio, you know I've been very sick for several days?" He snickered something in Portuguese.
In the end, the pig head photo didn't make the magazine layout. But since good taste has never stood in the way of this column, here it is in all its glory. (Perhaps a photo caption contest is in order. My pick is "This is what happens when you take your pet pig on a walk through Chinatown." E-mail me yours.)
In Sergio's defense, he does much more sophisticated work than this. His photos have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the London Biennial and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. You can see more of his (almost completely non-pig related) work at unguidedtour.com and sergiogoes.com.
» Only In Hawaii: The recent news story about idiots stealing more than 1,000 pineapples from Dole fields reminded me to start an "Only in Hawaii" file for future columns. So far, I only have the pineapple story and a police brief about a guy arrested for throwing a coconut at a moving car in Haleiwa. Help! Send any "Only in Hawaii"-kine published or Internet items to the e-mail address below. They don't all have to involve crime or locally grown produce.
Buy Charles Memminger's hilarious new book, "Hey, Waiter, There's An Umbrella In My Drink!" at island book stores or
online at any book retailer. E-mail him at
cmemminger@starbulletin.com