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Honolulu Lite
Charles Memminger
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Lite now has official slogan
My friend Don Brown retired recently from something like 97 years in the Army and his friends and family threw a big party for him and everyone wore purple. Purple is Don's personal color. He has worn some kind of purple garment every day that I've known him. I presume the only time he didn't wear purple was when he was in uniform, but, then, who knows? Maybe he was wearing purple underwear or something.
Don's ahead of his time because he has his own color. In these days when every company has a logo and every presidential candidate a slogan and a theme song, Don adopted a personal color. At the party he told the crowd how he picked purple as his color. It was kind of a long, moving and involved explanation going back to his childhood and, frankly, the crowd was pretty much liquored up by then and wasn't really paying attention.
But it got me thinking that in the future, everyone will have their own personal slogan, color and theme song the way states have official birds, flowers and "longest imprisoned political felons." Then I thought I, like Don, might get ahead of the curve by establishing an official Honolulu Lite slogan. I would be the first humor columnist in the country with his own slogan. The idea is that I'd come up with the slogan first, and then later come up with an official Honolulu Lite color, song, bird, fish, flower and fast food entrée.
Coming up with a slogan, it turns out, is not the easiest thing. I was going to open the process up to readers, in the same way that Hillary Clinton let people vote on what her official campaign song should be. But then, look what happened to Hillary. She ended up with that dopey Celine Dion song "You and I," originally written as a sappy ditty for Air Canada. And she was lucky there, because I think the second top vote-getter was "She Bangs" by Ricky Martin.
So I started thinking about what would make a good Honolulu Lite slogan or catch phrase. The first few were too obvious, reflecting recurring themes I've written about over the years like, "Hey, Be Careful!," "Tip at Least 17 Percent" and "Never Look too Closely at the Inside of a Manapua." I decided the slogan should be inspirational, not funny. After a lot of thought I nailed it. The Official Honolulu Lite Slogan: Get Life On.
Now wait. Don't make fun of it yet. It has a lot going for it. It's punchy. It's memorable. It's easy to spell. And it's inspirational. It means, start doing something with your life NOW. Start having fun, doing good enjoying life. It makes Nike's "Just Do It!" and Coca-Cola's "Make It Real" seem vapid by comparison. I've applied for a federal trademark and registered three "Get Life On" Web sites. This is going to be big. The world's first official humor column slogan. I think Purple Don will be proud that he inspired Honolulu Lite to Get Life On.
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