Hawaii
SHE lives in Cerritos, Calif., now, but Darlyne Lei Fujimoto grew up in Hilo and went to high school in Honolulu. She recently wrote a letter to Oprah Winfrey to thank her for making a TV movie out of Mitch Albom's monster best-seller "Tuesdays With Morrie." Darlyne shared with Oprah the inspiration and comfort she received from the book, having recently lost her father to a lengthy battle with a deadly disease, much like that of the book's main character, Morrie. To Fujimoto's surprise, she was contacted by Oprah's staff and a film crew visited her living room and taped a segment for the show which will air Dec. 2, featuring both the book and movie, starring Jack Lemmon. Fujimoto's only motive, totally noble, is to explain to viewers that since "we will all die one day, we can all use lessons in living life fully now, celebrating and being thankful for it now, and getting tips on dying well. It will happen." You might want to make it a point to tune in ... Letter writer
reached Oprah
IF Joe Moore were doing the 10 o'clock news on the Fox station in Amsterdam instead of Honolulu, he'd be preceded by porn movies instead of "Friends" and "Jeopardy." This was the discovery of media buyer Louise Saffery of Inter-Media when she visited the Netherlands recently. Porn films came on the air at 9 p.m. on the Fox station. When not making discoveries like that, Saffery visited with Lee Hacohen, formerly with KHON, and his wife, Maureen, known in Hawaii as an environmental consultant, who's now with an Israeli communications company. Television is still in its infancy in the Netherlands, so the networks are thrashing about to see what works with the viewers in that open society ...
The Finnish Line
THIS is something of an international column today, moving from television in Amsterdam to radio in Finland. While many people in Hawaii complain they can't pick up Hawaii Public Radio's KIFO 1380 clearly, the local HPR folks have a suggestion: Move to Finland! They're just kidding, of course, but they do get mail from long-distance listeners who resort to various means to tune in the station, often just for the acknowledgment of having done so. One recent letter to operations director Mark Wagner was signed, "Boris from Helsinki." Boris was listening to the "Morning Edition" program on his DX (long distance) receiver, aided by a 2,000-meter-long wire antenna strung between trees near his hunting cabin. So, if you don't mind setting up a 2km-long antenna, maybe you can pick up a Finnish station in return. Or at least get a clear signal on KIFO ...MATTEO'S G.M. Russell Druce did a double-take the other night when a customer walked in. It was his old pal Hank Kaahea (brother of Booga Booga original Ed Kaahea), who'd stopped by to see him. Hank used to play with a group called Strings Unlimited at Druce's eatery, Russell's Rowboat, many years ago. He recently toured as lead guitarist with Willie Nelson, but is now working for Stag's Leap Winery ...
Whopper of a booboo
ATTORNEY Earle Partington, who keeps track of these sorts of things, notes that the new American flag flying at the Burger King at Likelike & Kam Highway has the stripes in reverse order. They should run red, white and blue from bottom to top, and this one runs red, blue and white. He says it's the second such flag he's seen there, and suspects it came from the same supplier ...
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: ddonnelly@starbulletin.com