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Hawaii
ENTERTAINER Paul Anka checked into a Kahala Mandarin suite Monday night, preparatory to appearing at a private trade show. He's certainly a different person from the 16-year-old Anka in town
for trade showkid from Canada with one hit ("Diana") under his belt when he first came to Hawaii. Promoter Tom Moffatt, a K-POI D.J. at the time, met Anka at the airport and was startled at the kid's first words on arrival: "Where are the broads?" But while Anka has grown up and gone on to entertaining for huge bucks in Las Vegas, Moffatt continues to spin the same tunes, only now with the oldies station, 107.5FM ...
WHILE celebrating an occasion at Hoku's in the Kahala Mandarin Monday night, I exchanged greetings with longtime House Speaker Joe Souki as he was on his way out. Following behind him was current House Speaker Calvin Say, and my date and I said as one, "I didn't know they were on speaking terms." Hard to one-up someone on your same wave length ... In the lobby bar that night, guitarist Winston Tan was in a classical mood, and played works by Tchaikovsky, Bach, Pachelbel, etc., accompanied by Eddie Bush on ukulele. And no, classical ukulele
isn't an oxymoron -- some selections almost seemed written for it, thanks to the talented Bush ...
No tenderfeet need apply
IF you're planning to follow in the footsteps of Gary Shawkey, you'd better be tough. Shawkey heads up Hawaii's International Firewalk Team, which shattered the world record for firewalking at the Florida State Fair in Orlando on Saturday. It was filmed by Guinness and will be aired on a future "World Record" TV show. The Guinness people were shocked to find that the fire used by Shawkey was hotter than their gauge could measure -- and it went up to 2,000 degrees! The Hawaii team walked 167 feet, more than 100 feet farther than the previous record ...SEEMS ironic that the Texas Leghorns, uh, I mean Longhorns, the football team that would rather stay on the lone prairie than journey to Hawaii for a game, has an athletic director named "DeLoss." Sounds like that's what he's afraid of -- him and coach Mack Brown, not to be confused with old cowboy star Johnny Mack Brown who was afraid of nobody, least of all a boy named June. If those Texas wussies do get goaded into coming over and playing the game, you can be sure of a total sell-out, and I'm sure we can get them rent-a-cars from, oh, say Alamo!!! ...
IT was supposed to be a leisurely Sunday sail off Waikiki for Safeway G.M. Ted Davenport and KGMB anchorman Russell Shimooka and their families. Until they came upon a capsized catamaran. Davenport, an ex-firefighter, immediately jumped in to help. Shimooka couldn't lose face, so he jumped in as well. Try as they may, and quickly aided by the Rescue One crew, they couldn't right the boat. And were the Channel 9 cameras there to capture on film the anchorman's spontaneous rescue attempt? Of course not ...
Kudos from Tutu
RETIRED St. Andrews Cathedral organist John McCreary is temporarily choir director at St. James' in New York, and on Sunday he got a compliment he'll long remember. After McCreary conducted the anthem, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, "Wasn't that music beautiful? I want to thank the choir. Let's all clap for them." And the applause of 1,000 people filled the church. McCreary just celebrated his 70th birthday Friday ...
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