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Hawaii’s World
LOCAL night club humor shows are fading from Waikiki for reasons I'll talk about later, but comedian Frank DeLima still hangs on. He has Friday and Saturday shows at 8:30 at the Captain's Table in the Hawaiian Waikiki Beach Hotel on Kalakaua Avenue. DeLima tickles
local funny boneI wish we all, locals and tourists alike, could see and hear more of him.
He typifies why Hawaii is the world's most successful mixed ethnic community. He helps us avoid taking ourselves too seriously. To sometimes laugh at ourselves and each other is a needed social lubricant.
He kids us and we mostly like it -- all but the most politically correct. Witness characters like:
DeLima, now 51, has been mimicking and clowning all his life. He grew up in a mixed ethnic community in Pauoa Valley, had diverse neighbors and aunties helping to take care of him, and can remember entertaining them with "I Saw Mother Kissing Santa Claus" when he was just 3 years old.His version of Imelda Marcos.
After Damien High, he attended the now-defunct St. Stephen's Seminary on Pali Highway but did not become a Catholic priest. Like the majority of its students, he decided that very strict calling was not for him. He then became a tour guide -- a very popular one with a nice sense of goofiness.
He once told his bus passengers that a certain rock was where King Kamehameha stood to watch his armada of war canoes attack Oahu from Maui. They were taking snapshots of each other standing by the rock until he proclaimed he was only fooling.
His talents led him into entertaining visitor groups and then to his first formal night club show at Club 400 in the Waikiki Marina Hotel.
For such a show he needed a writer. Soon he teamed up with Patrick Downes, also a former student at St. Stephen's who did not go on to the priesthood. Downes now edits the Hawaii Catholic Herald.
On the side, Downes and DeLima work out characters like those I mentioned. The show evolves from audience reaction to the characters and DeLima's quick improvisations.
HUMOR, they say, has to be based on situations familiar to the audience. Thus a broader brush is needed to tickle visitor funny bones than local ones.
The serious side of DeLima is his much-applauded work in the public schools. His Student Enrichment Program, valued enough to have a government subsidy, has taken him into 175 public and private schools. At assemblies he tells K-3 students the importance of reading, study, laughing and family.
When he talks to students in grades 4 to 8 it is about Tidahitis and Blallahitis -- diseases with symptoms like answering back, bullying and speaking before thinking.
This program is occupying more attention from him as night club attendance wanes. He sees the drop-off primarily attributable to the DUI law discouraging drinking alcoholic beverages, a greater interest in karaoke and athletics and more home entertainment.
Chevron helps sponsor his Student Enrichment Program and invites him to entertain at company functions. To me, he is a living treasure.
A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.