Hawaii
HE'S leaving home without it. That would be Clark Hatch, whose fitness center doesn't take American Express, and he's even featured in full-page ads to that effect. Now with the sale of Bank of Hawaii's credit cards to AmEx, Hatch is about to have his Bankoh Visa card yanked and replaced with an American Express card. He'll have to pay his bill at his own fitness center in cash! Hatch is circumventing the problem by popping across the street and getting a Visa card at First Hawaiian ... I almost spit out my coffee when I heard the attractive local TV news anchor reporting that Marcia Gay Harden won the best supporting actress Oscar for "Pollock." She'd apparently never heard of painter Jackson Pollock (rhymes with "colic") and pronounced the name of the film as if it were a pejorative for Polish people. Smiling all the way... Fitness center’s Hatch
will get an exit Visa
Hamburger helper
LITTLE things sometimes mean a lot. Ronald McDonald heard through the grapevine that there was a 7-year-old girl named Nikki in Kapiolani Medical Center whose primary wish was for a hamburger -- once she became well enough to eat one. He showed up for a visit with a bag filled with toys from Ronald McDonald House and yes, coupons for hamburgers for her to enjoy with her parents once she gets well. The latest is that Nikki is getting well, and soon should be enjoying those burgers with her family...RESTAURATEUR Ed Wary held mandatory cooking classes for his Auntie Pasto chefs from Kapahulu and Beretania locations, plus Dixie Grill's exec chef David Saccomanno to make sure they knew just how to make the world's best Italian lasagna and gnocchi. So what world-reknowned chef did Wary bring in to teach? Easy! Sharing the secrets from years of presiding over her own kitchen was Ed's mom, 84-year-old Nana ... Then there's Compadres co-founder Rick Eno, happy that his son Scott has become interested in the restaurant business. He's at the Ward Centre location after working at the Compadres Napa Valley, learning the business from the bottom up and under a tough taskmaster ... Looks as if Bill Soenksen's next bed race will be to his own. After 28 years of presiding over what was once called the Carole Kai bed race, Soenksen is exiting and leaving the fund-raiser in the hands of entertainer Jan Brenner. This year's race is also being moved from April 28 to Sept. 15 to coincide with Aloha Week and ensure an even larger crowd than usual...
Stagings
SUCH a variety of stage doings. Diamond Head Theatre opens "Steel Magnolias" on Friday, but not before holding auditions for the show following that one, "Victor/Victoria," the Broadway musical done by Julie Andrews in a plum role in which a woman gets to masquerade as a man ... But that's tame compared to the Manoa Valley Theatre's "Side Show," about Siamese twin performers. Last weekend's shows were canceled due to a medical emergency, but are being rescheduled ... HPU's next production, "Dark of the Moon," seems positively ordinary after that one, but deals with a witch boy who takes human form to marry a beautiful mountain girl. Don't be mean and say, "Two anomalies in one." It opens April 13 and runs Fridays through Sundays until May 6.
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