Hawaii
Losing at shuffleboard
isn’t an optionTHERE'S such a thing as "client golf" or "boss golf," where you allow the client or boss to win. Such a thing as losing for whatever reason isn't in UH Warrior football coach June Jones' vocabulary, even if the sport is shuffleboard. And so it was that Jones and his playing partner downed new UH athletic director Herman Frazier and partner at Murphy's Sunday night. They were finalists in a shuffleboard competition and dinner designed to raise funds for the Hawaii Athletic Prep Association as organized by Bobbie Curran (sports) and Jo McGarry (foodie) with restaurateur and sports supporter Don Murphy. Compadres G.M. John Langan was tickled to see who won the door prize of a Fajita Fiesta for eight which he'd donated to the cause: Don Murphy ...
CHEFS that pass in the night: Alan Wong and Roy Yamaguchi were two chefs who were in the Murphy's shuffleboard clinic. Wong was just back in town from the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa where he was one of three celebrity chefs at the resort's third annual Food and Wine Weekend. And Yamaguchi was happy he was eliminated early from the shuffleboarding as he had to race to the airport and head for Las Vegas ... I asked Chef Wong's fiancee, Alice Inoue, what was new in her life and as usual, she had a ready answer: "I've become an ordained minister." She's done a half dozen weddings so far and, when asked, allowed that in Hawaii it's legal for her to pronounce herself and a man husband and wife. Wong just smiled, choosing yet again to hold his tongue ...
Well fed cabbies
GOOD luck if you were trying to hail a cab one recent lunchtime. Unless you were at Morton's, that is. G.M. Greg Omotoy could have flagged you one in a heartbeat. There were literally hundreds of cabbies stopping by that day for a free steak bento, a "thank you" from Morton's for the work they do. Some 400 lunches of filet mignon, rice and cookies were given out, a fare which none of the drivers could pass up ...THE venerable Bill Quinn was the first elected governor in the history of the State of Hawaii, but only the second president of SPEBSQSA, the unpronounceable name for the "Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America." It received that elongated moniker from it's wonderfully (and propheticallly) named founder, O.C. Cash. All this is by way of mentioning the 55th anniversary dinner of the local chapter is Aug. 17 at the Japanese Cultural Center, and Gov. Quinn, a charter member, will be on hand. The first president, for the record, was architect Bill Merrill, who designed the Blaisdell Concert Hall, and whose brother, Charles, was international president back in 1947 ...
Matt and Andy
COMIC Matt Kazam, who performs on the same bill with Andy Bumatai Saturday nights at Dave & Busters, stopped by the Hanohano Room Saturday and cracked up KSSK hosts Michael W. Perry and Larry Price with the suggestion our ubiquitous orange traffic cones should be the state flower just as the building crane was once called Hawaii's state bird ...
Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings
in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968.
The Week That Was recalls items from Dave's 30 years of columns.Contact Dave by e-mail: ddonnelly@starbulletin.com