Hawaii
35 years of a
daily dose of DaveIT hardly seems possible, at least to me, that today begins the 35th year of this column. It was back on Dec. 16, 1968, that I began Column No. 1 with, "'Why write a column? Aren't there any honest jobs around?' That, I'm sure, would be my father's reaction to my current means of employment, if he were alive today." Before launching into items about such people as Don Ho, Sam Sanford and Tommy Sands, I recalled my earlier careers in television and radio. Those radio days were brought back to me the other day when I heard from Don McDiarmid, whose compilation of hits album I'd mentioned. His remarks bear sharing ...
HULA Records founder McDiarmid wrote, "It is indeed strange for me to see a good bit of my life reduced to 18 tracks, but at age 81, I am damn glad to still be around to enjoy it." My radio days at the old K-POI were then recalled: "I had lunch Wednesday with John McDermott (then head of an ad agency and now a travel writer) and it was good fun remembering the day he had two Beatles at his house (McCartney and Harrison) and you broke the news on good old K-POI which resulted in both of our houses being overrun with wild-eyed kids looking for them. I actually put up a sign in my front yard that said, 'Not here -- see John McDermott on Kalaheo.' Those were crazy days." And such a long time ago ...
The Kong Show
IT was 25 years ago that Kamasami Kong was a D.J. on KKUA, long before he moved his show to FM802 in Osaka, Japan. He's now wondering if the ears of Steve Ozark, hubby to Jan Brenner, were burning Saturday when longtime pals David Paitch, Bobby Kimball and Steve Lukather of the rock group Toto were being interviewed on air by Kong. The D.J. recalled that the three had given Ozark ("caterer to the stars") a test pressing of their very first record album, which he quickly passed on to Kong. It took only a quick listen for Kong to put the album on the air, being credited as the first D.J. to "break" their record. Toto is currently on a concert tour in Japan that will also take them to Korea and Thailand. As for Kong, he's returning to Hawaii on Thursday for 10 days and plans to look up lots of old friends ...
Here and there
A CALLER reports seeing Catherine Zeta-Jones on the beach fronting the Hilton Hawaiian Village and theorizes she was there making one of those T-Mobile commercials on which she appears ... Wayne Brady, who appears Dec. 29 at the Sheraton-Waikiki and Dec. 30 at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, has local ties. He's married to a local gal, the former Mandie Taketa, a Castle High grad. Brady, who now also has a daily talk show as well as his "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" appearances, used that show to plug his Hawaii shows yesterday and again today ... When the late Steve Foytich, 82, owned Steve's Used Cars, his slogan was, "Once a customer, always a friend." He had many friends who weren't customers as well, and they gathered yesterday at the Outrigger Canoe Club to say goodbye at memorial services ...
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