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‘Lite’ enters surly
teen years in 2005

A little experiment in journalism was launched 14 years ago. It was to be an attempt to bring a smile to the faces of the smileless, to tug at the heartstrings and other bodily viscera of those with hearts and viscera, to boldly go where no column had ever gone before with as little litigation as possible. As you've probably guessed by now, my friends, yes, we are speaking somewhat breathlessly (that damn firecracker smoke) about this very column, "Honolulu Lite."

At age 14, "Honolulu Lite" officially becomes a teenager in 2005, although we suspect it will always be an adolescent at heart, the kind of adorable adolescent you just want hug around the carotid artery and tussle its hair with a length of heavy chain or a small, spiked mallet.

In 14 years there've been roughly 324,523.2 "Honolulu Lites" written without regard to the stifling conventions of conventional journalism, such as proper spelling and punctuation and that other rule, which escapes me now, something about run-on sentences and providing accurate figures when reporting things like, well, how many "Honolulu Lites" have been written in the past 14 years.

The fact that in 2004 "Honolulu Lite" was named the top humor column in the country -- yes, THIS country -- for newspapers with at least three regular readers says something about the state of journalism today ... something, very, very sad, I'm afraid.

BUT, HEY, that's yesterday's news. This is the first "Honolulu Lite" of 2005, and it's important to let you readers -- all three of you -- know that no amount of outside pressure, threats of physical harm or bribery will force us to change our standards (i.e., raise them), although bribery might stand a chance.

We promise -- and by "we" I mean the entire "Honolulu Lite" staff made up of myself, my dog Boomer and a team of editors and grammarians the size of a smallish invading hoard -- to continue providing the type of entertaining, controversial and occasionally incomprehensible commentary you've come to expect or at least endure in the past two decades (or so) of "Honolulu Lite."

It's traditional at this point to thank all the little people who made last year's "Honolulu Lite" such a success, but, you know, they're little people, so screw 'em. Happy 2005.