I've never been a big one for wearing makeup, but in this high-definition digital age—when every mole, splotch, freckle and burgundy stain shows up in stark relief on the television screen—it behooves one to allow himself to be patted down with flesh-colored powder before going on the air.

That's how I came to be sitting in the makeup chair on the second floor of the ING Direct building in Waikiki recently in preparation for going on “;The Andy Bumatai Show”; with fellow guests/victims comedian Mel Cabang and defense attorney Michael Green. Mel and I underwent the makeup process, and both being pretty big guys, makeup can only do so much. Michael Green sports a tan that makes actor George Hamilton look like a cadaver, so he didn't need any makeup.

The ultramodern ING Direct cafe building is perfect for Andy's new ultramodern TV show. Andy bought five state-of-the-art robotic digital cameras that look something like metallic footballs perched on rolling tripods. Physically, the set is techno-austere: four chairs around a table covered in a black cloth in an empty room with two green walls. A large flat-panel monitor serves as teleprompter and Internet display where Andy can field questions posed from fans around the country via the hot social messaging site Twitter.

Through the magic of computers, on TV it looks like we are sitting in a penthouse overlooking the Waikiki night skyline. The show is broadcast nightly on KFVE and over the Internet, and from what I could tell reading the Twitter remarks, a lot of people on the mainland think it's pretty cool to be able to watch and interact with a TV talk show in Hawaii.

It's a completely different feel from Andy's early incarnation as talk-show host. Broadcasting from hotel showrooms, his previous show, “;NiteTime,”; was what he called “;David Letterman Lite.”; It involved a big crew manning cameras, a live band and stagehands. The new show is just Andy, his son, Ace, a couple of guys sitting in front of computers and Irwin Santos, a large human being who rides herd on the guests, photographs the proceedings, runs the Web site and has a curious propensity to dress up like Superman.

Each show has a topic. Ours was gambling. That explains why Cabang was there. He went to prison for running a sports betting operation. And that explains why attorney Green was there; he represented Cabang in that case. It doesn't explain why I was there, since I only play online poker with fake money and usually badly.

But I was happy to be there in my makeup, tossing out nonsensical observations on gambling like, if Hawaii needs money and wants to get into gambling, why doesn't it open a casino in Las Vegas? That way we'd get all the financial benefits of gambling without the wear and tear on our state. (I'll get more into that next week with other nonsensical observations on legalizing gambling here.)

In the meantime, I've got to go on Twitter chat with the cool people. I'll be the one in the really tan makeup.