OUR HONOLULU
Tahitian Lanai song goes on
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
The longest-running stage show playing in Our Honolulu moved from La Mariana on Sand Island to the Pagoda Hotel in town last week. It's the Tahitian Lanai Gang, who first gathered around the piano at the Tahitian Lanai bar in Waikiki in 1956 to join beach boys in song.
That was about the time Don Ho joined the Air Force. The Society of Seven didn't even know each other. Most of Hawai'i's entertainers weren't born yet.
"The crowds at La Mariana were standing room only, but the gang got tired of driving all the way to Sand Island and back," explained Joy Rassum, volunteer publicist. That's because the average age has to be around 75.
Pua Baker, a heavy-equipment operator and 'ukulele maker, does a mellow "Pearly Shells" at age 82. Kenny Maertens, 90, stars in a frisky "King Kamehameha Hula."
I don't know how old LeRoy Larinaga is, but he sounds like Alfred Apaka when he croons "Old Plantation." Pat O'Connor, a district court judge for more than 20 years, was on the microphone when I came in. He sings for fun.
But we're not talking just amateurs here. Blond bombshell Ilona Keller from Berlin performed in Las Vegas with English comedian Benny Hill. She has kept a figure that puts McDonald's-fed teenagers to shame. In a black sheath, she's dynamite. Sings chanteuse ballads in French.
Then there's Auntie Lei Gould, an 81-year-old mother of nine, grandmother of 27 and great-grandmother of 15. She belts out her own version of "Side by Side," a Dixieland classic. The lyrics are about a mature lady who married an elderly gentleman.
On their honeymoon, he took off his wig, removed his glass eye, unscrewed the left leg, took out his hearing aid and put them in a chair before he went to bed. The last verse goes, "I slept in the chair, there was more of him there, side by side."
I mean, this show just goes on and on. At least 100 people filled the LaSalle Room, and every one of them a performer. About 20 singers make up the Tahitian Lanai Chorus that sings rollicking Hawaiian tunes, including the Kamehameha Schools fight song. They sound like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
The Pagoda Hotel will make a mint, although they should order a better white house wine. It tastes like watered vinegar. But the show makes up for it.
Blind piano player Ron Miyashiro holds it all together. He can play any tune in any key, and if the singer goes flat he'll just follow along.
Besides, he's funny. He said he likes working at the Pagoda. They treat him nice. But when they asked him to read a proof of the ad they were running, he had to decline.
Part of the tradition is Iwalani, the waitress, who has followed Miyashiro from the Tahitian Lanai to La Mariana to the Pagoda. She works the room like Michelle Kwan skating at the Olympics. The show goes on from 8 to 11 p.m. every Friday and Saturday.
Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.
