For some reason, I feel the need to share this remembrance with others, beyond those of us who survived the near-apocalyptic experience personally.
It was exactly 26 years ago yesterday,
May 7, 1986. Honolulu, Hawaii, where wife Laura and I have been flown gratis to the "Cineposium" of film commissions from around the world --governmental and quasi-governmental organizations charged with the economic development mission of attracting motion picture production to their particular cities, states and countries. This junket in exchange for my having agreed to produce and screen a short film on how to operate a film commission. (Yes I know, go figure.)
We are meeting in the ballroom of the Westin Ilikai Hotel (the one featured on the original Hawaii 5-0 TV series, not the current upstart), while Laura and several recent acquaintances, are somewhere out in the boondocks touring Oahu.
Jack Lord, Hawaii’s Brad Pitt of the era, had just completed his welcoming recitation of the “Aloha Poem,” at approximately 2:05 pm., when an announcement comes over the ballroom PA system: It is a radio bulletin warning that Alaska’s Aleutian Islands had just been rocked by the largest earthquake since the one that had devastated Mexico City the previous year, killing thousands.
((http://vimeo.com/...)) Note: Tsnuami Warning begins 4:34 in.
This announcement having greeted us all two weeks following the Chernobyl disaster, left many of us somewhat nonplussed, on the accompanying information that a Tsunami Alert had been issued and what was expected to be a real doozy was scheduled to hit at approximately 6:30 pm. Hawaiian time. Everyone was ordered to seek higher ground. Laura and company, who were already in the center of the island on the highest ground possible, were instructed to stay there and mobilize by doing absolutely nothing. A feat we understand was accomplished to the letter with phenomenal virtuosity – in that nobody could move anyway against the Mongol hoard of vehicular traffic then fleeing in the exact same direction as said designated refuge.
The rest of us were assured that we would be absolutely safe and secure anywhere above the 16th floor of the Westin Ilikai Hotel – amazingly fortuitous since that happened to be the exact hostelry where we were all staying and already gathered within at the time. Go figure. The collateral consequences -- i.e. what would happen once the ensuing maelstrom had swept away the 15 floors immediately below us – were literally (i.e. figuratively) left up in the air.
All then adjourned to "put their affairs in order" – i.e. placing orders with room service for regular deliveries of pina colada’s, mai tais, and pupu platters to balconies secured with ocean views 16 stories above sea level, for a happy hr. extending from approximately 4:00pm. until some unspecified last call (AKA the Apocalypse).
At approximately 7:00 pm. our happy few would all then re-gather in the very same ballroom, presumably for triage, and to assess the wave of destruction with which our island paradise had been engulfed. All beverages having come with a 16th floor minimum, we had every right to expect the worst, and it was only after the 3rd or 4th colada-astomy that our concern turned giddy with anticipation.
As I recall, under the distinct prospect of every film commissioner in the free world being simultaneously wiped out in one place at one time – thereby setting back the production schedule of “Three Men and a Baby” by a full 5-6 minutes, I and a longtime erstwhile cohort - – the renowned social worker -slash-entertainment attorney-slash stage hypnotist Janeen Weiss-- immediately sequestered ourselves in an ersatz writers room, where I hoped to pen something to rally our forces on the order of:
“If we are marked to die, we are enow to do our country loss.
And if to live, the fewer we, the greater share of honour.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'Tomorrow… is… Saint Crispin’s Day.’”
Or as Janeen recalls,
“Holy shit, you can’t BUY comedy gold like this!” The only question being could anything be ready by 0-600 hrs? Because apocalypse or no, the show must go on. Or at least OURS.
The result was a routine in which I would emerge onstage as one “Myron Kahona,” the world’s greatest Jewiian storyteller. Janeen would accompany as -- for lack of a better word -- Anne Meara. One hitch however, for optimum poor taste, the bit required presentation in a grass skirt. Quarantined to the hotel proper, the only suitable material available seemed to be the Astroturf carpeting used to cover the huge lanai (i.e. patio) outside the group’s hospitality suite, which also served as our accommodations.
Can we see a show of hands? Does anyone have the slightest clue how much a friggin' Astroturf grass skirt WEIGHS? Well let’s just say it is enough to give the average non-Hawaiian visitor a low-fashion hernia. The gist of the entire performance can be summed up in Ms. Weiss’s opening interlocutory:
WEISS/MEARA: “Now wait one poi-pickin’ minute. You come out here…you take some 30 year-old Myron Cohen jokes…you change a couple of names to Hawaiian… and you’re trying to put this over as Topical Tropical Material? WTF!”
BURKE/COHEN: (REACTING) “Give us a break! We were just almost wiped out by a 30-ft. salami.”
W/M: “(CORRECTING) That’s TSUNAMI! A tidal wave. Tsunami.”
B/C: “Well, why didn’t they say so? Who the hell is going to leave town for a 30-ft. salami?”
W/M: “It wasn’t 30-ft. False alarm. It was maybe 6-inches. Which in my experience, in some things is just about AVERAGE.”
B/C: “Yeh, but with the "economic ‘multiplier effect” if was 30 ft.. And I knew it was coming at least 3 minutes before everybody else.”
W/M: “How on earth?”
B/C: “From Jack Lord. The ‘Aloha Poem’ always precedes a tsunami by precisely four-and-a-half hours. We immediately sought higher ground on the headboard of the waterbed and sang “Nearer My God to Thee” as the hotel Hawaiian combo valiantly played on.”
W/M: “Not!”
B/C: “OK, it was the tsunami song, ‘How I love ya, how I love ya, my dear old T’snami…”
W/M: “You’re having fun with an earthquake? This is serious!”
B/C: “ I KNOW it’s serious – 3.5 on the Richter Scale.”
W/M: “Meaning what?”
B/C: “Well, on the Richter Scale, 3.5 means you have to replace all of your glassware. 5.5 means replacing all of your dishware. And 7.5 means you’ve got to replace your underwear.”
W/M: “Now that we’re on the subject of vacation apparel, where did you get that ridiculous grass skirt/?”
B/C: “Georgia.”
W/M: “Georgia?”
B/C: “Master’s Tournament. Putting green, presented to me personally by Arnold Pal-i-mer.”
ong>W/M: “That’s PALM-er.”
B/C: “Sorry. Keep getting that mixed up with Pa-lim BEACH.”
[APPROXIMATELY A HALF-DOZEN ADAPTED MYRON COHEN STOLEN JOKES AND OBSCURE REFERENCES LATER]
W/M: “That’s what’s got you worried?”
B/C: “No, I was worried about Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.”
W/M: “Imelda Marcos?”
B/C: “They get here in Hawaii two months ago after being kicked out of their own country, hoping to make a fresh start. And now THIS.”
W/M: “Just one setback after another, I guess.”
B/C: “Right. The woman deplanes at Hickham field barefoot, because they kept all her shoes. She had 3,000 pairs, because you can shop ‘til you drop when you’re the top Filipeness.”
W/M: “It may be time to wash your mouth out with a tiny bar of guest soap.”
B/C: “Just as well, because the woman has bunions the size of Mona Loa from all the palace disco. Fortunately going through her luggage she finds an old claim check for a pair of shoes she left to be repaired when she was in Honolulu twelve years ago.
W/M: “Tell me it was for a Bar Mitzvah.”
B/C: “You heard this story?” Anyway, in the Yellow Pages she finds that the shop is still in business. So she takes a bus. It’s exact change, and she hasn’t got anything smaller than a $1,000-dollar Swiss franc-note, but they let her on anyway, because of the bunions and that’s the Aloha spirit.”
“Walks into the shoe repair and mahalo-and-behold, it’s the same shoe repair guy who waited on her the last time. She says, ‘ twelve years ago, I left a pair of pumps off to be repaired when I was here for a Bar Mitzvah. I recently found this claim check, and I was wondering if, by some small chance, you kept the shoes all this time?’”
“He takes the claim check number 427 into the back room, and when he returns, asks, ‘Lady. Those shoes, was it by any chance half soles, leather heels, with metal tips?’ She say, ‘Why yes that’s right.’. He says, ‘They’ll be ready Thursday.”