Q: Hi IS, love your paper! What's the latest on Ikaika Kahoano these days? How is his new band, LMNT, coming along?

A: Since his turbulent departure from Making The Band, Ikaika has been focusing on his work with LMNT, which he formed with Brian Chan and Mike Miller (MTB finalists) and Matt Morrison, who most recently appeared in a Broadway production of Footloose. Ikaika and his band mates are living in Hoboken, New Jersey across the Hudson from New York City. His father Kimo Kahoano tells us that Ikaika just went through the East Coast's worst winter in ten years. "I think he may have passed the test! He said, 'Hey, I like it cold, Dad!' Then, when the first snow came: 'Hey, man, it's COLD!' So he bought himself an Arctic jacket."

Born in 1978, Ikaika will celebrate his 23rd birthday on the 15th of this month. His dad says that his girlfriend Malia, who finished studying dance in London, has returned to Hawai`i, and that she recently visited Ikaika in New Jersey.

In January, LMNT performed at the Hula Bowl with Hoku Ho and country artist Collin Raye. "It was fantastic! These guys are all tall, they're all in shape… they looked fantastic. The girls went crazy!" recalls Kimo with delight.

In March, LMNT were presenters at the 2001 Cosmetic Executive Women's Beauty Awards show at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. They'll be embarking on a national tour in August, appearing at shopping malls all over the country. Papa Kimo tells us they've inked a contract with Atlantic Records, and their new website at www.lmntmusic.com has become very popular with their fans, who can't wait for their debut CD, which Kimo says they're in the process of recording.

In a recent IS interview, Kimo offered some insights about his son's experience on Making The Band. Please click here for that article.

Q: I just finished reading Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport, and I thought it was extraordinary. What is the author's connection to Hawai`i?

A: For those of you who haven't read it, Shark Dialogues is accurately and colorfully described by Amazon.com as an "epic saga of seven generations of one family… A Hawaiian woman gathers her four granddaughters together in an erotic tale of villains and dreamers, queens and revolutionaries, lepers and healers". The book is filled with powerful narrative, unforgettable characters and stunning imagery, and it's one of our favorites.

We caught up with Davenport just as she was about to speak at a PEN New England event, and asked her about her Island connections. "I am kanaka maoli, 50% native Hawaiian," she tells us. "My mother was full-blooded; [her name was] Emma Kealoha Awa`awa Houghtailing. I was raised in Kalihi, attended Farrington High, and graduated UH Manoa." Davenport's mother died when she was about ten; she was raised by an aunt whose husband was a Chinese man named Ayau Kim.

Kim had played drums in a Honolulu jazz band in the Roaring Twenties, and often told young Kiana stories about a Hawaiian virtuoso he'd met back then. The talented man often played with African-American musicians at local army bases; eventually, they all ended up playing together in Paris. As Uncle Ayau recounted, the musician returned to Honolulu after World War II, and was told that the woman he'd left behind had been "taken" by the Japanese in Shanghai, where she had gone to find her sister. He spent the rest of his life traveling around the Orient, searching for his lost love.

The story stayed in the back of Davenport's mind for many years. Then she read an article about chongshindae or "comfort women", sexual slaves of the Japanese during wartime. She attended a Harvard lecture given by several of these women, and began to create her next book, Song of the Exile, before she'd even left the lecture hall. Song of the Exile has been praised by the likes of Norman Mailer, Isabel Allende, and Gloria Steinem, and is a Ballantine Reader's Circle Book.

"I am leaving next week to come home to Honolulu for the summer to finish my new novel," Davenport told us. She'll also have the great pleasure of playing guide for her friend Alice Walker (author of The Color Purple) on a tour of the Big Island.

Davenport apologized because she didn't have time for more than a few questions. "I'm in midst of packing and a hundred things for my trip. I'll let you interview me when my new book comes out. 'Til then, a hui hou!"

Q: I love Joe Moore. I remember watching him in a movie where he was hanging out on a Chinatown rooftop. That's all I remember. What was the name of that movie? Does he have any future plans for acting?

A: First, here's a little background info on your favorite newsman. Moore graduated from Aiea High School and attended the University of Maryland, where he majored in communications and history. He has appeared regularly on Hawai`i television since 1969, when he returned to the Islands following a stint as an Army journalist with the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam and as a newscaster on the American Forces Network in Saigon. Moore has been Hawaii's top-rated newscaster since February 1985.

On the personal side, Moore has been happily married for ten years to his wife Teresa; they have a three-year-old son, Bryce. "He's really the focus of both our lives now," comments Moore. "Quite frankly, my burning passion for theatre, film, and television work has diminished drastically since his birth. It's just not a priority anymore."

But a bit of the ham still remains in Moore, and it has propelled him toward the spotlight once again. For one week only – the last week of September - he's going to appear at the Hawai`i Theatre in The Odd Couple by Neil Simon. Appearing opposite Moore will be his best friend from Vietnam, Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak. "As Pat so delicately put it, I will be the slob, and he'll be the neatnik," says Moore. Is that typecasting? "Actually, I think Pat and I have a lot of similarities in that we're sort of smart-aleck types. I don't think either one of us is really a slob or a neatnik! After looking at the script, it seemed logical that I would play Oscar and he would play Felix."

Moore has always had a strong interest in stage and screen work, and took featured roles in Jake And The Fatman, Magnum P.I., and Hawaii Five-O. He also wrote and performed plays based on the lives of Mozart, Will Rogers, John Wayne, aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell, and Nazi war criminal Reinhard Heydrich. As if that wasn't enough to keep him busy, he was host and producer of "Moore Mozart", a weekly program that ran for six years on Hawai`i Public Radio; he's even guest-conducted the Honolulu Symphony. He's a writer, too: his books Have You Ever Noticed? and More Have You Ever Noticed? collected many of the ironies and aphorisms with which he ends each night's broadcast. (Moore's own favorite observation from Have You Ever Noticed? is this: "If you want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse.")

Moore's most recent film, Moonglow, is based on a story called "Mind If I Join You" by Jonathan Daly. The film's premiere took place at the Hawai`i International Film Festival in November 1999. Moore stars as Matthew Duncan, a 54-year-old man going through a night of personal crisis, and also served as executive producer. Additional roles were played by Joanna Cassidy, Milo O'Shea, Ione Skye, Eileen Brennan, and Amy Hanaiali'i Gilliom.

Three cable companies are currently negotiating for rights to Moonglow, Moore's second collaboration with advertising executive Dennis Christianson (of Laird Christianson Harris), with whom he worked at Channel 2 News when Laird was promotions director. "It's more of a passion and an expensive hobby than a second career, because neither one of us have aspirations of aiming for Hollywood, picking up roots and moving at this point in our lives," Moore says.

In response to your question: the first Moore-Christianson film, the one with the Chinatown rooftops, was Goodbye Paradise, which also starred Elissa Dulce and Pat Morita. It has been marketed as Moon Over Paradise. Hey, speaking of Pat Morita…

Q: It's great seeing Pat Morita in that hilarious frozen food commercial! What's he up to these days?

A: Though Noriyuki "Pat" Morita was born in Berkeley (and lived in a Japanese internment camp during WWII), he has really made Hawai`i his second home. As he told us recently in a hilarious conversation, this goes back to his early career as a standup comic, which began around 1967.

Don Ho had gone to the Mainland to work his first gig in Las Vegas. The owners of Duke's at International Marketplace realized that they didn't have a show, and they called Morita's agency; he'd been a department head at an aerospace firm till he realized, at age 30, that aerospace wasn't for him.

As Morita recounts, "The guys were panicked [here, he puts on a panicked Elmer Fudd voice] 'You gotta help us! Our star's on the mainland and we don't have a show and we've got 5,000 people coming…' So we put together a patched-together show. I'm sandwich meat between Tavana's Polynesian Review, which is like 80 Tahitian men and women shaking their [he makes a hula drum noise; it sounds a lot like hungada-bungada hungada-bungada hungada-bungada], beating on cans and logs, and a new rock & roll group from the Philippines by way of Hong Kong."

Opening night arrived. Ironically, it was the 25th anniversary of survivors of Pearl Harbor. Morita slips into a deep announcer's voice. "'Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, straight from the Mainland, the HIP NIP!' The lights came up, and I walked onstage to one hand clapping. A drop of sweat is running down the back of my neck. I looked out into the audience and said, 'Think of it like this, guys… if it hadn't been for us, you wouldn't be here today saying Where's the wahines? Bring me a Mai-Tai!"

His popularity grew rapidly. "We used to do three shows in those days – 7, 9, and 11. No days off, we did it seven days a week." He's barely slowed down since then, but when things get quiet, he returns to the Islands. "Where do I always retreat? To Hawai`i, because I know I can work there somewhere – whether clubs, or doing commercials… I tell people I'm the Hawaiian penis. They say [in pidgin] 'What you talkin'?' I say, 'I'm in, I'm out, I'm in, I'm out…' In-Out, In-Out Morita," he chuckles in that rusty way of his, a laughter that is both infectious and gently self-deprecating.

The past six months or so have been hectic for Morita. He filmed several episodes of Baywatch Hawai`i before its cancellation, and several episodes of The Hughleys (UPN's well-rated show) in Los Angeles. "I'm gonna be 70 next year, and traveling is getting to be no fun, which is unfortunate, because I love my work!" he says. Recently, Morita spent some time in Vancouver, where he filmed Unleashed with Jon Voight. "I play an old Chinese herbalist, and my best friend is my dog. The dog becomes the hero of the film, of course – steals all the scenes." The film is scheduled for release some time next year.

These days, Morita's getting increasingly involved with voiceover work for Disney (he did the voice of the Emperor in Mulan). "I go in next week to do a reading, playing the voice of a turtle – with a Hawaiian da kine pidgin accent! [this is spoken in a Hawaiian da kine pidgin accent] So I'm trying to quietly move behind the camera." We compliment him on his amazing aptitude for accents and he responds with a penis joke, told in several different flawless inflections. "I do a lot of penis jokes!" he laughs.

What has been his favorite role, thus far? "Well, of course, Karate Kid I. Discovering Mr. Miyagi, discovering that he would ultimately become an international figure. I can't go anywhere without people going, 'Wax on! Wax off!'" Morita says that the territory of fame requires its own price. "This price is not a bad one. It's not overburdening; I think I handle it well," he adds. He is said, by his friends, to be the most regular of regular guys, always kind and personable.

Morita has three children: Erin from his first marriage, and Aly and Tia from his second. His principal residence is in Las Vegas, where he lives with his third wife, actress Evelyn Guerrero (in addition to her memorable role as Donna in three Cheech & Chong films, Guerrero also appeared in ...And The Earth Did Not Swallow Him, a critically acclaimed 1995 film adaptation of Tomas Rivera's semi-autobiographical 1971 novella).

Morita has actually known his wife since she was just 15. "My first manager was Sally Marr, Lenny Bruce's mother. She had a stable of comics – all kinds, strippers and jugglers, a lot of variety act people, mostly comedians - a whole crew of motley wannabes, gonnabes, hope-to-bes. And Evi's ma was a stripper. I used to bring her onstage. I'd glance over, and teenage Evi was waiting in the wings, finishing her homework." Years later, the two ran into each other; by then, Guerrero had grown up and Morita was available. "We just celebrated our seventh anniversary," he says happily.

When he's not traveling all over the world, Morita catches up on correspondence, bills, and sleep (though not necessarily in that order). "Whatever spare time I can find," he adds, "I've been working on a couple of movie script ideas, just to keep my creative head cooking."

Curious about what your favorite artist or actor is doing these days? Drop us a line at info@w-ink.com or the old-fashioned way at 1001 Dillingham Blvd., #226, Honolulu 96817. Or pick up the phone and give us a call at 808/832-9898. No question is too big or too small.