Honolulu Star-Bulletin from Honolulu, Hawaii • 11

HONOLULU LITE By Charles Memminger TV: The 'Message' isn't pretty B-2 Books: 'SeinLanguage' an easy read B-2 Ben Wood: Young, Morita swap stories B-4 Saturday, October 1 6, 1 993 Star-Bulletin Section IB 1 Hari Kojima should do let's Go Burgering' NE of my favorite local television shows is 66 I'm sure Ernest Hemingway Jr. is out there trying to get a publishing deal and he's kicking himself in the head that Stern and Seinfeld are battling it out for first place. 99 Howard Stern "Let's Go Fishing" with Hari Kojima. This guy has a great life, jetting all over the Pacific doing what he clearly loves to V1 Letterman's no fool: He just lights the fuse Dave's human cannonball bounces safely into the net Reuters NEW YORK Late-night television host David Letterman will do a lot of things for a laugh, but getting shot out of a canon isn't one of them. Letterman, no stranger to bizarre late-night antics, strolled onto 53d Street in the waning minutes of the taping of his CBS talk show, lit a fuse on a red-white-and-blue cannon, and gaped as human cannonball Jon Weiss streaked through the air at about 65 mph and bounced safely into a giant net outside the Broadway studio yesterday.

Then, with a crowd of onlookers chanting, "your turn, Dave," Letterman took off his suit jacket and climbed partway up a ladder to the cannon, only to. turn back at the last minute. The cheers quickly turned to boos. During his 11 years on "Late Night," Letterman has also crushed various things in an 80-ton press and dropped watermelons and other fresh fruit from tall buildings. He once took a dip in a large bowl of milk wearing a suit of rice crispies.

Weiss, the human cannonball, said the jump was nothing out of the ordinary. He's a performer with the Ringling Brothers Barnum Bailey Circus. 0 i-- iYjn uY i 'ft 1 VC 'if -r-n do', catch and eat fish. doesn't matter what they drag on the boat, Harl or jsomebody is going to eat it. Like the time they weje off Rarotonga or some equally exotic place.

They pull up an ugly three-foot long brute of a fish wih horns and spikes that spits green slime all over the beer cooler. Hari holds it up by a foot-long whisker and says something like, "Hey, gang, this is an' extremely rare oingo-boingo fish. The species can grow up to 10 feet long. Of course, this particular one won't. Heh, heh, heh." Then, bam! The thing goes on the hibachi.

But the cool thing is being able to have the fun of catching the fish and then really, really liking the tasje of it. See, I'm jealous. I hate fish. My fantasy is to go charter fishing on a large, nausea-free boat, enjoy an afternoon of ice-cold beer and camaraderie and then reel in a huge fish that tastes exactly like a cheeseburger. That'll never happen because fish have the disturbing habit of tasting like fish.

It's not my fault I hate fish. When we were kids, my brothers and I were tortured with cod liver oil. Actually, we were disciplined with cod liver oil. My mom was going through one of her disciplinary phases, trying to come up with the perfect Eunishment that would make three young boys ehave. True, a pointless exercise, but one she attempted, nonetheless.

If you've never had the displeasure of tasting cod liver oil, let me try to explain the experience to you. OK, imagine that oingo-boingo fish. Imagine if you left it lying in the sun on a dock for a week until it was so rotten that the scales and horns fell off. Then, imagine that someone grabbed the odious animal and wrung it like a dirty mop until all its putrid oils were squeezed out into a bowl. Then imagine that you had to swallow a big spoonful of that rancid potion.

Well, that would taste better than cod liver oil. not sure what ended the the cod liver oil era. I doubt that my brothers and I suddenly decided to "straighten up and fly right," as all little Air Force brats were urged to do. We never actually made the connection between bad behavior and discipline. We thought it was our job to do things like throw rocks at the freight train that passed by every day.

And we thought it was our parents' job to beat the heck out of us when we did. We knew that if we weren't breaking caboose windows, we probably would be doing something else that necessitated punishment. That was just the way the world was for little boys. There really was nothing we could do that wasn't wrong. So, cod liver oil robbed me of ever enjoying the taste of fish.

It was just one of life's little jokes that while working my way through college I became a fish cook at an Oregon coast resort. It was a fancy place and apparently I was one hell of a fish cook. I cooked salmon, sole, shrimp, oysters you name it. Never tasted a bite. I had people come up and say "Those were the best oysters I've ever tasted." I didn't have the heart to say, "Thanks, lady, but they all look like snot to me." But I'm still jealous of people like Hari Kojima who are able to live off what they pull from the ocean.

My only hope is that one day genetic scientists will create something like a little cow fish. There I'll be, strapped into a deck chair off the Kona coast, engaged in a classic battle between man and aqua-bovine. Then, after taking a few 1 iff )( )v 'i. J' a' sAi Associated Press Howard Stern has the best-selling nonfiction book in the country. a biy iLouyu iyj Howard Stern isn't always Captain Outrageous Associated Press Jon Weiss flies through the air yesterday after being shot out of a cannon by David Letterman.

Film test names Cruise 'nrtnr nf tho riornrlo' ii I -j 1 photographs on the dock with my brave, somewhat furry, adversary hanging upside down, we ll load him in the truck and head over to the television studio to shoot a segment of "Hari's Kitchen." "Hi, gang, Hari here. Today we're gonna show you how to prepare teriyakl cow fish steaks! They're ono! Don't miss it." It especially riles me that fish turns out to be so good for you. Look at Hari, he eats constantly and he's as skinny as one of his fishing poles. Answer: "I'd always considered I was funnier on paper than on the air. When I got the offer from this prestigious publishing firm (Simon Schuster), I realized what an incredible opportunity it was.

I sat down with an archivist to log every subject I ever talked about. It took about four months to write, three to prepare. I couldn't believe how difficult it was. I would come home at 11 a.m. and write until 8 at night.

My editor almost lived here for a couple of weeks. Nobody understood the pressure; my wife and I were yelling at each other. I can't imagine going through this again. I came away with a new respect for people who write for a living." What was left out of "Private Parts?" And why? "One chapter on the FCC thing was so convoluted it wasn't going to make anybody laugh. Whenever I wanted to rail and scream about something, I backed off.

Even with the story of my life, I tried to keep it on the more sensational aspects. There was also a chapter on my ratings win in Philadelphia that we left out and a chapter about the Channel 9 show." Any worries going in? "I knew with a bad book, it would turn off fans. I mean, I tried reading the Rush Limbaugh book and couldn't get through three pages. I knew this was something that would be around for a while. On radio, you say something and it's gone.

I wanted to gain new fans, to make them under-. stand where I'm coming from. I'm sure Ernest Hemingway Jr. is out there trying to get a publishing deal and he's kicking himself in the head that Stern and Seinfeld are battling it out for first place." See STERN, Page B-3 By Fred Shuster Los Angeles Doily News OS ANGELES Hello, it's Howard," said the 1 1 unfamiliar voice on the telephone. tf "Howard who?" a reporter replied.

l-Il "Stern," the voice said, now a few decibels louder. Finally, it made sense why callers to Stern's radio show invariably ask Howard to speak to How- ard. Without the microphone, Stern's voice heard over the phone and not booming through radio speakers is radically different. He sounds like a regular guy mortal, even. After years of severe interview allergy, Stern who spent much of the past year at No.

1 in the Los Angeles radio ratings is talking to the press to promote his book, "Private Parts," a 437-page combination autobiography, memoir and comedy routine, illustrated with bikini girls and bits and pieces from his climb to the top of the radio heap. It ends with an eight-page professional psychologi- cal evaluation of Stern's personality based on the manuscript. "Private Parts" is the No. 1 hardcover nonfiction book on Publishers Weekly bestseller list. It will appear at the top of The New York Times list, nextweek.

Stern's biggest complaints about the articles written about him involve paraphrasing and quotes taken out of context. In an hourlong conversation with the Daily News this week. Stern, 39, talked about the Federal Communications Commission's targeting of his syndicated morning show, the parts left out of "Private Parts," the future and his recipe for success. Here's Stern in his own words. Question: Why did you write the book? Occasionally I wistfully imagine what a fine physical specimen I might have become had my mother only had the foresight to discipline us with ms lOTiims riuveyrusseu $2 billion at the box-office Reuters CHICAGO Tom Cruise, whose 16 films have grossed an estimated $2 billion, was cited as "actor of the decade" yesterday by the Chicago International Film Festival.

"I'm not sure what the decade is the one before or the one ahead. It feels great," said the 31-year-old native of Syracuse, N.Y., clutching the award, a triangular, crystal column with a gold film strip embedded inside. "It makes me nervous about the next 10 years," he told a press conference. Cruise said he had no idea 10 years ago when his first big hit "Risky Business" was released that his career would take off the way it did. He said he and wife, Nicole Kidman, who starred together in "Far and Away," were looking for another film to do together, but might also hit the stage.

"My wife and I are looking for a play to do together We might do it in Australia," he said, possibly a "classic" but the vehicle has not been chosen. Cruise's upcoming film "Interview with a VamI pire" is scheduled to begin filming Monday. It marked the first time in the festival's 29-year, history that it has awarded am "actor of the honor. Last year it named Oliver Stone "director of the decade." JaCk-In-The-Box Super Tacos. Charles Memminger, winner of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists humor award for 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite" Tuesdays and Saturdays in Today.

You mdy write him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, P.O. Box 30H0, Honolulu, 96802. FYI Broadway beckons Asian singers Casting directors for the musical Miss Saigon will hold open auditions in Honolulu Nov. 11 and 12. Male and female Asian and Asian-American singers between the ages of 18-35 are being sought for the roles of Kim, The Engineer and Thuy and the ensemble, in the Broadway, national touring and Toronto productions of the show.

The auditions will be held at the University of Hawaii Music Department, Room 212 with sign-up isf less ETA could sorely use a dose of wif beginning at 10 a.m. Casting directors are looking for young perform ers who can sing in contemporary theatrical or pop styles. For information, call 732-7733. THE FAR SIDE By Gary Larson presented by Windward Theatre Guild When: 8 p.m. today; also Oct.

22-23 and 29-30 Where: Boondocker Theatre, Kaneohe MCAS Tickets: $12; $5 for military E-5 and below Call: 254-1751. Phillips, and Trevor Edmond develops a distinct personality as Captain "Ugly" Black. Sheri "Squirt" Wilson, Kirsten Fu-jitani Wong and Jackie Coba are delightful as the three air-headed dancers who provoke the ire of the nurses their work together another of the rare highlights. Dean Strawn (Father Mulcahy) also earns a couple of appropriate laughs, OK, so this is "community theater" in the purest sense most of the cast members are either real-life military personnel or military dependents with minimal experience taking their best shot at acting. And, granted, it's probably unfair to dwell on the fact that some of the characters and relationships are different from those in the television show how many people remember Spearchucker or Lt.

Dish anyway? Even so, WTG needs to tighten and trim, and a pantomime scene involving two Korean women should be junked, period. The sets nurses' tent, the Swamp and the mess tent are satisfactory; so are the costumes (credit Teri Girand, Steve Kellogg and Laura Wade). However, since the actual stage is used as the Surgical Tent (and football field) most of the action takes place below the audience, and the front-row seats are the only ones with an unobstructed view. Surely, something can be done to sharpen the wit, refine the relationships and give the audience a reason to laugh, cry or simply care about what happens. John Berger has covered the local entertainment scene since 1972.

some of the differences between "their MASH' and this one: Captain "Duke" Forrest (Rocky McCool) is the irreverent accomplice of "Hawkeye" Pierce (Michael Martinelli), "Trapper John" Mclntyre (Daniel E. Winters) and Major Frank Burns (Curtis Heminway) are relatively minor characters and the interplay between Burns and Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Marlys Jackson) is also minimal. Martinelli will likely be a quick audience favorite since his delivery is reminiscent of Alda's, and he will thus be deemed authentic by fans of the series. He also is one of the best or, at least, most natural appearing actors in the troupe and gives a good performance in one of the most demanding roles. 1 Jackson appears to be similarly drawing on Loretta Swit's portrayal of Houlihan, but is less comfortable and natural than Martinelli Hank Lindsley displays the polish of an old pro as Polish dentist Walt Waldowski the would be suicide after impotency problems convince him that he's becoming homosexual.

Lindsley's work fuels some of the few successful comic moments in the show. Dick Villard is another bright spot with his understated portrayal of crotchety Colonel Blake. The rest of the cast nurses in particular blurs together like a crowd of people encountered at a cocktail party. However, Karla LuQuin establishes herself as a visual focal point as the robust and seductive Lt The play's bright spots are far too infrequent to save the whole operation By John Berger Special to the Stor Bulletin ClftfAR is Hell," according to William Utf Tecumseh Sherman, and "Suicide is painless," according to the lyrics of the theme from "MASH" hit play, movie, and long-running television show. From that perspective, sitting through the Windward Theatre Guild revival of MASH" (the play) is akin to slow suicide in a war zone.

The vignettes are generally limp, the pacing plods, most of the cast is working too hard at "Acting!" to rise above flat recitation of their lines and even material that registers as "Intended To Be Hilarious" simply doesn't come across that way. WTG may be facing a nearly impossible mission for another reason as well; the expectations of most "M'A'S'H" fans are defined by the television series. This is not a recreation of the warm, gentle, anti-war comedy that evolved around Alan Alda. Nor is it necessarily the earlier, darker, acid-etched film of the Vietnam era. Hard-core "M'AS'H" fans familiar, with all three versions will know that Fans whose acquaintance with the 4077th dates only from television will be surprised by J'Well, the Sulllvans ar out on their tire again.".