Post #179823 by Thomas on Mon, Aug 15, 2005 3:43 PM

General Hawaii nostalgia seems OK for "main discussion area" instead of bilge, so here goes. I'm enjoying "Magical Mystery Tours: My Life With the Beatles" (Bramwell, Tony, 2005) and one passage has a great portrayal of 1969 Hawaii and a few references with I found very humorous, and I think a few TCers will too. Quote (with omissions) (p. 332-333):
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With ABBEY ROAD in the bag, ready to be launched, Klein announced that we would be going to the Capitol Records/Apple convention, to be held in Hawaii ... Our team was mainly a very happy Allen Klein, who was finally in charge of the Beatles, and me and Jack Oliver who were in charge of drinking since I didn't think Klein would allow us to say much and we had no intention of hanging out with him anyway.

But I must admit it was wonderful to fly to Hawaii in a Boeing 707 in 1969 before it became so touristy. It was like being in the start of a Bond movie, the one where Ursula Andress came up out of the sea in that white swimsuit. The whole island smelled as if it had been sprayed over with the most wonderful subtle perfume. It was quite heady. As well as the small British contingent, Klein brought a load of his own people from New York ... Klein was very buoyant, practically bouncing around like a beach ball, slapping backs and beaming. "Look at me! Top of the world, Ma!" He spent the afternoons playing tennis with the Italian crowd from New York, running all over the court showing off, while Jack and I did the PR thing from our lounge chairs on the terrace, with lots of tropical booze served in hollowed-out pineapples. Every now and then, Jack would glance across at Klein and say, "Look at the fat bastard. I'd like to stuff this pineapple right up his jaxsey."

I said, "Nice thought. Great waste."

Our hotel, which was right on Waikiki Beach, was the hotel where the TV series HAWAII FIVE-0 was filmed. About a thousand drunks, in what is now known as "the full Jimmy Buffett" of lurid shirts and baggy shorts, staggered around with their pineapples slopping, laughing and mimicking Jack Lord's big closing line: "Book him Dann-O. Murder One." The cabaret was Freda Payne, doing "Band of Gold," and Glen Campbell and Joe South -- big mates of Elvis -- also performed. Elvis himself happened to be making a film there at the time and Glen and Joe introduced us to him. We didn't say a great deal; one never does in those situations. It was just a handshake and, "How do you do?"

I was totally in awe. His voice sounded as if he were speaking the words to "American Trilogy," as if he'd said, "Look away, Dixieland!" He looked fantastic and I remembered how that earlier summer in Los Angeles, the colonel had given me some tickets for his "comeback" -- which also happened to be in Hawaii...
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end of quote
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Hmm, "the full Jimmy Buffett" -- I'll have to remember that. (Yikes! I just had a very disturbing mental image!) On top of which, anything which references Hawaii Five-0 is cool by me.

[ Edited by: tropicalguy 2005-08-15 15:45 ]

[ Edited by: tropicalguy 2005-08-15 15:47 ]