Hawaii

We had a close encounter with Hawaiian music at a restaurant called "Duke's".  Duke himself is apparently famous as The Man Who Popularised Surfing Throughout The World.  (And if there was a Country of Surf, Duke would be Jesus Christ).  

Duke’s is a pretty cool place, with surfboards and pictures and fishtanks everywhere - the three of us had a decent meal and Lisa was delighted to find that your appetiser is  referred to as your pupu.  

It took about 30 minutes to recover.  We’re sophisticates all right.  Caro had the calamari, which Brownie noted, “Looks like foetus and tastes like plimsoles.”  Caro seemed to enjoy it.

We were serenaded by an old chick with a ukelele and a backing band consisting of women dressed in grass skirts with fruit on their heads.  

They sang "On a Coconut Island (I'd Like to Be A Castaway With You)" and I tried to hold Caro's hand and to Look Meaningfully at her, but she wasn't having it.  Meanwhile Brownie was distracted by Old Chick's toenails which were abnormally long and sort of overlapped.

"Jesus!  You wouldn't want to toe-suck THOSE!  That would be FERAL!"
Brownie has a unique talent to bring all conversations around to the truly feral extremely quickly.  

Earlier that same day Caro and Brownie had found some intriguing fingernail-covers in a gift shop.  They were decorated with little Hawaiian women in real grass skirts.  (Look, I said they were intriguing, I didn’t say tasteful).

"Imagine putting a tampon up with THOSE on," suggested Brownie.  "They'd come out with the wet look."

So you can understand my consternation at sharing dinner with this little person.  Sure enough it didn’t take her long to notice a woman wearing a very tight silky dress and no underwear.

"Oh those things create terrible static electricity with your pubes," she announced.  "She's bound to get a shock right up flange if she carries on with that sort of malarky."

This prompted a discussion of the Brazilian Wax.  Of course it did.  The 
Brazilian always comes up in any conversation if you hang out with Brownie long enough.  For those of you who don't know, this is the wax treatment that all models must have around their - well - um - if you want to model a bikini then there's certain hair that needs to be RIPPED OUT BY THE ROOTS.  I don't think that even the Spanish Inquisition employed such tactics.

"You have to get on all fours," explained Caro, "so they can reach around to your arse."

"God, what if you farted?" asked Brownie.

Brownie noted my reaction and observed, "And this from people who get smegma."

Of course, the music at Duke’s was merely a tourist version of proper Hawaiian culture, and I suppose if Caro, Lisa and I were serious tourists we would have sought out genuine Hawaiian music, food and ceremony.  Instead we booked ourselves on the Sunset Buffet Dinner Cruise.  

This was a very pleasant way to spend an evening, and the three of us crowded onto the deck where I did my Celine Dion "My Heart Will Go On" bit before watching the sun go down.  Then we re-entered the cabin just in time for dinner and to watch Jonathan Von Brana, last year's winner of the "Best Elvis in The Universe" contest in Las Vegas.

It was immediately obvious why.  I mean, the "Aloha Las Vegas" Elvis was good, but this guy was GREAT.  He did "Vegas" era Elvis with total conviction, karate moves, silk scarves, everything but the chocolate covered hamburgers basically.  It was FABULOUS.  We trooped happily back to our hotel and watched "3000 Miles to Graceland" until we were all Elvis-ed out.