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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, January 31, 2008

SHOW BIZ
'Colt the Warrior' plays homage in song

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Columnist

"Colt the Warrior" by The Mana'o Company


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COLT'S SONG: Danny Kennedy and Rick Ornellas have composed a country-flavored song, performed by The Mana'o Company, which pays homage to Colt Brennan, the University of Hawai'i Warriors hero. It's called "Colt the Warrior" and is the stuff of legends, about the heartbeat and soul of the Manoa football team that united the state and made believers out of everyone.

"He never took credit, always gave it to his team," Ornellas' lyrics say. "Just look at what he achieved because he believed."

It's sort of a folk-hero ditty, in the realm of, say, "Davy Crockett," with a sweet and harmonic rendering by Kaulana Pakele, who sang "Moloka'i Slide" with the group Ehukai.

"I wrote the song in December," says Ornellas, who brought the words to Kennedy to provide the melodic framework.

Alas, with topical tunes like this, timing is everything, so with football season pau, Brennan getting his pro ball career going and June Jones (mentioned only as "coach" in the song) also history, "Colt the Warrior" is a rallying cry unleashed after the game. Michael W. Perry and Larry Price aired it the other morning on KSSK. There are plans to have the tune, crisply engineered by the brilliant Dave Tucciarone, available on iTunes in a few weeks. Hear a snippet at www.honoluluadvertiser.com. ...

ITEMIZATIONS: An unsubstantiated buzz in Hollywood — that a Don Ho biopic is on the radar, with Keanu Reeves among the A-list to portray Mr. Tiny Bubbles. But can he sing? ...

After five months as a communications exec at Hawaiian Telcom, Ron Mizutani has left, apparently for personal reasons. Street talk is that he's heading back to KHON-2, where he logged a long career as a reporter, sports guy and news anchor, dating back to 1985. And frankly, the station could use his presence again. ...

As much as Hong Kong-born opera artists Dong-Jiang Gong and Warren Mok might want to partake of Chinese New Year's festivities tomorrow in Chinatown, duty calls — they're in the Hawaii Opera Theatre's "Don Carlo." Gong sings King Phillip II and Mok has the title role. ...

CURTAIN CALLS: Half the house at Friday night's performance of "Doubt," the sure-to-get-you-thinking drama at Manoa Valley Theatre, stayed on after the final curtain to pose questions to Father Gary Secor and Sister Joan Chatfield about the sexual molestation-pedophilia theme of the play. In "Doubt," Sister Aloysius is played by Jo Pruden with uncanny fidelity as a rigid Catholic principal out to depose Father Flynn (Russell Motter, displaying credible candor), who is suspected of improper relations with a student, or is his just trying to provide some teacherly kokua for a problem child? Curiously, moderator Dwight Martin asked who was truthful, and the raised hands showed a split decision, proving this one could rightfully be played with two different endings. But nope, the John Patrick Shanley Tony Award winner is not written that way; you go, you watch, you decide the guilt and innocence on your own. ...

The MVT board, buoyed by new members who like to party, is ramping up activities. Darilyn Fernandez (from The Advertiser's marketing department) arranged a board/staff soiree at the home of board member Janis Akuna and husband Andy Friedlander, at which new board members Lauri Yanagawa (CoreGroupOne) and Elizabeth Hata-Watanabe (The O Lounge) got the old guard, including president Jeff Portnoy (the attorney and sportscaster) and producing director Dwight Martin, to play silly parlor games and act out scenes from past shows. Board members Joey Caldarone, Cathy Foy and Guy Merola each sang an impromptu number, and Merola also announced that MVT's annual fundraiser, "Manoa Marquee," will honor AIG's Robin Campaniano April 20 at the Hawai'i Convention Center.

Merola demonstrated he can wield a machete as effectively as a mike at an MVT grounds cleanup Saturday. ...

TIDBITS: When Don Asam, general manager of Ruth's Chris Steak House in Restaurant Row, and wife Liz dined out at Romano's Macaroni Grill, restaurant manager John Langan couldn't believe that Asam was eating the Italian restaurant's favored Tuscan rib-eye steak. So Langan told Asam he'd chow on spaghetti and meatballs at Ruth's Chris next time he's there — an 'ohana gag, really, since both eateries are part of Randy Schoch's Desert Island family of restaurants. ...

Kamasami Kong is heard on TOKYO-FM on a weekly jazz program, a daily show on the JFN network and a weekly syndicated show heard throughout Japan. We earlier listed his previous call letters. ...

And that's Show Biz. ...

Show Biz is published Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach Wayne Harada at 525-8067, wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com or fax 525-8055.

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