Jimmy Borges is on Facebook.

He just signed up last week. He already has more than 300 friends.

He dutifully updates his status with witty, self-deprecating one-liners; the sort of endearing asides he's perfected in his 53 years in show business.

"Jimmy is pointing, pressing and hoping not to hurt himself;

"Jimmy is afraid of joining a cult by pressing the wrong button;

"Jimmy is going back to bed. Weather looks lousy for golf."

He claims he's an old dude (73) struggling to keep up with new media, but there he is, posting, commenting, Facebooking up a storm.

"I am so anachronistic about the Internet and I'm trying to cram a world of knowledge into an aging brain," he wrote in an e-mail interview. "BTW, I just learned how to do e-mail about 9 months ago."

(Love the "BTW," yeah? Jimmy Borges is so hip!)

Borges' Facebook page includes a gallery of great photos from his career as a singer and actor — Jimmy with Richard Pryor, Jimmy with Tony Bennett, Jimmy with a Bond Girl and on and on. It's even better than the wall at Keo's. One of the best shots was taken in 1973 when he was playing a hitman on Hawaii Five-0. He looks like he could be the third member of Cheech and Chong É or Cecilio and Kapono. Another photo shows a grinning golf trio: Borges, Ben Cayetano and June Jones. Jimmy Borges knows everybody.

His friend Michi Moore, a freelance photographer and viral marketer, got him signed up on Facebook.

"I helped him launch it and now he's running it himself," Moore said.

She also has encouraged other Hawai'i entertainers to get into online networking.

"Many of our kupunas are not internet savvy, and with their permission and blessings, I get their story out (calendars, past articles, etc.) via the social networking sites," she said. "The young ones know all about the Internet so they're good to go, but folks such as Mihana, Uncle Bill Tapia, The Ebb Tides, Melveen to name a few É I know I'd be interested to read about the 'happenings' of these legendary folks."

The thing is, Jimmy Borges was Facebooking before Facebook was invented. He pretty much does know everybody. He's performed at every benefit in town; he's golfed with every golfer; he's cracked jokes in line at McDonald's. Jimmy Borges is a social networking genius.

"As I'm learning to merge into the cyberworld, I'm realizing that all of this stuff, Facebook, MySpace, etcetera, is just a technical manifestation of ALOHA," he said. "I don't want to get corny about it, but that's what it is at its highest level. At least it is to me."

And by the way, Jimmy Borges is also on MySpace.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.