A View From a Broad Read Online Free PDF Page A

myself, is that Mainlanders are brought up to believe that navy blue, beige and gray are the colors of good breeding and good taste, while in my part of the world those colors are worn only by clerics and dowagers. This is more significant thanyou may imagine, for I grew up in a blaze of color provided not only by orchids, bougainvillea, hibiscus and all sorts of other aggressively flamboyant works of nature, but by the people, who decorated themselves in ways that could blind the uninitiated eye. Yellow, aqua, orange, red, fuchsia and chartreuse was a combination I particularly favored . . . ah, quel spectacle!
    Of course, my roots are always in evidence whenever I put a show together, because I inevitably include at least one tropical number. I took part in so many Polynesian Festivals that show biz and the hula are synonymous to me.
    My first hula teacher was a lady named Kuulei Burke, and she was held in much awe because her great-great-grandmother had danced in King Kalakaua’s court. She weighed in at 250 and liked to throw it around. I was not a favorite of Mrs. Burke’s and was always put in the back row with the other little girls who were not so hot. I didn’t care though, because I couldn’t remember the steps anyway, not to mention what my hands were supposed to be doing. I always had to keep my eye on the girl next to me so I could navigate my way through the maze of movement that was Mrs. Burke’s hallmark as a choreographer. If she caught anyone cheating in this fashion, she would make the poor chump stay after class and sweep up—a considerable punishment if you’ve ever seen the way a grass skirt sheds.
    Mrs. Burke wore her hair in a large bun perched right on top of her head—very appealing if you happened to be a bird. Once when my class of utter losers was to perform at a local talent show, she insisted that we all wear our hair that way too. Mustering up the full strength of her 250 pounds, she pulled my hair up and back so tight that I had only two little slits where my eyes used to be. My usual trick for checking out the steps was completely out of the question.
    As it turned out, that was the best thing that could have happened. Having absolutely no idea what the hell I was doing, I danced blindly out of the back row, knocking down several of Mrs. Burke’s pets in the front, and emerged triumphant center stage. The audience roared and cheered me on. Suddenly I was in the spotlight, and I wasn’t going back. I was just about to segue into a torrid little Tahitian number when two of the older girls came onstage and carried me off, kicking, into the wings.
    Mrs. Burke was furious, but those few unfettered moments in the limelight were my first lesson in the power of spontaneity, and it was a lesson from which I’m still learning.
    Anyway, that’s what it was really like to grow up in Hawaii. Don’t you think I should stick to the Tong Wars?

• DEATH BY RELISH •
    “All I needed was a great persona, and that I could invent.”

• DEATH BY RELISH •
    I t was the last day of rehearsal, and there was so much I had to do. Unfortunately, I did nothing. Instead, I spent the day stuck inside a hot dog suit.
    Unbeknownst to me, the demented designers of my ten-foot marvel had used Krazy-Glu in its construction. As luck—and the lack of proper circulation inside the wiener—would have it, the glue never set properly. As soon as I stepped inside for a fitting, my just-brushed hair formed an instant and permanent bond with the rubber foam. I screamed for my hairdresser to cut me out, but he was gone, off to the Dinah Shore Show to discuss the carcinogenic effects of hair dyes on certain kinds of elderly rats. I couldn’t just give a yank and let the hairs fall as they might. Not with my Seattle premiere only days away. There was nothing to do but wait.
    It’s funny, you know, the things that go through your mind while you’re waiting to suffocate inside a rubber-foam wiener. Things like: