Rap’s humor often does more than make people laugh – it cuts to the core of stereotypes surrounding Hawaiian people. In this video, Dean of Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge at the University of Hawaiʻi, Jon Osorio tells why Rap’s “Room Service” telephone operator is not just funny. In her own kolohe way, she is showing hotel guest Mr. Fogerty that she’s more than a tourist industry worker at the other end of the line ready to cater to his need for a cheeseburger deluxe and a chocolate malt.
Rap’s Hawaii clip courtesy KGMB/Hawaii Now.
Jon and his singing partner, the late Randy Borden, appeared with Rap at the Ala Moana Hotel’s venue, “Rap’s Place” in the early 80s. Here’s an excerpt from Rap’s biography, “Paradise to Paradise: The Rap Reiplinger Story,” about that moment in time, May 1980, when Rap opened in the nightclub the hotel named for him:
Honolulu Advertiser critic Wayne Harada told his readers, “Reiplinger’s return to the nightlife scene — Wednesdays through Saturdays in the newly renovated ‘Rap’s Place’ — is worth your support.” Harada also declared that Rap had “a firmer show foundation, complete with a decent stage and dressier lighting…” And as expected, Rap served up what Harada described as “a volley of ethnic couplings, funnies that reflect the melting pot that Hawaii is — with lines that would be racist elsewhere, but cleverly effective under Reiplinger’s command.”
Along with proven favorites such as Rap’s water-spewing performance of “Fate Yanagi,” and his drunken, rubber chicken-holding character, “Aunty Marialani,” Harada also complimented Rap’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” parody, “Puka Shell Tour Guide,” calling it the “big windup… with taped music augmenting Reiplinger’s singing and guitar strumming.” For that run at the Ala Moana Hotel, Rap’s opening act was singer Victoria Stringer. By June, his opening act at “Rap’s Place” was the duo Jon and Randy, who like Rap, were Territorial Tavern alumni. Jon Osorio said he and his singing partner, the late Randy Borden, felt a bond develop with Rap during their time together at the Ala Moana.
“There were things about his personality,” Jon reflected, adding, “he was shyer in person than you would have thought. And I think a lot more thoughtful about what he was doing than most people gave him credit for. He really, I think, comedians are really an interesting group of people. Because Rap was the kind of person, that if he didn’t know people, he had to kind of be on and people were expecting him to be funny. Around Randy and I, when we got to know each other, he tended to be more quiet. I think he loved Randy, ’cause Randy loved to talk and Randy was a very expansive person and funny in his own right, so I think Rap really liked that.”
Jon remembers Rap being “generous with his praise of us, he seemed to like us performing there.” The feeling was mutual. “His first show was always so funny and every night was the same damn show,” Jon laughed, holding his face, “but we would come out and just laugh. The second show was sometimes different and he would try different things; he did a little more adlibbing in the second show. We often stayed — we didn’t have to stay for the second show, we could have left, but we usually stayed for that show too.”
It was also during their appearances together at the Ala Moana that Jon, Randy and Rap would get into deep discussions about Hawaiian activism, which was gaining momentum. “So, when we had conversations, a lot of times they were about what was going on with Hawaiians; what was going on in the society right then,” Jon recalled. “Nobody was talking about sovereignty in 1980, nobody that I knew. But we did talk about Hawaiians getting pushed around on Hawaiian Homelands. We did talk about those kinds of things. We talked about Kaho‘olawe and he was interested — that song, ‘Hawaiian Soul,’ he liked that song and he was interested in that whole story about George Helm, and that was another story shrouded in mystery — nobody ‘til this day knows what happened to George and Kimo. And we had conversations about that, too.”
Jon and Randy wrote “Hawaiian Soul,” as a tribute to George Helm, who was lost at sea with another activist, Kimo Mitchell as they tried to reach Kaho‘olawe in 1977 in protest against U.S. military bombing of the island.
For Rap, who knew George Helm, and cared about the Hawaiian movement to protect the land, the beautiful, haunting words and music written by his friends struck a chord.
Rap’s humor is still making people laugh all these years later. Watch Facebook for an upcoming post about how “Japanese Roll Call” helped comedian and social media influencer Pashyn Santos impress her friends in elementary school!