David Whitley can’t help but get pulled along by the fame bandwagon in Los Angeles.

“I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about you. You’ve just got it. With the right people looking after you, you can make it,” the old soak continues, hauling an escaped globule of tell-tale drool back in from his lower lip. He’s worked himself up into a distinctly homoerotic frenzy over the poor chap who just happens to be on the stool next to him. A young actor, struggling with a bar job until his big break arrives, he’s just come in for a drink. Instead, he has stoically sat through an hour of amorous intentions being thinly disguised as a career pep talk.

And the well-oiled stranger, having racked his brain for a single black actor that may work as a comparison point, is ready for the killer line. “You could be the next Sidney Poitier,” he pants.

It’s met with an almost imperceptible roll of the eyes, and a tiny, exasperated head shake towards the bar. The barmaid has sensed his torture and security are on the way.

The ancient Hawaiians believed that the sacred waters of Waikiki bay had great ‘mana’ - spiritual healing powers.

With a head that still thumped – from a combination of Longboard beer, gin and tequila – I was hoping that there might still be some truth in this. I had been at a party in a house full of students from University of Hawaii. Even apart from a fairly raucous round of the student drinking game known as King’s Cup it had been a strange evening. The puritanical 21 year-old age-limit on alcohol had led to a couple of unusual (mis-)adventures. Early in the evening the excessively law-abiding staff of a 7-11 refused to sell me beer because I didn’t have ‘the correct ID.’ I pointed to the ample signs of 41 years of hardship and toil in the lines around my eyes and wondered aloud that although I respected their rules ‘was there no possibility whatsoever that common sense might prevail.’ There wasn’t.