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All About Cherry Capri
Autobiography
Chapter 8) A Date with Destiny in the Desert
I headed out to the beautiful city of Palm Springs to an event called Tiki Oasis. It is an annual all weekend party hosted by my friend Otto Von Stroheim. As I was wandering around the tropical hotel grounds I saw a scruffy face that looked familiar.
Later that night a group of us sat around the pool sharing stories, drinking mai tais and this same scruffy looking
fellow asked me if I wanted to sing along with him as he played the bongos. I asked him if he knew Tiny Bubbles.
And he said of course he did, as he was slated to be in Don Ho’s band at one point in his life.
As he said that – I looked beyond the long hair and goatee and realized where I had seen his face before.
When he saw the look of recognition, C.B. explained to me that he had been brought in as a ringer in the pit band
for the contest I had entered back at Honolulu High. His mom had sent him to boarding school in Hawaii and after graduation he had decided to stay there for another year or two. His chances of being a famous drummer were curtailed by our unfortunate accident when I broke his arm from my fall at the Honolulu High School auditorium. He ended up spending years as a bongo player before he ever picked up the sticks again.
He explained how we had ‘met’ a second time in Las Vegas years before at the
Meat Packer’s convention. He was engaged to the "Chain Mail" Hot Dogs heiress. He said I was the reason they had split up.
I started to feel absolutely terrible realizing what a bad luck charm I had been for him,
but he quickly countered that I was the best thing that ever happened to him.
He explained how he never would have learned to play bongos had it not been for the first accident.
Bongos became his signature instrument. And after the Vegas episode, his fiance was so jealous seeing another
woman on top of him the engagement fell apart. She told him that “to be perfectly frank, she loved her hot dogs
more than him.” She had wanted him to quit the bongos and take over the family business for her, but when he realized he was just a piece of meat to her, he was able to move on and renewed his love affair with music.
When he began to talk about his family, I realized we had even more in common.
C.B.’s mother kept him away at boarding schools for most of his life and he never met his real father. But he did name his band after dear old dad, Thurston Howell III. The same man who was my benefactor!
His mother, Erica Tiffany Smith, visited my parent's island near Hawaii in 1965 looking to build a resort and looking for a husband. It’s weird to think that Ms. Smith and my father almost had a thing, but it was my mother’s influence that truly intervened.
While trying to teach Roy how to approach Erica romantically, Ginger’s charms left an indelible mark on my father so that Erica’s plans to seduce Roy were thwarted. Instead, she renewed an old flame with a certain millionaire and in the end created C.B. To think we were almost brother and sister! It was kismet.
C.B. and I realized we had a musical destiny to fulfill and I was brought on as a featured singer with the band.
