Post #1468 by rch427 on Tue, May 14, 2002 5:04 PM

My version of the ideal tiki bar begins by boat--a la Disney's Jungle Cruise (although without the snappy banter). The pre-war wooden launch pulls away from the river dock just outside our front door and chugs quietly downstream, through forest increasingly tropical. After wending its way along for ten minutes (or faster, depending upon our thirst), we reach the lagoon, as from Gilligan's Island. Liat, from the movie "South Pacific", swims up to us and bestows leis upon all passengers as we walk the gangplank down to the lagoon's beach. The trees and shrubbery around us abound with exotic creatures. Directly ahead of us up the beach, a cleft among a formation of lava conceals a huge carved stone head, with an open mouth large enough to enter through. (There's a garden in Italy with a carved stone head with a mouth you walk through, but I believe that one leads to the gates of hell. Different head.)

Illuminated by flickering torches, we descend a gentle slope to reach the maitre d's podium. Thor Heyerdahl greets us and shows us to a booth in a dimly-lit room set up like the Tonga Room, circa 1968. A couple dozen familiar faces are scattered around the room, attached to their respective heads and bodies, in various states of sobriety and gaiety. Couples are cha-cha-cha-ing on the dance floor. On a raft in the middle of the pool are Martin Denny and his combo, taking requests. Jane Seymour--exactly as she was as "Solitare" in "Live and Let Die", sits alone in the next booth, shuffling a tarot deck. Small tropical birds that have been trained to cheep quietly and only poop where permitted flit around, and geckos climb the walls. Donn Beach is mixing drinks which are served by an assortment of Sylvain's models in pareos. A kitchen somewhere hidden down a soundproof tunnel is roasting a soy-pig. Every three minutes, a serving girl comes by with a tray of endlessly varying finger-foods from different Pacific cultures.

The smoking room, off to one side, has two billliard tables and an eight-hose hookah full of the Turkish hash that one can legally buy for $3 a gram, about a mile away from where I now sit, digressing. A vast Leeteg velvet mural covers all four walls. Walter Wanderley sits in the corner and noodles on the B3. The young Astrud Gilberto wistfully sips a cocktail next to him on the bench, idly swinging one foot in rhythm.

Across the dining room, another tunnel leads to a warren of individual guest caves, each with an ocean or lagoon view and set up for providing optimal comfort to guests who are expecting hangovers.

If we take the back exit of the dining room, we emerge onto the beach, which is programmed for perpetual sunset and mild surf tuned to the key of A major 7. Soledad Miranda wanders mysteriously by the shore in a diaphanous gown. As we walk back on the path to the lagoon, we pass numerous carved wooden and stone figures, weathering away in charming decrepitude, illuminated by the full moon. At the lagoon's edge is a small pier that we walk along to its end, where we climb down into one of Disneyland's original submarines. However, this one has a bamboo bar cart down inside, serving headhunters and painkillers (the cocktails). Outside, polynesian mermaids swim with dolphins and assorted fish among the wrecks of the Spanish Main. At the helm is Cap'n McCallister ("Aahrr!") and...

I think it's time I went off to bed.