Post #272731 by bigbrotiki on Fri, Dec 15, 2006 8:19 AM

While I completely agree and would have had exactly the same reaction than Dr. Tiki Mojo's to his experience, I was just struck with the irony that, to the post WWII generation, going to a Tiki Bar (more often than not) was just about what he witnessed at Tiki Tom's:

Gettin' plastered and gettin' laid (or fantasizing about it)! 50s Americans did not go there for the ART. The mugs were throwaway items, and all the other stuff (that seems so intricate and baroque to us nowadays) was just window dressing to them...and often not only to the customers, but to the proprietors as well.

If any of us went to a Tiki temple as children, it was of course the art and concepts that really impressed us, because A.) we couldn't drink, and B.) we had no interest in sex.

We Tikiphiles today are really like archeology professors "observing" the primitive customs of the past. And, rightfully, mourning the loss of style and culture today.

Not that I mind observing, I am 51 now, and I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

And, to counteract any posts that are aghast at my musings, I KNOW that style and culture and fun are not excluding one another, proof: Vintage Tiki culture.