Post #303249 by bigbrotiki on Tue, May 1, 2007 10:51 AM

On 2007-04-30 20:51, RevBambooBen wrote:
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot......

Sssshhhh, Ben, ist ja gut, ist ja gut...we share your loss and pain. It's another little death. This has been going on for a hundred years. Here's what I wrote in Chapter 18 of Tiki Modern (entitled "THE DECLINE OF TIKI ...and the Fall of the House of Witco"):"...In an ironic twist of history repeating itself, the new Tiki temples of Polynesian pop met the same fate as their antecedents of Polynesian antiquity. They fell into disrepair and were razed (or remodeled into unrecognizable stucco boxes).
This consequence of a changing times was nothing new: Lotte Lenya intoned Bertold Brechts "Bilbao Song" ("Bill's ballroom in Bilbao, Bilbao / Now it's renovated-- into something decent / Like every other establishment") decades before Joni Mitchell sang, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" about the razing of the Garden of Allah apartment complex..."

The loss of this urban Eden is what supposedly inspired that song:
http://www.gardenofallah.com/GOA_original.asp