Post #329212 by pablus on Fri, Aug 31, 2007 12:38 AM

OK, it's not really an interview.
The guy has become a good friend and delights in our appreciation of the Mai Kai.
I asked him several questions tonight and thought I'd share his responses.
I was a bit buzzed (it's always the last one) so my thoughts might be scattered.
Send your complaints to Katie Couric.

First, what about the repairs?

They have finally settled with the insurance company they've been battling with since Wilma hit a couple of years ago. The re-builds and repairs have just now begun. They've negotiated with the thatch company in the Miami area and gotten bids on the bamboo and everything necessary to doll it up again.

What about the rotting tikis?

Wood doesn't last forever. Especially outside. So back in the day, when Bob Thornton (or Jack) got these tikis from various parts of the world, there was a mold made of the garden tikis. Almost every tiki out there. One of the guys at the Mai Kai, I think it's the cigarette vendor, took an interest in carving and then struck up a conversation with Kern who allowed him into the warehouse where these molds were. Eureka. The guy started pouring concrete into the molds and re-creating long lasting replicas of the original tikis. The paint was done through photographs and the memories that people had of the tikis.

Now there are no less than a dozen of the replicas and perhaps 20 or so. The Jet Pilot and Mutiny scrambled the numbers for me.

When you go back to the Mai Kai, you'll see some of the newness of it and wonder, as I did, about the restoration of the gardens.

Tomorrow, we'll "probe" Kern for another Mai Kai insider's story and we'll interview Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse about their new collaboration "Zoned Out Rich Girls in Rehab. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah."