King Kukulele Presents Tiki Taix XXXVII End Of Summer Blowout - California Events

S Son-of-Kelbo Member NOHO, CA Joined: Aug 03, 2004 Posts: 590	S Son-of-Kelbo Posted posted on Tue, Sep 4, 2007 12:00 PM Like an echo from the days of the Speak-Easys -- with one guy in the joint who really knew those famed days firsthand... We were less than six degrees away from Louis Armstrong, pre-statehood Hawaii, the Volstead Act, and Pearl Harbor. It was a night of legendary ukulele talent (the venerable Mr. Tapia related that his first performance, when he was around ten years old, was for the USO during World War I! -- and that was just the start of an amazing, ongoing 80-year career), with outstanding and distinctive accompaniment on stand-up bass and percussion, plus supremely graceful hula, fine drinks (at least mine were), very nice French Onion soup (a French Polynesian staple?), and everybody got leid -- er, received their own charming personal leis -- er... (I'll only get in deeper with this one...) What could make for a more unforgettable evening? Unless of course you add a bar fight! Yes, some socially-retarded psycho decided to start a slug-fest, creating a knot of brawling dudes heaving into tables and smashing the drinkware. And as the participants piled-on, there's 99-year-old Bill Tapia gazing out on the melee, strumming a merry cover of (I kid you not) "Crazy" (reminding me of a piano-player in the Dodge City Saloon stroking the ivorys while the shoot-out blazes beside Miss Kitty's bar...), neither missing a note nor faltering in time, while SoccerTiki entered the fray and began separating the combatants. Believe me, if you ever get into a bar fight, you'll want SoccerTiki there -- but only if he's on your side. With good-natured yet unquestionable authority, ST's powerful intervention no doubt chilled things before anybody got seriously hurt. I'm pretty certain that might have been a real possibility, because, as the a**hole who started the donnybrook was led off by his surly brother, he suddenly picked up a chair and hurled it into one of the previously ummolested tables(fortunately vacant), smashing more glassware and adding to the wreckage. With a foul, indiscriminately violent gesture like that, there's no telling where things could've gone if he hadn't been shown the door. But I could tell he was done as he passed by me with a last look back -- he didn't want to tangle with SoccerTiki again. King Kukulele MC'd the return to order as smoothly as Rick Blaine uprighting a prone sherry glass in the Cafe Americain, commenting as Mr. Tapia unfalteringly concluded his current number that "this always seems to happen when he plays "'Crazy'..." Bravo. Truly an unforgettable, intimate, and slightly dangerous evening. This is the kind of ukulele playing your mother warned you about. Cheers out, JohnnyC SOK "Don't let it be forgot, That once there was a Spot, Where Blowfish all wore sunglasses, and Tiki-times were hot..." [ Edited by: Son-of-Kelbo 2007-09-04 12:05 ]

Like an echo from the days of the Speak-Easys -- with one guy in the joint who really knew those famed days firsthand... We were less than six degrees away from Louis Armstrong, pre-statehood Hawaii, the Volstead Act, and Pearl Harbor.

It was a night of legendary ukulele talent (the venerable Mr. Tapia related that his first performance, when he was around ten years old, was for the USO during World War I! -- and that was just the start of an amazing, ongoing 80-year career), with outstanding and distinctive accompaniment on stand-up bass and percussion, plus supremely graceful hula, fine drinks (at least mine were), very nice French Onion soup (a French Polynesian staple?), and everybody got leid -- er, received their own charming personal leis -- er... (I'll only get in deeper with this one...) What could make for a more unforgettable evening?

Unless of course you add a bar fight! Yes, some socially-retarded psycho decided to start a slug-fest, creating a knot of brawling dudes heaving into tables and smashing the drinkware. And as the participants piled-on, there's 99-year-old Bill Tapia gazing out on the melee, strumming a merry cover of (I kid you not) "Crazy" (reminding me of a piano-player in the Dodge City Saloon stroking the ivorys while the shoot-out blazes beside Miss Kitty's bar...), neither missing a note nor faltering in time, while SoccerTiki entered the fray and began separating the combatants.

Believe me, if you ever get into a bar fight, you'll want SoccerTiki there -- but only if he's on your side. With good-natured yet unquestionable authority, ST's powerful intervention no doubt chilled things before anybody got seriously hurt. I'm pretty certain that might have been a real possibility, because, as the a**hole who started the donnybrook was led off by his surly brother, he suddenly picked up a chair and hurled it into one of the previously ummolested tables(fortunately vacant), smashing more glassware and adding to the wreckage. With a foul, indiscriminately violent gesture like that, there's no telling where things could've gone if he hadn't been shown the door. But I could tell he was done as he passed by me with a last look back -- he didn't want to tangle with SoccerTiki again.

King Kukulele MC'd the return to order as smoothly as Rick Blaine uprighting a prone sherry glass in the Cafe Americain, commenting as Mr. Tapia unfalteringly concluded his current number that "this always seems to happen when he plays "'Crazy'..." Bravo. Truly an unforgettable, intimate, and slightly dangerous evening. This is the kind of ukulele playing your mother warned you about.

Cheers out,
JohnnyC
SOK

"Don't let it be forgot,
That once there was a Spot,
Where Blowfish all wore sunglasses,
and Tiki-times were hot..."

[ Edited by: Son-of-Kelbo 2007-09-04 12:05 ]

Post #330125 by Son-of-Kelbo on Tue, Sep 4, 2007 12:00 PM