Post #33221 by TikiMaxton on Tue, May 6, 2003 9:07 PM

Thanks for posting the pics, John! You must have got your camera working not long before we left (after Polkacide's brutal rendition of Pennsylvania Polka but before Pass The Cabbage, apparently).

I promised a review and here it is - Tikitronic and Kim, it will help my narrative if you could upload those pics you took at Mr. Tikibar's. Keep in mind that the group divided and re-assembled in many different configurations throughout the evening, so this is strictly from my point of view - anyone who had a different experience will have to post their own review:

Maggie and I arrived fasionably late at Mr. Tiki Bar's swank basement hideaway to find it already nearly packed. Many of Mr. TB's friends, as well as Humuhumu, Tikitronic, Kim and Seamus were in attendance (please forgive me if I forget anyone - my memory of that night seems to be a bit cloudy). Mr. T was pouring Mai Tais and Straw Hats like a mad man, and I learned that a straight man should not order a straw hat at Mr. T's - he'll quickly tell you, "Well, it's kinda gay...". I took his word for it and stuck to the excellent mai tais. Wish I'd passed on the third one, though, as the night was still quite young...

Once we'd wet our collective whistle and socialized for a bit, the group split into two camps: Those tough enough to polka and those not. Those of us who went on to Polka de Mayo had an amazing/weird/uproarious/sweaty/dressy good time, as you can see from the photos. The crowd was livelier and more colorful than almost any you're likely to find in stumptown, and Polkacide RULED! Where else can you see a scary biker-looking dude with spikes in his skull playing clarinet, along with a band of even scarier looking folks, and where can you here The Chicken Dance played so fast that you get blisters on your "chicken fingers"?

Mr T won the bowling shirt handily, thanks to his large entourage and their booze-fuled applause. The lovely used bowling ball and bag were more than a fair trade for Kitty's glasses in my opinion.

And speaking of Kitty, I must say that there is no more gracious hostess to be found in our fair city - she kept us fed and socializing and wouldn't hear of any of her guests lifting a finger for anything. Superb!

At this point the crew split yet again, with Mr. T and pals heading off to see a firends band, while Maggie and I took our followers off to meet the advance party at Jasmine Tree. It should be noted that it was no big surprise that Mr. & Mrs. T did not rejoin us later in the evening as planned...

Well, as I've said before, a little Jasmine Tree goes a long way, so by the time we arrived our party had already moved on to the Alibi. The waiter told us that "The Tiki People" left word for us to meet them at The Alibi. So we headed north.

We got delayed by some sort of activity on the Broadway bridge, so we arrived later than expected at Alibi, but just in time for their free midnight appetizers and a rousing rendition of "Ice Ice Baby" from the karaoke bar. I'm probably not qualified to review the appetizer buffet because I must admit that I have a particular affinity for free food, but even I was a little take aback by the stuffing and gravy. Still, we needed the carbs by then...

Tikitronic, Kim, Humuhumu and Seamus were at Alibi as expected, but Woofmutt was MIA. Did he ever show up? And there was another gentleman I believe from TC, but I'm sorry to say he drowned in my third or fifth mai tai. At any rate, they had a nice seat by the fire and we all had a lovely time yelling over the "singers" on the upper level. Must've been 1:30 or 2:00 when we generally disbanded and Maggie and I took Humuhumu to her motel (how scary WAS it?). Rest assured, Maggie drove as I was far too happy to be bothered with operating heavy machinery.

All in all it was a lovely event, and we learned a lot about how to do the next NW Tiki Crawl, which Mr. T and I have agreed must now become an annual event. Thanks everyone for showing up, and don't hesitate to pass on suggestions for next year!