Post #341084 by Bay Park Buzzy on Mon, Oct 29, 2007 4:30 PM

Some recent sunsets:

Now some tiki stuff:

Now from my vast base of tiki knowledge:

TJones: Thank you for asking me if the image you provided was tiki before you went ahead and tried to decide on it for yourself. Ironically, I use that image in my forthcoming book: * The Field Guide to the North American Tiki Guy.* I'll answer you... But first, let me address Teakey...

Teakey: I would concur that that the painted image on the man's chest was based upon a traditional Easter Island figural form. I will now provide two examples from the House of Buzz Photo Archives to back my claims:

Now Jonesey: Knowing that an image is based on an easter Island piece will, in most cases, establish its tikiness without argument. It's pretty much a tiki given, or an absolute when including Easter Island art in the PolyPop tiki guy inventory of tiki acceptedness. However, this specific picture does have some elements that cause us to further question its overall tiki authenticity.

At face value, the picture is tiki. However, one needs to look at the context of the photo to ascertain its overall tiki validity. Let's examine the photo again:

Notice the background: Looks like Burning Man environment to me. No backyard tiki bar or tropical in sight. A tiki guy would never go to Burning Man because the Tiki Guy's skin cannot handle the sunlight, and the Tiki Guy parties in an opposing manner to the Hippie burning man loadies. After total scrutiny: This looks to more like a Hippie Burning man dude than a Tiki Guy to me. However, one must not always trust what one sees...

You see Jonsesey, despite the visual clues, my Tiki Guydar was registering of the charts. How could that be? I asked myself...
Then I took a closer look and went back in my time machine to Tiki Oasis 1 to verify my findings: If you look closely, you will notice the guy in the picture on the left is actually a young Crazy Al. That's GROG (in his long hair metalhead phase) who volunteered to paint up his "tan...six pack abs"(the man speaks from experience!) in the picture. I never would have recognized them either. You see, back then, Al used to go around with this painting and say he was a living tiki mug to market himself to the Tiki Guy consumer base. Polypop entuhusiasts responded cooly to his devotion to traditional polynesian culture, and he soon abandoned this look for his much more successful beachcomber/ coconut player ensemble at tiki events. That my friend, is a Historical Photo of the Preday- Heyday which Precceeds the future devolution of the Modern Tiki Guy Movement.
Not only is that picture Tiki: it's historical vintage tiki some day!

Babalu: Many a well dressed successful men have idled about in TB shirts, and there is nothing wrong with that, for them. However, the Tiki Guy can wear only two types of shirts, in combo, or individually:
#1 A VINTAGE tiki, or Hawaiian, shirt, of any material design and composition. Used shirts do not count, only vintage.
#2 A tiki Tshirt, depicting a tiki image or a shirt that commemorates a past tiki event.
You can wear the TB shirt until you take being a Tiki Guy, and yourself a little more seriously.
And...I had the pullout closet guide made, but the printers messed up the colors and we didn't put them in the final draft because we had no time to redo them and were in a hurry to get it in markets by next Tiki season.

Tok-Tok: Greetings my European Friend! I know you do not remember, but it was I who brought Tiki to your country, and told you about tiki a long time ago while you were sleeping. I did it with my time machine to make sure tiki would be alive and well in Germany. I also went to HaiKai and taught him how to carve when he just started out. I said to him when he was carving a mantlepiece, "You should carve American Tikis!" He did and then I went in my time machine to see who killed Marilyn monroe, but my lawyer said I cannot talk about that book yet...
Wecome Tok-Tok, to the House of Buzz, I hope you understand enough of all this because it is all true...

H20: I will have a Tiki Guy product line out soon. I've been designing clothes in between the the authoring and carving.

I'm still a couple weeks behind on PM's, so hang on a couple of you, I'll answer them soon...

I am the Author of my own Authority!
Buzzy Out!