Post #376615 by Dr. Zarkov on Sun, Apr 27, 2008 2:38 PM

I guess I'm a Tiki Snob because I waited until this thread had been dead for several days before posting a reply.

One of the things that attracted me to tiki culture was its lack of snobbishness. As I see it, it's all about having fun, not who has the rarest mug. My collection mixes everything from rare artist editions and long-dead tiki restaurant mugs to cheap souvenir mugs I picked up for $3.95.

I know some of the younger people who are into tiki culture see it as a hip, ironic post-modern comment on Mid-Century American popular culture, but for those of us who are around my age (57) it's also about nostalgia. I actually remember my parents taking me to these places when I was a kid, getting a sticky sweet drink in a tiki mug with a paper parasol and dining on "Polynesian Chicken" -- bits of processed chicken meat stir fried with canned pineapple chunks -- and thinking that this was the most exotic, magical place I'd been.

Before I got into tiki culture, I lived in a condo with sleek Scandinavian furniture and off-white walls to show off my collection of fine contemporary art -- paintings, prints and photos -- that I had carefully selected over the years, with a few tasteful, objet d'art scattered around the tasteful, uncluttered surfaces. But after a while this got to be boring for me, and now the tiki lounge in my rec room is crowded with framed posters, reproductions and Mid-Century tiki and science fiction kitsch along with a smattering of fine art left over from my art collecting days, and it's a lot more fun.

The only time I experienced tiki snobs was when my wife and I were in Oakland last September, while my wife's sister was dying at her home in Piedmont. We took my wife's parents for a terrific dinner at the Conga Lounge (excellent Italian food from the Cafe Rustica kitchen downstairs -- how's that for "not-tiki," but we couldn't have cared less).

My wife's parents grew up with Trader Vic and knew him well. The owner of CL stopped to chat with us and invited us to come back the next evening when the local tikiphiles were gathering, just a day or two before the outdoor tiki sale at Forbidden Island. My wife and I showed up at the appointed time and found all of the tikiphiles gathered on one side of the room with all their chairs arranged in a tight circle. We went over to introduce ourselves, only to find that no one would make room for us to sit down, and they immediately went back to their conversations and ignored our presence entirely. We retreated to the other side of the room and had a drink while my wife struck up a conversation with a Korean woman, a college student who was new to the area, and because her English was rudimentary, barely got out of her room to see the sights. My wife spent the next 30 minutes talking to this woman, giving her tips on places to see and where to go to meet people. Conga Lounge obviously was not the right place for that.

This experience was unique, however. In every other case where we've mixed with tikiphiles, they've been open and friendly, and that was the case at the outdoor tiki sale at Forbidden Island when we turned up there with my wife's parents in tow.

As for white ceilings, if you take a look at the photos of my tiki lounge http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=27604&forum=1&15
you'll see some discussion of the paint job. Before we painted the walls I had obtained a sample can of paint that we eventually decided was too light, settling instead on the C2 Wasabi color. But we did use this lighter hue of green on the ceilings.