Tiki Oasis 2008 Journal Entry Part 5: Friday night fun
After I attatched the rawhide to the drum, I had to get ready to go to the night's festivities. I wore my Sunday's best and Zaya and I went down to the hotel. Most of the night was spent scurrying around from room to room meeting up with old and new friends alike. we didn't take the camera with us, but Freddie snapped a few. In this group shot that Freddie had someone take, I'm the only one wearing real socks:
I think after 19 straight hours of Tiki Oasis setup and party filled madness, I came home to get ready for vending bright and early the next morning. Unfortunately, right when I settled in for the evening, the dogs, who had been sleeping all day, decided 2am was play time. They do this new thing called lazy fighting. They lay side by side in bed next to each other and bark, growl, and fight. Since they are not stand up fighting, they don't get tired as fast and can play that much longer. After about 45 minutes of trying to sleep in something like an illegal City Heights dog fighting pit, I got up and did the last few things I was going to do in the morning. the dogs finally settled in and I only got about 45 minutes sleep that night. And, Saturday was going be an even longer and more fast paced day...
Now were going to go back to that Pulp Fiction Time jump thing for a hint of some of the coming action:
Tiki Oasis 2008 Supplementary Journal Entry: The 2008 Chippin' Males Mr Tiki Meet and Greet Autograph Line and Picture Signing Event
Once again, one of the most popular attractions at this year's event was my annual Pin Up photo signing event. It was the first official event scheduled for Saturday morning. I got there at the crack of dawn and found that there was a rather long line of fans waiting to get their limited edition prints and posters. Here I am to officially kick off the weekend of Tiki Oasis 2008!
In fact, the first three young men in line had actually been camping out since Wednesday afternoon to get the coveted low numbered prints. I'd like to thank these young fellows for being such fervent Buzzy loyalists!:
Enjoy your autographed prints boys!
I'll have more on this noteworthy part of the event later on.
Tiki Oasis 2008 Journal Entry Part 6: The start of my vending day
After the prints were all handed out, I still had about an hour or so to get my vending area all set up.
Here's the vintage table part of my vending area.
I really cleaned house this year and got rid of a bunch of stuff I don't have room for.
A lot of it was really nice stuff I liked, but I need room for stuff I like better
My mug collection is now a comfortable 8, and one special one of one. Most all this stuff went to new homes:
At some point in my pricing of my stuff, I turned around to notice that someone had piled up all of Cammo's hand painted extra cool hats in a stack, and placed a plastic display of $4 coasters in front of them. In this picture, you can see his hats stacked like those $5 ones at the swap meet right behind me:
I took the coasters, moved them in back of the table, and neatly arranged the hats in front of them so that everything could be seen. I priced some more stuff, turned around, and saw that the hats were all stacked up again. For the second time, I moved everything back and explained to the six other vendors behind me that those hats needed to stay there. Then the coaster guy gets in my face and starts yelling at me for moving his stuff and all this other crap I can't remember any more. Since I didn't know him, and it was my booth, I handed him his stuff and told him to get the F* out of here and take his S* wth him. He got back in my face and said he was going to have me thrown out of the event. that really was the turning point in my further tolerance with this man. I communicated to this man through my, tone, volume, posture and choice of words that I was the capable of the type of crazy fury that he could never truly comprehend unless he continued to push me further, which he kept doing. Eventually, he figured out it was my booth and he was not a legit vendor and I was just about to make this the worst day he could have. He slithered off with his stuff and found some other booth to sell his stuff out of. Based on the recent trend started by TikiDan at the Tiki Farm sale, and continued on en masse at this years Oasis, I am no longer going to pay for or reserve a vending space at any tiki event in the future. I'm just going to show up and pirate vend. The organizers are usually to drunk or busy to deal with it, so it's a cool free pass. It won't stop at vending, either. I think I'm going to start putting my stuff up in those art shows at that taco shop gallery in Costa Mesa. Just show up with a tiki doodle and a hammer and nail and I'm in. Those Tonga Hut art shows: I'll just photoshop my name in on all the flyers, show up and sell, sell, sell!
Speaking of sell, I also wanted to sell some tikis.
This was part of my tiki display/sale area. A couple of these were sold, but I was using them later in the day as decor for some book signings by some author and some painter guy. I had a few up on stage too. Those would stay up there for the night's show and then be moved into my vending area on Sunday morning. So here's the Saturday "stock."
I like the two of these side by side for comparision. The Lono on the left, I just finished. the Lono on the right was finished two years ago.
I was so sick of dragging it to every show and not having it sell, that I priced it at $100 to get rid of it. My plan worked! It sold.
More tikis
The same tikis, just closer.
And the drum that I still needed to finish...
I had hoped to finish the drum after the autograph signing and booth setup, and before the vending time started. Unfortuneately, that plan didn't work out because as soon as I started pulling stuff out of boxes, it sold right away, and there were four deep people looking at my stuff for the first couple hours.
I didn't even have time to change out of my dirty load in clothes and put on my trunks and take a dip in the pool. It was non stop action from the moment I got there.
Here I am in the middle of the melee, hard at work bringing vintage tiki collectables to the hoards of tiki collectors that come to this event.
I do most of my best work from the seated position.
After it slowed down a little, I was able to get the drum finished.
That is where we will pick up the next chapter of this epic recounting of my experiences during this event.
Buzzy Out!
