Should Tiki Central be stripped of any hawaiiana discussions? - General Tiki

C chiwito Grand Member (8 years) the Pacific island of Alameda Joined: Oct 26, 2008 Posts: 86	C chiwito Posted posted on Thu, Jan 29, 2009 3:46 PM Actually, "leaky Tiki" came from a Jimmy Buffett lyric, which seemed appropriate to this thread. Having accidentally contributed to the devolution of this thread from "Hawaiiana = Tiki?" to yet another incarnation of "Buffett = Tiki?" or "Buffett = death of Tiki?" or "Buffett = end of life worth living?", I want to confest my utter baffleation at the persistent role a practicioner of Caribbean pop has in discussions of Polynesian pop. I assume that if we had a thread titled "Should Tiki Central be stripped of any Caribbeana discussions?" there might be some discussion of censorship vs. pointing out what is not Tiki vs. let a hundred flowers bloom value systems, but that all participants would generally agree that reggae and calypso and Cuban cigars and Jamaican reefers and rasta and steel drums and santaria and gulf coast blues and zydeco and manatees and the Conch Republic are pretty thoroughly not Tiki. How then is a singer/songwriter who claims his initial musical inspiration from New Orleans, who became famous in and from the Key West zeitgeist, and who is most closely identified with the islands of the eastern Carib, any more relevant to Hawaii and Polynesia, or to mainland manifestations of those territories? Admittedly, the two regions have important lifestyle elements in common: they are all about the ocean, islands and seacoasts; they embody tropical climate and attitude, at least in comparison to most of the places where their pop culture representations flourish; mst importantly, the pop cultures based on each region are thoroughly rum-soaked. Taht's about it, though, for two aras so far separated geographically that neither they nor their pop manifestations were much influence on each other. If one were to take all of the threads mentioning Mr. Buffett and substitute for his name "Don Ho" or even "Cecilio and Kapono" I could follow most of the arguments, whether about the Hawaiiana/Tiki links, in threads like this, or about the role of Hawaiian music pop stars in either the growth and popularization of Hawaiiana or the devolution of both Hawaiiana and exotica. Conversely, if we were on an equivalent website devoted either to Caribbean culture [CaribCentral.com] or the pop manifestations of that culture on the mainland [MamboCentral.com], then critic and supporters of JB would have a place to debate his role in the devolution and end of the Calypso Era. They could also debate which manifestations of CaribPop are from the islands and which are part of a purely mainland culture -- BigBroSka would be the resident expert. chiwito

Actually, "leaky Tiki" came from a Jimmy Buffett lyric, which seemed appropriate to this thread.

Having accidentally contributed to the devolution of this thread from "Hawaiiana = Tiki?" to yet another incarnation of "Buffett = Tiki?" or "Buffett = death of Tiki?" or "Buffett = end of life worth living?", I want to confest my utter baffleation at the persistent role a practicioner of Caribbean pop has in discussions of Polynesian pop.

I assume that if we had a thread titled "Should Tiki Central be stripped of any Caribbeana discussions?" there might be some discussion of censorship vs. pointing out what is not Tiki vs. let a hundred flowers bloom value systems, but that all participants would generally agree that reggae and calypso and Cuban cigars and Jamaican reefers and rasta and steel drums and santaria and gulf coast blues and zydeco and manatees and the Conch Republic are pretty thoroughly not Tiki. How then is a singer/songwriter who claims his initial musical inspiration from New Orleans, who became famous in and from the Key West zeitgeist, and who is most closely identified with the islands of the eastern Carib, any more relevant to Hawaii and Polynesia, or to mainland manifestations of those territories? Admittedly, the two regions have important lifestyle elements in common: they are all about the ocean, islands and seacoasts; they embody tropical climate and attitude, at least in comparison to most of the places where their pop culture representations flourish; mst importantly, the pop cultures based on each region are thoroughly rum-soaked. Taht's about it, though, for two aras so far separated geographically that neither they nor their pop manifestations were much influence on each other.

If one were to take all of the threads mentioning Mr. Buffett and substitute for his name "Don Ho" or even "Cecilio and Kapono" I could follow most of the arguments, whether about the Hawaiiana/Tiki links, in threads like this, or about the role of Hawaiian music pop stars in either the growth and popularization of Hawaiiana or the devolution of both Hawaiiana and exotica. Conversely, if we were on an equivalent website devoted either to Caribbean culture [CaribCentral.com] or the pop manifestations of that culture on the mainland [MamboCentral.com], then critic and supporters of JB would have a place to debate his role in the devolution and end of the Calypso Era. They could also debate which manifestations of CaribPop are from the islands and which are part of a purely mainland culture -- BigBroSka would be the resident expert.

chiwito

Post #431483 by chiwito on Thu, Jan 29, 2009 3:46 PM