Post #452362 by Moai Matt on Thu, May 7, 2009 2:00 PM

Aloha! My wife Mary and I have always loved all things tropical and we have been cavorting around with the Tiki scene for a few years now (our trips to Hawaii, the many art shows, the Tiki Invasions, the Tiki Crawl ’06 (S.F.), the Hukilau ’07 (Florida.), a few Tiki Festivals (Long Beach), and a few Oasis’). We have also spent time and money renovating our Laguna Hills condo, transforming in into a Polynesian nightmare. It’s actually a work in progress…(Crazy Al knows). Anyway, we realized we should get serious and actually register with this site (duh). So I went first. Although some of you have come to know me as Maui Matt, I saw that a registered member already has that name. Uh –oh. Didn’t want to copy or modify, so I got to sippin’ and thinkin’….. Then came an hour of researching Tiki/Polynesian names; flipping through books, surfing the web, and checking the member list (it was crazy believe me). I felt it should begin with M and/or sound good with Matt preceeding or following. Should it be swank and clever? (Macadamia, Mango, Mr.___, Mai Tai, Mojo, Maraschino) or linguistically profound? (Moana, Mana, Mahi, Maki, Makemake, Mele) Historic? (Moorea, Moai, Molokai, Marquesan, Molokini, Menehune, Mai Kai) or from a drink? (Mai Tai, Midori Sour, Mojito, Martini?). Yes, I thought of Matiki. Yes that one’s taken. There were alot of other obsure ones and I won’t even comment on what the wife wanted…(sigh)

I’ve always liked Moai’s, so I finally settled on Moai Matt. (Wikipedia describes it as: “A monolithic human figure carved from rock on the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) between 1250 and 1500 CE”… and…”the 'living faces' (aringa ora) of deified ancestors”. Umm…yeah. Anyway, it sounded catchy and cool, authentic enough, similar to my last moniker, and easy to remember - even when in a drunken haze. On that note, I raise my mug to the 21 other Tiki Centralites who have embraced Moai as part of their sobriquet.

So now it’s official. Moai Matt. My new name. Not to be confused, mind you, with MAOI’s. (I know, I know. I have too much time on my hands).

My wife promises to register very soon here with her own new name, so stay tuned. All we need to do then is give them a test drive at the next Tiki event…Speaking of events, a big shout-out to Bamboo Ben for his “nooner” last Sunday. My wife and I both went and we had bunches of fun. Food was great and the bands rocked! Most especially, a big thank you to our T.C. friends out there for making us part of the ohana all this time. We look forward to many more festive frolics in the future (?)

See ya’ all next time. Oh, be sure and look for me. I’ll be one of many with a Moai pendant around my neck. But I’ll be the only Moai Matt.