Post #526246 by Tik-Tok-Tac on Mon, Apr 26, 2010 8:54 AM

Personally, I want to kick Sven's ass for choosing a typeface so small that I can't read the book while urinating at Purple Orchid. Then again, why would I want to read a book that bears so little semblance to the power of tiki given to me by my grandfather? He always maintained that the post-war rise of tiki was a NECESSARY response to World War 2. He, like the millions of others who served in the Pacific theater, couldn't possibly describe the boredom, carnage and horribleness that was the daily routine to his family or clueless strangers. It was far simpler to take the family to the local tiki joint as demonstration of the wonderfulness it was to stop at Don's and/or Honolulu before being shipped out. He always maintained that tiki was the Disneyfied and sanitized way for soldiers to share the experience with civilians. Strong drinks were necessary to drown the very bad memories for most veterans. He was always a decent barman with an incredible basement bar. I always admired the machetes on the wall which he derisively referred to as 'decoration toys'. One day, when I was old enough and we had several of his libations, he gave me this corroded and worn sort of machete-looking-like thing. He told me it was an all-purpose edged weapon and tool used by the Japs to both hack through the jungle, saw through barbed wire and disembowel the local Polynesians, prisoners-of-war or other malcontents. The weapon was a clear violation of the Geneva convention and any soldier in possession of a used one was assumed to be a war criminal eligible for execution. After securing it from a less than cooperative Jap soldier, he also discovered a small quantity of sake. Some of the local Polynesians working with his unit were extremely agitated to see the weapon and immediately wanted to use it on the prone and injured Jap. He wasn't sure what to do until the Polynesians offered him rum they had gotten from the Australians. He stepped aside, they gave him the rum and he mixed it in his canteen with the sake. Said it was the finest tiki drink he ever had with a killer floor show that concluded with the Jap unsuccessfully trying to keep his entrails in his body. He always respected tikis and said they were essential in keeping bad spirits at bay. He thought the demise of mainstream tiki was not something to bemoan, but to celebrate, since it signified the slow healing of his generation.