Post #606462 by bigbrotiki on Mon, Sep 12, 2011 3:38 PM

The bad luck perception came from the fact that the original restaurant (of unknown name) in San Rafael that displayed it failed, and the poor thing was left abandoned "in a ditch", in Leroy's words. Then that label got cemented by the fact that Helen Yue's place had to close too. Me thinks that that closure had more to do with the fact that Polynesian restaurants had fallen out of favor with the public.

I am a little embarrassed by that "Credit Sven Kirsten" credit now under the photo: When I saw the article, the photo had Augustin Garnier's name on it, the guy who got the ball rolling to re-erect the Tiki. I am sure he did not claim the photo to be his, he just provided it for the article from his Facebook page, for which, yes, he had clipped it from my post on Tiki Central. Internet photo clipping without credit is such a common procedure nowadays, I didn't mind, especially for such a good, Tiki-saving purpose. But when it appeared in a news article with his name, I wrote the writer a brief e-mail requesting to correct the error. But why didn't she say "Photo: Sven Kirsten"."Credit" sounds like I am trying to take credit for the whole thing!? Oh well...

In any case, this story is a lesson in Tiki preservation: Go to the right channels, like a politician that needs something colorful for his campaign, to get things saved. Great job, Team Tiki!

Here are some more shots of the Tiki in Situ, photographed during one of my earliest expeditions in 1991:

Here's the shot that appears in the article and on Team Tiki's Facebook page:

And here's a frontal shot, for which I must have used a Polarizer, cause the sky is so deep blue:

This pic has been hanging out on my aging website bookoftiki.com, from where, (as one of the earliest examples of copying my Tiki images), it was clipped in the early 2000s to be used on a "STEADY" Tiki shirt:

I need to loose a little weight to wear that shirt on Tiki re-erection day! :)