Post #6955 by stentiki on Tue, Aug 27, 2002 7:07 PM

Bad news, good news.

The bad news is that I don't think we will ever return to the times when exotica music and tiki bars dominated popular culture, and one might even argue that this genre never did dominate the popular culture. Unfortunately, we cannot not stop the progress of time and the music that so eloquently documents the times (even though I am listening to exotica music even as we speak).

However...having said all that, we currently have this amazing technology that allows us to keep contact in ways our forefathers and mothers never thought possible. The great explorers started this by sailing to the south pacific, and then the commercial airlines made it possible for people to experience exotica in ways they never thought possible (I just noticed in the Sky Mall catalogue today that there are two resin tikis for sale made by Tepco). The point is that we have taken all of this to a new level through the internet and Tiki Central and although my viewpoint may be limited to this particular site, I have witnessed first-hand how this site allows us to connect and assemble in ways that our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents could not possibly have imagined! How is it that I can meet all these great people at Tiki Oasis II, or meet Tiki Bong and Sven at the Orange County Pubcrawl, or even begin to imagine that I might meet Gecko in Hawaii someday?

So I guess this a very long way of saying that the fate of tiki (and bars) lies with us. It is bound to disappear and go underground again. That's a given! So the question is -- will we keep it alive?

I would love to hear from the rest of you.

Aloha,

Uncle Arty