Post #758394 by Captainwhoopass on Thu, Feb 4, 2016 11:50 AM

This is a great conversation. I am one of the people who is guilty of spending way too much time lurking and not nearly enough time posting.

I am grateful to all the people on here that do post regularly, and absorb as much as I can – reading all new stuff religiously, and when there is no new stuff, trawling through the ancient, forgotten threads for the gems. And truly, there are many gems! Big ups to all the members of TC past and present who made that happen.

But it does feel a bit “leachy”. Like EnchantedTikiGoth (hello fellow Albertan!), I live in a tiki-barren wasteland where it really is hard to contribute more to the discussions . While once we had bars up here, they regrettably were before my time, and all the artifacts from the local tiki places end up in the collections of people with much deeper pockets than I have. For what it’s worth, I haven’t noticed much of a shift in prices up here, so much as a total absence of tiki mugs. Where once I was finding neat little items weekly in thrift shops, I haven’t found anything in about 8 months. I try to support local bars that have made attempts to provide passable tiki cocktails – even if they aren’t tiki places at all – but that’s nothing worth posting about.

What I am trying to say is two-fold: One, I would love to contribute more if only I knew how. And two, (warning this gets mushy) TC is a refuge – a place where I can come, find myself a cozy dimly-lit corner of the room and spend my time exploring the archaeology of all those who tread this way before me. Maybe every once in a while venturing out of the darkness to poise a query to the wonderful, creative and knowledgeable experts here. And for all intents and purposes, the people here seem reasonably well behaved in my mind (and I say this as a mild mannered Canadian stereotype), and genuinely bring a wonderful diversity to the community. I am grateful to everybody and anybody in this community who manages to take time out of their busy lives to enrich this site a little bit more. Even the criticism (while sometimes coming off a tad harsh) is important. It reminds us that the history of (real) tiki is something worth preserving. Sometimes I wonder if, without someone reminding where the line in the sand is drawn, some misguides souls might be looking at today’s Party City Tiki as the antiques of tomorrow.

I once asked someone in a tiki bar what they loved about tiki, and I often think about their response. They said what they loved most about it is that everyone can love something different about tiki – some people love cocktails and they love creating and finding out all they can about rums and ingredients and the history of the drinks. Some people know all about carving and where different types of statues come from and what they represent. Some people are avid music collectors, or musicians playing and sometimes creating new music. Some people are all about mugs and can regale you with all sorts of information of where they came from and various glazes and designs. People can be fully immersed in the history of tiki, some concerned with what happens now and in the future of tiki. I am still new enough to this that I am not sure where I fit – but without this site, I wouldn’t have even known where to start!

Swanky’s concern about what happens if TC were to disappear within years or an instant is a terrifying thought.