Post #85745 by tikibars on Sun, Apr 11, 2004 8:57 PM

On 2004-04-09 15:48, Humuhumu wrote:
"Sanctioned??" By who, you? What, tikiphiles in Chicago are supposed to wait in their cozy little home bars until you deem an event to be unlame enough for them to come out and gather? Until Exotica 2012?

Chicago has got a ton of tikiphiles, and they don't seem to ever get together -- it's bizarre, and a terrible shame. Yes, it's entirely possible that this event will be lame, but at least someone's making an attempt.

This event will only be as lame as the people who are there, and all it would take is a couple of TCers to show up, find each other, and hang out for it to be a good time for them. If a bunch of local TCers show up, they won't even notice that the folks around them aren't tikiphiles. That's how these things get started -- ask the folks in Arizona, Florida, Portland... all of these areas were devoid of tiki events until someone had the balls to start meeting. If you don't want to spend time with other local TCers, that's fine, but don't make other TCers feel like dorks for wanting to meet.

Very well put Humuhumu.

I couldn't have put it better, and you wrote (almost verbatim) what I would have written, had I seen this thread first myself.

I am pleased that someone else (especially someone who doesn't even live here in Chicago) cares enough to point these things out.

I'd like to add that the guy organizing this event simply Emailed me out of the blue and asked me to show up, so I said 'sure'. I am always up for poking my head into any sort of new type of event and making a go of it.

I must admit that the bar it is at, Fizz, is sort of a yuppie bar, but the Wednesday night bartender there has been stalwartly keeping his Tiki night going for like 5 years now. He even dragged the owner of Fizz out to Exotica2003 so that the owner would potentially see the strength of the Tiki, and hopefully bolster support for their Wednesday night Tiki night. He was impressed. A good showing at this event will do nothing but help insure that Fizz maintains or expands its weekly Tiki fest.

I don't really have any idea what this event is going to be like, so I am not going to personally vouch for the event's commitment to 'keeping real' all that we hold dear in Tiki-land. I do know that the guy throwing the party made the trip out to MondoTiki in Las Vegas, and showed up at Exotica2003 and at the book signing that Duke Carter, Sven Kirsten and I did at Trader Vics last week. So his heart is in the right place.

But that said - Humuhumus point is extremely valid: we can either get a dozen TCers to show up and MAKE it fun, or we can let grouchy naysayers (one of whom continues to post under several screen names to make their front of negativity seem more valid) continue to cause division and bad vibes among the Chicago Tiki community.

I vote for the former plan.
Let's have some fun.

If the event sucks, we can all go over to Aku Hall for mai tais on me!