Post #98388 by bigbrotiki on Fri, Jun 25, 2004 10:47 AM

On 2004-06-23 13:32, laney wrote:
....He dosen't look it, but I also thought lanikai was Hawaiian.
https://tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=2111&forum=1

Well I'll be...!

Well, as far as I remember from what he told me, Allen actually spent his early years in the islands, before he moved to Ventura. That's where his love for the culture comes from, and so although he is not a native, it obviously seems to be his homeland of choice.

This connection also explains lanikai's (often well founded) criticism of modern Tiki schlock, years ago Allen wrote an article for the Honululu Advertiser that universally blasted all modern Tiki interpretations, but without drawing a line between vintage Polynesian Pop (which he was still dealing with) resulting in a very mixed message.

I said it before and say it again: His love for the subject matter is genuine (as evidenced by lanikai's posts), but his way of conducting business with it seems to have put him beyond redemption. He was always clean with me (and many other people), but even my girlfriend has a story how he sold her (and her then boyfriend) Hawaiian stuff under the pretense that it was vintage, or exclusive, and it turned out to be mass-produced.

I really thought lanikai was adding a nice and qualitative perspective to Tiki Central. Sigh.