Tell us a story about the good ole' tiki days.

As I survey the aisles of Target and squeeze past 20-somethings in Hawaiian shirts at Spencer's, I wonder what it was like to be a tikiphile in the classic period...say, 1950's and 60's.

Most of us know the historic overview well enough from sources like the Book of Tiki; we know the big picture of the rise and decline of tiki. We also have a good mental picture of the proliferation and attrition of tiki bars, but what I wonder about is the minutia of living in that period and wanting tiki stuff for your home.

We know what the mugs, masks, etc. looked like then because they've trickled down to us, but when that trickle was a torrent, where did it flow? Did "respectable" department stores like Macy's have tiki mugs in the "Notions" department? This would have been before the age of the huge discount stores, but what about lower-end places of the period like Woolworth's and Ben Franklin?

I get the impression that some mug manufacturers (i.e. Daga) sold only to bars and restaurants while others (i.e Westwood, PMP) offered mugs to retailers. But what about Orchids of Hawaii? I've seen no Daga mugs that didn't have the name of a specific place, but I've seen lots of generic OoH mugs.

The spike in the current tiki trend probably won't last out the year, a victim not only of trendy public tastes but of boardroom meetings to predict the next hot thing (i.e. Spencer's moving toward a Vegas look). However, the classic period of tiki was well over a decade long, so, since merchants like for stock to change every so often, did mug and decor makers introduce new models every season which we now think of as from one period because we have a distant, telescoped view of them?

It'd be great if there was an online source or a book that showed manufacturers' catalogs from post-WWII through the Vietnam era. In the 1980's there was a book called The Big Toy Box at Sears that reprinted Sears Christmas catalog toy sections from about 1950 to 1970 and thus gave a great cultural overview of what was going on if you read between the lines (i.e. GI Joe ceases to be a soldier and becomes an adventurer at about the same time that soldiers burning grass huts on the evening news helped make tiki not so cool). Lacking such a compilation book for mug and decor manufacturers, TC seems to be the place to ask.

As to decor, did furniture stores across the US sell Witco or was a niche market confined to large urban areas and the coasts?

Were there tiki aficionados in the 60's and 70's that sought the stuff of the 50's? Of course that was pre-internet, but garage sales abounded.

And how fast did the phenomenon die? A local antique store owner tells me that when the "big woody tiki wall hangings" died, they died overnight.

It occurs to me that a person who was 30 in 1964 would be 70 now; do we have any tiki elders that can tell us their tales of daily life when men were men, women were wahines and tikis didn't have bar codes?

Great question, and I look forward to seeing the responses.

Re: generic mugs, I've always figured that these mugs were used by the many, many tiki restaurants that were too small (either in revenues, or in thinking) to have their own custom mug.

I've gotten the impression that much of the tiki decor that people had in their homes was available mainly through catalogs. I don't know if the items were in their own tiki-themed catalogs, or if they were part of larger, more general catalogs. And where did people get these catalogs (or am I mistaken, and they were only used by wholesalers)?

Clearly, in areas like Southern California, there were places like Oceanic Arts (OA wasn't the only one, they had competition back then that they've outlived). Perhaps there used to be places like OA in other cities that are now long gone & forgotten. How common was it, though, for homes outside of SoCal to be heavily outfitted in tiki back in the day?

I think that Witco had a few showrooms around the country. I would imagine that their items were available through other furniture stores, too, via the catalog. Keigs can fill us in on all that, I'm sure.

The "current" tiki trend has been popping up every summer for the past few years. It's just retailing shorthand for Summer Party Ware. I imagine we'll see it pop up again next summer, too. Over time, it'll mutate into something else. It was more hula girlish a couple of summers ago. Next year it'll probably be flamingos.

On 2004-08-03 17:25, tikijackalope wrote:
The spike in the current tiki trend probably won't last out the year, a victim not only of trendy public tastes but of boardroom meetings to predict the next hot thing

However, the classic period of tiki was well over a decade long,

In 2002, I figured that Tiki as a mainstream fad had peaked.
In 2003 it was even bigger,
and this year it is bigger still.

We'll see if the suits roll it out again next year.
I think they will.
I think that the corporate exploitation of Tiki, 21st century-style, is just beginning.

The classic Tiki period was indeed well over a decade long - I'd give the peak of Tiki more than two decades: late 1940s to late 1960s... and if you consider that Don and Vic both had restaurants open in the 1930s and that places like Chef Shangri-La (IL) and Honolulu Restaurant (VA) were opening into the 1970s, we're looking at close to four decades of original mainstream Tiki.

Given how fast things move these days, and given the short attention span of the masses in general, I am not predicting anywhere close to this sort of longetivity for neo-Tiki - but I think that we're in for a few more years of embarassing neon-colored moai mugs in Walgreen's stores, and at least one bad Tiki sitcom before it subsides.

I agree with Tikibars. This thing has yet to peak.

This is more than the suits at Target or Spencers trying to shake a few nickels loose. There are books, there are new restaurants and bars, there are an increasing number of tiki events taking place across the country ...

In my opinion, this has the same "feel" as "lounge" and dance club music did circa 1997. At that time lounge was peaking in the record stores and dance music was being looked at as "the next big thing" (in the face of declining rock sales).

Well, dance club music simply went back to being a sub-genre and never came close to displacing rock, and lounge disappeared as a bona fide category in record stores (usually now found in the "easy listening" section), with of course hard-core aficianados keeping the candle lit.

But perhaps music isn't the correct anaolgy. Perhaps architecture would be better. Interest in midcentury architecture started to climb in the late 90s and is now extremely hot -- but not quite hot enough to tip over into the mainstream and actually result in whole developments being designed along modernist lines. Perhaps this is the fate of "neo-Tiki." It will get "bigger" in the near future, but then reach a point where everyone who's interested in it is "signed up" -- and then stays at that level of cultural consciousness. In other words, it will build like a fad, but it will not die like a fad. The whole country will never "get" this -- but those who do "get" it, get it forever. A tiki is never going into the back of the garage with the thigh crunchers.

So I say ... buy stock in Target! And supprt your local tiki bar!

I actually hope the current boom lasts awhile. I just gloss over the crap pretty well and actually like some of the current stuff...makes me wonder if in a few years people will try to fill in details like whether or not the big Spencer's Moai came in a box with graphics like the smaller one.

And speaking of things that stand in one's house, were Coco Joes and HIP figurines available much outside of Hawaii?

And when Exotica albums were selling well, did the singles get much radio airplay?

I guess I'm trying to get a picture of how pervasive tiki was (outside of bars), and some sort of timeline of what could be had, where and when.

Its 1954 and your wife just got a boomerang formica table for the kitchen so you get to have a tiki bar and glassware for the den...where do you shop and what do you find?

Its 1964 and you want some masks like Hef had in that Playboy issue three years ago...the one you keep hidden from your wife underneath the formica table, which has migrated to your workshop. Where do you find those masks? Are there knock-offs of similar style?

Its 1974 and your kids love to remind you that Nixon hung out in a tiki bar. But you want to replace the tiki decor you lost in the divorce. Where do you go to try out your new MasterCharge on some tiki?

It is totally trendy dude.

I agree, hil. Especially regarding mug collecting. Mugs were merely souveniers of places visited or places visited by ones relatives and brought back. This latest obsession with mugs reminds me of the Beanie Baby craze.

I was born in 1955, my folks enjoyed the Polynesian scene but had very little in the house save a coco bollo salad bowl or two, Dad used to say Monkey Pod wooden bowls but I have never seen that name any where. They went out often and the Reef in Long Beach was a favorite, as was the Sea Lion Inn in Malibu. We would vacation at Shelter Island Inn and go to Bali Hai every night. No wonder TiKi is in my blood. I remember a friend of my parents lived in Point Dume and had a TiKi bar in an enclosed patio, it had lava rock waterfalls and tropical plants, my folks thought that it was groovy but would never do that at our place. There was a guy down the street that lived for Wagon train and his whole house was western and my folks thought he was nuts. Other friends had a moderne home and had a silver tinsel Christmas tree with a color wheel in front of a floodlight, so the tree went front blue to pink to green, My Dad thought he was a commie. All that to say, I think most people “went to” TiKi but did not live it, only the nuts like us now, did then…Others had their passions of the era as well but most people lived quiet lives of boring desperation.

[ Edited by: bananabobs on 2004-08-04 00:10 ]

On 2004-08-03 21:47, tikijackalope wrote:

Its 1954 and your wife just got a boomerang formica table for the kitchen so you get to have a tiki bar and glassware for the den...where do you shop and what do you find?

Its 1964 and you want some masks like Hef had in that Playboy issue three years ago...the one you keep hidden from your wife underneath the formica table, which has migrated to your workshop. Where do you find those masks? Are there knock-offs of similar style?

Its 1974 and your kids love to remind you that Nixon hung out in a tiki bar. But you want to replace the tiki decor you lost in the divorce. Where do you go to try out your new MasterCharge on some tiki?

Ever looked at a 1960's Sears catalog? Maybe a 1950's Sunset Magazine?

I have, and everything you need from rattan to how to's on rumpus rooms can be found there. Check out some old catalogs.

Witco catalogs are hard to come by now but probably not so much then. Old Sears catalogs are filled with swank furniture from Danish to rattan, simply pick your style. OA probably had a catalog, I have a Benson's Imports catalog (OA's competition back then) There are ads in the back of old Sunset magazines that would blow your mind (like rattan saucer chairs for like 5.00)

Humuhumu,the catalog thing sounds right-when talking to the daughter of the owners of the Hala Kahiki,my girlfriend and I asked her how they came about having a tiki bar,and she said that the rattan was the cheapest wall covering Sears had,so that's what they went with.Go figure.

we visited an antique place in west virginia about a onth ago, where they had basically every SEARS catalog from the 50s to the 70s for sale - a huge bookshelf full. i broused thru the early 60's, but didn't pinpoint or really search for any tiki. the catalogues if i recall were going for about $20 each... random coconuts...

My friend Dave back in O-town has a Witco Tiki Fountain (approx 4 ft tall)he acquired from his parents. As I recall, they bought some furniture in the late 60's from California, I'm pretty sure it was a couch, chairs, coffee table, and probably end tables, and the Tiki came with it.

None of the furniture was tiki or anything out of the ordinary for the time. I remember hanging out at his parents house in the 80's (high school days)and early 90's, they had a regular wooden bar set up on the patio and the Tiki next to the bar. We had some cool parties there, even when his parents were home, those were good times!

We called it "The Tiki Bar" even though that was the only thing tiki in it, but hey thats more than some so-called tiki bars in FL. He also had some cool pictures under the glass top of the bar of trips to the Keys and Caribbean, snorkeling, scuba diving, lobstering, etc.

He now has it inside his home next to the same bar. It is cool to visit my original tiki bar hangout. BTW, he always says he was putting me in his will if he goes before I do and leaving me the Tiki, there are a lot of good memories with that Tiki!

I was in my favorite dive last Friday talking to the owner, Miss Opal, who is near 80, and I was telling her about Hukilau. Turns out she has been to the Mai Kai many times and Cuba before Castro. She loved it. I am hoping she will dig out her photos of her there drinking out of a "coconut" as she recalls. Said I needed to find the "4 Oclock Club" between Ft. Lauderdale and Miami where they used to hang out.

The Swank Pad Broadcast - If it's Swank...

[ Edited by: swanky on 2004-08-04 15:07 ]

So, how did one learn about the more unusual catalogs back then? Everyone had a Sears catalog of course, and a few others, but how did you know about the existance of the Oceanic Arts catalog (if you weren't from California), much less get one? Was it all word of mouth & learning about it through travel to California? Or did companies that sold through catalogs have a particular way to advertise?

Sounds like a great subject to do a "GOOD" Documentary on! Lets get Huel Houser on the case!

On 2004-08-04 07:21, Johnny Dollar wrote:
we visited an antique place in west virginia about a onth ago, where they had basically every SEARS catalog from the 50s to the 70s for sale - a huge bookshelf full.

Did they have this one?

http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/sears.asp

On 2004-08-04 09:08, Swanky wrote:
I was in my favorite dive last Friday talking to the owner, Miss Opal, who is near 80, and I was telling her about Hukilau. Turns out she has been to the Mai Kai many times and Cuba before Castro. She loved it. I am hoping she will dig out her photos of her there drinking out of a "coconut" as she recalls. Said I needed to find the "4 Oclock Club" between Ft. Lauderdale and Miami where they used to hang out.

Here is a great postcard of the "Five O'clock Club" in Miami;
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3634&item=2260842427&rd=1

I do not want to blow anyone's bubble, but the so called "Good Old Tiki Days" are as thin a construct as the idea of the Polynesian Islands being Paradise On Earth was.

I am not saying that I made it all up and the Book Of Tiki is a another version of the "Cruise of the Kawa", but what one can easily forget is that the complete macro-cosm of Tiki that the BOT delivers in your lap was NOT in everyone's awareness at the time of Tiki's heyday.

Very few people, (like the good folks at OA for example), had a grasp of the pervasiveness of the style in it's completeness, (and even they did not know it all), or actually really lived it, like Eli Hedley.

Most folks knew and adhered to certain aspects, like doing backyard Luaus, or going to their local Tiki Supper Club on special occasions, but did they know of places in other states, the Motels, the apartments? I do not think so. They drank the cocktails, but I have yet to find one oldtimer that (back in the 50s or 60s) collected the mugs.

It took the distance of time, (and in my case place of origin), and years of persistent urban archeology to put the pieces of the puzzle together to make the glorious image of Tiki style appear in front of your eyes in the way the BOT did.

Artist/writer Bruce McCall once said something about the 50s akin to "Don't ever tell me the 50s were such a wonderfully perfect time..." and I agree. But yet that does not deny me this great form of ancestor worship, which as religions go is based to a large percentage on mythology.

I LOVE mythology, and we all need it.

Excellent points BigBro, and it leads me to a couple of questions about how all the facets of Polynesian Pop Culture became known as 'Tiki'.

On a personal level, snippets of Hawaiiana, Tiki Bars, early mug collecting, exotica (music) occasionally found their way to me via the bands I liked & the low-brow artists I admired. But, it wasn't until 'The Air-conditioned Eden', (A one-off tv show on the BBC in England) was aired that I realised all this great stuff was known as 'Tiki'. 'The Book of Tiki' was mentioned, but didn't actually appear for at least 5 or 6 years later!

So, what I'm wondering is what were the realities of looking for Tiki in the days when it was past it's prime and on the way out? The times when nobody cared and a mug went for $1 if you were lucky? The times when cases of Mr Bali Hai mugs were smashed just for fun? What made people care about something that the world had shrugged off as a passing fad?

Trader Woody

Technology.

To some(like me) our world is too full of computers, e-mail etc.

Tiki, for me, is an escape. I work all day on a computer or on the phone in my little office, my lunch time thrift store visits are a break from work. An excuse to stretch my legs and focus on something I enjoy - the thrill of the hunt!

The drinks and art are the exact opposite to what I do during the day. Pure heaven in my mind. :)

On 2004-08-05 16:31, Trader Woody wrote:
...Questions about how all the facets of Polynesian Pop Culture became known as 'Tiki'.

The term Tiki style was not used in the 50 and 60s (nor was "Tiki Drinks" by the way!), some people referred to it as "Kon-Tiki style", but the term mostly used was "Polynesian style".
It is a post modern term that began to appear in the 80s. The term Polynesian Pop was my creation.

But, it wasn't until 'The Air-conditioned Eden', (A one-off tv show on the BBC in England) was aired that I realised all this great stuff was known as 'Tiki'. 'The Book of Tiki' was mentioned, but didn't actually appear for at least 5 or 6 years later!

Because it took me that long, even after that show, to find a publisher (note: a European documentary, and a European publisher !?). The director's concept was quite vague until he met me, but he then used the basic concept of the BOT mock up (which I volunteered gladly) for the documentary.

So, what I'm wondering is what were the realities of looking for Tiki in the days when it was past it's prime and on the way out? The times when nobody cared and a mug went for $1 if you were lucky?

Aaaah...THOSE actually were the good ole' Tiki days !!!

What made people care about something that the world had shrugged off as a passing fad?

The amazing creative inspiration documented in the multitude of artistic recreations and applications of the Tiki image....
The eternal call of the primitive...
AND: People always need new toys.

On 2004-08-05 16:31, Trader Woody wrote:
What made people care about something that the world had shrugged off as a passing fad?

I can only answer for myself...what originally drew me to "tiki" was my interest in the popular culture and styles of the 20th Century...particularly the 1950's. I always had a thing for history, not the kind that you read about in crusty old books relating to which president signed this bill or passed this measure, but really about day to day customs, activities and pastimes that at their time were nothing more than mundane and commonplace. Or what I've always referred to as "popular history." For as long as I can remember I've wanted to experience what things were like decades before I was even born - such as driving a vintage car, listening to old time radio programs as well as old music, tasting a chocolate malted or a real vanilla Coke at a drug store soda fountain, etc. I have this insatiable desire to experience the past firsthand! When I got to legal drinking age nearly 13 years ago (damn that's scary) I got interested in the whole "cocktail culture" of the early 20th Century - I started collecting cocktail shakers, barware, vintage recipe books, all that stuff. Of course if you start at the heyday of vintage barware (post Prohibition) and follow its natural progression, it eventually leads to the offshoot from the cocktail family tree that is tiki. This was the epitome of cocktail cool - and exactly what I wanted to have in my "rumpus room."

But generally I think those who helped preserve tiki in its decline did so for nostalgia... or perhaps for its kitsch value. Interestingly enough, in some cases an interest that is started under the premise of being a joke suddenly becomes a deep affection! And personally I think those who do things as a goof unconsciously understand that what they're really doing is preserving a piece of "popular history" that is slowly disappearing.

For me, there is no 'thing' or single incident that draws me to tiki. It's just some inate attraction I've always felt for as long as I can remember.

I'm struck by the similarity of Swanky chatting with his Miss Opal and the recent oral history interviews of WWII vets that were done over Memorial Day.
Granted, tiki didn't save the free world, it just relaxed it a bit; but I love the idea of people like Swanky posting the memories and maybe the pics of people like Opal at a tiki bar back in the days, "good ole'" or not. Retro is great; history is greater.
You just can't have too much info or too many pics of niche history happening. Nobody is getting younger and there is no time like the present to record the past.

On 2004-08-05 18:05, Tiki_Bong wrote:
For me, there is no 'thing' or single incident that draws me to tiki. It's just some inate attraction I've always felt for as long as I can remember.

Fess up Bong!!! You only got into tiki because you got kicked out of ALL the Britney Spears chat rooms YEARS ago!!!! :)

I agree w BigBro. I don't think there was a tiki "culture" in the 50s -- just people doing their thing and having fun. No real thought being given to what tiki meant by itself or what it meant to the larger American culture, and certainly no tiki networking or tiki clubs. Individuals I think only thought about letting their hair down a bit, and entrepeneurs thought hey, maybe I can make some money off this. And that was the beginning and the end of it.

"Culture" implies rules, classifications, introspection, analysis, collection of history and lore. This is what is happening now. "Tiki culture" is now.

Like Bong, I was born with a deep fascination for tiki. I have always thought it was fun and great and have liked it very much. But to read something like BOT and come across a forum like TC and understand that it is a culture with its own unique history and classifications and even laws (sort of) is truly a grand pleasure. In this sense:

One may be born liking flowers and plant them like crazy. But to be introduced to the formal world of hortirculture serves to deepen (never lessen!) one's fascination and joy in this pursuit. Or am I off base?

Anyway, that's my two stone coins, and p.s., bows to you BigBro for inventing "Polynesian Pop" -- surely a writer can have few greater pleasures than coining a phrase that falls into everyday use.

[ Edited by: Satan's Sin on 2004-08-05 18:58 ]

Well, I can't tell you much, coming on the scene late and all, but what little I can tell you about my experience- Kahiki, from the 70's until well, I don't know if today counts or not- hmmmmm.

I can't put my finger on my first Kahiki experience, but it would have been early 70's, perhaps 74- 75? (I would have been well under 10 years old, if that gives one any idea.)

Kahiki was a place you only went for special occations. It was expensive and a very upscale establishment. It may also have been one of my first encounters with valet parking- which left a real impression. From the moment you were helped out of the car you were treated like royalty- and kids were given special treatment!

I remember being small and everything being big, dark, and mysterious. There were so many sounds, smells, and colors- from the tropical fish tanks to the parrots on the rainforest side. Drinks like the smoking eruption wafted dry ice 'smoke' across the table while the flame from a puupuu platter flickered. (Parents of course had to help with food involving fire- but it was like a mini campfire at your table!)

Mugs, the swizzle sticks, backscratchers, etc were just part of the meal. And if we, even as kids, got the non-alcoholic drinks they still came in a coconut, a headhunter mug, or a skull mug. The way you got mugs or swizzles, or even plastic leis (since we were kids) was by having a meal there and taking the souvenirs home.

But better yet, Kahiki was a restaurant with a gift shop! At some point after the meal, on the way out we would always plead with Mom and Dad for a few moments to find cheap plastic goodies, flower hair clips for my hair, a t-shirt, shell hanging planters, small statues, or coloring books of hula girls. Much of what was in the gift shop was cheap and gaudy and rejected by parents with too much good taste.

Over the years though, things changed. Valet parking disappeared. The gardens were no longer so well kept in summer. There would be fountains with hesitant or even failed water jets. The birds in the rainforest seemed fewer and fewer. The thunder and lightning soundtrack and lights flashing seemed to get out sync, and some of the rain jets on the rainforest windows seemed clogged. Little things were falling though the cracks. The mugs were no longer the sharp crisp casts. The merchandise in the gift shop seemed- at least to my now older eyes- less neat- more jewelry (which they had always had) and less Kahiki specific merchandise of intrest.

The restaurant seemed no longer as crowded and 'hopping', tables replaced areas where there had once been musicians, it no longer seemed quite as 'fashionable'- as see and be seen. Steel drum band brunches seemed to have replaced some of the music I remembered.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that some of the details seemed to be slipping. Maybe I was just older, but it no longer seemed quite as 'classy' a joint. Still expensive and amazing, don't get me wrong! But somehow it felt less cared for in some of the details.

The large staff seemed to have shrunk down to just a few people by a weeknight at the near end (after the impending demise had been announced.)

I did not love or appreciate with wonder the Kahiki one bit less! It still held every bit of magick for me- but now felt quieter, less populated, and less focused on every little detail to perfection.

I like it both ways, the Kahiki of my childhood where ever detail was attended to almost before you could so much as think a desire, and the later, more awed, hushed toned, regulars holding on to every minute possible there, with all it's imperfections.

But objects? What tiny bits we had, being land locked cental Ohioans, were what many cental Ohio households had, a shelf with several mugs from our various trips to Kahiki and a drawer with a few swizzles. Not as everyday objects, but as souvenirs of fond Kahiki memories.

Years later, my parents gave the mugs to my brother when he left for college. They went into a box and were for the most part forgotten until he moved into his first house. By then the Kahiki was preparing to close, so he held onto them.

Around that time, I stumbled into Tiki Central and began babbling feverishly about Tikis... Kahiki...there are other people also obsessed!... I'm building a bar in my basement...so some time later still, out of nowhere, my little Bro passed all remaining mugs from our childhood on to me- as he thinks that's where they belong. Now they're not just amusing clutter with fond memories, they're part of the great 'how I got here'. But the important thing about them is that in all those years, no one in my family got rid of them.

[ Edited by: Sabina on 2004-08-06 02:19 ]

Thanks for posting that Sabina -- very sweet memory trip -- and of the immortal Kahiki at that! Nice to hear that at one point it was absolute grade "A" tiki perfection. I drool over its pictures in BOT.

Sabina,

I certainly can relate to early memories of tiki like yours...

In fact, it is a combination of real and "false" memories that drew me to tiki and make it so fascinating...

Part of it is a facination with the recent past... a past just slightly beyond my reach (i.e. any time just before my date of birth in 1965). Can I be nostalgic for a time that I never had a chance to fully experience on a first hand basis? I often find myself having these "false" memories...

Another part of it is the very real memories of having lived through the tail end of the tiki heyday. I have vague recollections of luaus at the Hawaiian Isle Motel in Miami Beach in 1967... I have clear memories of outings to the Kon Tiki in Montreal to celebrate special occasions throughout the early 70s...

Was there a real tiki culture back then? And was my family a part of it? Like BigBro said, we probably just adhered to certain aspects... we had a basement bar that was somewhat tiki, with the right kind of lamps, coconuts and a few souvenir tiki mugs serving as bar-top decor, and a couple of exotica albums in the lp collection stacked below the nearby stereo... but I don't know that my folks were all that aware of the pervasiveness of tiki throughout North America. However, having made the choice of frequenting Montreal tiki bars and restaurants and bringing some elements of tiki into the home surely led them to choose places like the Hawaiian Isle and others when we traveled outside of our immediate surroundings...

[ Edited by: John in Montreal on 2004-08-06 10:26 ]

Since I was writing late last night, I may have left out one of the more important details;

These artifacts survived DESPITE the fact that they came home to our late 1800's Victorian home.

Now admittedly, in that Victorian, there was a fair amount of Danish modern furniture, but still, Headhunter mugs just don't really 'go' with some of the rest of the decor :)

Point being, these family visits to Kahiki were somehow important enough to all of us to preserve the mementos and never part with them through the years.

On 2004-08-05 16:11, bigbrotiki wrote:
They drank the cocktails, but I have yet to find one oldtimer that (back in the 50s or 60s) collected the mugs.

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-12 14:37 ]

On 2004-08-06 18:15, filslash wrote:

On 2004-08-05 16:11, bigbrotiki wrote:
They drank the cocktails, but I have yet to find one oldtimer that (back in the 50s or 60s) collected the mugs.

Doesn't that seem wierd? Someone must have gotten the collector bug back then!

Not neccessarily... back then, these were souvenirs, not really collectibles saved for their own inherent artistic value--just mementos of a good time, as Sabina noted. Polynesian restaurants were just one type of the many nicer restaurants that would have been the circuit for people back then. It would have been uncommon, probably, for someone to really focus on going only to polynesian hotspots when there were lots of other great steakhouse & piano bar options. What people did collect back then were the smaller, more universal items: my great aunt collected swizzle sticks and kept them in her kitchen, and my grandmother collected matchbooks, and had hundreds of them in a giant mason jar in her living room.

Souveniers are just that...souveniers; momentos of places visited. Souvenier collecting continues today as always;one daughter collects spoons; another, shot glasses; the youngest, bugs!!
It's not that folks didn't collect things in hopes that they would become valuable with time...baseball card collecting has been that way for a long, long time. It just seems that when it comes to tiki mugs, they moved from being souveniers, to being investments; and THAT is a recent developement.

[ Edited by: Bamboo Dude on 2004-08-06 23:00 ]

On 2004-08-06 22:59, Bamboo Dude wrote:
It just seems that when it comes to tiki mugs, they moved from being souveniers, to being investments; and THAT is a recent developement.

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-12 14:38 ]

On 2004-08-07 02:27, filslash wrote:
(I broke up with a girl in Maui once over a fu manchu mug...Don't ask...)

Ok...I won't ask. Wait! Hold on! I lied...I can't sleep, you gotta tell me! PLEASE??!! Tell me, tell me, tell me!!!

When I was growing up in the '70's in South Africa, we'd go to this killer Movie Theater that had a complete cocktail lounge (called "Dino's Lounge") and a full-on restaurant (called "Franks Place") We'd always go early and dine in Frank's Place and then head to Dino's lounge after the movie, where my parents would indulge in a cocktail or two (we'd sit quietly with them and read our comics or something)
My point is that this did not seem strange or wierd. It was just another Movie Theater. My parents never thought to collect their matches or even take any photos. What is common "now" just does not seem worth much I guess. I'm such a retro phile that I'm sure I overlook a million things around today that would be considered cool and collectable in 30-50 years. I wonder if my I-Mac would fetch a cool million in 2056 ? who knows. Unfortunately, not many do, until its no longer around...like the movie thaeater I lament and wish for today (instead of these insipid multi plexes that play cartoons on the TV sets set up by their pathetic consession stands manned by snotty-nosed teens)
A caller on the radio once made reference to the 1950's as an "unsophisticated time" ARE THEY KIDDING ??? Look at today !!!

Just as Marks and Engles vomited out the ideas of dialectic imperialism, so goes the world of Tiki.

The thing that makes it intriguing to the literate is it's sacristy. The thing that makes it intriguing to the subliterate is it's bright colors being at eye level and on sale at Wal-Mart.

It's as valid as any theme for party, clothes ensemble or film set and will always re-surface. It seems like it's been a long while since Swashbuckling was the trend in films, but look what's in our laps just now.

Last night I was going thru some photos before before the movers and church fraus haul all my folks stuff away. There was a set of pictures of my parents house in 1963 OC. New house looked like it fell from outerspace. The first thing they did (Before a lawn even) was to put in a pond and waterfall. Later were palms and banana trees...even a mask.

I like to think they were guided by some divine spirit of bad taste, but really I'm sure they did it because everybody else did....same as the people who get tatoos to be differnt now.

We're all sheep I suppose, but I want to be the sheep in the most vulgar coctail shirt and tartan pants.

Gigantalope wrote:

There was a set of pictures of my parents house in 1963 OC. New house looked like it fell from outerspace. The first thing they did (Before a lawn even) was to put in a pond and waterfall. Later were palms and banana trees...even a mask.

Sounds like a nice time capsule. Would you mind posting it?

[ Edited by: tikijackalope on 2004-08-08 15:41 ]

I asked my Father-In Law about Trader Vic's and his recollections. He had lived near and visited the ones in Scottsdale, Denver, and San Francisco in the 60s. He will be 70 this year. He did not remember any music except at the S.F. location, that he described as Muzak played at a very low volume. Never thought about the mugs, just kept some of the tiki martini olive picks.

He did tell me about his favorite Bay Area dive, The Little Bit. Said it was about the size of the Tiki Ti, served sandwiches for 10 cents an inch. The owner opened another bar in Sausalito called "Latitude 38" and asked him to redisign the menu. The owner had a small plane that he kept at a small airport in Novato. He and his partner flew down to Mexico and came back with some duffle bags full of pot. They did not realize they were being followed by a goverment plane and were busted as soon as they touched down. Don't know if the bars survived.

I know my folks just kept matches from all the restaurants they visited. My guess is that the mugs were purchased/taken more by out of area visitors.

Hey Bongofury, thats a great yarn!

Sometime in the 80s my Dad was asked to help refurbish and crew a B-26. He became involved with the Confederate Airforce...a bunch of well-to-do show-offs... flew around in uniforms and all that.

After a Trip to Latin Amreica they went someplace and were greeted by the Feds, and to everyones shock, the interior of the plane was filled with drugs.

They all had some "splaining" to do.
He was so clueless, they knew he could not have known what he was doing. But was followed for about two years when he would fly his own plane somplace odd.

The bloke who owned the B-26 somehow got the plane and hid it before he was sent to prison and re-appeared about 3 years later, only to be hauled off again by the FBI at lunch one day.
The B-26 is hidden in "The Desert" someplace.