I didn't know Daniel Balsz passed away!?

was this discussed here and i missed it?

Balsz, Daniel (79)
Died August 5 at his Las Vegas home. Former L.A. night club owner of "The Tikis," he is survived by his wife Sharon, four kids, seven grandkids. Services held August 12, at Calvary Cemetery, Los Angeles. (323) 261-3106
Published in the Los Angeles Times on 8/11/2005.

No. I am speechless. Thank you for catching this. He was a great character.

Those late-night drums from my childhood will be remembered forever.

Here's an old thread I dug up about Danny Balsz and The Tikis. Interesting stuff although a bit sad. At least we still have the mugs (if anyone has an extra red one they'd like to unload let me know).

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=1460&forum=1&hilite=balsz

Hey Tom Slick, your first post on TC and you pulled THAT one out of yer hat? Right past the Grand Honorary Poo-Bahs? Good one!

On 2005-08-28 22:13, tikitortured wrote:
Hey Tom Slick, your first post on TC and you pulled THAT one out of yer hat? Right past the Grand Honorary Poo-Bahs? Good one!

Have a little taste....I'm glad you're so excited.

Taste? Uh...ok, I'll try really really hard to have more "taste" for you Volcano. Golly gosh, I shoulda taken Cherry Capri's etiquette course when I had the chance.

On 2005-08-29 11:59, tikitortured wrote:
I shoulda taken Cherry Capri's etiquette course when I had the chance.

Let me know when you go, because I need to go too.

Awww Nuts! I always thought I might share a moment with guy before he cashed in. But then again I guess I shared something more... a like mind. I feel a kin to Mr. Balsz as a man driven, often against common sense.
Cheers to Danny Balsz!
Lord knows this man had 'em.

I got blessed in seeing both places, but never getting to enjoy them fully.

monterey Park: I grew up in Commerce where my parents still are. Went to school nearby, Bosco Tech, rode my bike sometimes, so was about 14. This would be round 77 or so.
Tiki's was a fascinating looking place on the drive by. when I biked, I decided to sneak in. The place was closed, the rides not running. A kiddie coaster into some rock caverns. a Traver Tumble Bug, kiddie version. Some swan boats marooned dry and sitting in an empty lakebed. I mourned for the place. Farther down on the south side, it looked like more caves, turned out to be a restaurant. VERY dark in there, waiters preparing for the night crowds, so it was actually closed, just getting ready. Went back up the hill round a train track course, dont recall the train. A llama in a cager spit at me. Missed me, but the smell was vERY gross.

Sadly, it was all torn down and is now a storage place, that one chain with all orange, whatever they are.

Anyhoo, couple of years later, former friend invites me to a haunted house at lake elsinore, at Tiki's. They have a giant pumpkin baloon and either 7 or 12 spotlights. I asked if it was the same Tiki's when I got there, they said yup, they moved. I remember a headless horseman on his horse riding round. The haunt wasnt a building one, but a dirt pathway, a roadway.

Ironically, I now live out near Lake Elsinore, and I always wondered what happened to Tiki's. Couldnt find ANYONE with the answer. And for the second delicious irony, I picked up the haunted house bug, am getting ready for opening my own.

but Tiki's is a past memoery I do mourn, even though I never got to fully experience it. Thanks for letting me glimpse of it once again.

Is there any book or picture or video resources about it on here? I ended up doing a search when Danny's name came up from there.

Anyhoo, thanks again.

On 2005-10-02 22:03, Nightmaretony wrote:

monterey Park: I grew up in Commerce where my parents still are. Went to school nearby, Bosco Tech, rode my bike sometimes, so was about 14. This would be round 77 or so.
Tiki's was a fascinating looking place on the drive by. when I biked, I decided to sneak in. The place was closed, the rides not running. A kiddie coaster into some rock caverns. a Traver Tumble Bug, kiddie version. Some swan boats marooned dry and sitting in an empty lakebed. I mourned for the place. Farther down on the south side, it looked like more caves, turned out to be a restaurant. VERY dark in there, waiters preparing for the night crowds, so it was actually closed, just getting ready. Went back up the hill round a train track course, dont recall the train. A llama in a cager spit at me. Missed me, but the smell was vERY gross.

Sadly, it was all torn down and is now a storage place, that one chain with all orange, whatever they are.

I grew up in Monterey Park and my parents still live there now. Unfortunately, I was a few decades too late, as The Tikis was long closed by the time I was born. I was really shocked when I got my copy of "Tiki Roadtrip" to read that Monterey Park was the site of a amusement part, and tiki themed at that. Monterey Park went through a lot of population and cultural changes ad it is now largely a Chinese/Latino area and decidedly pretty 'unhip', so it's difficult to imagine there ever being a place like The Tikis.

Correction again :wink: :

The Tikis (it's correct spelling, NOT "The Tiki's") was NEVER a hip place to begin with, it was all blue collar cheesiness for the masses!

Don, Vic and Steve would have shuddered in disgust had they ever witnessed the goings on there...but that's why we love it! :D

And last night, I went to meet a friend who has a haunt business. Turns out he was the driving force behind the Tiki's haunt way back when! Will be asking mucho questions and looking for pictures, will keep ya updated.....

Now, THAT would make an interesting story. Pictures would make it even better! I love tiki and I love me some Halloween spooky stuff, so consider me double interested!

didnt get a go this year, my website about my haunted house under construction is at http://www.nightmarepark.com. I have seen most every theme imnaginable for hauntings, but I am wondering, why NOT a tiki based haunted house? The exotic and scary things of the night are quite perfect there...

On 2005-10-31 06:53, Nightmaretony wrote:
... am wondering, why NOT a tiki based haunted house? The exotic and scary things of the night are quite perfect there...

Oh there is one.

On 2005-10-31 13:44, Turbogod wrote:

On 2005-10-31 06:53, Nightmaretony wrote:
... am wondering, why NOT a tiki based haunted house? The exotic and scary things of the night are quite perfect there...

Oh there is one.

I'm not sure about a haunted house, but I find ALL Tiki Bobs Cantinas to be REALLY SCARY!!!!!

On 2005-10-02 22:03, Nightmaretony wrote:

Anyhoo, couple of years later, former friend invites me to a haunted house at lake elsinore, at Tiki's. They have a giant pumpkin baloon and either 7 or 12 spotlights. I asked if it was the same Tiki's when I got there, they said yup... I always wondered what happened to Tiki's. Couldnt find ANYONE with the answer.

Driving past Elsinore's legendary Tikis a several times a year I've always wanted to take a peek, so when we finally popped off the highway, we went directly to a little storefront filled with senior citizens where my girlfriend asked about the ruins. A few were adamant that no such place had ever existed at Lake Elsinore, but after some bickering and head scratching one insisted the old place was in fact "just down the road" and kindly gave us directions.

It was just beginning to get dark when we pulled into the paint-ball lot and we quietly parked our VW Bug between two hulking monster trucks. Thankfully the cluster of intimidating men in their camouflage uniforms and paint ball weaponry hardly noticed as two interlopers slinked through the gate and onto the Tikis property. Man-made rock formations were everywhere eerily silhouetted by the fading sunlight, like an abandoned kingdom of African termite mounds. Other semi collapsed metal superstructures were also visible. There was a spooky graveyard stillness there, and I was struck with the notion that this was exactly the type of place that one might expect to be haunted. So...I already had a raging case of "the creeps" when I realized the wall upon which I was leaning was embedded with dozens of human skulls! I damned myself for not bringing a camera and although we stumbled around in the growing blackness for a few more minutes it was now far too dark to explore further in safety so we split promising each other we'd return another time.

I understand why the grounds would have made a wonderful haunted attraction but Nightmaretony's post makes me wonder if the "Skull Wall" was an original part of the Tikis or merely a
Halloween addition added later.

On 2006-01-03 08:58, hodadhank wrote:
I understand why the grounds would have made a wonderful haunted attraction but Nightmaretony's post makes me wonder if the "Skull Wall" was an original part of the Tikis or merely a Halloween addition added later.

Danny plastered those in there himself. Don't know if he had the same concept in the original Monterey Park location. It's kind of a mount of skulls, I have a slide of it somewhere.

This thread is useless without pictures :) (infamous Fark quote)

As a coincidence, been talking to a haunt friend in Socal who had set up the Tiki's haunted house in Elsinore. am hoping he can find pictures.

Drove by The Tikis this afternoon on my way back from Vegas and saw three big yellow earth movers leveling the place.

Dangit, dangit, dangit! I've said it before & I'll repeat it here: It's a cosmic joke that I wasn't born thirty years earlier. Most everything I like exists only in old photos. Stupid Universe...

On 2006-03-09 22:18, hodadhank wrote:
Drove by The Tikis this afternoon on my way back from Vegas and saw three big yellow earth movers leveling the place.

Wow...the end of an era. The futility of human toiling, the endless cycle of creation and decay, relativating one's own little problems, putting things in perspective as just a blip on the screen.

I am glad I helped Danny's work survive in some form. R.I.P., Tikis.

God,people can be so stupid.Think what those figures would have brought here on TC or on ebay.It reminds me of a place in south Georgia called "Pope's Museum".It was one of the earliest "folk art environments" in the US and the first made by a woman [between 1900 and about 1920]. Back in my private dick days, I had to investigate the guy who bought the place. He got tired of people coming by to see it so he and his friends destroyed it...over 200 pieces each one of which would have brought between $1000 and $5000 on todays market to people who would cherish them. Way to go, red neck.

The Tikis

Although this was an ignoble end to the Tikis, I wouldn’t fret about any important artifacts being dozed under; all the Tikis and architecture were long gone. Most likely, what ever was there recently was too heavy to move, concrete stuff like the skull wall and giant stalagmites Danny made.

When we went there in 94 the place already looked like it had been hit by a hurricane and picked over by looters. There had been a flood right thru the place the night before I went by, the place was covered in mud, rolls of unused thatch, broken fish floats, rotten Tikis, anything on the ground was covered in muck, some of the artifacts I saved from there have (now dry) dirt on them.

It was a surreal scene; once you went thru the gate Danny pad locked it behind you, inside a bunch of salty Lake Elsinore types were milling around doing nothing in particular. Every time a car pulled up he suspiciously looked over the occupants, I was under the impression something odd was going on. Danny walked us around the compound told us his tale; how successful the Tikis had been and other stories about back in the day, meanwhile here we are we were walking thru this scene of Tiki destruction, with our feet in the mud. He offered the giant fire and Freon breathing Tiki (pictured on 111, BOT) to me for 1500 bucks, but at that time I was broke and it would have taken a crane and semi truck to get it home, so it remained behind.

Finally we had to leave, I had collected whatever artifacts I wanted, unfortunately one of his guys had left the pad locks key inside a pickup truck, which had left ten minutes earlier… Danny was resourceful; he pulled out a hammer and with little effort smashed it off, although he was a little miffed that he had to destroy a perfectly good 12 dollar lock. We said our good buys, I would never see him again, but his effect on me has been incalculable.

My very best alohas

Bosko

Dang, didnt see any earth moving, I thought it was still a paintball field. Wait, DID see some, but I thought they were behind, away from the paintball field. I thought the palm trees delinieated the area....

and I drive by it every single day in my work commute. Sigh.

The Jungle Island website is still up and running and was last updated on Feb 13, 2006. That's only one month ago.

The website states: "CHECK OUT OUR BRAND NEW FIELD "CROSSFIRE" Just completed Jan 12".
They also mention "The CASTLE field and also VOLCANO'S field is open again!!!"
http://www.jungle-island.com/jihome.asp

Based on this, I'm not under the impression that they are closing anytime soon. Maybe the earth moving equipment is there because of their recent expansion? Or perhaps they're clearing out space to expand their parking lot?

BTW, pictures of the Volcanos section are here:
http://www.jungle-island.com/vo1all.htm

[edited to revise links]

[ Edited by: hakalugi 2009-04-29 10:31 ]

Makes sense then, the area around would be under reconstruct insetad of inside. I think that the paintball fields are is behind walls more or less, or so it seems...