New York / New Jersey Ohana Unite!

Calling all New York & New Jersey Tikiphiles!

I know you're out there. Sneaking a little pineapple juice into your vodka-crans, hoping your friends won't notice... Secretly listening to Martin Denny at work on your headphones... Furtively clutching a package of colored straws and drink umbrellas at the supermarket, knowing that the check out girl won't let you go without a smirk... Calling in sick from work so you can be home when that vintage leopard fez you found on eBay finally arrives, and then lying to your wife about what was in the empty box...

Well it's time for all of us to come out of the Tiki-closet people! Unite, brothers and sisters in Tiki and proudly wear your Aloha shirts and pooka beads in public! Shout from the roof of your tenement building or row house to all that can hear that Tiki is not tacky! That girly drinks are for men too!

Become tiki activists! Demand that orgeat syrup be stocked at your local bars, and that plastic tiki mugs be heavily taxed at our borders. Individually, we are shipwrecked on an island of cement and steel, but together we can dig our way to the sand underneath which waits patiently for our wrigling toes. Shake loose the cold, hard crust that obscures the radient tikiness of your being and come together with tiki pride. Drink, drink against the dying of the light! For these are the days that try tiki souls.

OK, enough of that... :wink:

If you've read this far, you're either easily amused by awful prose, or you, like myself, are a tikiphile who feels misplaced in the urban jungle while members of our Ohana out west are yucking it up in the sunshine and surf. So let's do something about that. Let's create our own Oasis and gather together to celebrate our common passion. We don't have much to work with, but with some work (and a lot of play) we can grow a Tiki Ohana right here in the belly of this un-tiki beast of a metropolis.

Please use this thread to introduce yourselves to each other, and to announce any upcoming events in the New York / New Jersey area.

I'll start it off by suggesting a meet and greet with dinner and drinks at Waikiki Wally's this Saturday, March 24th. Let's say 8PM. It's located at 99 E 2nd St in the East Village between 1st and Ave A(http://waikikiwallys.com).

Let me know if there's any interest out there and send me your conatact info via personal message if you'd like. I'm looking forward to meeting you all!

Mahalo,

John (Tonga-in-Chiki)

Aloha John!

Mahalo for your tiki call to arms!

No promises but I'll do what I can to get into the city on Saturday night to meet up with you guys. Hopefully Velveteenlounge and Paul survived Cancun and can also join us. Nancy and Freddie will you be there? Nel is probably stuck at behind the bar at Otto's.

Matt

STD Notice (No....it means Save The Date) for NY/NJ/ East PA Ohana:

23 June, Allentown, PA - My annual Birthday Luau

I'm visiting Manhattan this month - and will be at the Metropolitan Museum to photograph the entire Oceana Arts exhibit (and the whole primitive collection if I have film and batteries left) on Thursday morning, March 29th, when it opens at 9:30am. Probably be there for an hour or two. It's a weird time, but anybody who wants to have a drink or coffee at the Met up on the second floor cafe...

Thanks, Matt. I hope you and the others can make it on Saturday. It would sure be a sad sight if I ended up there all alone at Wally's, crying into my Volcano Bowl...

:wink:

John (Tonga-in-Chiki)

A few of us NYC tiki-philes have been using Unsteady Freddy's Surf Rock shindigs at Otto's Shrunken Head as our excuse to convene and suck down mai tais together. 1st Saturday of each month. But I'd be up for anything tiki. Dave

Is this invite open to Tiki-quasi-newbie? If so, my better half & I can probably make it!

Gina

I'm around NYC and usually at Ottos during the week.

Stay tuned for more NYC area events.

I'll post em here.

Hi Martiki-bird (Gina),

Sure you're invited! And by the way, we are all beginners in tiki since tiki is eternal...

A most mystical mahalo to you,

Tonga-in-Chiki (John)

Y'all don't forget my call for next weekend, Waikiki Wally's on Saturday night, March 31!

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=22908&forum=4&13

Formikahini

DH and I were arriving at JFK on a flight from Mexico last night and didn't find out about this 'til just now. Sigh. Anyway, we're definitely up for meeting up with more tikiphiles from the area. I think I'm safe in saying we're the ONLY ones in our town (I never seem to have to fight for tiki stuff in the local stores), although that doesn't keep us in the closet. We just wear our aloha clothes and let the folks stare. I like to think our biggest contribution to our area has been asking the local liquor stores to order things like maraschino and falernum. Stores that have never heard of these products now stock them. Makes me feel like I'm doing some good in the world!

I'm blind and missed this post last week. Let us know here if there are any more upcoming events in the area.

When is the next meeting of the minds!!!!!!

manny

Hi Manny,

Welcome to our growing Ohana!

It sounds like there's already a group that meets the first Saturday of the month at Otto's Shrunken Head at 538 E14th (http://www.ottosshrunkenhead.com/) and I'm planning on being there myself to meet whoever shows up. I think a few others I've personally met, including Martiki-Bird and paranoid123 (from this thread) will be there as well. So join us!

Otto's is best described as punk-tiki (if there were any other examples of such a thing, that is...) so don't expect to be greated at the door by any wahinis, but it's a really fun and unpretentious place, whether you're pierced out or aloha'd out. And their tiki drinks are a hell of a lot better than Waikiki Wally's, so there's that very important ingredient!

Hope to see you (and everyone else) there!

Tonga-in-Chiki

P.S. Damian, thanks for finding my jacket at Waikiki Wally's on Saturday. It's not worth drinking two volcano bowls if you can't even reach a minimal level of clothes-shedding intoxication, and it seems I at least did that!

HMMMM sounds like FUN!

What time this saturday?

3 of the bands that will be at Otto's:

http://www.myspace.com/thediamondheads

http://myspace.com/bongosurf

http://www.myspace.com/theclamswedontsing

The reverb gets turned up at 10pm

I can already taste the Mai Tais!

Follow-up report on the 4/7 NYC tiki gathering:

Tiki Kollektor (Dave) and posse (Pattie, Marlin, and Joel) met Tonga-in-Chiki (John) and we rocked out at Otto's to The Clams, Bongo Surf, and The Octomen. All 3 bands were awesome but The Octomen were a surprise crowd fave. In one night we were treated to 3 different but equally cool versions of Walk Don't Run! Can you get too much Walk Dont Run? The room was energized! Rounds of mai tais, zombies and Otto's signature drink the "shrunken head" kept our table covered in tiki all night. By mutual agreement, the shrunken head (mai tai meets coconut) was voted our favorite Otto's drink!

We will be back there in May! (Mr. Neutron -- known for their seriously fast and tight surf guitar licks -- is on the schedule!) Hopefully more NYC TC'ers will join us.

Thanks to all the TCers who came to Otto's on Sat. nite.
Glad to hear y'all enjoyed yourselves
steve/otto's

Aloha Akbar,
Please think about coming by the NY Uke Fest April 26 - 29 at 155 First Ave (corner East 10th St) in Manhattan. The website is http://www.nyukefest.com

There's FREE BEER all weekend, courtesy of Samuel Adams. Concert prices are very inexpensive, and Saturday and Sunday we have $5 tix during the day, and if you buy a uke from one of the vendors, you get your 5 bux back.

Surf guitar practically next door???? In Hell's Kitchen tomorrow night?? Why I love NY!

I'll be there!

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=21537&forum=11&8

I'll have to be late, but I'll try to be there by 10PM for El Muchacho.

Surf's up ese!

;)>

Tonga

[ Edited by: Tonga-in-Chiki 2007-04-17 14:58 ]

Just a reminder for all the Big Apple (and Garden State) tikiphiles out there that Otto's Shrunken Head at 538 E14th St (http://www.ottosshrunkenhead.com/index.html) will be hosting the once-a-month UNSTEADY FREDDIE'S SURF-ROCK SHINDIG at 10PM this Saturday, May 5th.

Who says Cinco de Mayo and tiki don't mix? Come join your tiki compadres for a night of twang, reverb, and fruity drinks...

Hasta,

Tonga-in-Chiki (John)

I'll be there.

Sorry we can't make it to Otto's this weekend. Heading out to my old stompin grounds in Dallas for a shin-dig with the Tejas Ohana at the recently reborn Trader Vics (win one lose one).

Some of us were talking about getting together at Jade Island for eats sometime later this spring. Also for those truly adventurous souls you are welcome to trek west to Allentown in June for my annual birthday luau on the 23rd.

Here's a more enticing Otto's link:

http://www.ottosshrunkenhead.com/pages/drinks.html#

The bands:

9pm BIKINI-A-HOLE
10 pm MR. ACTION & THE BOSS GUITARS
11pm THE NEMATOADS
12am MISTER NEUTRON
1am THE REVERB SYNDICATE

Hello NY/NJ tikiphiles. I dont mean to crash your thread here, but I was hoping to see a lot of you on our Tiki Tour this August. We've got some Tri-State ohana signed up but the more the merrier!

Here's a link to the thread http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=23775&forum=4&65

Or if you wanna just hit the site & sign up:

http://www.northeasttikitour.com

Only 6 spots left.

Hope to see some of you there!

[ Edited by: Bargoyle 2007-05-15 11:04 ]

The cover story in the latest issue of Time Out New York is on hipsters. The issue includes a short side article on truly hip things in NYC. But they're blind items so the hipness isnt immediately blown by exposure to the masses. Here's the hip music listing:

"Some say New Yorkers have big heads, but that’s not a problem at this out-of-the-way bar, where the kitsch factor is so high it becomes cool again. This goes double once a month, when you’ll find the surf music rising on the fringes of the concrete jungle. These cats mix reverence and irreverence into a potent cocktail—what else would you expect from a host who’s memorized the production credits from old Challengers’ B-sides?"

As if we didnt already know. Maybe I'll see some of you hipsters Saturday night. :)

[ Edited by: Tiki Kollektor 2007-05-31 07:09 ]

New Yorkers (and vicinity) going to the Hukilau

If you want to get a headstart before you leave time,
there is a surf and twist party Wed. June 12
Info. at: http://www.myspace.com/thewangdangdoodle

We have tix for Pink Martini that night but will try and stop in afterwards.

Or drop a line if you want to hook up in NYC another time before leaving town

saturday's surf rock shin-dig (the event mentioned in the TimeOutNY blind item) was amazing! Thanks to all that showed! See you next month
steve/otto's

On 2007-06-03 20:54, tastysp wrote:
saturday's surf rock shin-dig (the event mentioned in the TimeOutNY blind item) was amazing! Thanks to all that showed! See you next month
steve/otto's

Was it unusually crowded with hipsters?

Nope just the same "un-hip" crowd that always comes.
Hipsters are just people who have never found something they truly like

Birdgirl and I were there at Otto's on Saturday. Steve is right - the place was rockin' with some kick-ass rockabilly and surf guitar. My ears were ringing when we left. We caught up with Kiki & Dave and Steve & Lenore and had us a couple of cold suffering bastards on a warm night. Good times. Don't know where the hipsters were...and don't care. Starting to get psyched for Hukilau and NE Tiki Tour. Should be a great summer.

So are the NYC Ohana going to represent in Allentown? If you guys take the bus we'll come pick you up!

Hey! Thanks for the reminder. I think some of us may want join you on your big day, but do you know which bus runs down there from the city? I did a search and it looks like gotobus.com used to show a stop there, but not anymore.

Tonga

Tonga that would be super! It will be great to meet you all.

You can get buses to Allentown at Port Authority. Both Bieber and Trans-Bridge make the run several times a day and it's only about $30-$40 bucks round-trip. They both have websites with schedules, etc. For Trans-Bridge the stop is downtown Allentown bus terminal and for Bieber it is their stop at the CharBroiler on Hamilton Blvd. just off I-78 near Dorney Park (this actually the one closest to my house. If you let me know when you're arriving I can make a run to pick you up at the bus depot. If people need to crash there are couches and one unfurnished spare room still available, just let me know as they go fast.

Aloha!

p.s. I bought the Hawaii 5-0 season 1 box set on DVD so we can have a "book'em Danno!" marathon.

Funny, I found the best way to deal with NY, and the east coast's complete intolerance for tiki is to move...Calafornee...it worked for me anyway. :P

Here is the link for Trans-Bridge:

http://www.transbridgebus.com/

The stop for Beiber is actually listed as Wescosville not Allentown and it is called the Charcol:

http://www.biebertours.com/

I bought the Hawaii 5-0 season 1 box set on DVD so we can have a "book'em Danno!" marathon.

Ooo say no more! We two NJ ohana would love to join you on your big day.

Martiki-bird (Gina)

On 2007-06-07 15:56, tikiyaki wrote:
Funny, I found the best way to deal with NY, and the east coast's complete intolerance for tiki is to move...Calafornee...it worked for me anyway. :P

As a California girl trapped in New York all I can say is I'll see you soon!

I am sure Woohoo and soccertiki will call in from Cali to add to the mix.

"Tiki is as tiki does.....that's what Momma always says."

On 2007-05-15 05:43, Bargoyle wrote:
Hello NY/NJ tikiphiles. I dont mean to crash your thread here, but I was hoping to see a lot of you on our Tiki Tour this August. We've got some Tri-State ohana signed up but the more the merrier!

I hear you're totally sold out! Is that true?
I wonder if it would be possible to follow by car with a designated driver?

Having lived in California, and now back in NYC, I say Tiki Spirit is wherever you are!
If you were at the Hukilau this last weekend, you would have seen a total embrace of East Coast Tiki!
Lotsa great tikiphiles here on the East Coast!

On 2007-06-07 15:56, tikiyaki wrote:
Funny, I found the best way to deal with NY, and the east coast's complete intolerance for tiki is to move...Calafornee...it worked for me anyway. :P

On 2007-06-18 20:51, KikiTiki wrote:

Having lived in California, and now back in NYC, I say Tiki Spirit is wherever you are!
If you were at the Hukilau this last weekend, you would have seen a total embrace of East Coast Tiki!
Lotsa great tikiphiles here on the East Coast

Although we haven't been able to make it to Hukilau yet, we have met some great tikiphiles in the East. Lord knows we have to try a lot harder, at least in my area!

I hope to see as many of you as possible this Saturday at my Birthday Luau in Allentown.

Hey Matt,

I was hoping to get to your party this weekend (I've got a client in Allentown and was gonna write it off as a business expense) but unfortunately our dog got diagnosed with Nephritis today, so I dont think we're going anywhere. Sorry man. Have a great birthday, and I'll buy you a drink on the Tour come August.

And yes, the Tiki Tour IS sold out, and unfortunately, due to issues of liability, we can't have anyone shadowing the bus (sorry).

However, the demand for an event here in the Northeast has really been an eye-opener for me. I'm thinking that we do the poly-pub crawl maybe 2x a year, and have some big Oasis/HukeLau style event 1x a year.

For those who didnt get on this Tour, I urge you to sign up on the waiting list. Anyone who is on the waiting list will get priority seating on the next one.

See ya in August.

http://www.northeasttikitour.com

On 2007-06-21 12:20, Bargoyle wrote:

However, the demand for an event here in the Northeast has really been an eye-opener for me. I'm thinking that we do the poly-pub crawl maybe 2x a year, and have some big Oasis/HukeLau style event 1x a year.

http://www.northeasttikitour.com

There are some cool old tiki motels in Wildwood, NJ and a vintage tiki minature golf course. I would love to see some more East Coast tiki events!!!!! See the new version of Tiki Road Trip 2 for Wildwood coverage.
We went there off season last spring and all the googie 50's and 60's motels blew our minds!
Unfortunately the area is not near a major aiport.

But defiinitely interested in more East Coast stuff, and willing to help with planning/promotion.

myspace.com/nykikilola

Wildwood Tiki Event/THUMBS UP!!!

Wildwood with its DooWop Motels would be perfect for a Tiki
happening East Coast Style! Newark NJ or Philly would be near
by airports.

Thortiki

PS Wildwood over the past several years has started to go upscale.
Many of the old vintage motels have been leveled, BUT enough remain
to give that retro surf feel!

Used to do the Jersey shore all the time. We used ot rent a house in Sea Isle for a few weeks every summer.

Was just there 2 years ago. Did the do-wop museum, etc. Not a heck of a lot of tiki out there, but I do love Wildwood!

Also thinking about Lake George and the Tiki Motel. They still have a polynesian show but alot of the decor has been torn down.

Part of the reason why I decided on "Northeast" rather than "New England" Tiki Tour was so that we can incorporate a lot of the places in NY & NJ into future events.

As far as August, Im looking into the possiblity of a second bus. Its gonna be tough as all of our swag & arrangements with the bars are for a group of 48. I dont want second bussers to be second class citizens, so I'm trying to figure some stuff out. Its a long shot, but its not out of the realm of possibilties.