Hey! We are gay... and we didn't even know it!

On 2008-03-15 10:39, naugatiki wrote:

Tiki Sunset Underwear Briefs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucK-yE2dbg4

Been there, done that: http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=25287&forum=12

Is it me or did that guy look like he needed a good wax job?! LOL Yet another version of the banana hammock! I'm not usually so Victorian, but I think I would blush and than start laughing if I saw that on the beach!

TikiGreg - excellent linking - I hadn't seen that one. I LOVE the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the connection to CockSox didn't even enter my mind. Now I'm gonna go listen to my boys!

Bump

First of all, although I don't live in Chicago, I've visited there often over the years and as a (temporarily, I hope) unemployed journalist of 35 years duration. Whenever I visit a city, I always make it a habit to pick up all of the local papers (even the Gay ones) just to see what's going on in the media in that town. The big alternative paper in Chicago is The Chicago Reader, but the city also has scads of neighborhood rags like this one and I don't think too many people read them.

It is odd that someone who works in the theater, an art form heavily populated with Gays, would use this kind of insult and think it would be perceived as witty by anyone but a junior cast member of South Park. Her bio on the theater piece she directed that was posted earlier says she also has worked extensively teaching at the college level -- another arena not exactly welcoming to non-PC anti-Gay remarks. It is my considered professional opinion that she wrote this because she is simply dumb as a rock. But where on earth was her editor before this was published?

I've never heard Tiki culture thought of as Gay -- although the Bettie Page bathroom in my photos posted on Flickr might be thought of as tipping slightly in that direction (my wife picked the purple background for the leopard skin walls, honest! I swear that I would have gone with black and white if it had been my choice). However, when my wife's 22-year-old niece in Oakland found out we had attended the last Tiki fest at Forbidden Island, she snottily declared that she wouldn't be caught dead at such an event. It's odd that Tiki art like that I've hung on the walls of my basement Tiki lounge is considered part of the hip and cutting edge Pop Surrealist art movement (see Juxtapoz magazine), while some people see it as impossibly nerdy, dorky or -- as Eric Cartman would put it -- "Gay."

Uh, err, do you think it might have something to do with all those overweight male Tikiphiles who wear loud Aloha shirts and fezzes in public?

(BTW, can someone explain to me what Shriner fezzes have to do with Tiki?)

On 2008-03-16 09:16, Dr. Zarkov wrote:
(BTW, can someone explain to me what Shriner fezzes have to do with Tiki?)

Discussed extensively here, doc.

On 2008-03-16 09:27, MrBaliHai wrote:

On 2008-03-16 09:16, Dr. Zarkov wrote:
(BTW, can someone explain to me what Shriner fezzes have to do with Tiki?)

Discussed extensively here, doc.

Thanks for the link. Very educational. I'm still not wearing one -- a straw hat is good enough for me!

[ Edited by: Dr. Zarkov 2008-03-16 10:00 ]

tzzziz!

On 2008-03-16 09:16, Dr. Zarkov wrote:

However, when my wife's 22-year-old niece in Oakland found out we had attended the last Tiki fest at Forbidden Island, she snottily declared that she wouldn't be caught dead at such an event.

Yeah, FI isn't the pick-up joint for drunk-a$$ early 20-somethings anymore (not implying your wife's niece is a drunk-a$$ ho, just that some of her friends most likely could fall into that category) and with the glut of nightclubs that cater to that ilk in the area, FI just doesn't rate in the top 50 on her scale.

What's funny is that I've heard people call FI a "Fern Bar", which I recall from the 70s, was code for "gay bar". Whatever, gay money is just as green as straight money....

Haole'akamai: Actually, according to my mother- and father-in-law, who we took to FI right after it opened and who grew up with Trader Vic and knew him quite well, FI reminded them of the old Hinky Dinks.

What my wife's niece was reacting to was not our patronizing FI, but attending a Tiki Fest there last September (along with my wife's mom and dad, who loved the experience). There were a bunch of dealers on the outdoor patio and we picked up a bunch of good stuff for our Tiki lounge, mugs, carvings and other art work, along with some CDs and clothing, while we were there. It was our mentioning that we had attended this event that elicited her response, not simply visiting the bar.