Where are the first TCers today?

"Where are the first TCers today?"

Facebook I bet,
It must be Sad to start a topic forum,
See it grow, change, morph into something really cool.
Then be kneecapped by a social networking fad.

I keep waiting for something to take over like FB
Did to MySpace. All that time n effort on
Your little slice of the net, gone down the tubes.

Jeff btd

Was thinking about this thread today. Was thinking about it yesterday, too. Come to think of it, this thread's been on my mind quite a lot over the past few months.

And feeling a little down about the state of "tiki culture" today, I decided to look up this thread and see where it went. I remembered right when Atomic Tiki Punk started it. That was what, about a year or so ago? Maybe revisiting it, I thought, will somehow elevate the gloomy mood.

Actually, it made it worse---finding the thread and seeing that no, it's not from a year ago, it's not from two years ago, it's actually from 2012. If my cocktail-napkin math is correct, that's a half a decade in the past. So, in other words, a half a decade ago already the group of what, 20, 30, 40 odd stragglers who were still actively part of this community at the time were sitting here wondering what the heck had happened. Wow. A half a decade is more or less a generation. That's longer than what people get for their entire life's worth of high school years, or their college years. And for that long things have been quiet and "off" around here, with a sense that the "Ohana" be gonna. It's kind of staggering, if not morbidly depressing. I just checked and ATP himself, and his moniker from "Costa Misery" that always made me smile, has apparently joined the other Ghost Users of Tiki Central Past---he hasn't posted on here at all in over a year. Where did he go? Why? And what happened to forgotten tikiman and White Devil, both frequent posters and good contributors to the site? They've been deleted. Why?

When I first posted to this thread---a half decade ago---my thought was that Facebook was killing it. Well it was probably that, but there has to be more to it. The two sites are not mutually exclusive. Marie's on FB and is connected with a lot of tiki people there, and we can verify that the draw of FB eventually pulled some people away, because that (and not here) was where everyone was actively posting. I think JOHN-O even admitted this when he stepped out the door with a wave. But what I can't figure out is, why abandon this place? It's solid. No ads. Not owned by a totalitarian corporate behemoth interested only in selling all your private data to other unseen entities. There is so much information here. That's why I'm always so happy to see new stuff from Dusty and Tipsy and tikiskip and the like, and am glad Bigbro is always contributing his knowledge and experience here. It may be slow these days and I know I'm as lax as anyone---I actually have multiple folders on the computer of photos and notes to share on TC, and some of these unpublished things go back 4 or 5 years---but even so I'll never abandon this place, there's too much here and it's still the first place and the best place to go to. It became the home of the "Ohana." That's why I was kind of bummed yesterday when I realized it was no longer possible to even send a PM to Hanford Lemoore, who started it---not even hacking around some of the php will permit any contact with him on here at all. I'd just wanted to tell him, and it is truly sincere, that I believe I love TC as much as he does. TC is almost 20 years old. It's outlasted almost everything online, and that's an achievement. Lurking or not, this place has been part of the background ambience of my life for almost half of it. My mind's eye catches the calm flicker of the neon TC logo all the time, and the yellow text atop the pool-table green of the discussion boards rolls down in recollection of many discussions had on here going back many, many years.

(And who is Jennifer Thompson? I find two references to the name in my email archives, one as the author of a tiki drink book and another as someone involved with a site called goClick. Hanford says she is the co-creator of Tiki Central. I don't remember her---did she have a nom de tiki?)

We got into tiki sometime in college, in those years of the 90s when the "cocktail revival" was an emerging trend. Combustible Edison coming out on one of my favorite record labels was like a wake-up call ... you didn't just have to listen to rock, but all that "beautiful music" of the past that you always loved was a-ok, too. Esquivel was reissued, the movie Swingers came out about the cocktail scene and all of this new media coverage about "tiki bars" and "retro" helped seal the deal. We knew we were home.

In the late 90s we were already collecting, even selling stuff on eBay. Vintage tiki was plentiful and easy to find. We hated new developments and strip malls and made in China junk, we loved old vintage stuff and went all-in on being a retro: space age appliances, vintage clothes, really everything but the car (not being in Cali, cool rust-free rides are much harder to come by).

Then the Kahiki happened. Soon after we went there, and were bit with tiki fever, came the news that it was going to be sold and demolished. To make matters worse, it would be for the Enemy: a big corporate chain! The same ones who were ruining every street-corner and neighborhood in the nation. That meant war ... it was our first foray into historic preservation. We learned a lot and made many contacts, and a desperate, angry letter in defense of the Kahiki---one that I believe is the first to mention the dreaded "Curse of the Kahiki"---is still out there, posted in a little corner of the net. Looking back in my email archives, I see messages that I was sending to the media about saving it and I was passing along bigbro's svenkirsten.com site for their reference concerning photos of the place---which is funny to think of now, because that was years before we even got to know him!

Some things happened in the course of that preservation attempt which made us, wrongly or rightly, pretty cynical and bitter about the emerging Tiki Revival, and we did two things that I now regret: we refused an invite by the Kahiki's owner to visit it in private one last time, and we didn't bother with signing up on the Tiki Central yahoo group or the site when it finally came about. By 2001, we had discovered Treasure Island, Florida, which at the time was still a well-preserved mid-century modern mecca (and whose big tiki past has only barely begun to be documented on TC), and we invested a lot of time and effort into raising awareness for that.

But even though I avoided TC, I was on other Tiki-related mailing lists---including "Exotica," a music discussion list, and again in my archives I see a conversation I had in 2002 with Tiki Kiliki about an endangered tiki palace, the Frank Wallace designed private "tiki" house in south Tulsa, and she told me she was posting my info on the then-new Tiki Central.

By 2003 the mention of "tiki" in my emails had grown exponentially. Many were mails from Marie; our tiki fever was incurable. It's funny to see Tiki News emails from Otto mentioning "the Tiki Central bulletin board." Eventually we commenced work on our own home tiki lounge, started going to the Hukilau and other Tiki events, joined TC, and began meeting the various people that we had only known online through majordomo mailing lists and html 3.0 hand-coded web sites. Things went into high gear with great-looking new sites like Critiki, and with so many new tiki events and new places and products, and with meeting artists like Bosko and Tiki Tony, and in all this there was a happy excitement about all of the great Tiki projects and plannings to come---but all of a sudden it just kind of felt like the "poly pop" aka "Tiki Revival" ended and imploded prematurely. Then soon came this thread. Good things still happen in the Tiki world, of course, but there's been some kind of change happening, too. We're regulars at one tiki establishment where, on the last TC night we attended, the DJ shared with us his own view of what was happening there: only the three of us were TC people, and he said that nowadays it's not the Tiki people that we know of who are into it and regulars there as much as it's a new crowd, college kids and people just out of school who think it's "cool" but are definitely not part of the Tiki world of before---and they're all young enough to romanticize the world of our early twenties and the "cocktail nation" and early Tiki Revival eras.

And all that reminds me so much of something I saw before in life. The 90s "alternative" or "indie rock" so-called "movement," grunge and all the rest of it, seemed to end just as the big party opened its doors. Agree completely with sentiments on this thread to the effect that it seemed like at some point it felt like there were no "tiki people" at tiki events anymore, or that people had gotten into it for different reasons and you no longer felt like a part of what was going on. We've felt all that. The last Tiki event where we really felt like a part of it and were genuinely happy was the 2008 Hukilau. Since then, the tone and tenor of tiki events have changed for us. And there was a lot of mixing and mushing with rockabilly and other things at some events where a "tiki pole" was kind of just part of the background iconography ... and at times, to those who were not part of these other scenes, it was almost like seeing the tapas pattern on a bag of Costco tortilla chips.

This general trending has had other deleterious effects. We lost way too much tiki in the past few years, and much of it I don't think we had to. I think if there was more of a Tiki community extant now, there would've been a good chance that some of these places would have been saved. One of LA's most successful mid-century preservationists had told us the big struggle they've had is that most of these communities are so insular---the diner people only care about the diners, the sign people only care about the signs, the tiki people only care about tiki bars, the Eichler people only care about Eichlers, and so on, and if everyone could get together and help one another out things would be so much better. But now with tiki it's at the point where there is no "tiki people," at least not in one recognizable place that I can see.

I still can't believe I've been privately mourning all this for a half a decade now, though. We do have good friends in Tiki, many still here on TC, but you know, the thought that there really is no "Ohana," that is something that is a bit hard to swallow. So we say that we are the Ohana, and that we're going to keep it going, and even if the number is few we know there are others out there who are filled with the Tiki spirit as it was always presented.

It's like the early-2000s "Tiki Revival" or "Poly Pop" movement ended so long ago, yet it seems like just the other day when we all felt it leaving the launch pad. Looking back, sure, I have some regrets. Maybe I'd neglected to cash in my ticket and go for the ride. Maybe it's gone. But I still, somehow, believe in it, even if I end up being one of the last guys standing in this quiet village. I just know that I'm still here in the tiki lounge, and the records are on, and tonight the mood is just right ... it's a clear winter night with the last of the cold, and stepping out for a second I almost thought that I actually saw it, high to the west, with a twinkle and shine.

[ Edited by: mike and marie 2017-03-24 10:37 ]

Here I am to toss my late-to-the-party post on the pile. Hello! I'm still pretty darned into Tiki in a heavy way, though I'm not around Tiki Central nearly as much.

So yeah, Facebook. No doubt, huge factor, likely the biggest factor. There are many Tiki-related Facebook groups that are very active, including countless regionally-focused Tiki groups. It's so much easier to post, share and get feedback there, and it's a much richer overall sharing-your-life-with-your-tiki-friends experience.

Tiki Central is also really hard to deal with on a mobile phone. More than half of the traffic to Critiki comes from people on a mobile phone; mobile traffic is growing quickly while desktop use is plummeting.

People are gone from Tiki Central, but I assure you, they're not gone from Tiki. I'm still seeing the same old faces at tiki bars and events, talking tiki on Facebook and sharing their latest finds, and plenty of the old-timers are still using Critiki. Usage of Critiki has increased pretty significantly over the last few years. Plus I'm meeting TONS of new people who have a genuine love for this stuff. Awesome people, you'd like them! It's sad to see folks aren't using Tiki Central like they once did, but from where I'm sitting, it's got nothing to do with Tiki.

The elephant in the room: how much longer can Tiki Central last? What will come of it? I'm reluctant to put my tiki-information-sharing energy into a site that is at risk of total collapse. It's a great repository of information that can't be found anywhere else, but what happens when it disappears? I've agonized over this, but I've also come to terms with it.

I will always love Tiki Central. It brought so many wonderful things to my life. I'm still around, but in a different way these days, and mostly elsewhere.

You know we were so lucky to meet mike and marie a number of times and have them to our house.
They are two very nice people.

You know this kinda got me thinking.
“and it's a much richer overall sharing-your-life-with-your-tiki-friends experience’
Many of the people still active on TC don’t do other types of “social media” isn’t Facebook more of an anti-social media as you let in certain people, sometimes the ones you know already?

“People are gone from Tiki Central, but I assure you, they're not gone from Tiki”
That may be a California thing, many tiki bars are going out around the globe even in California.
I think tiki will always be bigish in California as it fits.

“The elephant in the room: how much longer can Tiki Central last?”
So what will that do to the events? Tiki mag?
Or even the popularity of the tiki drinks, who are you selling that next book to?
Will the loss of TC hurt those types of things?

Ever notice when a TCer writes a book they come back to TC right before the book comes out?
Then bail after the book is done sellin.

I just sold a bunch of lights to a tiki bar that that would never have even known about me if not for TC.
And if I type in Tiki bar lights many of the images are pics of my lights lifted from TC, heck type in Kahiki or many tiki searches and images posted to TC pop up.

What ramifications will no more TC have on these issues?

In the past old TC folk were kind of being brought into the new larger TC and getting lost in the bigger pool of tiki folks.
Some of them did not like this and took their tiki ball and went home to Facebook where all the people they knew already were waiting.

That’s why I think the whole “Aloha” and “Ohanna” thing is such BS.
Those words should be banned from TC same as religion and politics are.

Dance with the girl you took to the party.

[ Edited by: tikiskip 2017-03-24 20:52 ]

On 2017-03-24 20:45, tikiskip wrote:
Many of the people still active on TC don’t do other types of “social media” isn’t Facebook more of an anti-social media as you let in certain people, sometimes the ones you know already?

It very much used to be that way! That was an early downside of FB, to be sure. But the use of the FB groups has really exploded over the last few years, and those are wide open, just like Tiki Central. It's now a place to broaden your social circle and meet new people, if that's something you're interested in. Plenty of real-world meetups get coordinated there, especially in the regionally-focused groups.

“People are gone from Tiki Central, but I assure you, they're not gone from Tiki”
That may be a California thing, many tiki bars are going out around the globe even in California.
I think tiki will always be bigish in California as it fits.

Couple things: I was talking about the question of where the original Tiki Central people have gone, rather than the places. But re: the places, I kinda have my finger on the pulse of the comings & goings of tiki spots. :wink: True, California will always have it pretty darned good, but there are a ton of new places opening all over the place. Doesn't take the sting out of losing a great older place, though. Back to the people: the old timers I'm still seeing are spread out all over the world, not just California folks.

“The elephant in the room: how much longer can Tiki Central last?”
So what will that do to the events? Tiki mag?
Or even the popularity of the tiki drinks, who are you selling that next book to?
Will the loss of TC hurt those types of things?

Ever notice when a TCer writes a book they come back to TC right before the book comes out?
Then bail after the book is done sellin.

I just sold a bunch of lights to a tiki bar that that would never have even known about me if not for TC.
And if I type in Tiki bar lights many of the images are pics of my lights lifted from TC, heck type in Kahiki or many tiki searches and images posted to TC pop up.

What ramifications will no more TC have on these issues?

It's hard to say, really, but I think these are good questions to be asking. I would guess that tiki events, book sales, that sort of thing, the general modern promotional stuff, I really don't think that would be impacted. All that information is getting disseminated more effectively in other venues, it gets cross-posted here on TC as more of a "what the heck, doesn't hurt to post it here, too" thing. It's the information that isn't available anywhere else that would be the big loss. If your information is only posted here, it may be worth considering if there are other places you want to make sure that info is also available, should there be a catastrophic server failure here at TC. tikiskip, your lamp work is fantastic and more folks should know about it—TC lifespan question aside, it's worth thinking about how you could be sharing what you've done in other places. Assuming you aren't interested in setting up over at FB (totally understandable), perhaps Flickr or Instagram, or even your own simple website to show off your stuff.

mike and marie, regarding the specific members you asked about: ATP hasn't posted in over a year because he was banned last February (unnecessarily, in my opinion.)

I believe White Devil was banned a couple years earlier.

I am on FaceBook and spend considerable time there. It is very good for a way to see what your friends are up to, but it is LOUSY as a repository for knowledge. It's biggest flaw is that it isn't searchable. There are thousands of posts on TC, but you can almost always find the most obscure post with just a little creative searching.

MadDogMike If this was Facebook now I'd like what you posted and give it a thumbs up. And in a couple days or so it would essentially disappear never to be seen again, I've seen groups dwindle down to a couple posts a month, even less, that had once been very active. I'm on a number of tiki/exotica groups on Facebook and sure they can be fun but one doesn't learn much and the questions asked that require more than basic knowledge seem to be answered by people who are still currently involved in TC. As far as making friends on Facebook well I've made "Facebook friends" on Facebook I've made tiki friends person to person who i keep in touch with Facebook but in reality most of the rest (not all) probably just see me as a number to add to their "friends" list. To rant a bit more I get friends requests from people with whom I share interests that seem more likely to just be promoting themselves or their products not really interested in any real sort of interaction. TC is still the source of tiki/polypop history people find first on the web and often is the source of the only information you'll find on places or people. Much that which has been cataloged here has disappeared from the original web sources so if TC goes down its gone to be replaced by Party City and Big Lots. The drinks will soon enough revert to the 70's mai tai's, fashion will still have rockabilly to look to and Link Wray crossed with Punk will still be the "tiki" music that entertains us.

p.s. I don't have great faith in the new folks drawn to tiki, they seem to be interested in one aspect, say the drinks for instance and only slowly show interest in the rest... of course there are exceptions.

yours rantingly, tikicoma

I want to be clear here: you guys are 100% correct about the heavy downsides of Facebook, and I share your fears and frustrations about it. My discussion of the way FB is serving today's tiki audience was an explanation of why people are there and not here. Short version: it's easier, and people like easy. I'm with you: the short term satisfaction of lots of immediate feedback doesn't outweigh the fact that Facebook treats it all as ephemeral. Poof! It's gone. So I don't do my deeper tiki thinking and research there. But I don't do it here, either, because I know how the sausage is made, and I know there's a huge risk of Poof! It's gone here, as well. (For a taste of that, just look at all of the dead image links on some of the best old threads.) So, I do it on Critiki.

(I've moved Critiki off of the server it used to share with Tiki Central, it's now on a much more robust infrastructure. The move of O-M to a similar setup is underway right now.)

As for the future of TC the website, I have been thinking about it along with my own sites for a couple of years. It will all evaporate within a year or less of Hanford passing. Yeah, we are getting old and dying. How many great websites have evaporated already? LOTS. TC requires someone knowledgeable to manage it and someone to keep paying the bills. Either of those stops and the website likely has less than a year to live. poof!

It's also hard to say whether it should be upgraded. This BB is stuck in 2003. Hanford made a lot of custom tweaks to the code and upgrading to the newest phpBB version would wipe out his changes, but make it more accessible to mobile users. It would also take a very long dedicated weekend by someone as smart as Hanford in computer ways. But would be worth it to perhaps stop spam and hacks.

I also think someone could turn the Locating Tiki forum into a killer book. But having spent the time to make a book, I doubt there is anyone out there willing to commit to such an ordeal. It's a rambling mess. If you had been blogging about Locating Tiki for 10 years and taking that rambling mess and editing it into readable interesting posts, you could turn that blog into a book easy enough. But no one did that.

It should be mothballed. I don't mean killed or taken down, I mean it should be placed in a trust with managers and funded to live forever. There should be 6-10 people, probably best to be developers who can maintain the php code, etc., who are in charge of keeping it alive. The domain should be paid for in 10 year increments or more, along with the hosting. Hosting is probably $100 a year, mine is. Domains are $10-15 a year. For $2000 you could insure TC exists for 10 years. You get people like Humu and me and Hanford and others who can manage the code, the backups, the web stuff on a board and as long as 1 or 2 of us give a crap to spend the time on it, it will continue for decades regardless.

I still visit TC daily. Probably at least twice a day. I recently posted something here and on FB and I can tell you I got more traffic from my TC post than my FB post. Why? Because FB manipulates traffic and prevents your posts from being seen by a lot of people to try to get you to pay them to show it to more people. There is still a lot of power in a good old website. There is still room for someone to wipe out FB. I actually have a great idea for it if anyone knows some really rich people to invest...

The web world is aching for content. There are lots of sites that are hustling all day long to find something to share. TC has content in spades. It could be a gold mine if it was correctly mined...

I can't get into the details because it's not my story to tell, but unfortunately it's not quite as simple as it appears from the outside. TC has some mods done to it that make this otherwise reasonable proposal exceedingly difficult. Believe me, when I say I've agonized over this, I mean it.

I'm still here!! :wink:
Posting stuff I build as usual.
Latest projects Tiki Cat in KC, Mo.
and The Royal Hawaiian in Laguna Beach is Back!!!
more soon!

Humuhumu wrote:

Here I am to toss my late-to-the-party post on the pile. Hello! I'm still pretty darned into Tiki in a heavy way, though I'm not around Tiki Central nearly as much.

Hey Humuhumu! I'm glad you replied---you're exactly the kind of person I was wondering about: a TC oldtimer who is now on Facebook, and not really so much here.

For whatever hundred reasons, I just can't get myself to do Facebook. For one thing, I see too much division there. Topics that are forbidden on TC are permitted if not encouraged there and it leads to no good. We know too many people who decided to end good friendships over something so dumb as having a different opinion. Not good.

FB will remain popular, but who knows how long that will last. I like Gott's theorem a lot. Applying it to Facebook, I really don't think it has all that much time left. People may have invested much of their lives on the site (in the past 5-7 years, that is), but they don't own any of it, they can't get it back, there's no guarantee any of it will be accessible in the future, and sooner or later people will wise up to that. Like you say, it's all ephemeral.

I use Slack ... just a few years ago it didn't even exist, and now in a group I'm on there's a large set of people who are on it basically 24-7, all on their phones. Well, we're finally leaving it for an open source system that we're hosting ourselves and that we can control---which is one of the greatest assets that TC has.

The elephant in the room: how much longer can Tiki Central last? What will come of it? I'm reluctant to put my tiki-information-sharing energy into a site that is at risk of total collapse. It's a great repository of information that can't be found anywhere else, but what happens when it disappears? I've agonized over this, but I've also come to terms with it.

I don't think we have to give up on TC if we don't want to---and I don't want to.

If we don't do anything at all, then we can expect it to collapse and then disappear.

So let's do something...

But I don't do it here, either, because I know how the sausage is made, and I know there's a huge risk of Poof! It's gone here, as well. (For a taste of that, just look at all of the dead image links on some of the best old threads.) So, I do it on Critiki.

(I've moved Critiki off of the server it used to share with Tiki Central, it's now on a much more robust infrastructure. The move of O-M to a similar setup is underway right now.)

You were (are?) pretty good friends with Hanford, right? So coming from you, this comment makes me a little bit nervous. Do you know how many backups there are of the TC database?

I've recently run sites on a server using TC's host and am familiar with its shortcomings.

I'm bummed by the loss of images here on old threads too. But I don't recall any of them actually being hosted here on TC---aren't they all old external imgur and photobucket type links?

On 2017-03-25 06:53, Swanky wrote:

[TC] should be placed in a trust with managers and funded to live forever. There should be 6-10 people, probably best to be developers who can maintain the php code, etc., who are in charge of keeping it alive. The domain should be paid for in 10 year increments or more, along with the hosting. Hosting is probably $100 a year, mine is. Domains are $10-15 a year. For $2000 you could insure TC exists for 10 years. You get people like Humu and me and Hanford and others who can manage the code, the backups, the web stuff on a board and as long as 1 or 2 of us give a crap to spend the time on it, it will continue for decades regardless.

Man, we are on the exact same wavelength here. This kind of thing has already been done very successfully for online ventures. People holding digital assets have had attorneys put a Revocable Living Trust together with an account in the name of the trust. (Tiki Central Foundation?) And then the assets are managed by the trust and at the same time are the beneficiary of the trust (if in this case it's Hanford etc). They name in the trust document who will be the new trustee when they can't, they outline how assets will be managed, and so it goes on ...

Because FB manipulates traffic and prevents your posts from being seen by a lot of people to try to get you to pay them to show it to more people.

Yeah, that's so horrible. I hate FB!

I really appreciate the PMs that came in the last couple days, all of them. Only one I couldn't reply to, but assure you I'm working on it!

[ Edited by: mike and marie 2017-03-25 22:33 ]

On 2017-03-25 07:02, Humuhumu wrote:
I can't get into the details because it's not my story to tell, but unfortunately it's not quite as simple as it appears from the outside. TC has some mods done to it that make this otherwise reasonable proposal exceedingly difficult. Believe me, when I say I've agonized over this, I mean it.

Difficult... but not impossible? Am really curious now. Didn't phpBB 3.2.x just come out? Are the mods still necessary? In other words what would break in the upgrade?

Yes, H and I remain close, our lives have drifted off in different directions, but we're still in regular contact and will forever hold much love for each other. I really can't get into the specifics of the challenges, because, again, it's not my story to tell. There are a number of issues, some the obvious, small ones, other ones are bigger & trickier. But now we're talking about someone else's thing, and that's getting uncomfortable for me. H knows I'm here to help if/when the time comes that he's ready to tackle it, as is my husband (Rich is also tech heavy and has lended a hand when issues have come up).

In general, TC-specific questions aside, I think it's smart to have information spread out across multiple resources.

(You'll laugh, but I'm still smarting at the loss of the Bonanza World website. It had the best episode guide for all the old Bonanza episodes!)

“tikiskip, your lamp work is fantastic and more folks should know about it—TC lifespan question aside, it's worth thinking about how you could be sharing what you've done in other places.’

Thanks Humu!
And I do try to put my lights out in other places to be seen but it would be better to join other types of media.
It blows me away how many people have posted my stuff on Instagram.
I also have a book of my own that I think might be the one thing that lasts over the years, hard copy old school hold it in your hand info.

I just waste so much time on TC Don’t know if I want to add more internet time wasters.

“In general, TC-specific questions aside, I think it's smart to have information spread out across multiple resources.”

Man with all the TC info it would be hard to do that all over again.
Look at the books and even TV stuff that the people just came here and grabbed the info easy peezzy.

That thing about the Grass Skirt catching fire was never told of, Bill told me I told TC and even your site and BAM, everybody talks about it now.
Some of the stuff Bill talked about his daughter was sitting there, and said she had never heard of.

Even the rum Kahiki label Jeff found two, Gave me one, I made copies (I’m sure that pissed off some people) BUT what did that do?
It promoted the legend of the Kahiki, and it told people “Damn there was a Kahiki Rum!”
I gave away WAyyy more of those than I sold, don’t think I broke even on the printing.
Really angry people think everything you do is for the money.

Look at Kahiki tiki stuff on eBay it sells really well, I think that is in large part because of the early detailed documentation of all things Kahiki on TC.

This has been some great info posted here and more TCers need to get involved because when you look up say tiki or tiki mug their stuff does not come up that much if at all.
Hate to see all that art they worked on gone when TC goes.

Of course they will be quick to remind you they have been in Tiki Mag.

Hey everyone!

I'll try to address some of the comments in this topic. First off, for those who don't know, I'm the cofounder and current owner on Tiki Central, but I've been hands off for it for more than a few years now. So here it goes:

How much longer can Tiki Central last?

It is in no danger of disappearing. While I have not done much to advance the tech, I have definitely kept the lights on, worked on anti-spam hacks when required, and have kept the information it holds continuing to be available to the public a main priority.

I have had many offers to sell TC, and I've always refused. I can't help but think about Dana Countryman's Cool & Strange Music magazine, a magazine he put a lot of love into. He sold it to someone whose intention was to keep it going ... but another issue never, ever came out.

I don't want to sell TC to someone with good intentions, and then be handcuffed when they screw it up somehow. Besides, I have never fully felt like Tiki Central was mine to sell. The website belongs to me, but it's not what makes it special.

But what about the images that were lost?

Another example of not-being-in-control coming back to haunt us. We were using Shutterfly for image hosting, which was all well and good. But then Myspace happened, and people were posting Shutterfly links on Myspace, and it was driving up Shutterfly's bandwidth costs. So Shutterfly changed how their URLs work and broke all of our images.

Also, we've had other people hosting images with their own galleries, who eventually shut it down and all those links broke too. There's even been other Tiki forums that people invested years of their lives in, that apparently the owners just shut down abruptly, and everyone lost thousands of posts and photos.

I don't ever want that to happen to TC because I sold it or gave it to other people. And AFAIK we've not lost any images that were uploaded to Tiki Central proper.

So, why doesn't it work well on mobile? Why have you not upgraded it?

So, when I said I wanted to keep it myself so nothing happens to it .... I don't mean literally nothing. But the web has grown beyond what it used to be and I simply don't have the coding skills and the time to give it the proper attention it deserves.

But on the flipside .... there's something to be said for keeping things the way they are. When the heyday of the Tiki Bar faded, their decor got "updated" and themes changed. Even our beloved Trader Vic's in Emeryville painted the ceiling white in hopes to lighten the decor and attract more of an audience. And even when I made tiny changes to TC, I heard grumbling from some users (I remember a font size change that pissed a lot of people off, for example)

So in a way I've come to view Tiki Central in the same light as classic Tiki Bars. It's something that should remain a product of its time, representative of its own heyday. It should get proper upkeep, but not change significantly from what it has always been.

What would you think if you came to visit your favorite Tiki Bar, and low and behold, it looked totally different? How would you feel?

Now, what would you think if you came to visit good ol' Tiki Central, and low and behold, it looked totally different? what then?

**But Hanford, Websites aren't like physical spaces. In the web you can have multiple views ... **

Yes, I'm quite aware of this ... I mean, hey, I'm writing the questions as well as the answers here. :) I do think there's a way to make Tiki Central mobile friendly and add modern features without changing the spirit of the site.

But those changes that Tiki Central desperately needs must be well thought out, property planned, and expertly executed, or else Tiki Central will be like a dreaded Tiki Bar remodel.

The work it needs isn't as difficult as some make it sound. Tiki Central is kind of built on an ancient structure, but the data itself (images and posts) are all in a format that is very well understood. It it not a herculean task to modernize it and move it to a better platform.

However, it's also not trivial. It's not something that is achievable in a few weekends of spare time. And again, it's something I don't want to put in the hands of others without my oversight.

But in short, it needs to be done right.

It's something I want to do eventually, but I don't have a timeframe. But in the meantime I definitely will not abandon it.

I hope this quells any fears you have. While I don't post here anymore, I wouldn't be the same person without the ohana of Tiki Central, and all the amazingness it has brought me. I have made a lot of good friends here and it has changed my life, and I and Haka will keep it running as best we can.

Mahalo!

Thanks Hanford, and thanks for all your work over the years :)

Hanford, your post was the Best Possible Post anyone could ask for* on this thread ... thanks for taking the time to do that. Yes, it definitely offers relief about the worries of TC ever going 404.

It actually is kind of cool that TC is stuck in its early 2000s tech time warp. You laid out the perfect argument for keeping that, and we completely agree. How many of you know about Tilde Club? That was more than just a joke---it quickly became a thing and there's a lot out there about it. Yes, it would be very very good to allow mobile uploads. But does it really have to be a deal killer? We know that FB is easier to share and blab on, but if you have solid info to give, this is still the place. And you know, tonight we just thought of another possible feature request: it would be great to be able to post video. Even animated GIFs, but real video would be pretty sweet.

Another thing that's been apparent with this thread is that there is a handful of strong tech people involved with tiki. We can't speak for the rest of them, but if things ever happen where you need some backend help with the system or just want to bounce some ideas about what to do in the future, we're "open 24 hours"!

• Maybe except for "While I don't post here anymore"---that sounds way too final. We have had long periods away from TC ourselves, but still always end up making time to come back once in a while when we can. Hopefully that's something you might still want to do from time to time, too. Even if the gaps between are long.

[ Edited by: mike and marie 2017-03-26 19:38 ]

Old Tiki bars change with the times too, often to keep from becoming out of business. They get LED lights, iPhone connected sounds systems, WiFi, apps, connected cash registers, etc. I personally don't think it is a reason to keep it as is. That sounds a little bit like mothballing it. Putting it out to pasture. Giving up on it.

It is a huge job to get from 2001 to 2017 bb code, but once it is up to date, keeping it up to date will be easier.

And I am in bad need of getting my own 1998 websites brought into the present. It's just the time isn't there, though I have been working on it some. And I do hate that I am forced to lose some of the look of my sites to get them into the present. I really don't want my headers to be a lot of tiny text! Really.

But Google is forcing me. My site ranking keeps dropping because my sites are not encrypted and they are not mobile friendly. They will be lost to search engines if I don't update them I am afraid. TC too.

Well, this seems like as good as place as any to deposit my 5,000th post! It has indeed been a great ride over the years, learned a lot and made lifelong friends. Even got the travel the world a bit.

Great to hear from Hanford on his intentions and the short-term to mid-term fate of TC. TC contains such an incredible wealth of information it would be terrible to lose. And lets not forget the efforts of the other volunteers who keep it running 24-7-365!

DC

I'm definitely on the side of keeping with the times - mobile websites can be so clean, simple, beautiful, and downright a breeze to navigate and use. Nobody enjoys old timey functionality and web development has mad leaps and bounds since. Unfortunately 2 of my favorite forums (this one and a music related one) are sporting 2003 tech and it pains me daily. However I do understand it's a big task and there is likely cost associated with it. As I've stated before, I'd be happy to contribute monies. If it would help, I could start researching other options. I do agree that if this is to be done, it should be done right and not in a rush. If there's not a way to simply transfer all threads and data, maybe (upon obtaining a new board) all threads here coul be locked and the site would be preserved as an archive while a new forum picks up. Not the preferred outcome I realize.

On 2017-03-28 16:34, Dustycajun wrote:
Well, this seems like as good as place as any to deposit my 5,000th post! It has indeed been a great ride over the years, learned a lot and made lifelong friends. Even got the travel the world a bit.

this extends to many who remain here as well, but thank you DC for your continued contributions here - I always make a point to see what you have turned up - a nice little occasional treat in a somewhat dreary world.

j$

Yes, it's true that TikiCentral does not have the latest technology but then again, I would not complain if a fully restored 1955 Chevy did not have power windows. The best feature of TikiCentral back when I joined many many years ago was the people on it. They had similar interest beyond tiki and seemed to have the same view of life and sense of humor.

I joined Facebook to discuss subjects about my occupation and my neighborhood which did not fit into TikiCentral. But I still can handle a couple extra clicks to get over to TikiCentral. They have Tiki groups on Facebook but they are scattered all over and too difficult to keep a subject going and an interesting post gets buried over with off topic posts and funny cat videos.

I see lots of the TikiCentral Ohana over at Facebook and I wish they would stop over here and say Aloha.

On 2017-04-02 00:08, King Bushwich the 33rd wrote:
I see lots of the TikiCentral Ohana over at Facebook and I wish they would stop over here and say Aloha.

Maybe everyone who's active on both Facebook and TC can gently remind/inform people in FB tiki groups about TC and encourage them to stop over here, see what's been happening, and maybe help liven up the joint.

I stopped using FB over a year ago and started becoming "active" on TC in the past six months (after lurking for a long time). There are a few reasons why I chose one platform over the other, but I will say that there's certainly a higher level of "permanence" here, and a wealth of information to mine, two things FB really can't hold a candle. Plus I think social media is vastly overrated. And that comes from someone who grew up with computers and the internet.

Anyway, thanks to everybody who built TC, even if you've moved on to something else.

My original user name was "tiki mick", and I first registered in 2003. That means I have been here 14 years. Whoa.

I don't know if it's because of the lower traffic volume or we got a better filter but the is sure a lot less SPAM here than there was years ago :lol:

On 2017-04-02 13:27, Hamo wrote:
Maybe everyone who's active on both Facebook and TC can gently remind/inform people in FB tiki groups about TC and encourage them to stop over here, see what's been happening, and maybe help liven up the joint.

I do this constantly. It's somewhat annoying in tiki-specific groups for conversations to go off topic, and i'm always thinking "if you wanna share unrelated content there's a place for that!" but it seems like -those- people don't care enough to come here. Like, this is THE place.

As a side note, and perhaps back to topic, I think the comparison of old web tech to old Polynesian bars doesn't hold. That's like saying "oh I don't like modern medicine, I'm going to stick to my leeches. They may not work as well but it's of the time and I don't mind the added time and agony." Why make 10 clicks when you can get the job done in 2? This is coming from a digital designer. I understand resistance to change but go back to your flip phones or your rotary phones and tell me that you prefer those instead of our current web tech. I gotta stop saying web tech.

I actually miss the days when I use to be an active member of TC, but kids, job, house and life in general have gradually pulled me away. Ironic part is my friends these days have no connection to "tiki" and when they come to my house and walk into my tiki bar (Riviera Room) most are blown away and get a real kick out of watching me behind the bar making drinks. In reality though I can't imagine any of them becoming members of TC. I envision when the kids head off to college the wife and I becoming more active again.

After reading through this topic, I feel I need to write my very first post on the subject. I am new to Tiki Central, and want to thank everyone for all their time and work creating and maintaining this website. I'm not on Facebook (for a few reasons), and was overwhelmingly happy to find a place where there is such a huge community and wealth of knowledge. A place for the tiki community to develop things in their own way. I am glad to see that there is a desire to keep it running. I hope that the TC Ohana has the love to keep it going. Although, I know very little about code, or, the inner workings of web design.....I do greatly appreciate those that do, and those you have kept this running independently. Mahalo nui loa !!

Bumb! I didn't think I would be one of those lost souls for almost the last 8 years (I was banned after all) and it does seem weird being able to post again (Thanks mike and marie for asking what hole I fell into)

I was gone for almost 8 years and so much has changed in that time of course, especially the last two years, I am still that opinionated bastard, my sense of humor has only gotten darker and I know that I rubbed a few people the wrong way, but I have also gotten older, slower and a bit more of a Geriatric Punk! but until the pandemic shut down everything I was still seeing everyone at Cali events, many of the old TC/Don the Beachcomber locals now hang at the Bamboo Lounge in Long Beach.

So get off my Lanai!

It got awfully quiet here after your unceremonious departure - I was happy to see your name appear when things came back.

I couldn't believe it had been 8 years so I checked; it was 2016, so only 6 years.

It just felt like 8.

Thanks Bama! Always liked your posts, 6 years, man I am way off, it feels like many more!

"I may be getting to old for this shit" if only there was some kind of smiley face image I could insert here to denote the levity or mood of that statement?

Great Bump ATP!

Wow how funny to look back, Hanford says TC will not go away 3 years before it goes away but it did come back. So I guess it did not go away.

But what about thinking now about how to do things to keep it from going away? For me this digital age has some good parts but damn there are still 8Tracks and records out there, stuff digital is so temporary.

So I tell ya do a hard copy little book or folder of your bar or art that you do the kind of stuff/info you would want to find about Trader Vics, or the old Benson's store.

Make videos of the OA sale and other tiki events.

But then keeping TC going as long as we can is worthwhile I think.

[ Edited by tikiskip on 2022-04-15 15:45:22 ]

One more thing I found is that I did not feel as much like making anything tiki without TC around. It was always cool to post hey check this out after making some tiki thing.

Don't know if I can get the feeling back again.