We need to talk about your kitsch problem...

Damn there are LOTS of disco versions of Quiet Village!

Ritchie Family - Quiet Village
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEmnHq5BF-k

Lalo Schifrin - Quiet Village 1976 (long version no intro)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nBMUuSxOWk

BOOGIE & COVER BANDS: “Quiet Village” by Salsa ‘78 Orchestra (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqBfkHEAhj4

El Coco - Quiet Village
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeUn4OoEG1A

"You sexy thing, you turn me on
Keep rockin' steady all night lo-ong
You sexy thing, you turn me on
Keep rockin' steady all night lo-ong
You sexy thing, you turn me on
Keep rockin' steady all night lo-ong
You sexy thing, you turn me on
Keep rockin' steady all night lo-ong
Gimme, gimme what I want
Gimme, gimme what you got
Gimme, gimme what I want
Gimme, gimme what you got
Do-do-do-do, do-do, do-do-doo
You sexy thing, you turn me on"

Skip, Don't tell me you were in the cover band "Quiet Village People" :(

On 2017-07-11 13:45, Or Got Rum? wrote:
Skip, Don't tell me you were in the cover band "Quiet Village People" :(

Oh my, I'm trying desperately to figure out how to double- or triple-like this! hahahaha!

Well I do tend to get kinda loud when I drink not on purpose though.
So that rules out quite.
AND I'm too big for spandex so that rules out the Village People part.

I think my hearing is shot from working in Large power plants and boiler rooms at OSU.

I too do get a little animated when I drink and I sing (harkens me back to the day I sang w/ a bunch of hippies in a band...they were older...fun!) but always in the spirit of a good time...my wife calls me "Fun Bobby"....my names not Robert.

On 2017-07-11 13:45, Or Got Rum? wrote:
Skip, Don't tell me you were in the cover band "Quiet Village People" :(

That may be Skip disguised as a Marshall amp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vfPV0S3KJc

On 2017-07-13 12:26, Hakalugi wrote:

On 2017-07-11 13:45, Or Got Rum? wrote:
Skip, Don't tell me you were in the cover band "Quiet Village People" :(

That may be Skip disguised as a Marshall amp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vfPV0S3KJc

:)

Ha! I rove it.

Would go see that band!

So it looks like that guy removed the buck-toothed sunglasses -wearing tikis and reopened as a Tiki bar after all. I think this is a win for everyone. Goonie party city tikis are the true evil and they must be abolished.

I recently attended a lecture that had a bit in it about cultural appropriation, they had a few simple things to check to see if it was problematic. The first thing was could a person from the originating culture enjoy the thing as freely as I do it derivative. I suppose for this discussion that means that if my collection of Tikis is Kitschy fun but a poc collection is a sign of his backwards primitive leanings then it problematic. I'm not say that is the case just trying to make an example case. The second check point I remember is where does the money go, do people of the originating culture have the same opportunity to make money off their things.

On 2017-07-28 09:58, The_Alchemist wrote:
I recently attended a lecture that had a bit in it about cultural appropriation, they had a few simple things to check to see if it was problematic. The first thing was could a person from the originating culture enjoy the thing as freely as I do it derivative. I suppose for this discussion that means that if my collection of Tikis is Kitschy fun but a poc collection is a sign of his backwards primitive leanings then it problematic. I'm not say that is the case just trying to make an example case. The second check point I remember is where does the money go, do people of the originating culture have the same opportunity to make money off their things.

No, I would not consider a native Hawaiian or Samoan to be "backwards" because they had the same Disney Tiki mugs and decorative mermaid figures I have.

Thought-provoking questions! Tiki "happened" or "developed" in our American culture. It was organic, playful, and never intended to poke fun at anyone. Pure and innocent escapism is what it was, and it grew organically, even more so after WWII.

So I often wonder if we have any right to complain when someone today decorates with painted clown tikis, or with monsters in a tropical/tiki context, or with surf music. They seem to be doing the same thing --- escaping, and decorating, and celebrating life, innocently and playfully but in a "new" way. Seems dang close to the same thing that happened when tiki originaly was developing.

I need another drink... I'm actually sipping on an Old Fashioned right now. Not really tiki, but tastes damn fine, so go ahead and flame me, lol. Cheers!

"Iss confusing." --Inspector Sydney Wang, in Neil Simon's "Murder by Death"

"So I often wonder if we have any right to complain when someone today decorates with painted clown tikis"

Ha! I don't know if we have a right to, but we do anyway.

bahi hut being ruined with clown tikis
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=52262&forum=1&17

On 2017-07-30 14:31, tikiskip wrote:
Ha! I don't know if we have a right to, but we do anyway.

That's exactly the dilemma. THEY own the business, so they have the right to do whatever they want, even run it into the ground. WE are "only passionate fans" who sometimes know better than they do about historical tiki, and we really care about OUR view of tiki. But if they are in a struggle for survival, or cluelessly make bad hiring and management decisions, then we may see the Bahi Hut's type of unfortunate circumstance.

On the other hand, this whole tiki thing is fake/alternate reality anyways, so it's very ironic and sometimes I wonder to what degree we should get worked up about it. In the Bahi Hut's case, I think robotiki has done a great service to everyone by reaching out to the owner and providing education and enlightenment. Let's see how this plays out.

Man, the irony... Saving one fake thing to ensure OUR preferred fake thing survives in its place. Haha. Hahahaha. Hahahahaha!

Hey, thank the tiki gods for all this -- we all have a reason to have drinks!!!

On 2017-07-30 12:41, AceExplorer wrote:
So I often wonder if we have any right to complain when someone today decorates with painted clown tikis, or with monsters in a tropical/tiki context, or with surf music. They seem to be doing the same thing --- escaping, and decorating, and celebrating life, innocently and playfully but in a "new" way. Seems dang close to the same thing that happened when tiki originaly was developing.

I think you're conflating two different concerns here. One is the inclusion of items that are not traditionally Tiki, the other is items produced at a significantly lower quality.

On the former, I say different strokes for different folks... It would be kind of boring, frankly, if everyone stuck to a petrified set of identical, approved tropes and fixtures. Some like it very traditional to the mid-century Tiki experience, others want to throw in some Rockabilly or Surf, others want to throw in mid-century style monster kitsch, others pirates. That's fine. My own interests right now are towards a "fantasy Tiki" that unapologetically includes Disney and mermaids and monsters and such things, and towards a "pri-Tiki" ranging from Victorian to Thirties "Golden Age" of travel and Hollywood aesthetics (basically pre-WWII).

On the latter... well... we're talking about what looks good and what does not look good. It's not a subject we necessarily have the power to affect, since it's not like Party City is going anywhere and we can't forcibly stop anyone from shopping there, but we do have the liberty to make artistic judgments. We can say if something looks like crap, regardless of whether or not it's "authentic" Tiki. We can appreciate that people are having fun, and still point out that there's better looking stuff out there to have fun with.

Regarding cultural appropriation, I just ran across this article about a child having a "Japanese theme" birthday party. The response from an actual Japanese commenter is interesting, and I wondered if the same argument couldn't be made for tiki culture.

http://www.boredpanda.com/japanese-tea-party-tumblr-answer-ginzers/?utm_source=obwu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=fio

Wow Tikitube thanks for sharing! Perfect explanation there.

Basically this is exactly what I have been trying (not as well as this person) to convey. We are appreciating this culture, none of our actions are to poke fun or to slander. We are spreading this tiki culture, that is just as much ours as anyone elses, in a positive light. Nothing in tiki is to make fun of or to demoralize any cultures or groups of people.

We should fight against this plague. I for one will boycott for life the Oregon State University Asian and Pacific Cultural Center for jumping on this bandwagon of racism that attacked this tiki bar. Who do they think that their patrons are!?!

[ Edited by: lunavideogames 2017-08-03 11:52 ]

On 2017-08-03 11:09, tikitube wrote:
Regarding cultural appropriation, I just ran across this article about a child having a "Japanese theme" birthday party. The response from an actual Japanese commenter is interesting, and I wondered if the same argument couldn't be made for tiki culture.

http://www.boredpanda.com/japanese-tea-party-tumblr-answer-ginzers/?utm_source=obwu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=fio

TYRANNOSAURUS REKT! That was amazing!

An interesting new article and podcast from The Atlantic touches on this cultural appropriation discussion at the end of it, in a way that I felt was very well-balanced. The end of the podcast has an interview with Kalewa Correa, a professor at UH and the Curator at the Smithsonian's Asia Pacific American Center.

I thought he had a good take on tiki, its position as an American movement that is influenced by but does not replicate Polynesia culture, and where there are specific issues with cultural appropriation. He ha two areas that concerned him as a native Hawai'ian (and he was clear that he only spoke as a Hawai'ian, not for all Polynesian cultures). First, the hypersexualization of Polynesian woman in tiki artwork. That concern doesn't seem particularly controversial or problematic.

Second, the use of Polynesian gods in tiki carvings, as an example he pointed out the Hawai'ian god of war, Ku, and the use of his image in everything from carvings to mugs. His point, and I thought this is really where he nailed it, is that he understands that American tiki is a fantasy based on the South Pacific, not a recreation of the South Pacific, but in that case tiki carvers and mug designers should come up with their own imagery and not use the images from a belief system that's still somewhat practiced.

Personally I thought those were two very reasonable takes on the idea of tiki and cultural appropriation. He didn't call the whole tiki movement problematic . He didn't say people can't enjoy the fantasy of tiki. He just challenged people to consider two specific types of common representation in tiki and think about changing those two aspects while keeping everything else. That seems like a understandable request.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/rise-and-fall-and-rise-american-tiki-bar/600691/