$hag Tiki Room Original on eBay

Maybe its just me, but it seems like "tiki collecting" and "shag collecting" are two different things. Shag could paint a dildo and people would want it becuase they collect Shag. Don't get me wrong, I greatly admire Shag's work and his obvious talent.. I just think that his collector's are art collectors, and for the most part the art just happens to be tiki-themed..?

On 2003-09-25 17:14, suicide_sam wrote:
Of course I spent a couple of years selling drugs wehn I was 17-19 and I never had any moral dillema doing that either. ... What you have to realize is that some people have an addictiove personality. ... Honestly all people with addictive personalities are prey.

Um, am I hearing you right? People with addictive personalites are "prey"? So THAT'S how dealers justify their bloodsucking, thanks, I've always wondered.

Let me point out a difference between a Shag mug and drugs: a Shag mug never ruined any lives yet that we know of.

dee-sgusted,
em

emspace,

I like you (sorry) and appreciate your posts. But Suicide Sam is very correct in his reply.

He's not justifying any previous actions he may have undertaken, he's just making a statement.

heeeeeyyyy mmmaaan

Gott annnny Lithhhooosss?

On 2003-09-26 20:15, Tiki_Bong wrote:
Suicide Sam is very correct in his reply.

He's not justifying any previous actions he may have undertaken, he's just making a statement.

On 2003-09-25 17:14, suicide_sam wrote:
Of course I spent a couple of years selling drugs wehn I was 17-19 and I never had any moral dillema doing that either. All your doing is making a profit for moving something, picking it up here at this price, and moving it there at an inflated price. If someone is willing to give you that money then by all means go for it. What you have to realize is that some people have an addictiove personality. These people will pay anything for whatever there vise is. Honestly all people with addictive personalities are prey.

Reads like a justification to me.

I'd like to take this opportunity to stand up for my man Suicide Sam. He's not a teenager anymore and you could cut him some slack. Fred's a good guy and he's our pal. I'd drink with him any day of the week.
Mahalo,
Al

ditto

Hmm, that's me though: passionate, tend to shoot off my mouth. An old friend of mine used to bodyguard for a blow dealer. He used to refer to people weaker than him as "organic targets", and often referred to the two kinds of people, predator and prey. Once I did some growing up and got over my awe of him, I understood what he was: a sociopath. Those of you who know Suicide Sam, I defer to you, and to you Sam, I apologize. Your post just brought back a lot of sad and ugly memories - needless to say, this man is no longer my friend, we haven't communicated in years.

aloha,
em.

P.S. Bong, being liked by you is no shame! :)

don't feel bad emspace - i was called a "cross dressing queenie" yesterday for speaking my mind on another forum!

sam was just explaining the natural laws of supply and demand saying that if someone wants something bad enough they'll find a supplier using the addiction analogy.

on that note.. a good friend of ours had one of shag's earliest paintings. he had it for years... he was recently offered an excellent price by a private collector and ended up selling it. was he less moral because he waited 10 years before selling it for a profit? if i were him i probably would have done the same.

sometimes not be tied to material things and not owning something can be just as satisfying as owning things.

I'm trying to recall a story I heard about Picasso, If I get any of it wrong please correct me.

The story was that Picasso was in a cafe' one day. The waiter came up to him and started gushing telling him, "You are my favorite artist and I wish that I could get an original painting but even the cheapest are out of my price range". Picasso reached for a napkin, drew a little sketch, signed it, handed the napkin to the waiter and told him to take it to an art dealer and with the money he would get from the napkin he could buy a painting. Is buying two paintings and reselling one to cover the expense of the other so bad, and yet selling one piece of art and using the profit to buy another piece of art by the same artist okay?

As for the bloodsucking comment, when I used to sell I had no compassion for addicts, I honestly still don't. I feel that drug addicts are what I scrape off the bottom of my shoe. But if you noticed I also mentioned that I have way overpaid for some vintage pin up art and not cared about the expense, just been happy to get that piece. Everyone has a vice. Of course if your vice is collecting some kind of art it isn't damaging your health the way drugs do, but in both cases you are more than happy to spend your money to get your goods. I know the mentallity is despicable but it's also realistc. If there is a demand, a supply will turn up. And the demand will dictate the price of the supply. This is the principle that I was using as a comparison. If you feel I should be ashamed and try to justify myself for ever having sold drugs, although that life is way behind me still I'ld have to say, sorry but I'm not ashamed and I'm not apologizing for it. I've been out of that biz for ten years now When I got out of that biz I left drugs alone all together and do you think my old clients all went clean, no, they all found new suppliers in a split second. Supply anmd demand. If there is a demand, there will be a supply and the demand will dicate the price of the supply. Although that is all way behind me I still don't blame drug dealers, I blame addicts. If there is no demand then believe me, the suplly will dry up.

This is the last I'm going to post on this topic cause I don't want to turn this into a big thread about the morallity of drugs. If you have a personal issue with me on this topic I ask you to email me directly. Like I said I just don't want to start a huge thread on TC about the morallity of drugs.

[email protected]

http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Yosemite_Sam/ltys_016.wav

On 2003-09-26 19:07, fatuhiva wrote:
Maybe its just me, but it seems like "tiki collecting" and "shag collecting" are two different things. Shag could paint a dildo and people would want it becuase they collect Shag. Don't get me wrong, I greatly admire Shag's work and his obvious talent.. I just think that his collector's are art collectors, and for the most part the art just happens to be tiki-themed..?

Yes, I agree. Shag has many non-tiki elements in a lot of his work (jet set stuff, beatnik, freak animals, monsters, etc) and it's all collected heavily.

I don't think mostcollectors of Shag's work collect other sorts of Tiki stuff (just a guess on my part).

I love all of shag's work, even the non-tiki stuff.

Shag seems to be intentionally moving away from tiki themed paintings. This will probably result in greater appreciation of his tiki art (glad I have a stockpile).

Damn I missed this one alright,but I'm with my boy Suicide Sam on the supply and demand thing. Hope my vibe stays true to form as the "THREAD KILLER" .

[ Edited by: thechikitiki on 2003-09-27 17:12 ]

Again, I may have strong feelings about drugs - they buggered up my own life for a good long while as well as the lives of several fine people I know - but I defer to anyone who says they know Sam and vouch for his character. And teenagers do lots of stupid things. Teenagers, IMHO, do practically nothing but stupid things, so slack needs to be cut. But please don't ask me to say selling and using drugs aren't f***king stupid things, kay?

Apologies all round,
aloha,
em.

WOW...........
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3554157767&category=20135

Hah! Did you read the winners "about me" page?

[ Edited by: susane on 2004-01-20 06:55 ]

Too funny, SES! That DOES explain why he'd spend over 10.5 K for a Disney-themed painting!!

The winner was just featured in the last issue of the E-Ticket magazine. He's got one hell of a collection, from Dumbo and Mr. Toad cars to original attraction posters. $10K to him is chump change.

SCOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
I was the highest bidder for this litho.
The idiot let it go for five dollars!

http://www.audioautographs.com/tiki/Waking_Hanford.htm

I'll give you ten!!.....

That is...ten thousand! (As long as you throw in a bag of crack)
This whole forum has been extremely entertaining, a little enlightening, and slightly disheartening (sp?) Most important is "WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME??" ...

yeah, yeah
you know where I stand on this issue and I'm stickin to my guns.

On 2003-09-24 21:33, fatuhiva wrote:
Otto must be loving this.

Besides you all know that "collectibles" created to be "collectable" are never really all that "collectable" ...right(?)

I went to Disneyland that day just so I could buy a few of the items. If I would have been able to see Josh and talk to him for a sec that would've been fine but I was mainly there to buy a few of the Shag items and go and I don't care for anyone's autograph either. I got in for free because a neighbor of mine works at DCA and she signed me in. I went with a friend who has an annual pass and we got in and saw the line and went to get lunch and went on POTC and went back to the line but they said we couldn't get in line anymore . . . at least we couldn't get in line for autographs. But all I wanted to do was buy some stuff and go. But we waited and waited. Finally I got in and bought a few things and left (and no I am not reselling them on eBay) and then went to the Tiki Room with my friend and left. My friend wanted to get one of the Shag purses for his wife but they were sold out.
I can attest that Josh has been in to tiki stuff for a long time and didn't suddenly start doing it as a way to make money. I first met him and the other Swamp Zombies in 1989 (actually, I sort of met them a little bit earlier than that) and found out that one of their big influences was stuff from their parents' record collections like Kingston Trio and Harry Belafonte, which is just what my parents were into and one of the reasons I gravitated towards the Swamp Zombies. I was a bit of a Swamp Zombies follower for a while until I killed off the band (another story) and at one of the gigs Josh saw the tiki necklace I had and asked where I got it. I told him I got it in Hawaii and when I went back to Hawaii for some more college I got him one and sent it to him and he later told me he got it and that it was unique to his collection. In 1995 I asked if he could paint some designs on my black acoustic bass guitar and I told him my concept (green and purple musical notes with ghost faces on the front and a tiki face covering the whole back). He said he could do it and asked me how much he should charge me. I had no clue what range he was thinking in but finally said, "Uh . . . uh . . . fifty bucks?" And he said, "You don't have to pay me that much. Name a lower price." So I know he's not moneygrubbing. I do know through subsequent e-mails with him that he likes making money off of doing something he enjoys but it's not anything that can be characterized as greed. Unfortunately the last time I talked to him (2001?) he denied any knowledge of having painted my bass but then inadvertently let on that he did remember (it could be that he didn't want to sign "SHAG" on it because it doesn't exactly look like his signature style or it could have been that he was being his usual squirrelly self; I don't really know) and through no fault of his own he has since become too untouchable for me to probably ever have any contact with him again.

[ Edited by: Sneaky Tiki on 2005-02-02 12:16 ]

[ Edited by: Sneaky Tiki on 2005-02-21 22:58 ]

that is a bunch of BS I only took 10% of the sale to insure that the Artist got what they wanted without being a pig about it. It was all the other dealers around that was taking so much out of their pockets not me... But here now several years later I had to close down my gallery cuz I coulden't pay the bill on what I was brining in...

On 2003-09-25 20:17, suicide_sam wrote:
Saying that someone is unethical because the y resell is kind of a joke though. The largest dealer of low brow art around is Moldy Marvin. Yet I know a few artists whose work is sold by Moldy Marvin taht love him. No matter what wierd way out thing they paint or build, Moldy Marvin can sell it and help them pay bills. He sells everything at at an inflated price and the artist gets half and he gets half. But because of him these artists are paying the bills and getting their work out there. If soimeone is willing to pay 5 grand for a 30's refridgeratoe with a pearl red paint job and a sacred herat painted on it, then that means the artist just got 2,500 for it. Where else were they going to sell somethingt like this. The true fan will pay whatever. I have payed way to much for vintage pin up art and was not pissed about the price, I was happy to get that piece of vintage pin up art. Thats the way it goes.

Besides isn't everyone over Shag yet. Man I really used to dig his work years ago but I have just seen so much of it that the novelty has kind of worn off.

And you dug this thread up after 3 1/2 years because why?

Thanks for bringing this up again!

It took 3 years of intensive therapy for me to be able to look myself in the mirror again.

Back to the shrink I go.

On 2007-01-18 16:52, Jax Tiki wrote:
Thanks for bringing this up again!

It took 3 years of intensive therapy for me to be able to look myself in the mirror again.

Back to the shrink I go.

Jax,

You might want to talk with your shrink about the Ohana Hut too!

:wink:

Ohana Hut is very cool.

BTW...isn't it about time for another annual TC Tiki mug design contest anyway?

[ Edited by: Jax Tiki 2007-12-25 18:04 ]