TikiBlog 2005

Tuesday, May 10, 2005 02:15 EDT
Back again ... must make an effort

OK, here I am, just recently back (recovered?) from a three week vacation in Hawaii. A lot has changed, and a lot is the same so I'll try to make this effort slowly to bring things around. First, there have been several changes to the site. I took off the e-commerce stuff, since nobody has money to buy anything anyway. That's a different story though.

So, what are the most important things going on (tiki-wise) right now? There is the ever imminent completion of the Manakoora Lounge, which is finally starting to look like something. I'll post some pics as soon as the walls are finished - hopefully this week. The trip to Hawaii needs some recounting certainly, but that will have to be in bits. There are a lot of things to tell, and even though this isn't my first visit to the islands, I'm not entirely certain that I can get over this trip. Probably the best vacation of my life! Much thanks to Joelle, Florence, and my Daughter Christina for the wonderful times. Finally, we are starting to ramp up for Hukilau 2005 (already) with new stuff from HukiHuki of Fort Lauderdale. We'll be ready this year and look forward to seeing all of our old friends, as well as making a few new ones.

Cyber, The Lovely Joelle, and Christina
Dinner at Nick's in Honolulu, April 2005

Wednesday, January 8, 2004 00:32 EST
Wednesdays ...

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Tuesday, January 6, 2004 20:52 EST
Hula and the Search for Paradise Lost

I love the hula. I love the dancers too, but mostly, I love the hula. I'm well on in the process of developing a real fascination with this ancient artform, and I'm trying to draw some conclusions regarding how westerners concepts of hula differ from those of native Polynesians/Hawaiians. I've seen some photography work by Native Hawaiian Photographers (and have purchased a couple of these), and I have to say that even the way they choose to portray hula via the photographic medium is completely different than our own.

I purchased the book Hula Heaven thru Amazon.com, and if you have any interest in this artform, it's well worth the price. I'd already begun collecting purely "western" images of hula to make my own scrapbook before I learned of this volume. Per Amazon's description: "These images were gathered by the last reigning monarch of Hawaii, Queen Liliuokalani (1839 -1917), who reigned from 1891 until 1893, and were presented in an album to her personal nurse as a token of her Aloha." This volume is in many ways the antithesis of my own - presenting the real hula versus the westernized ideal of hula!

Now it's that "westernized ideal of hula" that I really want to begin to understand a bit better. On December 17th of last year, I had written a piece that I titled Why Tiki? or alternatively, "The Paradise on Earth that Never Was". I've since begun to postulate that "Tiki" may represent a masculine idealization of that aforementioned Paradise that never was, while the "Hula" may represent a more feminine idealization of the very same phenomenon.

I'm still linking pieces of evidence here, but in general, I think it's fairly safe to say that a majority of the really serious or hardcore "tiki" initiates today are male; my apologies in advance to the many intelligent and beautiful women I've met who also are involved in the Polynesian Pop and Tiki Revival movements - I merely state that it is my observation that the purely Tiki phenomenon is overwhelmingly "male" in nature. I also draw upon conversations with the wives of some of us (dare I call them Tiki widows?) whose spouses enthusiasm for all things tiki has gone slightly beyond the pale...

Contrasting this is a truly amazing photographic record, stretching from the mid-1920's to current times, wherein western girls and women, in their ten's of thousands, have gone before the camera as hula dancers. There are so many images that I am tempted to ask if there are any women out there who have not posed in grass skirt and lei at some point in their life! Rarely do we see images of men as Polynesian Dancers, Headhunters, or Pacific Savages (though we do see an occasional Ukulele boy), which points to a peculiarly western ideal; since some of the top Hula Masters in the world today are men ... that's right - hula, in it's native element is not confined strictly to the wahine.

Now I don't want to make more of this than what it is, or to speculate on the western ideal of the languid, willing and available wahine (or the psycho-sexual implications for all those girls and women who chose to pose in grass skirt and lei). I simply find it remarkable that so MANY women have gone that route over the years.

So, is this the escape route for the female of our species as she seeks that long imagined return to Eden? I don't know, but I'd like to think so. After all, one could do worse than to look upon the generations of beauties that have danced beneath swaying palms, kissed by the tropical sun beside some sleepy azure lagoon - even if only in the mind's eye.

Thanks for visiting, and as always, if you're so inclined, please click the links on this site, since they help keep me online!

Monday, January 5, 2004 22:19 EST
Those Old End-of-the-Holidays Blues

Well, the holidays are over and now we have to clean up the mess, and get back into the routine so we can have a normal life again. The way it works out for me, I never get a thing done between the week before Thanksgiving, and New Year's Day. So, losing a month and a half, I generally have a huge amount of catch-up that needs to take place. This, at a time when my energy levels are totally tapped out, and I can barely stay awake because the days are shorter. I need a house at sealevel on the Equator.

So, I didn't get my desk cleaned off today, but I did get my computer back on the desk rather than the nightstand by the bed, and I didn't get my new mailbox installed, but I got the footer poured, and the pole mounted (hey, it's a Tiki, so I had to get that one moving), and I didn't get the huge pile of uncatalogued DVD's and CD's off the floor in the kitchen (don't ask), but I managed to get thru the day on only 8 Advil, and 4 Red Bull. Wait ... make that 12 Advil and six Red Bull, I just popped the last four, and opened the remaining Red Bulls in the fridge.

Oh yeah, I also managed to clean out the freezer in something of a fury. I like my ice to taste good, and we tend to let things pile up in the freezer. I found stuff in there that had to be more than a year old ... I don't know, maybe you can eat that stuff, but I gotta figure that if I haven't worked up the nerve to cook and eat it in the last year, I probably won't in the near future. Also, it was making the ice taste funky - and I hate funky tasting ice. I gotta get the icemaker hooked up again - best investment I ever made, I just need to get the back room going again.

The back room will be the ultimate tiki lounge, and would be already but for a couple of issues; first is the amount of time I've spent on the road in the last year; second is the US economy that dropped off the edge of a cliff; and finally is the moron who I hired to pour the floor and totally botched the job - meaning I now have some tough decisions to make regarding the possibility of busting out 5+ cubic yards of fiberglass reinforced concrete. Oh well, I suppose these are the little things that make life interesting right? I could be living under an overpass with two dozen pigeons for roommates like a lot of folks from the IT industries right about now. Ever wonder if all that hoopla about developing a "service economy" was really just a bunch of BS to sell the US populace on NAFTA and the WTO? I certainly do.

Anyway, I promised no whining, and I'm drifting from my intent here. On the upside, I tried the Mai-Tai combination of Goslings Black Seal and St. James Martinique that Basement Kahuna (Dave) had recommended on Tiki Central, and I have to say that the man know's his stuff! Wow, what a combination. I thought for sure that the Goslings would add too much complexity to the flavor, since it's already pretty complex, but in fact it complimented the St. James perfectly. I could've done half a dozen of them last night, but since I had work to do today, stopped at two. It's already late tonite, but I'm still thinking about that just so perfect bitter sweet flavor, and I think I feel a Mai-Tai moment coming on.

Anyway, Joelle just accused me of making a Mai-Tai for myself while she was out and not making one for her, so I'm thinking that this is a sign from the Ghods that I'm to start drinking. Life could be worse I suppose. I still have rum.

Thanks for visiting, and as always, if you're so inclined, please click the links on this site, since they help keep me online!

Friday, January 2, 2004 23:35 EST
New Year's at the Mai-Kai

There are no words that can express the wonderful evening we had at the Mai-Kai. Many thanks to Kern, Mireille, Dave, Kulani, and all the Mai-Kai Family!!! Hopefully, we'll be back to share many more New Year's with you at the best party in Fort Lauderdale!

Thanks for visiting, and as always, if you're so inclined, please click the links on this site, since they help keep me online!