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September 30, 2005
September 26, 2005
Oceanic Arts
Oceania Postcards and Picture Galleries: a phenomenal collection of Polynesian postcards, primitive art, historical images, and island architecture. Please note that several galleries contain National Geographic-style nudity and may therefore be unsuitable for workplace clickability.
Mahalo, Tiki Talk!
September 18, 2005
Sunday Tiki Worship
I don't go to a traditional church anymore, but since I'm still a very spiritual kind of guy, I've decided to attend the Church of Tiki. Here's a few links that outline my personal dogma:
I believe that the Messiah of the Church of Tiki is Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian adventurer who built a balsa raft christened the Kon-Tiki in 1947, and sailed it from Peru to Polynesia, thus proving that ancient Americans could've settled the South Pacific, or vice-versa (whether or not this actually occurred hasn't been proven as far as I know). You can see the Kon-Tiki in one of 2 ways: you can travel to Olso, Norway to visit the Kon-Tiki Museum, or you can download this cool app (8.2MB) and navigate a virtual-reality version of the museum's Kon-Tiki room.
A few years later, Thor ventured to Easter Island where he attempted to uncover the secrets of Rapa Nui and excavated one of the island's mysterious Moai.
My place of worship, as you have probably guessed, is my basement tiki bar, which is coming along quite nicely, thank you. The contractors finished installing the trim, stained the grand entrance, and poured the epoxy over the bar top decoupage last Friday; they'll be back on Monday to finish the bar top and do some minor retouching.
Nothing further remains to be done beyond sealing the tile grout and installing some bar shelving, which I've been working on yesterday and today. I have lots of collected polynesian kitsch ready to adorn the walls. The tikis will be pleased.
I also plan to build a light box for the entrance using a plexiglass sign that features the logo of Robotron Corporation, an old British vacuum tube manufacturer; I found it several years ago at an Oakland swap meet.
The name of the bar, you ask? Balis' Hai'deaway, natch.
Finally, every religion needs sacraments. The Catholic Church gives you some grape juice and those dry little wafers that you aren't supposed to chew. The Church of Tiki is a bit more, shall we say, hedonistic. To commune with the Moai, you'll need a couple of Pu-Pu platters (say it, you know you want to...PU-PU PLATTER!) and rum, lots and lots of rum, so to facilitate my apotheosis to Tiki Heaven, I've been stocking up. While searching for an online store where I could purchase a 5th of Lemon Hart Demerara, I came across Peter's Rum Pages, a very fine collection of labels from rum bottles.
Well, I've got a lot of worshipping ahead of me today, guess I better get to it. Hmm, considering the amount of drinking this religion requires, I'd probably be better off moving my Sabbath to Saturday so I've got a day to recover before going back to work.
Thanks to Humuhumu for leading me, albeit indirectly, to the Heyerdahl Museum and providing the link to the Aku-Aku photos.
September 10, 2005
A Lamp Unto My Bar
First off, thanks to everyone who left birthday greetings in my comments. I appreciate that many of you seem to think I appear younger on the Internets than I am in real life, and everyone agrees that I am somewhere between "old as dirt" and "older than leftover broccoli that's gone putrid in the fridge." Go me!
As Humuhumu notes, lighting is crucial to achieving the proper mood in a tiki bar, and I've had that in mind since long before construction began on this project. Yesterday in Stillwater, I found an old lamp made out of a coconut shell and palm fronds that'll look fantastic alongside the abalone shell and pufferfish lamps I picked up earlier. The electric cord was frayed and the plug was broken, so I spent a couple of hours rewiring it this afternoon. Wouldn't want to burn down the bar before I've even had a chance to use it.
I also bought a bottle of 10 Cane Rum; I'll be giving that a try later on.
You'll note from the photos that the bamboo coverings are now up on the walls. Very nice.
September 5, 2005
Enter Tikiman
Working Hard On Labor Day
My contractor and his right-hand man are here working on my basement Tiki bar today. I've been downstairs with them, arranging my collection of alcoholic ephemera on the bar top in preparation for the application of a coat of epoxy hardener that'll fix it all in place.
I snapped a bunch of digital photos of the bar top (1,2,3,4,5,6) so I can remember how everything goes back once the initial coat of marine spar varnish dries. I also made a photocollage of the entire bar top to give you an idea of how it's all going to look when it's finished. You'll recognize a lot of these items from my Ephemeraholic and Havana Club pages. I've also added old Hawaiian postcards and clippings from books on Polynesia, along with a few cool modern lounge items that my pal Wayno slipped me a couple of years back when I commissioned him to do this lovely caricature of Screaming Lord Sutch.
