Heh. This'll be me in about 5 years...

[Link: Tiki Toonz by Charles Kaufman][via Tiki Talk]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 4:57 PM | Permalink

Howdy! We're back from Vegas and loaded with loot. You can see my haul above: L-R Thor Heyerdahl's Aku-Aku, Trader Dick's Reno mug with Maori-influenced tiki design, Hawaiian souvenir mask, Orchids of Hawaii R-72 Moai mug, Harvey's Lake Tahoe "Sneaky Tiki" bucket mug (click for larger image). If I told you about all the cool stuff that I found but had to leave behind because it was too big/too expensive, you'd cry. I did.

If you want to read my lengthy travelogue, click on the extended entry.

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon after a flight remarkable only for the extremely cute and funny little Jamaican girl who sat next to us. She took a real shine to Mrs. Bali Hai and in particular, to the contents of her purse. She was a pistol, and her mom was clearly glad that we were there to provide some distraction. She finally fell asleep about an hour into the flight, and we all remarked on how angelic she looked curled up on her momma's lap.

We picked up our rental car and navigated to the Venetian. It was a blistering 110F outside, but it was, as they say, a dry heat. At the hotel, we decided to upgrade to a nicer suite for an extra $35 night and wound up on the 28th floor with a beautiful room overlooking the Strip. I noticed that we had a clear view of the Treasure Island Casino pirate ships; I thought this was cool until later that night when we discovered that we could hear the entire show, complete with loud explosions; that got old after a while, especially when we were trying to sleep.

After changing into our nice threads, we headed over to the Hard Rock Casino for dinner at Nobu [Link]. I was expecting great things, but it wasn't earthshaking. We shared the Sashimi Salad with Matsuhisa Dressing, and the Rock Shrimp Tempura with Butter Ponzu Sauce, along with 2 bottles of very pricey sake. We desserted upon the Bento Box (Flourless chocolate cake with a white chocolate sauce, shiso oil and green tea ice cream).

The next morning, we arose early to break our fast at Bouchon [Link], which bills itself as "The Best Breakfast in Vegas". I had the Breakfast Américaine and my Better Half ordered a Croque Madame. Both were served with paper cones filled with piping hot pommes frites, which were as good as fries get at 7:30am. The best part of the meal, for my money, was the chocolate croissant.

We spent the rest of the day antiquing and thrifting. I saw more tiki schwag in Vegas than I've seen anywhere else, and was sorry that I hadn't brought an empty suitcase with me to fill up. Oh well, more for the rest of you collectors to find, I guess. In particular, the Red Rooster Antique Mall offered a plethora of vintage and modern mugs at reasonable prices, and the proprietors were very helpful. We also stopped briefly at the Hawaiian Marketplace shopping plaza next to the MGM Grand, but it was a major disappointment. There was practically nothing there even remotely Hawaiian except for one shop selling muu-muus.

In the evening, we decided to dine at Tao in the Venetian [Link]. The decor and ambience at Tao is phenomenal, and the food equalled it. We started out with the ubiquituous bottle of expensive designer mineral water, followed by miso soup with clams and crispy sashimi rolls over edamame that were to die for. After figuring out that the Kobe Beef would cost us roughly $260/lb. we decided that the Peking Duck made more sense as the entree, and it proved to be a good choice, almost as tasty as the duck I had in Beijing. For dessert, we shared a plate of chocolate wontons in raspberry sauce with fortune cookies that contained slightly risque fortunes.

After dinner, we headed over to see Blue Man Group [Link]. This was my 2nd viewing of the BMG, and while they weren't as transcendent as they were during my virgin viewing, they still made me laugh until my sides hurt and played kick-ass music.

On Friday, we decided to have breakfast at Wolfgang Puck's Postrio [Link] out on the swimming pool deck. The temperature was a cool and refreshing 96F, and the greenery of the patio made you feel that you weren't just 200 feet away from the Strip. We enjoyed watching the parade of oiled-up hardbodies preening themselves by the pool as we dined upon our spinach omelettes and breakfast burritos.

Our first stop of the day was the Atomic Testing Museum [Link]. This place is phenomenal and deserves a much higher level of popularity than it currently enjoys. The displays are very well designed and the multimedia presentations are extremely interesting. It's exhilarating, and at the same time, terrifying. I haven't been this moved since seeing the Atomic Bomb Museum in Hiroshima.

We then wended our way out to the fringes of town to visit the Las Vegas Art Museum [Link], which proved to be a bit disappointing, as they have no permanent collection, and charged $6 apiece to view a collection of paintings by actor, Martin Mull. His works all feature the same kind of gentle, satirical wit that's on display in his acting. It wore pretty thin after the 10th painting or so.

On our way back to town, we stopped at another antique mall and an indoor swap meet, but came up empty-tiki-handed. We decided to go to the Desert Passage at the Aladdin [Link], and did some shopping for Hawaiian tschotkes at Hilo Hatties. I bought a couple of bags of poke mix, and Mrs. BH bought a cute floral-print dress. We also made a stop at the Musuem of the American Cocktail, which is tucked away inside a corner of the Commander's Palace Restaurant; they had some very nice vintage tiki mugs and menus on display.

We were getting hungry, so we stopped at the Fremont Street Experience [Link] to find some nosh. The FSE is Vegas' attempt to preserve some of the earliest casinos on the Strip, by enclosing them inside a pedestrian-only mall. It was really cool to see the vintage neon signage still in operation. We decided to get a cocktail and a puu-puu at a neo-Tiki establishment called Mickie Finnz. Other than a large Moai and a couple of tiki poles standing guard out front and some thatched umbrellas with carved posts, we didn't see much tikiness in evidence. The waitresses all appeared to be Russian strippers (I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing), and the cocktails were the standard, too-sweet, flavored-rum concoctions designed to appeal to the palates of sorority chicks and fratboys.

Speaking of sorority chicks and fratboys, when we got back to the Venetian, the Friday crush of shirtless jock dumbasses and tattooed hootchie-mamas in thongs was in full swing. Much hootin' and hollerin' was heard in the hallways.

We still had a couple of hours to kill before dinner, so I I made a point of stopping at the China Bar for one of their advertised "Don the Beachcomber" cocktails. The bartender was MIA, he'd gone hunting for a donut fix, so we sat there for a few minutes and contemplated the sad fate of the Taboo Cove tiki bar [Link] that the Venetian had converted into a disco a few years back. A number of beautiful carvings from Taboo Cove adorned the walls of the China Bar. When the barkeep returned (with Krispy Kreme smeared all over his lips), he informed us that the cook had gone AWOL with the drink recipe book, but that he would try to make us something. My red danger flags went sailing up the pole hearing that, but I ordered a Mai Tai anyway.

Despite the fact that the bar was loaded with top-shelf rums, he proceeded to mix my Mai Tai with Cruzan Mango Rum and sweet/sour mix with a floater of Myers Dark on top. No limes were in evidence. The result was not bad, but pretty sweet for my tastes. I struck up a conversation with him about sweet vs. sour mixology, and he told me that the China Bar owner was "modifying" the original Beachcomber recipes to make them more palatable to modern tastes (i.e. the aforementioned fratboys and sorority chicks) by, among other things, eliminating fresh lime and lemon juice, along with the Pernod (absinthe substitute) that Don used in many of his recipes. Having had many a drink ruined by too much Pernod, I couldn't blame them too much, but getting rid of fresh lime and lemon juice, is evidence of a fundamentally fatal misunderstanding of mixology.

He also told me that the owner was in litigation with the current owners of Don the Beachcomber's in Hawaii over the copyright of the name. He claimed that the China Bar owner has actually purchased the trademark. Apparently, China Bar is up for sale, and the owner intends to break ground for a new off-Strip Don the Beachcomber's as soon as the deal closes. I didn't know whether to be excited or not, because it sounds like it's probably going to be another Mickie Finnz-style surfer bar with a few random tikis tossed in. I hope I'm wrong.

After cleaning up, we navigated through the horrible Friday-evening traffic to Mandalay Bay for our 6:30 dinner reservation at Red Square [Link]. Another $7.00 bottle of Voss followed by a $15 shot of Imperia vodka [Link], and we were ready to eat. Mrs. BH and I shared a miniscule portion of Caesar salad, followed by herb-crusted Filet Mignon for her, and blackened Ahi topped with seared Foie Gras for me. The Foie Gras was orgasmic: nutty, velvety, and rich. Cruelty to waterfowl never tasted better! With my meal, I enjoyed a glass of 2002 Craggy Range Sauvignon Blanc. Normally, I'd have gone with a Sauterne to cut the grease of the Foie Gras, but oddly, none were featured on the wine list. Mrs. BH had a glass of 2000 Penfold's Shiraz. We shared a flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

After bidding Da svidaniya to Red Square, we had to skedaddle over to the Rio to catch Penn and Teller [Link]. I had hoped to have time for a quick drink at the Voodoo Lounge, but the line was huge, and the doorman was only letting in blond hotties in little black cocktail dresses. Since I'd left my little black cocktail dress in the hotel room next to the gags and harnesses, we decided to proceed on to the show.

I'd scored second-row center seats, so we were close enough to look up Teller's nostrils, had we been so inclined. When we sat down, Penn was already on stage, playing upright jazz bass in some key that was orthogonal to the melody that the piano player was banging out. The show started promptly at 9:00pm, and we were treated to a full 90 minutes of P&T's patented debunking of magic, religious charlatanism, and faux patriotism, along with plenty of grinding up cute bunnies in chipper-shredders, and the symbolic grinding up of Vegas cliches like Wayne Newton and soon-to-be cliches, Cirque du Soliel.

We left Vegas on Saturday morning, tired and happy, without having touched a single slot machine, or gaming table. Hell, when you can blow all of your cash on expensive dinners, shows, and hotel suites, who needs to gamble?

We arrived back in Wisconsin to cool temperatures and gentle rain showers. Our kids were happy to see us, particularly since the toilet in their bathroom had developed a bad seal during our absence and was leaking all over the floor. Guess what I'll be doing after I post this?

Oh yeah, before I forget, Mrs. BH bought me a beautiful stainless-steel TeNo [Link] ring with an 18K gold inlaid band and a single .5 carat diamond. Classy.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Y'know, I was pretty jazzed at finding a handful of tiki swizzle sticks last week in Portland, until I saw this guy's site and realized I got nothin'.

[Link: Andy's Tiki Swizzle Stick Collection]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This unintentionally hilarious article from San Joaquin Magazine tells you how to throw what may just be the lamest luau in the history of luaus. Recommended couture includes black cocktail dresses with pumps for the ladies, and "no loud Hawaiian shirts" for the guys. And as if that weren't clueless enough, the "must-have" music list recommends Vampyros Lesbos Sexadelic Dance Party?!

Don the Beachcomber is spinning in his grave.

[Link: Sizzlin' Summer Luau][via Tiki Central]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I'm back from Portland, and I must say that I had a pretty fun and interesting time there. After arriving at the airport, I spend a few hours driving around to antique shops downtown, looking for tiki schwag. As you can see from the photo, I hit paydirt when I found 3 vintage mugs: a Westwood, an Orchids of Hawaii R-1 Headhunter, and a miniature mug/toothpick holder with no maker's mark, but I'm pretty sure it's also a Westwood. I also grabbed a fistful of tiki swizzle sticks. Click on the photo if you want a closer look.

I dropped by Alan Scott's house briefly on Monday evening and introduced myself to his lovely wife, Roberta and their exceedingly well-behaved children. I also met their pet rat. Alan and I then headed out to The Alibi for a cocktail and some food. While driving, we listened to a CD of his old band that they'd recorded in an Unitarian discussion hall, It was very good.

At The Alibi, we were awestruck by the gorgeous interior: beautiful carvings, tropical shell lamps, even a blacklight hula mural. Unfortunately, the Mai Tais we ordered we not up to my standards, however, the plate of fried clam strips I ordered for dinner was pretty good. We chatted for a while but then some nerfwad decided that he was going to climb up on the karaoke stage and massacre Elvises "Burnin' Love". My ears! The wadded-up napkins do nothing! We split.

I spent Tuesday having my brain crammed full of marketing fluff trying to pass itself off as technical training, then my whole class was wined and dined by the local marketing fluffer at an excellent steakhouse called the Stanford.

After our training ended on Wednesday evening, I headed out to meet a group of local engineers who wanted to consult with me on a VOD system concept they were putting together. It was the geekiest conversation I've had in the past 6 years, and I enjoyed it throrougly. They also bought me dinner. I had a plate of DEE-LICIOUS Alaskan razor clams.

While sitting in the airport today, I enjoyed FREE wireless internet access.

Portland rules*

*-except for that bullshit about not being able to pump your own gas...WTF?

Posted by MrBaliHai at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

The title of this post will get me a lot of unwanted search engine hits, no doubt. Oh well, I couldn't resist.

This glorious shot of notorious "It" girl, Clara Bow from the 1927 film, Hula [Link], comes to you courtesy of the orangeguru [Link], who is slowly but surely being assimilated into tiki culture, thanks to my relentless efforts at brainwashing him. You can see a clip from the film at YouTube [Link], but unfortunately, it doesn't have Clara doin' her grass-skirt thing. Here's a shot of her from the film playing ukulele [Link], and another of her floating nekkid in a pond [Link]. Hubba Hubba!

Clara definitely pushed the envelope of propriety in pre-Code Hollywood, both on celluloid and in her personal life, and she was accused in the gossip rags of sleeping with anything that moved. At one point, rumor had it that she was providing her sexual favors to the entire USC football team...a rumor debunked by Snopes.[Link]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)