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November 23, 2006
November 22, 2006
My TAI
Mrs. Bali and I took a little trip over to Eastern Minnesota today to do some antiquing in the quaint old towns along the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers. I wasn't expecting to find anything even remotely Polynesian in these far-flung river valleys filled with stern Lutheran farmers, so imagine my surprise when I spotted this lonely little souvenir tiki mug ($8) given to passengers on TAI Airlines back in the 1960s. TAI provided regular jet service to Tahiti from France, and they put out beautifully designed travel posters like the one shown above. Here's a gallery of smallish scans:
[Link: TAI Airlines posters]
P.S. Just be thankful I bought this and not the painting of a sad-eyed clown with a wind-up nose that played circus music.
November 17, 2006
Hawaiian Rhythm For a Dollar
I hadn't been to our local Salvation Army Thrift store for a couple of months, so I decided to stop by today and have a look through the record bins. I saw a few LPs that I was sort of interested in, but this gorgeous Technicolor wahine practically leapt off the shelves and into my arms. For only a buck, how could I refuse her?
When I got home and put the record on my turntable, I discovered that the music, by Luke Leilani and His Hawaiian Rhythm, was gorgeous too. The songs are all island standards like Red Sails In the Sunset and Hawaiian War Chant, played oh-so languidly on slack-key guitar, but a couple of tunes featured an intriguing mix of yelping native vocalizing over snappy Chuck Berry-ish riffing. Check out the MP3 of Hawaiian Holiday linked below to hear it for yourself.
[Link: Hawaiian Holiday]
November 11, 2006
This Old Tiki Bar
My tiki mug collection has grown beyond the shelving capacity of the Hai'deaway in the past couple of months, and I was feeling kind of artsy-craftsy today, so I decided to build a shelf over the pinball machine to hold some of the overflow. The results, while spectacular if I do say so myself, came with a price: I failed to install the light rope properly the first go-'round, and wound up with my beloved Mai Kai salt-and-pepper shakers lying in pieces on the floor. That's the price you pay for shoddy workmanship, I guess.
Afterwards, inspired by Ace Jackalope's terrific night photography, I fished my old camera tripod out of the closet and snapped a couple of shots of my Bali Hi pinball machine. The results weren't up to the 'Lope's high standards, but they were better than my usual crappy digital photos.
November 10, 2006
Jackalope's Alibi
Click for Larger Image
Ace Jackalope tours the tiki bars of the Pacific Northwest and comes up with another gorgeous batch of photos like this blacklight hula-girl mural from The Alibi in Portland.
[Link: Northwest Tiki]
November 6, 2006
Quick, to the Tikicom!
Markus Rothkranz is an artist/filmaker who's shopping around a very cool television concept called Atomic City, a show set in the mythical town of Lost Vegas that contains just about every imaginable retro-fetish from the '50s and '60s including googie architecture, space-age bachelor pads, pin-up girls, spy movies, UFO-ology, kustom-kar kulture, and tiki. The show is also awash in celebrity impersonators like Tom Jones lookalike Harmik, and the show's star, Matt Lewis, who passes himself off nightly as Elvis at the Imperial Palace Casino in the real Las Vegas. I sure hope Markus finds some financial backing, 'cuz I definitely want to watch this show.
Check out the official Atomic City webpage for more images and a sample video clip.
[Link: Atomic City]