If you can’t bring Mohammad to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammad.
This is a great rule of thumb for those of us who can’t spend every day of our lives lounging on some
tropical island in the South Pacific. This was taken to heart in the 1960s when a Tiki craze swept through
California and Hawaiian shirts, tropical drinks and bamboo wallpaper reigned supreme (including my own apartment which
still sports original bamboo wall paper from the early 1970s).
This fad died rather quickly, however, and today only a few hardcore fans continue to bring the tropics to
Mohammad. A recent article in the LA
Times chronicles this underground movement of Tiki fans and the passion which inspires them to blanket all that
surrounds them in Polynesian glory, hijacking homes, bars, hotels and restaurants with bamboo, Tiki heads, and flaming
torches. www.roadsidepeek.com/tiki documents the many California
landmarks remaining from the fifties, as well as newer ones designed by the latest generation of Tiki fans.
The current Tiki revival has its own magazine, blog, and, as you might suspect, a passionate fan base populated with such colorful
characters as Bamboo Ben, King Ukulele, and even Crazy Al – the
axe-swinging, lead singer of popular Tiki band, Ape, who carves an
entire Tiki head out of a palm log during the course of a concert.
Tiki mania! It certainly doesn’t beat a trip to the South Pacific, but it’s the next best
thing.