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The Gallery of Regrettable Tiki Paint Jobs |
The Gnomon
Grand Member (7 years) 
Joined: May 01, 2007
Posts: 1288
From: MD-DC-VA
|  Posted: 2008-05-21 11:42 am Permalink
Quote:
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On 2008-05-20 20:20, Bora Boris wrote:
Even white paint can ruin a guy if it’s in the wrong places.
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Looks like a Tiki Al Jolson
Probably his most well known persona from The Jazz Singer...
What he looked like without makeup...
I guess the act was really popular at the time. I don't think our brothas and sistas approved. Today Rev Sharpton could probably get anyone doing blackface act like that deported to Antarctica.
[ This Message was edited by: The Gnomon 2008-05-21 11:46 ]
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Tiki-Kate
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Sep 21, 2003
Posts: 1700
From: Yucaipa, CA
| Posted: 2008-05-21 6:40 pm Permalink
I've got to add this one from the Scorpion Sports Bar in San Bernardino.
Here's a little history on the place. Trader Island
_________________
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Psycho Tiki D
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Oct 13, 2006
Posts: 1790
From: The river Styx, can you pay the toll?
| Posted: 2008-05-21 6:51 pm Permalink
Quote:
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Looks like a Tiki Al Jolson
Probably his most well known persona from The Jazz Singer...
What he looked like without makeup...
I guess the act was really popular at the time. I don't think our brothas and sistas approved. Today Rev Sharpton could probably get anyone doing blackface act like that deported to Antarctica.
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Al Jolson is as much a regretable tiki as is Marcel Marceau?
WTF??
PTD
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Ratzaroony
Tiki Centralite
Joined: May 29, 2007
Posts: 72
From: Dublin, Ohio
| Posted: 2008-07-29 06:46 am Permalink
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On 2008-04-22 17:12, Dustycajun wrote:
Here is a better picture of the Tiki paint job from the Pacific Hut in Mass. They only chose to paint the face and left the rest intact.
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Is this that same tiki?
It's currently up on eBay. Not my auction, but I saw it and remembered this thread.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330255460686
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TikiMango
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 17, 2008
Posts: 798
From: Satellite Beach, FL
| Posted: 2008-07-29 07:35 am Permalink
Looks like a rescue project.
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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 10913
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2008-07-29 07:50 am Permalink
How cool. Great Tiki memory, Ratzaroony. I wonder what age that original postcard is from...I would say late 60s?:
That is unusually early for Tiki clown-painting. While it was a mistake then as it is now, it is authentic and should be kept that way. Funny, that seller doesn't even know where it came from.
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Ratzaroony
Tiki Centralite
Joined: May 29, 2007
Posts: 72
From: Dublin, Ohio
| Posted: 2008-07-29 08:20 am Permalink
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On 2008-07-29 07:50, bigbrotiki wrote:
That is unusually early for Tiki clown-painting. While it was a mistake then as it is now, it is authentic and should be kept that way.
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Agreed. I'm going to try to win it, but if I don't, I hope the winner will not repaint it.
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Kong-Tiki
Tiki Centralite
Joined: Sep 13, 2005
Posts: 35 | Posted: 2009-09-01 7:10 pm Permalink
I had not been in SF since last year when I went by Tiki Bob today to pay my respect. I was a bit put off by the new, green color, which gives The Crepe House a more Irish Pub-look. I actually think i preferred the peach color.
On the other side of the street, The Owl Tree had reopened with a new, fancy mural.
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Dustycajun
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 16, 2007
Posts: 4031
From: Santa Barbara, CA
| Posted: 2009-09-01 7:19 pm Permalink
These are from the Waikiki Lounge and Supper Club at the Hawaiian Inn in Daytona Beach, Fl.
Before (from Sabu's Postcard)
After (from Google)
Makes you feel kinda blue.
DC
[ This Message was edited by: Dustycajun 2009-09-01 19:20 ]
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builtiki
Grand Member (first year) 
Joined: Aug 31, 2009
Posts: 25
From: Silver Lake, CA
| Posted: 2009-09-01 8:33 pm Permalink
wow is it true that there are gay tikis....poor 1970's the tikis were just trying to get into Studio 54, with the rest of the beautiful people...just because they had to paint themselves up to be timely doesn't make them Gay!!!!
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Okolehao
Tiki Socialite
Joined: May 03, 2006
Posts: 234
From: Monterey, CA
| Posted: 2009-09-04 4:30 pm Permalink
I'm sure this photo must be somewhere on T.C. already, but "HAND PAINTED by skilled artists in bright BARBARIC COLORS!" is great. This type of medalion's painting must have had some relationship to real Tikis being painted in BARBARIC COLORS. Considering the postage was 10 cents for Parcel Post, I guess this was way before the 1970's. Did these things inspire Tikis being painted, or did Tikis being painted inspire these things? Or were these just cheap kids jewelery and nothing else? (no insult to the cheap kids)
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Grand Kahu
Grand Member (2 years) 
Joined: Jul 31, 2006
Posts: 168
From: Dallas, TX
| Posted: 2009-09-07 12:09 pm Permalink
Tikis - and various Polynesian symbolic objects (masks, etc.) WERE often ritually painted with lime, clays, and other natural pigments. This is not to say they were in day-glo groovy colors, but the brown or weathered gray tikis we all know and love are products of just that - weathering and loss of color. It's akin to the Greek Revival and the scores of white marble buildings which were constructed in the last three centuries. By then, the real ancient Greek structures had lost all of their color (and they were a riot of color) to weathering, hence Greek Revival buildings are typically white - or white. Still, it looks odd to us, as we are used to the current state of things. If Washington D.C. were color-corrected to the original Roman and Greek color schemes, most would think the city had been turned into a huge bordello. (and no, that is not a political commentary...just an architectural one)
GK
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Grand Kahu
Tied by my Mai Tai...
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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 10913
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2009-09-07 2:01 pm Permalink
True about Greek sculpture, and pre-Colombian architecture, too. But in terms of Tikis, more often in Melanesia, less in Polynesia.
Anyway, as far as Tiki culture is concerned, not possible historic authenticity matters, but the IMPRESSION of what was seen as "primitive art", and the concepts it represented in the 20th Century:
To the moderns: The birth of art, the creative spirit of unspoiled man, the freedom from naturalistic form...
To the public: Dark rituals, strange customs, taboo secrets --the opposite of the daily humdrum of the man in the gray flannel suit...
All this was represented by ancient looking, simple but elegant, scary but funny, monochromatic figurines seen in the Oceanic Art exhibitions and books of the mid-century. And this is the way 1950s and 60s artisans re-created them for the modern Tiki temples of that time.
Tikis, as they were found by the explorers and missionaries, are dark and brooding, not happy and flashy, and this contrast to modernity was -for a brief time- what inspired American Tiki entrepreneurs and artists. Later, they became scared of their own gutsiness and began to update them with glossy colors, destroying the effect of aged, archaic relics.
That is why paint jobs on Tikis are most regrettable, no two ways about it. 
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Hale Tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Oct 19, 2004
Posts: 1797
From: Pittsburgh
| Posted: 2013-03-13 09:23 am Permalink
Bumping this for posterity. It's a damn fine thread.
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Dustycajun
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 16, 2007
Posts: 4031
From: Santa Barbara, CA
| Posted: 2013-03-18 4:30 pm Permalink
This on falls under the category of "Most regrettable Tiki Bar Attempts"! Brought to you in the 1970's during the free fall of Tiki De-evolution, the Bali Hai Room at the Shantung Restaurant in Dover, NJ.
The room decor, stunning it its own right.
Several regrettable painted Tikis.
They did use Tiki mugs at least.
Description from the back of the postcard.
Where's Bamboo Ben when you need him? (in Hawaii of course)
DC
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