The end of the night and my 2009 Hukilau draws to a close. I was having way more fun than it looks in this picture. After all the Mai Tais I think I'm starting to look like a stone Tiki. Suzanne is a sweetheart and she graciously showed me around the Mai Kai and introduced me to some people.
Outside the Mai Kai at night.
Stolen Idols in the Tahitian room at the Mai Kai.
Haole Kats play poolside Friday night.
Sunset from the Tikki Beach Yacht.
Thursday night poolside at the Bahia Cabana.
Thursday night poolside at the Bahia Cabana.
The Intoxicators headline Thursday night.
The Bahia Cabana - home of Hukilau 2009.
Welcome to the Hukilau.
2009/06/14 12:00 I got to the airport early. I’m writing this in the airport. I had checked out of the motel and I was having a pleasant chat with the girl behind the registration desk when I heard this tap, tap, tapping on the glass door behind me. I turned around and there were two ducks at the door. One was knocking like they wanted to come in. I said to the girl, “there are two ducks outside that want to check in.” She laughed and explained that the staff fed the ducks and they were just there for breakfast.
I thoroughly enjoyed all the bands I heard this weekend. With that said, of all the bands, the one that truly belonged at the Mai Kai was the Stolen Idols. They sounded great on the Tikki Beach Yacht but they sounded even better playing in the Tahitian room at the Mai Kai. I'm sure the ambience exuded by the legendary Mai Kai and the ambrosially delicious Mai Tai were contributing factors. Standing in the Tahitian room, nursing my last Mai Tai, and listening to the melodic sounds of the Stolen Idols was just a perfect end to a great and memorable weekend.
Close-up of the Don Tiki shirt.
I bought two Intoxicator CDs. The band had their kids hawking the CDs.
How cool is it that Khan Tiki Mon is going to the Hukilau this year?
2009/06/12 10:00 I didn’t go to sleep until after midnight Wednesday. I was too wound up to sleep. Very excited about the Hukilau. Like a little child on Christmas Eve. Karen drove me to the airport. The flight to NYC was only about an hour. I dozed a little during the flight. I had printed my boarding pass the night before. When I landed at JFK there was a Delta employee directing you to the gate for your connection. It was all the way on the other side of the airport and it was a hike. When I got there I knew something was wrong because all the lights were out and there were no passengers waiting. I found another girl from Delta and she looked up the gate, which had changed since the night before, and it was all the way on the other side of the airport where I had just come from. She said, “you better run. You probably missed your flight.” I did run and I made it. I think I was the last one to board. They backed the plane out and I fell asleep before we took off. I slept through the take off. I slept through almost all the flight. It wasn’t a peaceful sleep but rather fitful. I was awakened a few times by low guttural sounds but that was probably just me myself snoring. That’s reason number one that I should have brought Karen. Just to stop me from embarrassing myself on the plane. I may just be paranoid but I felt I was getting some stares when we de-planed. Karen would have hit me. Probably several times throughout the flight. After landing I got a taxi to the motel room. I should have gotten a room closer to the Bahia Cabana instead of close to the Mai Kai. I’ll know better next year. Next year the Hukilau will be June 10th through the 13th. They announced the line up for next year and the headline act will be Don Tiki. I didn’t know that when I got dressed and I happened to wear my Don Tiki shirt. I got a lot of compliments and a few people took my picture (or at least a picture of my shirt). I must have seemed psychic (or psycho).
The gardens at the Mai Kai.
Bikini Beachcombers with Lady Poi in Molokai bar at the Mai Kai.
Bikini Beachcombers play the Mai Kai.
The intracoastal waterway.
Boarding the Tikki Beach Yacht.
The Bikini Beachcombers with Lady Poi.
Marina can dance!
Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid eating fire.
I walked up the road and had my own breakfast and then called a cab. The cab ride from the airport to the motel on Thursday was forty dollars. The cab ride to the airport from the motel was twenty five dollars. We must have caught a tailwind. My first Hukilau weekend is over. I had a great time, met some really nice people, and I’m already looking forward to next year.
I was pretty well worn out from getting up at 4:00AM, traveling, being in the hot sun, from drinking in the hot sun, and so I packed it in around 11:30PM. I called a cab. None of the cab drivers speak English. I think it’s part of the job description. And none of them know where anything is. The not speaking English part I get but the not knowing where anything is part is hard for me to figure since that’s kind of your job. Even the dispatchers don’t know where anything is. I had walked down to the Marriott Hotel and Convention Center and was calling for a cab from there. “Where is it?” asked the dispatcher. I told her the street it was on. “Don’t you have the address?’ she asked. I thought, this is like a forty story building with a great big Marriott on it. It’s a convention center but I must be one of the few people ever to pick up a cab there? The cab arrived and he takes off driving in the wrong direction. I told him he was going the wrong way. The beach and the ocean were on the left and they should have been on the right. I finally convinced him and he turned around. He zeroed out the meter and we started again. Then he says, “I could have got there going that way”. I’m thinking, how? By driving all the way around the world? I’m pretty sure we would have run out of dry land.
2009/06/13 09:30 Saturday around noon, at the Bahia Cabana, Marina and her ‘pod’ of mermaids came to play in the pool. All the girls were great but Marina is in a class by herself. She has a real presence and she is a consummate performer. I would find it impossible to believe that she is not having the best time doing what she does because I don’t believe anyone could be that good an actress. She’s always smiling and her happiness is infectious. The first band to play Friday was The Bikini Beachcombers from Milwaukee. This is a band that really grew on me. The band’s founder, Don Nelson, is the manager of Riverwest’s Foundation Bar, a Tiki bar in Milwaukee. He needed a house band for the bar and thus the Bikini Beachcombers were born. The band strives to be authentic. I read a quote by Don, “No plastic Tiki cups and cheesy stuff from [The Party Warehouse],” he said. “For a little kid to have a birthday party with Tiki hats and plates, that’s fine. But for a grown man, it needs to be more convincing. The more authentic it is, the more escapism there is.” The Bikini Beachcombers perform in the Hapa Haole style. Until the early 1900s Hawaiian songs were written and performed in Hawaiian. A play on Broadway called “Bird of Paradise” popularized Hawaiian music on the mainland. Songs began to be written and performed with Hawaiian melodies but with English words. Hapa Haole means half foreign. The Hula dancer that accompanies the band, Lady Poi (from the Island of Milwaukee) is authentic. The Bikini Beachcombers sound great and they put on a great show. Lady Poi was dancing barefoot on the brick patio, which had been baking in the sun, and her feet were getting hot. She would come over to the pool between numbers and dip her feet to cool them off. Then one of the barbacks, a young man that didn’t look quite 20, came out with a trash can full of ice water and dumped it on the patio. Lady Poi smiled and the crowd gave its biggest cheer of the day so far. Soon it was time to head over to the dock for the cruise on the Tikki Beach Yacht. The boat is basically a great big floating beach with bars. The Stolen Idols were playing on board. The Stolen Idols are a band that plays in the Exotica style. Exotica is usually considered a sub-genre of Lounge music. Exotica was popular from the mid 50s to the late 1960s. The music was meant to convey the mystical, mythical, and exotic flavor of what people idealized the South Seas of Oceania to be. The music was the soundtrack for the Tiki bar experience. The Stolen Idols fit that category. They sounded really good and the boat trip was fun. We got to see the sunset from the deck of the boat. When the three hour cruise was over it was back to the Bahia Cabana and when we got there the Haole Kats were playing. The Haole Kats, like the Bikini Beachcombers, play a swingin' style of Hawaiian music known as Hapa Haole (half foreign). Unlike the Bikini Beachcombers the Haole Kats also play jazz, swing, Bossa Nova, and surf. They remind me at times of the Stray Cats. After the Haole Kats finished up, the headline act for the evening, Los Straightjackets, took the stage. Los Straightjackets are a surf rocking instrumental band from Nashville Tennesee. The band all dress in black and wear Mexican wrestling masks. The only member of the band that speaks is Daddy-O Grande who introduces the songs in rapid fire and hilariously accented Spanish. Eddie Angel is one of the guitarists and the people standing next to me kept screaming, "Play the guitar Eddie!" He was and he did and the band put on a high energy show and it was a lot of fun.
The 2009 Hukilau is the East coast's largest Tiki and Polynesian Pop gathering. It will be held this year in Fort Lauderdale June 11th through the 14th at the Bahia Cabana Resort and the legendary Mai Kai restaurant. The Mai Kai restaurant was established in 1955 and remains virtually unchanged and unspoiled since it’s opening. This will be the eighth annual Hukilau. This most intimate of Tiki festivals will feature an Exotica music history seminar at the Mai-Kai. The music seminar by Jeff Chenault is entitled “More Sounds from Sophisticated Savages”. There will be a mixology seminar by tropical drink expert Jeff "Beachbum" Berry entitled “Who’s Your Daddy? A Mai Tai Paternity Test”. There will be a Tiki and low-brow art show by the Harold Golen Gallery of Miami. There will be a three hour boat tour aboard the Tikki Beach Yacht along the Intracoastal Waterway. The boat tour coincidentally occurs on my birthday and the Stolen Idols will be playing for the occasion. Other bands performing over the weekend include Los Straightjackets, The Intoxicators, The Van Orsdels, and the Bikini Beachcombers. New this year is the Hukilau room crawl. I am so looking forward to this weekend and I will be posting details and pictures of the event from Florida as they happen (sobriety permitting).
The 2009 Hukilau commemorative mug. This mug is number 42 of 300. The mug is from the collection of Tiki-Kate. Tiki-Kate was an online friend. I never had the pleasure of meeting her in person. We traded e-mails and PMs on mugs and such. I enjoyed reading her posts on Tiki Central. She was an inspiration and I got ideas from her. We had a lot of common interests. I feel that if we had lived closer we might have been real friends and not just online acquaintances. Kate visited my website and she had kind things to say about it. Kate lost her battle with cancer and passed away 2010/09/22. I purchased her Hukilau 2009 mug from her estate. Having the mug is bittersweet. I wish Kate were still here to keep the mug safe but I am honored to watch over it in her place for a little while.
Front doors to the Mai Kai.
Haole Kats perform in the Molokai bar at the Mai Kai.
Outside the Mai Kai.
Garden outside the entrance to the Mai Kai.
Los Straightjackets.
Bar on the Tikki Beach Yacht.
The Stolen Idols.
Relaxing aboard the Tikki Beach Yacht.
Marina the Mermaid and her 'pod' cavort in the pool on Friday.
King Kukulele, master of ceremonies for the 2009 Hukilau.
Marina playing with fire.
While the intoxicators performed there were two go-go dancers performing, Sable Sin Cyr and Candy Del Rio.
2009/06/14 09:00 Yesterday was my first trip to the legendary Mai Kai. It was everything that I thought it was going to be. It lived up to all the hype. I walked from the motel and got there before the doors opened at 4:00PM. I was one of the first people through the door that day. It was happy hour until 7:00PM. Half price cocktails. Woo Hoo! I decided to see how far I could make it through the menu of super delicious cocktails. I started with the Mai Tai. The Mai Tai is on the strong side of the menu. The Mai Kai Mai Tai is absolutely the most tasty cocktail I have ever had. It comes garnished with fresh mint and an orchid. The waitresses at the Mai Kai wear short sarongs and bikini tops. They’re all gorgeous with flowers in their hair. My Hukilau waitress was Sheena. I was sitting at the Molokai bar when two guys sat next to me. Sheena greeted them with a how are you doing? The first guy said great. The second guy said, “To tell the truth my house was foreclosed on, my wife left me, and I just got laid off from my job”. Sheena looked right at him and said, “Well, I love you.” He broke into a big smile, ordered one of the exquisitely delicious cocktails, and all was right with the friggin world. It doesn’t get much better than that. After the Mai Tai I moved over to the medium strong side of the menu and sampled a Planters Punch. Very nice. From there I went back to the strong side and enjoyed a Hukilau, the drink named for the annual event. I went back to the medium side for a Tahitian Punch. Then I don’t know where I went but I had some kind of special daiquiri. Sheena tracked me down to let me know happy hour was ending and that I only had three minutes to get another half priced cocktail. I did and I don’t have any recollection of what I ordered. At this point it became clear to me that it was going to take a better man than me to drink his way through the menu. I took a rest and went out to check out the gardens. It is like Tiki heaven.
I got to the Bahia Cabana too early. Too much time to kill before the festivities started. I hadn’t eaten so I had some Teriyaki chicken to take the edge off. It was in the mid 80s and I didn’t feel much like eating after that. In fact that was the only thing I ate all day. I went to the Harold Golen Gallery art show and I bought a couple of prints. That's when I realized reason number two I should have brought Karen was her purse. Having bought the small prints I now had to carry them around the rest of the day. I could have put them in Karen’s purse. The headline act was The Intoxicators. Great band and a great show. While the intoxicators performed there were two go-go dancers performing, Sable Sin Cyr and Candy Del Rio. Then Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid performed. Karen likes to watch “So You Think You Can Dance”. Forget that, this girl can really dance and she danced on the brick patio after she set it on fire. She danced with fire and then she ate fire. Her performance was the Thursday night highlight for me.