Reasons To Be Cheerful

(With apologies to I’m Learning to Share)

This has been a fine week all around.

1. Film Feast

I went to a mess o’ films at the EIFF (Edmonton International Film Festival).

Bruce McDonald (Highway 61, Hard Core Logo) and Stephen McHattie, director and star, respectively, of the cerebral Canadian “vampire” film Pontypool.

Steve “Lips” Kudlow of the Canadian heavy metal band Anvil. Sacha Gervasi’s documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil was a real charmer. I also liked Man On Wire about Philip Petit’s guerrilla highwire walk between the twin towers in 1974, and the Spanish horror film [REC], a movie so wonderfully scary grown men were screaming like little girls.

2. Indian Summer

The weather has been wonderful – as nice a fall as you could ask for. As often as I could I walked downtown to festival screenings, about an hour each way through the river valley.

3. You can always go…

saturday farmer’s market, 104th street

Downtown doesn’t seem as desolate as it’s been. I guess all the new condos are starting to make a positive impact with lots of new stores and services starting to pop up to meet the demand, and human activity taking place at street level.

I’ve  been taking pictures of my favourite downtown buildings. Above and below: The Federal Public Building, sort of a truncated art deco skyscraper.

It’s been vacant since 1989 but it’s being refurbished and will reopen in 2011.

Above and below: Free Masons’ Hall.

4. Birthday Brunch

For Sandra’s birthday we took her to the Santa Maria Goretti Community Centre for Sunday pranzo (lunch).

She looks amazed and appalled by my present.

5. Velvet Vahine

I found an authentic fake Leeteg black velvet painting at the Sally Ann for 5 bucks. If it was a genuine Leeteg it would be worth a few thousand, but it’s an authorized copy, apparently painted in Japan in the 60s. I’m still happy – it will look nice in my home tiki bar (when I have one).

6. Up From Down Under

My niece returned from nearly two years in Australia. We took advantage of the good weather to hang around at outdoor cafes.

She took this picture of me that delights me so much I think I’ll use it as my avatar for everything.

7. Moai-to-Eye

We discovered this flock (is that the collective noun?) of Moai at a landscaping place near my favourite Goodwill store.

That’s all.

good advice

Moving Weekend 2

Help Me, 3D Jebus

We got in too late Friday night to offload Gary’s stuff at the storage place so we’re doing it this morning with a crew of Gary’s uncle Laurie and friends.

Uncle Laurie

Advice.

Bundles of records. Gary got rid of about half his record collection this year so this is only half what he usually has to move.

The crew. With so many studly dudes helping out we’re done in no time. Laurie lends Gary ‘n me his truck so we can tootle around town.

We’re in good company with dashboard Jesus and friend. First stop: Chinatown for some snacks.

Then we pay a visit to our Tiki Central pal Slacks Ferret at the community art centre where he works.

His latest painting The Birth of Pele is hanging in an exhibition of staff works.

Time for some thrifting.

The eyes on this plaster dalmation at the WINS store weird us out. It’s not for sale – too bad.

This also weirds me out – inverse plaster Jesus. If you hold it the right way it looks as if the face is jutting out instead of an impression in the plaster. There were a bunch of these at the BFM, including…

this one that was painted gold. Another weird thing is that if you hold it sideways

you get what appears to be a profile.

Good luck on the new job, Gary. I hope there are interesting thrift stores in Cranbrook.

It’s a Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki World

The purpose of our “Lost in Paradise” vacation tour was Tiki! Tiki! Tiki! all the time, and we accomplished that goal – sometimes in unexpected places.

Our first tiki destination was the Tiki Village Motel in Vernon, BC. Successive owners have stripped it of its original tiki-ness and today it looks more Japanese than Polynesian-pop, but we did have the unexpected pleasure of finding this beaut of a Witco lamp in our room (with an ugly, non-original shade).

witco lamp

Our route into Vancouver took us past the Value Village on East Hastings where I found this vintage Orchids of Hawaii R-5 mug. According to locals, it is exceedingly rare to find vintage mugs in Vancouver thrift stores. As it turned out, it was the only vintage mug we would find in a thrift store on our trip.

vintage mug

Several stops later, we were at Funhauser Decor, the store of our Tiki Central friends Pepe le Tiki and Atomic Al.

bar necessities

wall of contemporary mugs by tiki farm

Pepe (Peter) was one of the main organizers of Lost Paradise, the Tiki event/fundraiser at Vancouver’s Waldorf Hotel that inspired us to go on this little road adventure. The Waldorf Hotel has 3 wonderfully ornate Polynesian inspired rooms that opened in the mid-1950s and have somehow survived the decades relatively unscathed. The Menehune Room was closed to us, apparently by order of the fire marshal, but we got to party in the atmospheric upstairs Tahitian Lounge with its starlit ceiling and original Leeteg velvet paintings, and in the downstairs Polynesian Room with its stunning 30-foot long Hawaiian historical mural by Vancouver artist P. Hopkinson (shamelessly “based” on the work of Matson Cruise Lines artist Eugene Savage).

bar in the tahitian lounge

drum shaped bar stools

detail

hawaiian island relief map in stairwell from upstairs entrance to downstairs rooms

details of mural in polynesian room

vancouver burlesque performer shaboobie boobarella and friend

In Seattle, we enjoyed the warm hospitality of our Tiki Central friends Elicia and Todd. There are no “old school” tiki establishments remaining in Seattle, but there are several fine contemporary locales carrying the tiki torch.

The Islander:

casually elegant interior

carved tiki

mai tai

The Trader Vic’s in upscale Bellevue opened about a year ago:

gary and elicia outside the entrance

miles of tapa cloth line the walls

art from papua new guinea

scary!

classic mai tai – invented by trader vic (if you don’t think so, you’re a dirty stinker)

elegant table setting in the restaurant (riff-raff like us eat in the bar)

Hula Hula:

shirty

wall decor, woven matting, bamboo, fishing float lamps – essentials for any tiki establishment

gary in leopard-print fez from archie mcphee’s

The Hawaiian General Store is not a bar or a restaurant but, as the name suggests, a generally Hawaiian store:

gary’s new tiki buddy

tiki babushka (russian-made nesting dolls)

I thought this was the most hilarious tiki thing I’ve seen – a perfect fusion of my tikimania and Slavic heritage. Maybe I should have bought it but I was trying to contain the spending.

Our Seattle hosts have an amazing tiki bar/rec room in their house – the Rongorongo Room – which I somehow neglected to photograph. Here’s a bit of their backyard patio:

About an hour east of Seattle, we pulled into the town of Ellensburg, Washington, to check out Dick and Jane’s Spot, which we’d read about on Roadside America. We happened on this little A-frame building housing Tiki Tattoos and Body Piercing. Nothing too terribly tiki beyond the name, but the Hawaiian shave ice we got at the kiosk in the parking lot was a welcome treat on this hot day.

Breezing through Spokane, we spotted the sign for the Trade Winds Motor Inn from the I-90. We pulled off the road to investigate.

The place has seen better days and the sign used to be way fancier in olden times. We stayed the night, but somewhere else.

lobby display with black velvet painting

The Sip-n-Dip Lounge in the O’Haire Motor Inn in Great Falls, Montana was the perfect capper to our tiki adventure. We’ve been meaning to come to this place for a while. In 2003 GQ proclaimed it the number one bar on earth!!! I don’t know about that because I haven’t been to nearly enough bars in, say, Turkmenistan or Burkina Faso – but I do know that we had one heck of a great time there.

mural behind the bar

mai tai

We fell in love with our cocktail waitress (in a polite and respectful way, not in a sleazy, drunken lounge lizard way), seen here modeling the cat’s eye glasses she bought for 50¢.

velvet painting

booth (the seahorse-motif formica is original)

the only tiki in the joint

happy patrons enjoying a fishbowl (more than 9 oz. of rum and other alcohol)

“Piano Pat” Spoonheim has been playing and singing at the Sip-n-dip since it opened in 1962!! Her repertoire on this night included Tiny Bubbles, Fly Me To The Moon, Ring of Fire (twice), and Margaritaville. We loved her unique phrasing (though it’s tough to sing along with).

Behind the bar, two windows look into the deep end of the motel’s swimming pool, where every Friday and Saturday night a frolicsome mermaid swims and poses for pictures.

Can’t wait to do it again next year.

Lost in Paradise

This is the logo my travelling companion Gary designed for our vacation. The theme of our vacation is “Lost in Paradise” (what? you don’t have themes or logos for your vacations?). We’re driving to Vancouver to attend the Lost Paradise fundraiser for Heritage Vancouver at the famed Waldorf Hotel. We’ve planned our trip to take in as many tiki venues as possible including The Tiki Village Motel in Vernon, BC, Trader Vic’s in Seattle and the fabulous Sip ‘N’ Dip Lounge in Great Falls, Montana.