Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:21):
Imagine a place where time slows down, the cocktails are cold,
the music swings, the outfits are fabulous, and every sunset
feels like the start of a Hollywood dream. Welcome to
Tiki Oasis, the world's largest and longest running celebration of
(00:42):
all things swanky, tropical and retro cool. This isn't just
a weekend event. It's a full blown five night escape
into paradise, complete with pool side tunes, fashion shows, vintage art,
curated cocktails, tiki torches, and a vibrant community of dreamers,
(01:05):
doers and dancers. And right here today on so Cal
with Val we are diving into the heart of this
spectacular phenomenon with the power couple who started it all,
Otto Vonstroheim, the original tiki torch bearer, and the fabulous
Baby Doe, the creative visionary behind the color, the costumes
(01:29):
and the cultural revival that is Tiki Oasis. This is
really special because it marks their twenty fifth anniversary. So
whether you're a lifelong Tiki fan or you're just curious
what all the bamboo and rum is about, get ready
to be inspired, enchanted, and maybe you can even book
(01:51):
a room and join them. Tiki is back the vibe
is alive and this is a conversation you won't want
to miss. So welcome, so cow with Bell and today's
episode is about Tiki Oasis. Welcome Auto and Baby Dough.
We are so excited to have you.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Hello, We're happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I've learned so much about this and all the preparations,
and I've done things that I've learned, and I have
your bio, but i'd rather hear it from you.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So one of you go first and tell us your
history of yourselves. Where who are you aware? Have you been?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Okay? I'm Auto von Stroheim, sometimes known as DJ Auto.
I grew up in southern California, going to knots Berry
Farm in Disneyland and other theme parks like Bush Gardens.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
And I got the name from the past.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Yeah, yeah, San Fernando Valley, you know, Hollywood Boulevard, Torrence Beach,
Tony's on the Pier, places like that Redondo Beach. And
when I became an adult past age twenty one age,
I found tiki bars very appealing, naturally appealing to me,
(03:05):
and tropical landscaping which was all around the neighborhoods around
Santa Monica and Culver city where I later lived as
an adult, and all around the San Fernando Valley, banana trees,
birds of paradise, palm trees were everywhere, and I thought
that was just natural, Like I thought everybody across the
US had stuff like that, and they had I thought
they had tiki bars, you know, within driving distance of
(03:25):
their house that they could go to for dinner. And
I sorted rediscovering those places where I lived, and I
realized that southern California was pretty special and that there
was a lot of tiki bars there. Now, everywhere across
America had tiki bars. Every town in the sixties and
early seventies had tiki bars, but Southern California had a lot.
So everybody in Southern California knew what a tiki bar was.
(03:48):
So when I told my other friends that grew up
in southern California or who had moved there later that
I was into tiki bars, they kind of had an
idea of what it was. I didn't have to do
much explaining.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
And then you started a zine, so yes, tell us
about your kind of like.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Was that? What it was called this.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Teach Tek News, which there was also later on a
magazine called Tiki Magazine and that's now defunct, and then
there was another one. There is another one now called
Exotica Modairn. So there has been an ongoing uh zine
since I started mine, but mine was the first, and
it was just called Tiki News, very simple. I worked
at a newspaper at the time, and so I wanted
(04:30):
to communicate very directly. So I didn't make it anything
fancy like the Tiki Tattler. Like in Honolulu in the
thirties there was the Tattler and newspapers.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Had these tabloid or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah, the newspapers had funny names like you know, the
Pilot or the Beacon or the Messenger or something. You know.
I just I just made it news because it couldn't
be Tiki Times because I was in la and it
was the La Times. Wasn't the big paper that Teak News.
And so that's in January of nineteen ninety five, and
(05:03):
it was intended to be sent out to everyone everywhere
across the US and across the globe and connect other
tiki fans who were collecting mugs and going to their
local tiki bars.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
And Okay, so this is kind of when I come
into the picture, right, enter the picture.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
So I grew up also in southern California, and I
grew up with thrifting. I loved going to thrift stores.
I loved finding sort of unusual items, like cool dresses
from the nineteen fifties or hats from the nineteen sixties,
or you know, Chotchke's and things like that.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
So I was finding tiki mugs, I was.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Finding cool retro vintage clothing, and I was discovering music
through that. I would find an album and like, oh,
this is kind of a cool cover. Play the album,
and here's something that was very exotic and kind of
unique and different. So I had a love for tiki
because of course, growing up a huttern California.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
You go to Disneyland, you go the Tiki Tiki Tiki Room, right,
So I love that.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
I loved that kind of escapism and that vibe. But
I also love vintage and that esthetics from the past.
And so OTTO was living in Venice Beach area, I
was living in San Francisco. I started a ze online
zine or a blog maybe you would call it now
in nineteen ninety four called Baby Dos Obsessed all about mine.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You didn't know each other at that time. I know
each other. You started them at the same time, kind
of Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
So around the incident, Yeah, I was ninety five, and
and what's interesting is that I was obsessed with other
people's obsessions, and so zine's the zine culture, the zene
world was a big part of that. So of course
I love tiki already. So when I heard of Tiki
News zine, I was like, oh my gosh, there's this
(06:59):
person who's upset with tiki stuff, just like me, just
like me, just like me. And I auto came up
to San Francisco for an event a historic guy that
was playing Corla Pandit, and we met at this show.
He was kind of like a friend of a friend,
and we hit it off and.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
The rest is sort of history.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
Like then, we started producing events together from there from
nineteen ninety six on a first really to showcase and
celebrate Teaky News, which was bringing all of these like
minded people together and give us an opportunity to get
creative with things like music or dance. And we just
started having fun starting to produce events together.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Like once we were together, and which is a great story.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You already were each were in for in entertainment or
production of some kind already, Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (07:57):
I was I had when I started putting out the zine.
I was active in the lounge scene with a band
called Combustible Edison from the East Coast, from the Boston area,
and so you know, I knew a lot of people
within that scene, like radio show hosts, like from college
radio the Molotov Cocktail Hour on KXLU Radio in Los Angeles,
(08:19):
and I had been up on their radio show once.
And so when it came time to put out the zine,
I knew how I wanted to promote it. I wanted
to promote it by doing radio shows. I wanted to
promote it by going to Combustible Edison shows and passing
out flyers. And I wanted to host my own events.
So I had art show happenings where I would have
(08:40):
an art show and then the artists would be selling
their art, and the art and artists would be the
people that were involved with Tiki News they had done
the cover artwork for one of the issues. And then
I would have a DJ or a band play and
I would have vendors. Like if I knew a guy
who made teaking necklaces, Like if he carved teaky necklaces,
you would be there selling them. So anybody who came
(09:02):
from the neighborhood or from Hollywood, or you know, just
to see what a zine was about, or check out
the band or something, they could buy a teaky necklace
or you know, the next time it was a guy
making candles or you know, people would make wherever I
had it, I would try to get them to do
a tropical drink like a you know, Storian punch or something.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Yeah, there's all these elements. You know, the teaki scene,
the exotica scene from the fifties till now has all
these different elements. You know. It has the clothing that
you wear. It has a jewelry that you wear. It
has culinary you know food like at Trader Vix. It
has the cocktails of course, like you know don the
Beachcomber and Trader vic cocktails, these tropical drinks. It has
(09:46):
the music and then of course the art, and so
I was trying to make sure that as many of
those elements as possible were there. You know, could we
have poopoo's, you know, could we have cocktails, you know,
and then of course the music in the art, you know.
And then everybody wore Hawaiian shirts, you know, so everybody
was in fashion, you know, and I wanted to put
(10:07):
that all together every time that I had an event,
you know, so that it wasn't just an art gallery opening,
or it wasn't just a band playing at a club.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
I think what's really unique about what OTTO was starting
to do in the early nineties is the realization that
bringing people together that had a like interest was actually
getting to be kind of powerful. You would go to
say a bar or restaurant that maybe had been around
for thirty or forty years at the time, and they
(10:38):
were thinking about shutting their doors. Then all of a sudden,
one hundred people are showing up ordering my ties, and
they go, well, you know, maybe I should keep this business.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Open another year.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
It was really intmental in just bringing people together and
just getting people to like enjoy what we had, because
in the nineties things were starting to close down.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
A lot of the places that we loved and.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
You know, had maybe had their heyday in the nineteen
fifties or sixties, and you know, it's thirty years later
and they were starting to shut their doors. And so
when I met Onto, that was one thing that really
stood out for me is that he wasn't just wanting
to throw a party for his friend.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
He was friends.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
He was helping to throw a party for his friends
and his friend's friends, so that everybody would kind of
get the idea of, you know, the experience of like
this vibe of loving this tiki stuff, but also just
mid century modern historical preservation.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
You know, let's keep these places alive.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
And yeah, so in the early days, like you know,
in Los Angeles, some of the places that we frequented
and I brought you know, gangs of people to were
Madam Wu's, which is now gone and Cowbo's, which, of
course the building is kind of still there, but Kelbo's
itself is gone. And the Tikt. You know, the Tikt
has always been successful. But when when I started going there,
(12:00):
you would never see anybody in the Hawaiian shirt. And
now when you go there, ninety percent of the people
are in Hawaiian shirts. So it's interesting how you know,
it's grown and we've had an influence on you know,
manifesting that and making it really come to life and
exist in the real world.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
It was you know, Madam Wuz only had a crowd
of one hundred people one we brought them in, you know,
otherwise there are twenty people there, you know. And when
I moved to the Bay Area, there was a very
strong tiki scene here and also some some really great
places like Trader Vicks and the Tonga Room. Uh so,
you know, we could go to those places and those
(12:38):
those were pretty successful. But there was also you know,
lesser known places or like Trader Sam's out in the
avenues that you know, we would we would frequent, but
we wouldn't have big shows at I guess.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, So you found each other, which is great. And
you certainly have become the influencers, have you not? I
mean really you have, but you've started and not only
did you start it, but you've carried it on. We're
talking about that twenty fifth year. That's pretty exciting. And
I do have to say, so this year's event is
and is it always in San Diego?
Speaker 5 (13:11):
It is so, you know, we so we have been
doing this at that Teki News Tiki Oasis, sorry Tiki
Oasis for twenty five years. We did start the event
as a way to promote teki news and to preserve
a historic tiki location in Palm Springs. So we did
a first five years in Palm Springs and then we
(13:31):
moved to San Diego and we've been there ever since.
And you know, this event that we we never set
out to do twenty five years. To be honest with you,
like we're creative people. We always have lots of ideas that,
you know, things that we want to do and Auto
is DJing and I was go Go dancing, and we've
been doing lots of things, and you know, we we
just wanted to create an event that would preserve this
(13:55):
old hotel that was maybe on its last last legs
and Palm Springs, but also bring people together. And the
first event in two thousand and one had fifty people
and now we have over five thousand people. So you know,
it's really just grown organically over twenty five years and
we're really proud that and we created something that resonates
(14:17):
with people that really is meaningful.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, absolutely, you should be proud. And the first location
was the Calle Anti Tropics. Is that correct? And is
it still there?
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Amazingly it's still yeah, and it's in good condition. They
added Tikis during the course of our event, and after
we left they maintained them. Bosco put in some new
Tikis there. Bosco's a guy from San Diego at Tikikarver
and there's another event that has taken over there because
the place is so great, and so they have two
(14:50):
events annually at the Cali Anti Tropics, you know, which
is great for that place. It's a smaller hotel. It's
only eighty eight rooms and our current hotel has six
seventy five rooms. So it gives you an idea of
how much we've grown. I mean, we didn't set out
to do an event with five thousand people, and in fact,
you know, in two thousand and one it would not
have been possible to get five thousand people even if
(15:12):
I had set out to do that. But you know,
we're in a bigger hotel now, and we sell that
hotel out. When we put it on sale, it sells
out in ten minutes because you know, we have too
many people to fit into the hotel.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
And from how far do your people come?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (15:27):
All over the road, Sweden, Australia's.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Global people. Do you have anyone who's with you who
was an original.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Here. Yes, yeah, we do in Cucku Leley, who is
our MC and plays ukulele and he's pretty famous around
la and around Disneyland.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
He's been with us since day one. Lee Joseph is
our publicist and he's also a semi famous DJ and
he's a musician. He's been with us since day one.
Spend Kirsten, who has written numerous books. He wrote the
Book of Tiki that was released in two thousand and one, also,
which is you know, really the source that should be
(16:08):
the source of knowledge of the tiki scene. He's been
with us since day one. He hasn't been to every
single one because he's from Germany and a couple of
years he was in Germany during the summertime and he
couldn't come to the event. But he's been with us
since day one and he's still with us. I mean
Pete Maruzi, who is the guy who originally requested that
(16:29):
we throw this party. He's he's written several books and
he has spoken at our event a couple times. You know,
so a lot of the original people are still there
are Our general manager for Tiguasis, Jim Giddings, came to
the second year. Once your kind of.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
Booked, right, So we used to take in the early days,
friends of ours are not into this at all, would say,
you know, should I come to that?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Should I come to your event?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Well, well know, if that'll be for you, And every
study that would come to the event, by the end
of the that I'd see them with a Hawaiian shirt
on or a flower in their hair and drinking a
tropical cocktail and they're like, I'll see you next year.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
So it's sort of like, once you come, you're hooked
because it's such a lovely vibe. It's very welcoming. Everybody is.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
It's just truly an opportunity to escape your everyday life.
So everybody's just in a.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Really good mood and there's a lot of joyful happiness there.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
It really grew by word of mouth the first five years.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You know, yeah, I'm sure it did. I'm sure it did.
Tell how have your individual talents brought come together to
this event and how have each of them created this
unique event?
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Well, I would say we blend. We blend very nicely together. Yes,
a lot of blending, you know. I you know, there's
certain things I like, I'm very much into fashion, I'm
very much into things like dance. I host a burlesque
show at our event. I also have a random go
(18:03):
go dancers that do nineteen sixties style authentic go go dancing.
And I love history, so Auto does as well. So
we have a lot of history and we spend a
lot of time on it. I am like the I
am definitely the organizer. I am the person that's very
like organized, that keeps us on like our deadlines. But
(18:24):
we're both dreamers. We both love to come up with
like really wild ideas and most of them actually end
up happening at Tiki Oasis and that's really fun, you know,
so you know, whatever that might be, it might be like, oh,
let's add a car show, or let's add a miss
Tiki Oasis, or let's add you know, a gorilla dancing
at the pool. You know, whatever ideas are, we've been
(18:46):
able to see that become a reality. So I feel
like we both bring something to the event. But at
this point, since we've been doing this event for twenty
five years and before that another five or so years
that we were also producing events, were kind of sort
of lends a lot together.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
What are tales are?
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah, we organically became event producers. You know, I threw
events every few months to promote the zine. And so
when I was living in LA between ninety five and
late ninety six, uh, you know, I was just I
had thrown I don't know, five or six events between
that time, and you know, I had a mailing list
of nine hundred people. And then eventually I had a
(19:24):
list of bands and DJs and artists who could contribute
to the zine and you know, play my events. And
before that, I had had an annual backyard party, so
I had gained a reputation as the tiki guy in
town in LA because I were ten years I hosted
a backyard party that drew about three hundred people into
(19:44):
my backyard in Venice.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Otherwise don as legendary tekey parties.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Absolutely, so go ahead.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I got my start. But you know, before that, my
whole life, I guess, I've been a graphic designer, mostly
an advertising So that's a good skill to have to
make flyer and to think about marketing and how to
promote things. And that's basically the only skill I have,
the only career that I have. But I've always been
into music also, and so DJing was kind of a
(20:18):
natural thing for me because I'm I enjoy music. I
love music, but I'm not a musician, so playing other
people's music is, you know, a good fit for me.
So now I'm able to put those two things together
at Tiki Oasis.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And do you have themes for every year?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Oh, Gollie, do we have themes?
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So what have been some of your most favorite themes?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Yeah, we we do have favorite themes.
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Well, we started things like what you're maybe well kind
of the second year, but really the third year we started. Yeah, okay,
So the themes were a great way for us to
pick the bands and maybe the DJs.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
It was a way first differentiate the Tiki world so
that it wasn't just Tiki all the time. It is
Tiki all the time, yes, but with it when we
have a theme, then I feel like we're allowed to
like think out of the box a little bit. And
so we would choose genres that were tangential to the
Tiki movement, you know, so genres from the fifties and sixties,
(21:23):
like sci fi or space age or yeah, oh beating
that chat, that's a good time. Yeah, things that were
happening concurrently to the original Tiki craze of the fifties
and sixties.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
So one of my favorite themes was in twenty twelve
we did a spy theme, Exotic Espionage, And what was
so great about that theme is that people really got
into it. So we had prior to the event people
were creating kind of anti Tiki movements, like pretending to
(21:57):
be like anti Tiki, but they weren't.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
They were like bad, say Agents of Sober who of course.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yes, I started.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Villains and I started all girls group Agents of Low
Ha where we would go around and you know, do
a little go go dance and we That was like,
I feel like the first year where every part of
the event really came to life, so the music, the fashion,
and the creativity. People were leaving things on the hotel
(22:29):
scaveter like they would in the lobby. You would pick
up a newspaper and have like holes cut out for
the eyes so you can spy on people. And somebody
set up like a video camera in the TV in
the tree with a light going off.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The video camera.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Wasn't doing any anything about it looked like you were
getting spied on somebody in their hotel room. And this
couple had create put a sheet in their window so
it looked like they were dancing because of one was
stabbing the other, you know. So I feel like that
was like the first year. It really blossomed this idea
(23:04):
of having a theme beyond.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Just the music, and we loved it so much.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
We actually did the theme again in twenty seventeen with
International Intrigue, so we kind of like redid the theme
because we loved it so much internationally.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Great ideam what a fun theme?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Yeah, yeah, we cover all the aspects right, like anything
that anybody's into, Like if they're into monster models from
the fifties, okay, we'll do a monster theme, you know.
And if they're into, like we said, beat Nick stuff,
or if they're into you know, Herb Albert or something,
you know in the Tijuana Brass, we'll do a South
of the Border theme, you know, and we'll have a
(23:42):
Herb Albert tribute band, you know, so we've it's not
just Martin Denny music all the time, you know, it's
Martin Denny at the pool and then in the evening.
So that segues into another theme that I liked a
lot that which you liked a lot too, Really was
Hawaii Go Go because she had a go Go troop,
so her troop formed multiple times for Hawaii a Go Go.
But that was like Waikiki in the sixties, like Elvis
(24:05):
don Ho. Yeah, religious it's the next step after Tiki
sort of right, like Tiki was his fifties sixties and
Hawaii Go Gos like later sixties, early seventies, and we've
gone like way out there too, Like say, uh, in
two thousand and six, we had the Magic of Tiki.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
That was your favorite theme.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Nobody knows what that is. Who knows what the Magic
of Tiki? What we had a magician was our like
headlining act on Saturday Night. James Demare was this uh,
Frank Sinatra style magician from Las Vegas, and James our
headliner for the Magic of Tiki.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
And the theme that sounds it was. They're all amazing.
The and the themes are always a great way for
us to have our creativeness, you know, come to light,
come to the top. You know, we really can just
have a lot of fun with it, and our audience has.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Fun with that.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
This year is our twenty fifth adversary no theme other
than just us, you know, Atiqui Oasis we've done it
for twenty five years, so you know, we tell people like,
come and you can wear any costume from the past,
or you can you can get inspired. We have art shows,
so you know, the artists usually do an art piece
based on the theme, but this year it's like, you
(25:17):
could do anything from the past, so.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
They can just do a twenty five year anniversary and
that in itself is going to be I mean, I'm
sure that that's going to be a collector's piece.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I would hoax so are nice?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, and you guys is and when you have a
theme like that, at least for me, I'm I get
kind of crazy, like how crazy can I get?
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
What's the craziest thing I can do with this theme?
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And I'm sure you have people that are doing that
as well, like you guys, like if we have this
the hat, oh yeah or something like that.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
We definitely have what's of things to cook in for
this year? You know.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
One of the things that we're doing is actually a
little exhibition of all the twenty five years because and
we have made tiki mugs for I guess twenty of
the last years we've made a tiki mug for the event.
Every year, we always make a printed program and stickers
and merchandise and photos and videos. We have so much
stuff that we wanted to share that we're actually doing
(26:16):
a little mini exhibition at the event just to showcase,
like what we've been doing all this time.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
It's amazing, It's absolutely amazing, and I'm so glad that
we've discovered this and we can tell everybody about it.
So tell me how has the community changed over the
years since you first started. What stayed the same and
what changed the most.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, that's a good question because you know, a lot
of the people originally came from my zine Tiki News
who originally came to the event. I had a mailing
list of nine hundred people and the last issue I
printed three thousand copies of so the zine was getting
pretty big, so I was able to reach a lot
of people. So originally all the attendees in Paul Springs
(27:01):
knew about the zine, you know, and that's that was there,
that's what bound them together. And then there was a uh,
what would you call it, a website, Tiki Central, where
like a bulletin board style website where people could meet
and so that drew in a lot of people, and
a lot of people had that as a common ground.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Well, the Internet made a big difference.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
But then the Internet saying, you know, yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
All of our events and that were in the late
nineties were based on people that we were meeting, either
in person or somebody knew somebody. And then eventually, you know,
the Internet came into plane. It became broader.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Right.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
So at first, Tiki the Tiki Oasis was more for
people who knew what tiki was. They probably had a
tiki mug, they probably had a Hawaiian sut, you know,
they were kind of into this. And then once people
started coming to the event, it changed. It was less
about the collectors. Although the collectors still come. People that
(27:56):
like mid century modern, like historic preservation, they still come
to our event. But some things have changed along the way.
The pin up culture became really big, so that's you know,
women that are getting their hair and makeup done as
if they were in the nineteen fifties or sixties. That
it really has blossomed a lot in the last twenty years.
(28:16):
The cocktail scene has changed tremendously. Back in our early days,
it was impossible to have a venue make good cocktails
like these. Nobody knew how to make a my tie,
you know, like it was just just garbage you were getting,
you know, just not very good drinks. And people started
to become more aware of that, and then this whole
(28:38):
craze around cocktails and tropical cocktails became a big part
of our event. So a lot of people come to
our event because they want to meet some of these
cocktail experts that we showcase, or they want to they
want to taste all the drinks, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
So there's a lot of.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Those and that I think that was like one of
the bigger shit all along. We've had music fans, we've
had you know, people that get what we're doing. And
we've also have people have grown up going to Tikiasis.
They were babies, you know at the beginning, and now
they're grown up and they're bringing their friends. Our son,
I was pregnant with our first son at the very
(29:18):
first tikiasis in two thousand and right, he's twenty three
now he brings a group of his friends, you know,
and we keep it.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Going, right, So, what does the twenty fifth anniversary mean
to you? Did you ever when you had the first one?
And you said, Okay, let's do this again. This was fun,
or now that we've learned all this, now we should
do it next year and don't make those same mistakes.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
How did this progress to now you're twenty five years.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
Yeah, we did say all that what you just said.
And then as we started to grow, we saw, like say,
a couple our friends, Rich and Gretchen, they wanted to
get married at Tiki Oasis, sure for the fourth year
or something. And at that point we realized like, wow,
this is this. This means a lot more to people
(30:08):
than just you know, showing up to see a band
or showing a vendor marketplace to buy some some stuff
or you know, to get a tiki mug or something.
This means a lot more. It's a community, and it's
growing pretty fast. Like the first five years, we literally
doubled our audience. So we have from fifty to one
hundred to two hundred to four hundred to eight hundred
(30:30):
in the first five years. So we very quickly realized like, wow,
this is going to go on for a long time.
We didn't say, like, let's plan out the next twenty years.
We never said that. We've always lived, you know, for
the present, Like we can only think about one year
at a time. I mean maybe our themes you might
think a couple of years in advance.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
Well, I feel like our tenure anniversary, we looked at
each other, We're like, we made it to ten years.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
Yeah, we thought, well, I think we going to go
Maybe we could do another ten years?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Do you think?
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Yeah? Maybe? Maybe we didn't know though, Like we didn't
know if that ten years that was the peak, Like
if you know, fifteen hundred people was the most Tiki
fans that we could get in California, You know, we
didn't know. And so now you know, since our tenure,
we've you know, doubled again or more than doubled, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, how exciting? And have you ever wanted to give up?
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Only on Saturday night during the event, but then on
Monday rolls around, we're like, when can we do this again?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Only when you say, why did we do this again?
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Why didn't we? Yeah? Why am I standing here not
sleeping for five days?
Speaker 5 (31:40):
It is a lot of work, and for years, only
the last couple of years have Auto and I not
had full time jobs.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
So for many many years we had full time jobs
and this was our fun job. This was our passion project.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
So you know, we'd get home, we'd feed the kids,
we'd tuck them into bed, and then we work got
to oasis for two or three hours until we passed
out for years.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
And then went to Round. That was our vacation. Yeah,
and the kids vacation too. They didn't go to the
Grand Canyon or something. They went to San Diego, went to.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Take Yes, you know, there's a lot of sacrifices, and
so I think when you have something that you're so
passionate about and people love it, it's really hard to stop.
Like the idea of ever not doing it is not
you know, certainly crossed our mind, but didn't.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
It wasn't very sticky because we wanted to keep keep going. Yeah. Sure.
And if you're like like me and so many of
us well have these creative spirits and entrepreneurial spirits, it's
you just can't stop. You just want to do more
and more and more and more, and to.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Some extent, you believe that you're giving something to other people, right, Like,
if I gave.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
This up, who would do it? Right? Who would who
would pass this on to these people?
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Yeah, they wouldn't have anybody, right, Well, and you know,
we're very thoughtful about what we present and what we bring,
Like we try to make things different every year. We
just no two years are the same, so that it
keeps it interesting for us. You know, we are always
(33:15):
sort of pushing ourselves to think in different ways or
present different things, and it makes I think that the
audience and the people that attend, and even our volunteers
and our crew and everybody that's part of it always
kind of have this anticipation of like, wow, you know,
something that's very magical and very different, and no other
(33:37):
event is like this, and that's because it comes from
our heart and our expertise.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Yeah. You know, like I said, I was way into
the music before I started Tiqi Oasis, so I already
knew what the authentic music was and the type of
music that I wanted to be presented there. So you know,
it took a while to make it happen because there
was no exotica bands playing exotica music in you know,
two thousand and one, But now there are a handful,
and you know they've all been at Tiki Oasis.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Well, the other thing that you mentioned was that how
things have changed up for example, with the drinks, right,
and with technology and now you can get you can
do things in a room or in a venue that
you couldn't do before. You've got a venue where you
can get more people there. And with the change of
technology and drinks, some people are participating. It makes it
(34:27):
a lot more fun and you're able to do new things. Yeah, right,
you know the things you're doing now you could have
never done at the first event.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Correct, Yeah, And new tiki bars have opened up, you
know since two thousand and one. Like before two thousand
and one, there was hardly any new tiki bars in America.
There was the Lava Lounge in Hollywood and then the
Purple Orchid down in El Segundo, but a lot a
lot of new tiki bars were not opening up. But
then after two thousand and one they started, you know,
(34:56):
and now there's been a lot of them. And now
almost every major he has a new tiki bar in it.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
I would say every major city does have a tiki
bar in it at this point. And and also things
like the fashion. You know, used to be impossible to
find hair flowers for your hair or a really cool
uh calf hand, and now there's many many companies that
are making those and doing them right, like really unique
(35:23):
and interesting fabrics and styles and colors, and you know,
so it's it's really fun to see.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
You know, how much this has exploded and it continues
to grow.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
And you've touched on this, but how how has the
tiki culture grown? And you've talked about the new bars
and things like that, But wasn't there a time when
it kind of died down a little bit and then
it blossomed up again?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Well? It did, Yeah, I mean, if you read the
Book of Tiki, it tells the progression of tiki and
then the demise of tiki. You know, in the seventies,
there was disco and you know, the equality movement, you know,
like women's equality and stuff that we're focusing on these
socio political things, and people didn't want a fake escapism
(36:08):
of going into a dark tiki bar and hanging out
in a place with fake rain on the on the roof,
you know. But in the forties, fifties and sixties, that
was outrageous. You know, that was like Disneyland, you know
around the corner from your house, you know, a Disneyland
in your own town, you know, and then you know,
the allure of that, the the newness of that, you know,
(36:30):
sort of Disneyland effect sort of worn off. And with
the you know, the seventies and the eighties, the eighties
is like seventies of the me generation, and the eighties
even continued that more with you know movies like Top
Gun and Wall Street, you know, these like getting ahead
and getting it for yourself kind of things, and it
was less about having a luau in your backyard and
(36:51):
having a community. It was more about being authentic. And
I mean, you know, World War two had the Pacific
Theater and then you had Jane Mitchener writing South Pacific.
The book, the record, the musical, the movie that you
know were major hits for a long period of time,
like ten years they were hit, you know, and people
enjoyed the good parts of the Pacific Theater, you know,
(37:15):
the fun and escapism and newness of it. But then
in the seventies you had the Vietnam War and people said, oh,
we don't want to go to the Pacific Theater anymore,
you know, we don't want bamboo anymore.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, we don't want to go there.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
So yeah, there was this dead period, like say the
dark days of the late seventies through the all through
the nineties, you know, all through until the you know,
mid or late nineties.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
And we would get to places in the nineties when
we were first together that we were like we were
the only people there, you know, and we're thinking, oh,
this is not long for this world.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
You know, it's a great place, a great atmosphere. The
food is not so.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
Good that drinks are terrible, Like we wouldn't even want
to drink there there because of the atmosphere.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
And we saw just that, well, since they're gone, we
can say it the Hong Kong Place in Ventura. Yeah,
Like we'd always go there whenever we were in town, and.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It was just falling.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Yeah, it was falling apart, and they there just was
no money to put back into it. So the kind
of that, the type of food, the types of drinks,
all of that just sort of became out of favor.
And then we started to see just start to have
a little bit more of these places opening up in
the late nineties, and that was like the inkling that
like maybe maybe this can be something, like maybe people
(38:32):
will get back into this. And and now there's all
of these places, these bars are opening up and restaurants.
They have very creative food, very creative drinks there. You know,
it's a culinary experience as well as a you know,
visual experience, and it's it's really changed. It's hard to
explain like how much it's changed. It's just, you know,
(38:54):
it's more what people are doing now. They're they're putting
money into these places, they're building them out, they're spending
the time to do it right, and not to me,
you know, it makes me feel like these places are
going to be around for a while, and.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
Their clientele now are new young people, you know, like
say in their early thirties, late twenties, who have enough
money to you know, enjoy the experience and want to
go to these new places. So it's not just people
like us who went to the old places originally that
we're still in existence, you know, twenty five years ago
and now we want to go back to another one. No,
(39:33):
it's it's new young people that want to go to
a new tiki bar that they've heard is opening, you know,
because they want that same experience that people had forty
fifty years ago. They want that same experience. And it's
not that they want that old experience that They don't
want a replication of that original experience, but they do
(39:53):
want the same experience now, you know, in a cover
and their terms.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
And in their language that is speaking as sure. Yeah,
my son has a huge collection of tiki mugs. When
I'm preparing and meeting you, I was saying, maybe I
didn't appreciate those.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Enough is dozens of them? What do you do at these? Right?
Speaker 1 (40:14):
But he has dozens of them? Tell me if someone
comes to Tiki Oasis, what are they going to see?
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Okay, so let's present two.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Different I think that people need. How all the different elements?
I would cry frankly.
Speaker 5 (40:31):
It is well, I was going to say, it's five nights,
four days. There's five nights that happened in four days.
We start off with the luau at a historic place
in San Diego called the Catamaran Resort. It's there since
the nineteen fifties, I believe.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
And they do a full show. They've got you know,
they bring out the pig.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
It's like an authentic, authentic.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Waikiki style luau.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
And then uh Thursday through Sunday, we're at the Towny
Country Hotel in San Diego. We take over the entire hotel.
We have seminars during the day and everything from tropical
cocktails to historic preservation, like we have a seminar all
about bowling alleys. We have hands on classes that are
(41:20):
very popular. People can learn how to make their own
tiki lamp or how to paint a black velvet painting.
We have somebody that's showing you how to do your
hair in a nineteen fifties style hair style. Fun, super fun.
And then we have the pool vibes during the day.
There's a you there's actually three swimming pools at our hotel,
(41:43):
so people, you know, we have bands at the pool,
We have DJs, and we have a huge marketplace. We
have one hundred and fifty different vendors that are artists
at artissans. They're you know, they are actually making tiki mugs, teaking, necklaces, sculptures, clothing,
kaf Hans, shoes, whatever you can think of. We have
(42:04):
it in our marketplace.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And then as the sun sets we have nighttime.
Speaker 4 (42:09):
We left out. We have an art show, yeah, and
a lamp art show. So people that are more crafty
and create decor items of and create lamps and lamps
are really popular now and people have multiple lamps, just
like they might have multiple tiki mugs. And then you know,
the art show is a good creative outlet for people
(42:29):
that are in our community and our artists and are
expressive and are creating tons of art. We have them
in our art show. So and then people that need
art for their tiki bar, you know, they can pick
up some real, you know, fine art that's one of
a kind. You know, it's like paint on canvas kind
of art.
Speaker 5 (42:46):
Yeah, we have forty over forty artists in the art
show and over twenty lamp artists in the lamp show,
and you know, we like we like to you know,
do you think change things up This year we have
a little car vintage car exhibition, like a small little
exhibition of the Titch cars.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
I talked about earlier.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
We're going to do an exhibition about the history of
Tiki Oasis. So we're always kind of coming up with
something fun and different. And at night we have a
huge concert, and we have a concert, we have a
late night burlesque show. We have lots of entertainment. Sometimes
(43:23):
people don't realize, like we're actually hosting a concert at
Tiki Oasis.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
Or vice a version like they come for the concert
and they don't realize, like, what are all these seminars?
What are all these people doing? What's going on? There's
a whole program. We have one hundred and eighty page program.
You know, it's thicker than most magazines. Like it's thicker
than Time magazine, you know, like it's that thick, and
it has all of our stuff and it you know,
pictures of the people doing the seminars and the bands
(43:48):
and everything. We have thirty five bands playing throughout the weekend,
you know, day and night. DJs, oh my gosh, fifty Yeah.
I mean the thing about DJs is, you know I
could have a soundtrack. I could create a soundtrack. You know,
I could create a list of great songs that I
like to play and have everybody here, But the DJs
are you know, there's one at the pool, there's one
(44:09):
in the ballroom, there's one the lawn. And they're curating
their music. Like if it's kind of slow, they might
have mellower stuff, and then if it picks up, they
might you know, pick up the pace of the music.
So the music is always curated for the audience at
any given time. I mean, people might not notice that
but it's not just a soundtrack that's playing in the background,
you know, you know, it's very it's being served to
(44:30):
them sort of, you know, it's being curated just for them.
And so that segues into the bands, and then the
bands we have it outdoors on the lawn, so they
have to end at ten pm because of the curfew,
and then we have the pless show.
Speaker 5 (44:42):
I have a late night b lesque show. So there's
sort of something for everybody. We always say like you
can make your own journey at tiqu Oasis, right, So
you can come with your family and go in the
swimming pool and go maybe shopping in the marketplace, or.
Speaker 4 (44:55):
You can and then you could end the night with
some bands on the lawn, yeah, or you.
Speaker 5 (44:59):
Can be staying out till four am and uh, you know,
with a lampshade on your head in one of our suites.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
You know.
Speaker 5 (45:06):
So there's sort of something for everyone, and people get
to pick and choose what they want to do. I
often hear people will say, well, this year we're bringing
the kids, but next year we're not, you know, So
there's sort of like a little bit of like what
kind of experience you want to have and you can
have very different experiences and people can dip in and out.
So it is a full weekend event. But people could
(45:30):
come just to the Luau, or they could come just
just to the marketplace. The marketplace is free Saturday and Sunday.
I mean, why wouldn't you come? Of course it costs anything.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
And if they're at the Town and Country hotel, have
the Town and Country Saturday tim until four.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah, so people could do that.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
People could pick all a card if they want to
go to a summoner, if they want to see Charles
Phoenix talking about Googi architecture.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
They can just go to that.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
You know.
Speaker 5 (45:58):
So there's sort of something for every buddy. That we
want people to come for the whole weekend because we
want we believed that that's the true experience, Like come
for the whole thing, stay on property, or even stay
in one of our sister hotels, you know, buy a
weekend pass, you know, check out everything. That's the true
the true experience.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Well not only that, I mean San Diego is a
great place to visit anyway, even if you weren't coming
for this, but because there's always something to do there
as well. So if you come for you and you
can stay for San Diego. So I'm a newcomer, all right,
my first time here. What do I need to wear
and what do I do when I arrive.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
So you'll probably arrive on Thursday, which is great. You'll
have a sort of a way to segue in, or
maybe you'll arrive on Wednesday, the kind of pre party
and you'll do the luau. If you do that, then
you're sitting at a table and you meet people already.
So then when you hit the hotel on Thursday, you
already know some people. And then my next tip is
(46:58):
I'm gonna skip Thursday. I'm gonna move right to Friday.
My next day is Friday. Marketplace opens privately, just particulates people,
not to the public, and a lot of people go
right in there and they buy their jewelry and their
clothing that they can wear on Friday night and on Sunday.
So they they hit the clothing and the hair flowers
(47:21):
and the jewelry on Friday in the market.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
So, so should I bring assuming I didn't, I didn't
plan on buying anything.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
There is it all Hawaiian shirts? What should I be wearing?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Well, I think you know the thing. So there issly
I missed.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
I missed the memo today.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
But there's that true dress code.
Speaker 5 (47:44):
I mean, honestly, I always like, uh say, wear something colorful.
It doesn't even have to be Hawaiian. If it's colorful,
it's fun, it's joyful, it'll blend right in with the
tiki oasis experience.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
But a lot of women like to wear kalf hands.
So we have a whole group called the Loha klf
Dan Society, which has chapters all around the world now
and really three or four hundred women that show a
women and men actually that show up and wear kaftans.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
And you start this.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
With a group of friends.
Speaker 5 (48:17):
Yeah, so there was a this is a great story
because this is very tiki oasis. A handful of folks
started doing these little meetups on their own with their
own friends. We had a mumuklf han meetup with one group.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
We had a the LGB Tiki group.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
They had a wear a wet kalftan, which basically meant
were a klftan and then jump in the swimming pool.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
And then another group we're on that one.
Speaker 5 (48:41):
And then I just said, hey, let's all like we're
most favorite kaftans, and they had ten friends, and then
eventually we turned it into an official meet up at
Tiki Oasis and we named it the the Loha Klftan Society.
We've been doing it for twenty seventeen and now we
have about three or four hundred people that show up
for the parade.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
We parade around the pool and.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
Then that provides eye candy for everybody at the pool.
You know, you're sitting at the pool and enjoining a drink,
or you just got out of the water, you're trying
off and you look and here's this constant parade. It takes,
you know, fifteen or twenty minutes to go by. You
of people in calfdans, you know, colorful calf tans, and
that's very typical.
Speaker 5 (49:21):
Like at Tek Basis, people will find others. There was
a few women that we're wearing mermaid tails in the
swimming pool, you know, kind of lounging by the pool
with a mermaid tail. Now there's about twenty of them
that show up on Saturday afternoon with their mermaid tails on.
We have a pooch parade, so of course pupps and
they dress up the pups in their outfits and that's
(49:42):
gotten very elaborate.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
We do that on Sunday, so a lot of like that.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
We have a.
Speaker 5 (49:49):
Meetup called the Animal Prowl, So you wear anything leopard
print or zebra print and we all meet up and
you know, do some group photos, the cabana strut and
there's a cabana strut where for the men. For the
men or people that like to wear short shorts, so
the matching shirts and shorts and they walk.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Around the zone. So there's a lot of these community
meet up So what's fun is you can express yourself
as much as you.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Want to just a major as much or as little
as you want exactly.
Speaker 5 (50:21):
You can just show up and just watch right watch.
You could just show up and kind of like just
see what it's all about. You don't have to actually participate,
which is just as fun. And often people will come
and they'll say, I saw all the people wearing really
fun hats and really creative hats. Next year, I'm going
to make a hat, you know. So that's part of
like the Sun and the allure of the event is
(50:43):
like it's something for everyone.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
So tell people how can they be a part of this,
How can they find you, how can they sign up?
Speaker 3 (50:51):
What do they do they pay in advance? How does
it work?
Speaker 4 (50:55):
So unfortunately, hotel rooms are sold out at our main hotel,
but we do have a partner hotel nearby that's conveniently
named the Seven C's.
Speaker 5 (51:06):
And you just got to tiqass dot com, dot com
our website. It has all the information on tickets, hotel,
it has our whole schedule on.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
There and bos. It was amazing the things. I was
surprised all the things that you have there for people
to do and see.
Speaker 4 (51:24):
See. Yes, and we're adding more stuff every day. So
if you went there yesterday, we'll have different stuff next week.
You know, we're adding the schedule and more details. But yeah,
all the bands are up there, the seminars are up there.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
We have an Instagram and yes talk. You know, we're
trying to keep you keep it up on all the socials.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
We have a YouTube channel called Tiki Oasis TV where
people can see videos from past years.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
Yes, I saw some, Yes, I saw some. Yes, it's great.
So we have to ask will we see you twenty
five years from now.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
We'll be senior citizensens.
Speaker 5 (52:02):
Yes, we've funny because I do think that you know,
we hope that the spirit of Tiki Oasis continues, and
you know, we always joke with our kids. We have
two kids, they're nineteen and twenty three, that they have
to take over. They see how hard we work, they
(52:22):
see how much we do to put this together. So
I think they're kind of like, I'm not sure I
want to take that on. But I know that the
spirit of Tiki Oasis will always live on and hopefully
we could do it as long as we can, and
that's our goal.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
Well, you certainly have shown us how passion and creativity
and community and a little touch of tiki magic can
grow into something really unforgettable.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
So for our listeners and our viewers, if you ever.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Have wanted to sip a cocktail under this waying Palm's
dance pool side to a serve band, or rediscover the
art of celebration of tiki, this may be your new
favorite tradition. Thank you so much from all of us
here at SOCl with Val for joining us today, and
thank you for being a part of our show and
(53:10):
letting us experience from this side all there is about
Tiki Oasis.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
And we will come and visit you. We will.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
We will come until our next show to our listeners
and our views. Stay curious, stay bold, stay golden, and
we will see you next week at SoCal with Val
and oh, by the way, the dates for your show
tell us.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
Oh great, Wednesday August sixth through Sunday August tenth, five days,
I mean four days, five nights.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
So we'll have lots of summer weather. Still.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
Yeah, yeah, it'll be good.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Great.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Thank you so much, thank you, thank you very much
for sharing Teeky Magic with us.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Thank you, thank you,
Imagine a place where time slows down, the cocktails are cold,
the music swings, the outfits are fabulous, and every sunset
feels like the start of a Hollywood dream. Welcome to
Tiki Oasis, the world's largest and longest running celebration of
(00:42):
all things swanky, tropical and retro cool. This isn't just
a weekend event. It's a full blown five night escape
into paradise, complete with pool side tunes, fashion shows, vintage art,
curated cocktails, tiki torches, and a vibrant community of dreamers,
(01:05):
doers and dancers. And right here today on so Cal
with Val we are diving into the heart of this
spectacular phenomenon with the power couple who started it all,
Otto Vonstroheim, the original tiki torch bearer, and the fabulous
Baby Doe, the creative visionary behind the color, the costumes
(01:29):
and the cultural revival that is Tiki Oasis. This is
really special because it marks their twenty fifth anniversary. So
whether you're a lifelong Tiki fan or you're just curious
what all the bamboo and rum is about, get ready
to be inspired, enchanted, and maybe you can even book
(01:51):
a room and join them. Tiki is back the vibe
is alive and this is a conversation you won't want
to miss. So welcome, so cow with Bell and today's
episode is about Tiki Oasis. Welcome Auto and Baby Dough.
We are so excited to have you.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Hello, We're happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I've learned so much about this and all the preparations,
and I've done things that I've learned, and I have
your bio, but i'd rather hear it from you.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So one of you go first and tell us your
history of yourselves. Where who are you aware? Have you been?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Okay? I'm Auto von Stroheim, sometimes known as DJ Auto.
I grew up in southern California, going to knots Berry
Farm in Disneyland and other theme parks like Bush Gardens.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
And I got the name from the past.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Yeah, yeah, San Fernando Valley, you know, Hollywood Boulevard, Torrence Beach,
Tony's on the Pier, places like that Redondo Beach. And
when I became an adult past age twenty one age,
I found tiki bars very appealing, naturally appealing to me,
(03:05):
and tropical landscaping which was all around the neighborhoods around
Santa Monica and Culver city where I later lived as
an adult, and all around the San Fernando Valley, banana trees,
birds of paradise, palm trees were everywhere, and I thought
that was just natural, Like I thought everybody across the
US had stuff like that, and they had I thought
they had tiki bars, you know, within driving distance of
(03:25):
their house that they could go to for dinner. And
I sorted rediscovering those places where I lived, and I
realized that southern California was pretty special and that there
was a lot of tiki bars there. Now, everywhere across
America had tiki bars. Every town in the sixties and
early seventies had tiki bars, but Southern California had a lot.
So everybody in Southern California knew what a tiki bar was.
(03:48):
So when I told my other friends that grew up
in southern California or who had moved there later that
I was into tiki bars, they kind of had an
idea of what it was. I didn't have to do
much explaining.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
And then you started a zine, so yes, tell us
about your kind of like.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Was that? What it was called this.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Teach Tek News, which there was also later on a
magazine called Tiki Magazine and that's now defunct, and then
there was another one. There is another one now called
Exotica Modairn. So there has been an ongoing uh zine
since I started mine, but mine was the first, and
it was just called Tiki News, very simple. I worked
at a newspaper at the time, and so I wanted
(04:30):
to communicate very directly. So I didn't make it anything
fancy like the Tiki Tattler. Like in Honolulu in the
thirties there was the Tattler and newspapers.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Had these tabloid or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah, the newspapers had funny names like you know, the
Pilot or the Beacon or the Messenger or something. You know.
I just I just made it news because it couldn't
be Tiki Times because I was in la and it
was the La Times. Wasn't the big paper that Teak News.
And so that's in January of nineteen ninety five, and
(05:03):
it was intended to be sent out to everyone everywhere
across the US and across the globe and connect other
tiki fans who were collecting mugs and going to their
local tiki bars.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
And Okay, so this is kind of when I come
into the picture, right, enter the picture.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
So I grew up also in southern California, and I
grew up with thrifting. I loved going to thrift stores.
I loved finding sort of unusual items, like cool dresses
from the nineteen fifties or hats from the nineteen sixties,
or you know, Chotchke's and things like that.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
So I was finding tiki mugs, I was.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Finding cool retro vintage clothing, and I was discovering music
through that. I would find an album and like, oh,
this is kind of a cool cover. Play the album,
and here's something that was very exotic and kind of
unique and different. So I had a love for tiki
because of course, growing up a huttern California.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
You go to Disneyland, you go the Tiki Tiki Tiki Room, right,
So I love that.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
I loved that kind of escapism and that vibe. But
I also love vintage and that esthetics from the past.
And so OTTO was living in Venice Beach area, I
was living in San Francisco. I started a ze online
zine or a blog maybe you would call it now
in nineteen ninety four called Baby Dos Obsessed all about mine.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You didn't know each other at that time. I know
each other. You started them at the same time, kind
of Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
So around the incident, Yeah, I was ninety five, and
and what's interesting is that I was obsessed with other
people's obsessions, and so zine's the zine culture, the zene
world was a big part of that. So of course
I love tiki already. So when I heard of Tiki
News zine, I was like, oh my gosh, there's this
(06:59):
person who's upset with tiki stuff, just like me, just
like me, just like me. And I auto came up
to San Francisco for an event a historic guy that
was playing Corla Pandit, and we met at this show.
He was kind of like a friend of a friend,
and we hit it off and.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
The rest is sort of history.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
Like then, we started producing events together from there from
nineteen ninety six on a first really to showcase and
celebrate Teaky News, which was bringing all of these like
minded people together and give us an opportunity to get
creative with things like music or dance. And we just
started having fun starting to produce events together.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Like once we were together, and which is a great story.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You already were each were in for in entertainment or
production of some kind already, Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (07:57):
I was I had when I started putting out the zine.
I was active in the lounge scene with a band
called Combustible Edison from the East Coast, from the Boston area,
and so you know, I knew a lot of people
within that scene, like radio show hosts, like from college
radio the Molotov Cocktail Hour on KXLU Radio in Los Angeles,
(08:19):
and I had been up on their radio show once.
And so when it came time to put out the zine,
I knew how I wanted to promote it. I wanted
to promote it by doing radio shows. I wanted to
promote it by going to Combustible Edison shows and passing
out flyers. And I wanted to host my own events.
So I had art show happenings where I would have
(08:40):
an art show and then the artists would be selling
their art, and the art and artists would be the
people that were involved with Tiki News they had done
the cover artwork for one of the issues. And then
I would have a DJ or a band play and
I would have vendors. Like if I knew a guy
who made teaking necklaces, Like if he carved teaky necklaces,
you would be there selling them. So anybody who came
(09:02):
from the neighborhood or from Hollywood, or you know, just
to see what a zine was about, or check out
the band or something, they could buy a teaky necklace
or you know, the next time it was a guy
making candles or you know, people would make wherever I
had it, I would try to get them to do
a tropical drink like a you know, Storian punch or something.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Yeah, there's all these elements. You know, the teaki scene,
the exotica scene from the fifties till now has all
these different elements. You know. It has the clothing that
you wear. It has a jewelry that you wear. It
has culinary you know food like at Trader Vix. It
has the cocktails of course, like you know don the
Beachcomber and Trader vic cocktails, these tropical drinks. It has
(09:46):
the music and then of course the art, and so
I was trying to make sure that as many of
those elements as possible were there. You know, could we
have poopoo's, you know, could we have cocktails, you know,
and then of course the music in the art, you know.
And then everybody wore Hawaiian shirts, you know, so everybody
was in fashion, you know, and I wanted to put
(10:07):
that all together every time that I had an event,
you know, so that it wasn't just an art gallery opening,
or it wasn't just a band playing at a club.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
I think what's really unique about what OTTO was starting
to do in the early nineties is the realization that
bringing people together that had a like interest was actually
getting to be kind of powerful. You would go to
say a bar or restaurant that maybe had been around
for thirty or forty years at the time, and they
(10:38):
were thinking about shutting their doors. Then all of a sudden,
one hundred people are showing up ordering my ties, and
they go, well, you know, maybe I should keep this business.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Open another year.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
It was really intmental in just bringing people together and
just getting people to like enjoy what we had, because
in the nineties things were starting to close down.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
A lot of the places that we loved and.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
You know, had maybe had their heyday in the nineteen
fifties or sixties, and you know, it's thirty years later
and they were starting to shut their doors. And so
when I met Onto, that was one thing that really
stood out for me is that he wasn't just wanting
to throw a party for his friend.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
He was friends.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
He was helping to throw a party for his friends
and his friend's friends, so that everybody would kind of
get the idea of, you know, the experience of like
this vibe of loving this tiki stuff, but also just
mid century modern historical preservation.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
You know, let's keep these places alive.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
And yeah, so in the early days, like you know,
in Los Angeles, some of the places that we frequented
and I brought you know, gangs of people to were
Madam Wu's, which is now gone and Cowbo's, which, of
course the building is kind of still there, but Kelbo's
itself is gone. And the Tikt. You know, the Tikt
has always been successful. But when when I started going there,
(12:00):
you would never see anybody in the Hawaiian shirt. And
now when you go there, ninety percent of the people
are in Hawaiian shirts. So it's interesting how you know,
it's grown and we've had an influence on you know,
manifesting that and making it really come to life and
exist in the real world.
Speaker 6 (12:17):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
It was you know, Madam Wuz only had a crowd
of one hundred people one we brought them in, you know,
otherwise there are twenty people there, you know. And when
I moved to the Bay Area, there was a very
strong tiki scene here and also some some really great
places like Trader Vicks and the Tonga Room. Uh so,
you know, we could go to those places and those
(12:38):
those were pretty successful. But there was also you know,
lesser known places or like Trader Sam's out in the
avenues that you know, we would we would frequent, but
we wouldn't have big shows at I guess.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, So you found each other, which is great. And
you certainly have become the influencers, have you not? I
mean really you have, but you've started and not only
did you start it, but you've carried it on. We're
talking about that twenty fifth year. That's pretty exciting. And
I do have to say, so this year's event is
and is it always in San Diego?
Speaker 5 (13:11):
It is so, you know, we so we have been
doing this at that Teki News Tiki Oasis, sorry Tiki
Oasis for twenty five years. We did start the event
as a way to promote teki news and to preserve
a historic tiki location in Palm Springs. So we did
a first five years in Palm Springs and then we
(13:31):
moved to San Diego and we've been there ever since.
And you know, this event that we we never set
out to do twenty five years. To be honest with you,
like we're creative people. We always have lots of ideas that,
you know, things that we want to do and Auto
is DJing and I was go Go dancing, and we've
been doing lots of things, and you know, we we
just wanted to create an event that would preserve this
(13:55):
old hotel that was maybe on its last last legs
and Palm Springs, but also bring people together. And the
first event in two thousand and one had fifty people
and now we have over five thousand people. So you know,
it's really just grown organically over twenty five years and
we're really proud that and we created something that resonates
(14:17):
with people that really is meaningful.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, absolutely, you should be proud. And the first location
was the Calle Anti Tropics. Is that correct? And is
it still there?
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Amazingly it's still yeah, and it's in good condition. They
added Tikis during the course of our event, and after
we left they maintained them. Bosco put in some new
Tikis there. Bosco's a guy from San Diego at Tikikarver
and there's another event that has taken over there because
the place is so great, and so they have two
(14:50):
events annually at the Cali Anti Tropics, you know, which
is great for that place. It's a smaller hotel. It's
only eighty eight rooms and our current hotel has six
seventy five rooms. So it gives you an idea of
how much we've grown. I mean, we didn't set out
to do an event with five thousand people, and in fact,
you know, in two thousand and one it would not
have been possible to get five thousand people even if
(15:12):
I had set out to do that. But you know,
we're in a bigger hotel now, and we sell that
hotel out. When we put it on sale, it sells
out in ten minutes because you know, we have too
many people to fit into the hotel.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
And from how far do your people come?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (15:27):
All over the road, Sweden, Australia's.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Global people. Do you have anyone who's with you who
was an original.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Here. Yes, yeah, we do in Cucku Leley, who is
our MC and plays ukulele and he's pretty famous around
la and around Disneyland.
Speaker 6 (15:47):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
He's been with us since day one. Lee Joseph is
our publicist and he's also a semi famous DJ and
he's a musician. He's been with us since day one.
Spend Kirsten, who has written numerous books. He wrote the
Book of Tiki that was released in two thousand and one, also,
which is you know, really the source that should be
(16:08):
the source of knowledge of the tiki scene. He's been
with us since day one. He hasn't been to every
single one because he's from Germany and a couple of
years he was in Germany during the summertime and he
couldn't come to the event. But he's been with us
since day one and he's still with us. I mean
Pete Maruzi, who is the guy who originally requested that
(16:29):
we throw this party. He's he's written several books and
he has spoken at our event a couple times. You know,
so a lot of the original people are still there
are Our general manager for Tiguasis, Jim Giddings, came to
the second year. Once your kind of.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
Booked, right, So we used to take in the early days,
friends of ours are not into this at all, would say,
you know, should I come to that?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Should I come to your event?
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Well, well know, if that'll be for you, And every
study that would come to the event, by the end
of the that I'd see them with a Hawaiian shirt
on or a flower in their hair and drinking a
tropical cocktail and they're like, I'll see you next year.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
So it's sort of like, once you come, you're hooked
because it's such a lovely vibe. It's very welcoming. Everybody is.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
It's just truly an opportunity to escape your everyday life.
So everybody's just in a.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Really good mood and there's a lot of joyful happiness there.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
It really grew by word of mouth the first five years.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You know, yeah, I'm sure it did. I'm sure it did.
Tell how have your individual talents brought come together to
this event and how have each of them created this
unique event?
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Well, I would say we blend. We blend very nicely together. Yes,
a lot of blending, you know. I you know, there's
certain things I like, I'm very much into fashion, I'm
very much into things like dance. I host a burlesque
show at our event. I also have a random go
(18:03):
go dancers that do nineteen sixties style authentic go go dancing.
And I love history, so Auto does as well. So
we have a lot of history and we spend a
lot of time on it. I am like the I
am definitely the organizer. I am the person that's very
like organized, that keeps us on like our deadlines. But
(18:24):
we're both dreamers. We both love to come up with
like really wild ideas and most of them actually end
up happening at Tiki Oasis and that's really fun, you know,
so you know, whatever that might be, it might be like, oh,
let's add a car show, or let's add a miss
Tiki Oasis, or let's add you know, a gorilla dancing
at the pool. You know, whatever ideas are, we've been
(18:46):
able to see that become a reality. So I feel
like we both bring something to the event. But at
this point, since we've been doing this event for twenty
five years and before that another five or so years
that we were also producing events, were kind of sort
of lends a lot together.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
What are tales are?
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah, we organically became event producers. You know, I threw
events every few months to promote the zine. And so
when I was living in LA between ninety five and
late ninety six, uh, you know, I was just I
had thrown I don't know, five or six events between
that time, and you know, I had a mailing list
of nine hundred people. And then eventually I had a
(19:24):
list of bands and DJs and artists who could contribute
to the zine and you know, play my events. And
before that, I had had an annual backyard party, so
I had gained a reputation as the tiki guy in
town in LA because I were ten years I hosted
a backyard party that drew about three hundred people into
(19:44):
my backyard in Venice.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Otherwise don as legendary tekey parties.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Absolutely, so go ahead.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I got my start. But you know, before that, my
whole life, I guess, I've been a graphic designer, mostly
an advertising So that's a good skill to have to
make flyer and to think about marketing and how to
promote things. And that's basically the only skill I have,
the only career that I have. But I've always been
into music also, and so DJing was kind of a
(20:18):
natural thing for me because I'm I enjoy music. I
love music, but I'm not a musician, so playing other
people's music is, you know, a good fit for me.
So now I'm able to put those two things together
at Tiki Oasis.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And do you have themes for every year?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Oh, Gollie, do we have themes?
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (20:38):
So what have been some of your most favorite themes?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Yeah, we we do have favorite themes.
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Well, we started things like what you're maybe well kind
of the second year, but really the third year we started. Yeah, okay,
So the themes were a great way for us to
pick the bands and maybe the DJs.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
It was a way first differentiate the Tiki world so
that it wasn't just Tiki all the time. It is
Tiki all the time, yes, but with it when we
have a theme, then I feel like we're allowed to
like think out of the box a little bit. And
so we would choose genres that were tangential to the
Tiki movement, you know, so genres from the fifties and sixties,
(21:23):
like sci fi or space age or yeah, oh beating
that chat, that's a good time. Yeah, things that were
happening concurrently to the original Tiki craze of the fifties
and sixties.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
So one of my favorite themes was in twenty twelve
we did a spy theme, Exotic Espionage, And what was
so great about that theme is that people really got
into it. So we had prior to the event people
were creating kind of anti Tiki movements, like pretending to
(21:57):
be like anti Tiki, but they weren't.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
They were like bad, say Agents of Sober who of course.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yes, I started.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Villains and I started all girls group Agents of Low
Ha where we would go around and you know, do
a little go go dance and we That was like,
I feel like the first year where every part of
the event really came to life, so the music, the fashion,
and the creativity. People were leaving things on the hotel
(22:29):
scaveter like they would in the lobby. You would pick
up a newspaper and have like holes cut out for
the eyes so you can spy on people. And somebody
set up like a video camera in the TV in
the tree with a light going off.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The video camera.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Wasn't doing any anything about it looked like you were
getting spied on somebody in their hotel room. And this
couple had create put a sheet in their window so
it looked like they were dancing because of one was
stabbing the other, you know. So I feel like that
was like the first year. It really blossomed this idea
(23:04):
of having a theme beyond.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Just the music, and we loved it so much.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
We actually did the theme again in twenty seventeen with
International Intrigue, so we kind of like redid the theme
because we loved it so much internationally.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Great ideam what a fun theme?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Yeah, yeah, we cover all the aspects right, like anything
that anybody's into, Like if they're into monster models from
the fifties, okay, we'll do a monster theme, you know.
And if they're into, like we said, beat Nick stuff,
or if they're into you know, Herb Albert or something,
you know in the Tijuana Brass, we'll do a South
of the Border theme, you know, and we'll have a
(23:42):
Herb Albert tribute band, you know, so we've it's not
just Martin Denny music all the time, you know, it's
Martin Denny at the pool and then in the evening.
So that segues into another theme that I liked a
lot that which you liked a lot too, Really was
Hawaii Go Go because she had a go Go troop,
so her troop formed multiple times for Hawaii a Go Go.
But that was like Waikiki in the sixties, like Elvis
(24:05):
don Ho. Yeah, religious it's the next step after Tiki
sort of right, like Tiki was his fifties sixties and
Hawaii Go Gos like later sixties, early seventies, and we've
gone like way out there too, Like say, uh, in
two thousand and six, we had the Magic of Tiki.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
That was your favorite theme.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Nobody knows what that is. Who knows what the Magic
of Tiki? What we had a magician was our like
headlining act on Saturday Night. James Demare was this uh,
Frank Sinatra style magician from Las Vegas, and James our
headliner for the Magic of Tiki.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
And the theme that sounds it was. They're all amazing.
The and the themes are always a great way for
us to have our creativeness, you know, come to light,
come to the top. You know, we really can just
have a lot of fun with it, and our audience has.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Fun with that.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
This year is our twenty fifth adversary no theme other
than just us, you know, Atiqui Oasis we've done it
for twenty five years, so you know, we tell people like,
come and you can wear any costume from the past,
or you can you can get inspired. We have art shows,
so you know, the artists usually do an art piece
based on the theme, but this year it's like, you
(25:17):
could do anything from the past, so.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
They can just do a twenty five year anniversary and
that in itself is going to be I mean, I'm
sure that that's going to be a collector's piece.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I would hoax so are nice?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, and you guys is and when you have a
theme like that, at least for me, I'm I get
kind of crazy, like how crazy can I get?
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
What's the craziest thing I can do with this theme?
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And I'm sure you have people that are doing that
as well, like you guys, like if we have this
the hat, oh yeah or something like that.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
We definitely have what's of things to cook in for
this year? You know.
Speaker 5 (25:54):
One of the things that we're doing is actually a
little exhibition of all the twenty five years because and
we have made tiki mugs for I guess twenty of
the last years we've made a tiki mug for the event.
Every year, we always make a printed program and stickers
and merchandise and photos and videos. We have so much
stuff that we wanted to share that we're actually doing
(26:16):
a little mini exhibition at the event just to showcase,
like what we've been doing all this time.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
It's amazing, It's absolutely amazing, and I'm so glad that
we've discovered this and we can tell everybody about it.
So tell me how has the community changed over the
years since you first started. What stayed the same and
what changed the most.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, that's a good question because you know, a lot
of the people originally came from my zine Tiki News
who originally came to the event. I had a mailing
list of nine hundred people and the last issue I
printed three thousand copies of so the zine was getting
pretty big, so I was able to reach a lot
of people. So originally all the attendees in Paul Springs
(27:01):
knew about the zine, you know, and that's that was there,
that's what bound them together. And then there was a uh,
what would you call it, a website, Tiki Central, where
like a bulletin board style website where people could meet
and so that drew in a lot of people, and
a lot of people had that as a common ground.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Well, the Internet made a big difference.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
But then the Internet saying, you know, yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:23):
All of our events and that were in the late
nineties were based on people that we were meeting, either
in person or somebody knew somebody. And then eventually, you know,
the Internet came into plane. It became broader.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Right.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
So at first, Tiki the Tiki Oasis was more for
people who knew what tiki was. They probably had a
tiki mug, they probably had a Hawaiian sut, you know,
they were kind of into this. And then once people
started coming to the event, it changed. It was less
about the collectors. Although the collectors still come. People that
(27:56):
like mid century modern, like historic preservation, they still come
to our event. But some things have changed along the way.
The pin up culture became really big, so that's you know,
women that are getting their hair and makeup done as
if they were in the nineteen fifties or sixties. That
it really has blossomed a lot in the last twenty years.
(28:16):
The cocktail scene has changed tremendously. Back in our early days,
it was impossible to have a venue make good cocktails
like these. Nobody knew how to make a my tie,
you know, like it was just just garbage you were getting,
you know, just not very good drinks. And people started
to become more aware of that, and then this whole
(28:38):
craze around cocktails and tropical cocktails became a big part
of our event. So a lot of people come to
our event because they want to meet some of these
cocktail experts that we showcase, or they want to they
want to taste all the drinks, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
So there's a lot of.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Those and that I think that was like one of
the bigger shit all along. We've had music fans, we've
had you know, people that get what we're doing. And
we've also have people have grown up going to Tikiasis.
They were babies, you know at the beginning, and now
they're grown up and they're bringing their friends. Our son,
I was pregnant with our first son at the very
(29:18):
first tikiasis in two thousand and right, he's twenty three
now he brings a group of his friends, you know,
and we keep it.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Going, right, So, what does the twenty fifth anniversary mean
to you? Did you ever when you had the first one?
And you said, Okay, let's do this again. This was fun,
or now that we've learned all this, now we should
do it next year and don't make those same mistakes.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
How did this progress to now you're twenty five years.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
Yeah, we did say all that what you just said.
And then as we started to grow, we saw, like say,
a couple our friends, Rich and Gretchen, they wanted to
get married at Tiki Oasis, sure for the fourth year
or something. And at that point we realized like, wow,
this is this. This means a lot more to people
(30:08):
than just you know, showing up to see a band
or showing a vendor marketplace to buy some some stuff
or you know, to get a tiki mug or something.
This means a lot more. It's a community, and it's
growing pretty fast. Like the first five years, we literally
doubled our audience. So we have from fifty to one
hundred to two hundred to four hundred to eight hundred
(30:30):
in the first five years. So we very quickly realized like, wow,
this is going to go on for a long time.
We didn't say, like, let's plan out the next twenty years.
We never said that. We've always lived, you know, for
the present, Like we can only think about one year
at a time. I mean maybe our themes you might
think a couple of years in advance.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
Well, I feel like our tenure anniversary, we looked at
each other, We're like, we made it to ten years.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
Yeah, we thought, well, I think we going to go
Maybe we could do another ten years?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Do you think?
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Yeah? Maybe? Maybe we didn't know though, Like we didn't
know if that ten years that was the peak, Like
if you know, fifteen hundred people was the most Tiki
fans that we could get in California, You know, we
didn't know. And so now you know, since our tenure,
we've you know, doubled again or more than doubled, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, how exciting? And have you ever wanted to give up?
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Only on Saturday night during the event, but then on
Monday rolls around, we're like, when can we do this again?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Only when you say, why did we do this again?
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Why didn't we? Yeah? Why am I standing here not
sleeping for five days?
Speaker 5 (31:40):
It is a lot of work, and for years, only
the last couple of years have Auto and I not
had full time jobs.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
So for many many years we had full time jobs
and this was our fun job. This was our passion project.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
So you know, we'd get home, we'd feed the kids,
we'd tuck them into bed, and then we work got
to oasis for two or three hours until we passed
out for years.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
And then went to Round. That was our vacation. Yeah,
and the kids vacation too. They didn't go to the
Grand Canyon or something. They went to San Diego, went to.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Take Yes, you know, there's a lot of sacrifices, and
so I think when you have something that you're so
passionate about and people love it, it's really hard to stop.
Like the idea of ever not doing it is not
you know, certainly crossed our mind, but didn't.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
It wasn't very sticky because we wanted to keep keep going. Yeah. Sure.
And if you're like like me and so many of
us well have these creative spirits and entrepreneurial spirits, it's
you just can't stop. You just want to do more
and more and more and more, and to.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Some extent, you believe that you're giving something to other people, right, Like,
if I gave.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
This up, who would do it? Right? Who would who
would pass this on to these people?
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Yeah, they wouldn't have anybody, right, Well, and you know,
we're very thoughtful about what we present and what we bring,
Like we try to make things different every year. We
just no two years are the same, so that it
keeps it interesting for us. You know, we are always
(33:15):
sort of pushing ourselves to think in different ways or
present different things, and it makes I think that the
audience and the people that attend, and even our volunteers
and our crew and everybody that's part of it always
kind of have this anticipation of like, wow, you know,
something that's very magical and very different, and no other
(33:37):
event is like this, and that's because it comes from
our heart and our expertise.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Yeah. You know, like I said, I was way into
the music before I started Tiqi Oasis, so I already
knew what the authentic music was and the type of
music that I wanted to be presented there. So you know,
it took a while to make it happen because there
was no exotica bands playing exotica music in you know,
two thousand and one, But now there are a handful,
and you know they've all been at Tiki Oasis.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Well, the other thing that you mentioned was that how
things have changed up for example, with the drinks, right,
and with technology and now you can get you can
do things in a room or in a venue that
you couldn't do before. You've got a venue where you
can get more people there. And with the change of
technology and drinks, some people are participating. It makes it
(34:27):
a lot more fun and you're able to do new things. Yeah, right,
you know the things you're doing now you could have
never done at the first event.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Correct, Yeah, And new tiki bars have opened up, you
know since two thousand and one. Like before two thousand
and one, there was hardly any new tiki bars in America.
There was the Lava Lounge in Hollywood and then the
Purple Orchid down in El Segundo, but a lot a
lot of new tiki bars were not opening up. But
then after two thousand and one they started, you know,
(34:56):
and now there's been a lot of them. And now
almost every major he has a new tiki bar in it.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
I would say every major city does have a tiki
bar in it at this point. And and also things
like the fashion. You know, used to be impossible to
find hair flowers for your hair or a really cool
uh calf hand, and now there's many many companies that
are making those and doing them right, like really unique
(35:23):
and interesting fabrics and styles and colors, and you know,
so it's it's really fun to see.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
You know, how much this has exploded and it continues
to grow.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
And you've touched on this, but how how has the
tiki culture grown? And you've talked about the new bars
and things like that, But wasn't there a time when
it kind of died down a little bit and then
it blossomed up again?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Well? It did, Yeah, I mean, if you read the
Book of Tiki, it tells the progression of tiki and
then the demise of tiki. You know, in the seventies,
there was disco and you know, the equality movement, you know,
like women's equality and stuff that we're focusing on these
socio political things, and people didn't want a fake escapism
(36:08):
of going into a dark tiki bar and hanging out
in a place with fake rain on the on the roof,
you know. But in the forties, fifties and sixties, that
was outrageous. You know, that was like Disneyland, you know
around the corner from your house, you know, a Disneyland
in your own town, you know, and then you know,
the allure of that, the the newness of that, you know,
(36:30):
sort of Disneyland effect sort of worn off. And with
the you know, the seventies and the eighties, the eighties
is like seventies of the me generation, and the eighties
even continued that more with you know movies like Top
Gun and Wall Street, you know, these like getting ahead
and getting it for yourself kind of things, and it
was less about having a luau in your backyard and
(36:51):
having a community. It was more about being authentic. And
I mean, you know, World War two had the Pacific
Theater and then you had Jane Mitchener writing South Pacific.
The book, the record, the musical, the movie that you
know were major hits for a long period of time,
like ten years they were hit, you know, and people
enjoyed the good parts of the Pacific Theater, you know,
(37:15):
the fun and escapism and newness of it. But then
in the seventies you had the Vietnam War and people said, oh,
we don't want to go to the Pacific Theater anymore,
you know, we don't want bamboo anymore.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, we don't want to go there.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
So yeah, there was this dead period, like say the
dark days of the late seventies through the all through
the nineties, you know, all through until the you know,
mid or late nineties.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
And we would get to places in the nineties when
we were first together that we were like we were
the only people there, you know, and we're thinking, oh,
this is not long for this world.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
You know, it's a great place, a great atmosphere. The
food is not so.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
Good that drinks are terrible, Like we wouldn't even want
to drink there there because of the atmosphere.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
And we saw just that, well, since they're gone, we
can say it the Hong Kong Place in Ventura. Yeah,
Like we'd always go there whenever we were in town, and.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It was just falling.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Yeah, it was falling apart, and they there just was
no money to put back into it. So the kind
of that, the type of food, the types of drinks,
all of that just sort of became out of favor.
And then we started to see just start to have
a little bit more of these places opening up in
the late nineties, and that was like the inkling that
like maybe maybe this can be something, like maybe people
(38:32):
will get back into this. And and now there's all
of these places, these bars are opening up and restaurants.
They have very creative food, very creative drinks there. You know,
it's a culinary experience as well as a you know,
visual experience, and it's it's really changed. It's hard to
explain like how much it's changed. It's just, you know,
(38:54):
it's more what people are doing now. They're they're putting
money into these places, they're building them out, they're spending
the time to do it right, and not to me,
you know, it makes me feel like these places are
going to be around for a while, and.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
Their clientele now are new young people, you know, like
say in their early thirties, late twenties, who have enough
money to you know, enjoy the experience and want to
go to these new places. So it's not just people
like us who went to the old places originally that
we're still in existence, you know, twenty five years ago
and now we want to go back to another one. No,
(39:33):
it's it's new young people that want to go to
a new tiki bar that they've heard is opening, you know,
because they want that same experience that people had forty
fifty years ago. They want that same experience. And it's
not that they want that old experience that They don't
want a replication of that original experience, but they do
(39:53):
want the same experience now, you know, in a cover
and their terms.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
And in their language that is speaking as sure. Yeah,
my son has a huge collection of tiki mugs. When
I'm preparing and meeting you, I was saying, maybe I
didn't appreciate those.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Enough is dozens of them? What do you do at these? Right?
Speaker 1 (40:14):
But he has dozens of them? Tell me if someone
comes to Tiki Oasis, what are they going to see?
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Okay, so let's present two.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Different I think that people need. How all the different elements?
I would cry frankly.
Speaker 5 (40:31):
It is well, I was going to say, it's five nights,
four days. There's five nights that happened in four days.
We start off with the luau at a historic place
in San Diego called the Catamaran Resort. It's there since
the nineteen fifties, I believe.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
And they do a full show. They've got you know,
they bring out the pig.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
It's like an authentic, authentic.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Waikiki style luau.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
And then uh Thursday through Sunday, we're at the Towny
Country Hotel in San Diego. We take over the entire hotel.
We have seminars during the day and everything from tropical
cocktails to historic preservation, like we have a seminar all
about bowling alleys. We have hands on classes that are
(41:20):
very popular. People can learn how to make their own
tiki lamp or how to paint a black velvet painting.
We have somebody that's showing you how to do your
hair in a nineteen fifties style hair style. Fun, super fun.
And then we have the pool vibes during the day.
There's a you there's actually three swimming pools at our hotel,
(41:43):
so people, you know, we have bands at the pool,
We have DJs, and we have a huge marketplace. We
have one hundred and fifty different vendors that are artists
at artissans. They're you know, they are actually making tiki mugs, teaking, necklaces, sculptures, clothing,
kaf Hans, shoes, whatever you can think of. We have
(42:04):
it in our marketplace.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And then as the sun sets we have nighttime.
Speaker 4 (42:09):
We left out. We have an art show, yeah, and
a lamp art show. So people that are more crafty
and create decor items of and create lamps and lamps
are really popular now and people have multiple lamps, just
like they might have multiple tiki mugs. And then you know,
the art show is a good creative outlet for people
(42:29):
that are in our community and our artists and are
expressive and are creating tons of art. We have them
in our art show. So and then people that need
art for their tiki bar, you know, they can pick
up some real, you know, fine art that's one of
a kind. You know, it's like paint on canvas kind
of art.
Speaker 5 (42:46):
Yeah, we have forty over forty artists in the art
show and over twenty lamp artists in the lamp show,
and you know, we like we like to you know,
do you think change things up This year we have
a little car vintage car exhibition, like a small little
exhibition of the Titch cars.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
I talked about earlier.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
We're going to do an exhibition about the history of
Tiki Oasis. So we're always kind of coming up with
something fun and different. And at night we have a
huge concert, and we have a concert, we have a
late night burlesque show. We have lots of entertainment. Sometimes
(43:23):
people don't realize, like we're actually hosting a concert at
Tiki Oasis.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
Or vice a version like they come for the concert
and they don't realize, like, what are all these seminars?
What are all these people doing? What's going on? There's
a whole program. We have one hundred and eighty page program.
You know, it's thicker than most magazines. Like it's thicker
than Time magazine, you know, like it's that thick, and
it has all of our stuff and it you know,
pictures of the people doing the seminars and the bands
(43:48):
and everything. We have thirty five bands playing throughout the weekend,
you know, day and night. DJs, oh my gosh, fifty Yeah.
I mean the thing about DJs is, you know I
could have a soundtrack. I could create a soundtrack. You know,
I could create a list of great songs that I
like to play and have everybody here, But the DJs
are you know, there's one at the pool, there's one
(44:09):
in the ballroom, there's one the lawn. And they're curating
their music. Like if it's kind of slow, they might
have mellower stuff, and then if it picks up, they
might you know, pick up the pace of the music.
So the music is always curated for the audience at
any given time. I mean, people might not notice that
but it's not just a soundtrack that's playing in the background,
you know, you know, it's very it's being served to
(44:30):
them sort of, you know, it's being curated just for them.
And so that segues into the bands, and then the
bands we have it outdoors on the lawn, so they
have to end at ten pm because of the curfew,
and then we have the pless show.
Speaker 5 (44:42):
I have a late night b lesque show. So there's
sort of something for everybody. We always say like you
can make your own journey at tiqu Oasis, right, So
you can come with your family and go in the
swimming pool and go maybe shopping in the marketplace, or.
Speaker 4 (44:55):
You can and then you could end the night with
some bands on the lawn, yeah, or you.
Speaker 5 (44:59):
Can be staying out till four am and uh, you know,
with a lampshade on your head in one of our suites.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
You know.
Speaker 5 (45:06):
So there's sort of something for everyone, and people get
to pick and choose what they want to do. I
often hear people will say, well, this year we're bringing
the kids, but next year we're not, you know, So
there's sort of like a little bit of like what
kind of experience you want to have and you can
have very different experiences and people can dip in and out.
So it is a full weekend event. But people could
(45:30):
come just to the Luau, or they could come just
just to the marketplace. The marketplace is free Saturday and Sunday.
I mean, why wouldn't you come? Of course it costs anything.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
And if they're at the Town and Country hotel, have
the Town and Country Saturday tim until four.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah, so people could do that.
Speaker 5 (45:50):
People could pick all a card if they want to
go to a summoner, if they want to see Charles
Phoenix talking about Googi architecture.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
They can just go to that.
Speaker 4 (45:58):
You know.
Speaker 5 (45:58):
So there's sort of something for every buddy. That we
want people to come for the whole weekend because we
want we believed that that's the true experience, Like come
for the whole thing, stay on property, or even stay
in one of our sister hotels, you know, buy a
weekend pass, you know, check out everything. That's the true
the true experience.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Well not only that, I mean San Diego is a
great place to visit anyway, even if you weren't coming
for this, but because there's always something to do there
as well. So if you come for you and you
can stay for San Diego. So I'm a newcomer, all right,
my first time here. What do I need to wear
and what do I do when I arrive.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
So you'll probably arrive on Thursday, which is great. You'll
have a sort of a way to segue in, or
maybe you'll arrive on Wednesday, the kind of pre party
and you'll do the luau. If you do that, then
you're sitting at a table and you meet people already.
So then when you hit the hotel on Thursday, you
already know some people. And then my next tip is
(46:58):
I'm gonna skip Thursday. I'm gonna move right to Friday.
My next day is Friday. Marketplace opens privately, just particulates people,
not to the public, and a lot of people go
right in there and they buy their jewelry and their
clothing that they can wear on Friday night and on Sunday.
So they they hit the clothing and the hair flowers
(47:21):
and the jewelry on Friday in the market.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
So, so should I bring assuming I didn't, I didn't
plan on buying anything.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
There is it all Hawaiian shirts? What should I be wearing?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Well, I think you know the thing. So there issly
I missed.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
I missed the memo today.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
But there's that true dress code.
Speaker 5 (47:44):
I mean, honestly, I always like, uh say, wear something colorful.
It doesn't even have to be Hawaiian. If it's colorful,
it's fun, it's joyful, it'll blend right in with the
tiki oasis experience.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Right.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
But a lot of women like to wear kalf hands.
So we have a whole group called the Loha klf
Dan Society, which has chapters all around the world now
and really three or four hundred women that show a
women and men actually that show up and wear kaftans.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
And you start this.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
With a group of friends.
Speaker 5 (48:17):
Yeah, so there was a this is a great story
because this is very tiki oasis. A handful of folks
started doing these little meetups on their own with their
own friends. We had a mumuklf han meetup with one group.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
We had a the LGB Tiki group.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
They had a wear a wet kalftan, which basically meant
were a klftan and then jump in the swimming pool.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
And then another group we're on that one.
Speaker 5 (48:41):
And then I just said, hey, let's all like we're
most favorite kaftans, and they had ten friends, and then
eventually we turned it into an official meet up at
Tiki Oasis and we named it the the Loha Klftan Society.
We've been doing it for twenty seventeen and now we
have about three or four hundred people that show up
for the parade.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
We parade around the pool and.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
Then that provides eye candy for everybody at the pool.
You know, you're sitting at the pool and enjoining a drink,
or you just got out of the water, you're trying
off and you look and here's this constant parade. It takes,
you know, fifteen or twenty minutes to go by. You
of people in calfdans, you know, colorful calf tans, and
that's very typical.
Speaker 5 (49:21):
Like at Tek Basis, people will find others. There was
a few women that we're wearing mermaid tails in the
swimming pool, you know, kind of lounging by the pool
with a mermaid tail. Now there's about twenty of them
that show up on Saturday afternoon with their mermaid tails on.
We have a pooch parade, so of course pupps and
they dress up the pups in their outfits and that's
(49:42):
gotten very elaborate.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
We do that on Sunday, so a lot of like that.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
We have a.
Speaker 5 (49:49):
Meetup called the Animal Prowl, So you wear anything leopard
print or zebra print and we all meet up and
you know, do some group photos, the cabana strut and
there's a cabana strut where for the men. For the
men or people that like to wear short shorts, so
the matching shirts and shorts and they walk.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Around the zone. So there's a lot of these community
meet up So what's fun is you can express yourself
as much as you.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Want to just a major as much or as little
as you want exactly.
Speaker 5 (50:21):
You can just show up and just watch right watch.
You could just show up and kind of like just
see what it's all about. You don't have to actually participate,
which is just as fun. And often people will come
and they'll say, I saw all the people wearing really
fun hats and really creative hats. Next year, I'm going
to make a hat, you know. So that's part of
like the Sun and the allure of the event is
(50:43):
like it's something for everyone.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
So tell people how can they be a part of this,
How can they find you, how can they sign up?
Speaker 3 (50:51):
What do they do they pay in advance? How does
it work?
Speaker 4 (50:55):
So unfortunately, hotel rooms are sold out at our main hotel,
but we do have a partner hotel nearby that's conveniently
named the Seven C's.
Speaker 5 (51:06):
And you just got to tiqass dot com, dot com
our website. It has all the information on tickets, hotel,
it has our whole schedule on.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
There and bos. It was amazing the things. I was
surprised all the things that you have there for people
to do and see.
Speaker 4 (51:24):
See. Yes, and we're adding more stuff every day. So
if you went there yesterday, we'll have different stuff next week.
You know, we're adding the schedule and more details. But yeah,
all the bands are up there, the seminars are up there.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
We have an Instagram and yes talk. You know, we're
trying to keep you keep it up on all the socials.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
We have a YouTube channel called Tiki Oasis TV where
people can see videos from past years.
Speaker 3 (51:48):
Yes, I saw some, Yes, I saw some. Yes, it's great.
So we have to ask will we see you twenty
five years from now.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
We'll be senior citizensens.
Speaker 5 (52:02):
Yes, we've funny because I do think that you know,
we hope that the spirit of Tiki Oasis continues, and
you know, we always joke with our kids. We have
two kids, they're nineteen and twenty three, that they have
to take over. They see how hard we work, they
(52:22):
see how much we do to put this together. So
I think they're kind of like, I'm not sure I
want to take that on. But I know that the
spirit of Tiki Oasis will always live on and hopefully
we could do it as long as we can, and
that's our goal.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
Well, you certainly have shown us how passion and creativity
and community and a little touch of tiki magic can
grow into something really unforgettable.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
So for our listeners and our viewers, if you ever.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Have wanted to sip a cocktail under this waying Palm's
dance pool side to a serve band, or rediscover the
art of celebration of tiki, this may be your new
favorite tradition. Thank you so much from all of us
here at SOCl with Val for joining us today, and
thank you for being a part of our show and
(53:10):
letting us experience from this side all there is about
Tiki Oasis.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
And we will come and visit you. We will.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
We will come until our next show to our listeners
and our views. Stay curious, stay bold, stay golden, and
we will see you next week at SoCal with Val
and oh, by the way, the dates for your show
tell us.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
Oh great, Wednesday August sixth through Sunday August tenth, five days,
I mean four days, five nights.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
So we'll have lots of summer weather. Still.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
Yeah, yeah, it'll be good.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Great.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Thank you so much, thank you, thank you very much
for sharing Teeky Magic with us.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Thank you, thank you,
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