I rickrolled Dr. Tiki. In public. At his own event. And took video. Here’s the video of it happening:

I’ve only been genuinely rickrolled twice and both were by Dr. Tiki, including the “lala Shower Outtakes” video that made it the front page of Digg.com. So when I heard that Jeff Macpherson (the guy who plays Dr. Tiki on Tiki Bar TV) announced a “Dr. Tiki meetup” at my local watering hole Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge, I had to come up with a plan to get him back with a rickroll while he was there.

To trick him into clicking through to a rickroll while at a Tiki Bar seemed like it would be a difficult task, but I had some advantages: One, I am good friends with Martin Cate, the mastermind behind Forbidden Island, which was Dr. Tiki’s destination. And two, I designed and programmed Forbidden Island’s tiki-themed touchscreen jukebox. The idea of using something other than the Internet-- specifically a jukebox -- to rickroll someone seemed incredibly devious and yet the same time strangely appropriate. I pitched it to Martin and he was in.

It all came together quickly. I made a special build of the jukebox software that when activated, would make every song selection on the juke trigger the Rick Astley video full screen. I got it working in record time and coordinated with Martin to clandestinely install it on the jukebox before opening.

The rest was up to Martin himself. The plan was for Martin to give Dr. Tiki a tour of Forbidden Island -- which is a top notch Tiki bar truly worthy of a Tiki connoisseur’s guided tour -- that would culminate at the jukebox. At that point Martin would add free credits to the juke while secretly turn on the rickroll mode, then encourage Dr. Tiki to pick a few songs. Meanwhile, my friends Chad Spacey, Rebecca and I would shoot video.

The plan worked like a charm. Dr. Tiki was caught completely off guard. Someone not in the know even asked him what was going on and got him to explain the whole rickroll phenomena on camera. It was a classic moment. Jeff Macpherson was truly a great sport about it, a genuine nice guy, and I’m glad I and the other Forbidden Island regulars were able to meet up with him while he was in town. It took a lot of work to rickroll him in public like that, but it was totally worth all the effort. I’d like to think we’re even … but I wonder if I have to watch my back, virtually speaking.

Digg this

Hi all … long time no post. I’ve been busy with things, but I wanted to give an update to everyone: If you’re in the San Francisco area, come out and join us for Tiki Central’s 7th Annual Tiki Bar Crawl. And if you’re not in the San Francisco area, watch it live on our mobile webstream, 3:30pm—late on Friday, 2:00pm—really late on Saturday, and 3:00pm till evening on Sunday.

Details available on tikiweekend.com!

My friend Mimi Payne has launched a new website called Arkiva Tropika featuring scans from her exhaustive personal collection of Polynesian menus, postcards, matchbooks, and other ephemera. It’s truly an overload of mid-century graphic design and photography, and it’s great browsing as a source of design ideas, or just for fun. I’ve seen Mimi’s collection in person and the quality and volume is staggering. At launch the site only features a fraction of her collection, but she’s adding more to the site all the time and the RSS feed chronicles the latest additions.

There’s scads of Tiki Bars, illustrations, and vintage typeset menu interiors, and this is really only the tip of the iceberg. I’m really excited to see this launch, I wish I had it as a resource when I was designing Forbidden Island’s menu. The site features tags and searching, and was designed and programmed by Humuhumu. Congratulations Mimi!

http://www.arkivatropika.com

A few months ago I visited the San Francisco Airport’s in-lobby art exhibit on Polynesian Pop. The display was fantastic -- a lot of great collectables and ephemera from both the midcentury and the current Tiki revival. Humuhumu, her Mom (who was travelling that day) and I browsed the exhibit for quite some time. Taking it all in, something caught my eye, and it wasn’t any of the pieces in the exhibit, but what was behind them. The back of the display case was lined with a huge print of faux Hawaiian patterns. Read the rest of this entry

I’ve overhauled the old book and music reviews over at tikiroom.com. It’s driven using a new engine that makes it much faster and easier for me to add reviews. This is a small step towards overhauling the entire site so that it’s not so mashed-up. I’ll be watching traffic and sales to see if anything changes. Here are some links:

tiki books
tiki music
Space-Age sounds