Mug from NW Tiki Crawl 2005

Tickets are now on sale for the annual Northwest Tiki Crawl, taking place in Portland the weekend of June 24, 2006. As with last year, there will be a special event mug created by Tikitronic. Special highlights this year include some new home bars on the Sunday home bar tour, a special preview of the not-yet-open Grass Skirt Thatch, Portland’s newest tiki bar, and a chance to spend time in the soon-to-be-closed Jasmine Tree. Of course, the Alibi alone is worth the trip to Portland. Here’s the schedule from the NW Tiki Crawl website:

Friday: Kick-Off Party at the infamous Castaway Cove, home of Tikimaxton & Pele. This will be for full weekend Crawlers only to get to know your fellow tikiphiles and enjoy the Cove’s famed hospitality. Food & drinks provided.

Saturday: There will be gatherings at Portland tiki bars: (soon to be closed!) Jasmine Tree and the venerable Alibi. Then the Tiki-Kon really gets going that evening at the Jupiter, with Bands! Vendors! Drinks! Socializing! Raffle with Fabulous Prizes! Mysterious Other Things! Full Weekend crawlers will also be treated to an EXCLUSIVE preview of Portland’s newest tiki bar, Grass Skirt (not yet open to the public!)

Sunday: A special Tiki-Kon Brunch at the Alibi, followed by The Original NW Tiki Home Bar Tour, which this year will include new home bars (transportation provided). The group will then return to the Jupiter for the weekend farewell – allowing more time for shopping, socializing, and maybe a little drinking at the nearby Doug Fir.

• TIKI-KON: NW Tiki Crawl 2006
• NW Tiki Crawl 2006 Official Announcement! [Tiki Central]
• 2006 Northwest Tiki Crawl Announced [Humu Kon Tiki]

DJ Terrence Gunn has organized a two-day tour of some of Seattle’s home tiki bars, on August 5 and 6, 2006. On August 5, there will be a party at North Seattle’s Monkey Skull Voodoo Lounge home bar, starting at 4 p.m. and lasting into the night, with food & drinks provided, and special giveaways. Music will be provided by Seattle’s own Selector Lopaka and DJ Terrence Gunn. The next day, there will be a six-hour chartered bus tour the home bars of West Seattle, with visits to The Castaway Lounge, The Shrunken Head Lounge, Zanzibar Lounge, and The Riviera Room. The whole weekend costs $50/person, and food, drinks, and the bus tour are included in the price of the ticket. For more details, and to make reservations, visit the event’s thread on Tiki Central.

• Seattle Area Home Bar Tour, August 5th & 6th, Ticket Reservations Now Being Taken

Sadly, we aren’t able to make it to Tiki Oasis this year — work is getting in the way. This is the first Oasis I’ve missed in the past four years, and it feels strange to not be joining the tiki hordes in the festivities. There are a whole bunch of Bay Area folks in the same boat this year, and we’re going to have our own Poor Man’s Tiki Oasis at Forbidden Island in Alameda, both Friday and Saturday nights. If you can’t make it to Oasis this year, too, come on out and join us. You’ll quickly forget you’re missing anything when you realize you’re sitting in the best tiki bar this side of the Mississippi.

• Poor Man’s Tiki Oasis, at Forbidden Island [Tiki Central]
• Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge

Scene from I Am Cuba,
captured by surf-n-turf

I’ve mentioned the visually stunning 1964 propaganda film I Am Cuba a couple times here on Humu Kon Tiki, and now you can see it for yourself. It’s been available from Netflix for some time, but now the companion documentary about the making of the film is available, too, and both films are reportedly available from Comcast’s OnDemand download service for digital cable subscribers. There are a few screenshots on Tiki Central of the tiki bar scenes, courtesy of surf-n-turf. A peek at this fantastic film has also been put up onto YouTube, including the legendary opening sequence at a midcentury-modern hotel, and severals scenes that take place in a tiki bar. The Havana Trader Vic’s is almost certainly what’s being nodded to in these scenes, and the decor used was likely borrowed from there for use in staging the set — the restaurant by that time had become the government-run El Polinesio, which is still operating today, and is said to still have much of the decor. Special thanks to Mr. Bali Hai for the YouTube heads-up and link collection.

• ¡Soy Cuba! [Eye of the Goof]
• “I Am Cuba” documentary [Tiki Central]
• I Am Cuba Screening in Seattle [Humu Kon Tiki]
• I Am Cuba Documentary Airing on Sundance Channel [Humu Kon Tiki]