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Tiki Central / Collecting Tiki / $hag Tiki Room Original on eBay

Post #61990 by Sneaky Tiki on Tue, Nov 25, 2003 1:53 AM

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I went to Disneyland that day just so I could buy a few of the items. If I would have been able to see Josh and talk to him for a sec that would've been fine but I was mainly there to buy a few of the Shag items and go and I don't care for anyone's autograph either. I got in for free because a neighbor of mine works at DCA and she signed me in. I went with a friend who has an annual pass and we got in and saw the line and went to get lunch and went on POTC and went back to the line but they said we couldn't get in line anymore . . . at least we couldn't get in line for autographs. But all I wanted to do was buy some stuff and go. But we waited and waited. Finally I got in and bought a few things and left (and no I am not reselling them on eBay) and then went to the Tiki Room with my friend and left. My friend wanted to get one of the Shag purses for his wife but they were sold out.
I can attest that Josh has been in to tiki stuff for a long time and didn't suddenly start doing it as a way to make money. I first met him and the other Swamp Zombies in 1989 (actually, I sort of met them a little bit earlier than that) and found out that one of their big influences was stuff from their parents' record collections like Kingston Trio and Harry Belafonte, which is just what my parents were into and one of the reasons I gravitated towards the Swamp Zombies. I was a bit of a Swamp Zombies follower for a while until I killed off the band (another story) and at one of the gigs Josh saw the tiki necklace I had and asked where I got it. I told him I got it in Hawaii and when I went back to Hawaii for some more college I got him one and sent it to him and he later told me he got it and that it was unique to his collection. In 1995 I asked if he could paint some designs on my black acoustic bass guitar and I told him my concept (green and purple musical notes with ghost faces on the front and a tiki face covering the whole back). He said he could do it and asked me how much he should charge me. I had no clue what range he was thinking in but finally said, "Uh . . . uh . . . fifty bucks?" And he said, "You don't have to pay me that much. Name a lower price." So I know he's not moneygrubbing. I do know through subsequent e-mails with him that he likes making money off of doing something he enjoys but it's not anything that can be characterized as greed. Unfortunately the last time I talked to him (2001?) he denied any knowledge of having painted my bass but then inadvertently let on that he did remember (it could be that he didn't want to sign "SHAG" on it because it doesn't exactly look like his signature style or it could have been that he was being his usual squirrelly self; I don't really know) and through no fault of his own he has since become too untouchable for me to probably ever have any contact with him again.

[ Edited by: Sneaky Tiki on 2005-02-02 12:16 ]

[ Edited by: Sneaky Tiki on 2005-02-21 22:58 ]