Post #276348 by bigbrotiki on Wed, Jan 3, 2007 3:04 PM

Thank you for opening this thread, Tim. Yet with "Tiki in strange places" I was more thinking along the lines of urban archeology, of finding old Tikis out of their element, in not obvious, non-Polynesian themed places, much like your post on that desert body shop/junk yard that lead to this one.

Here are some examples:
The "Tune up Tiki" at Bob Willemsen's Instatune on Lincoln Blvd in Santa Monica:

Their office waiting room was filled to the hilt with New Guinea masks, the owner had travelled there. When I went back to photograph that, the place had changed hands, and was barren of Tiki.

or these doorhandles on a place in Korea town, on Vermont and Beverly (I believe). It must have been Chinese/Polynesian once, but was a Korean Disco now. I liked the juxtaposition of the name and the urban blight look. (The new name is not bad either, it's now called "Bobby London".) :)

And here, some lost looking Tikis on the interior miniature golf course at the Family Fun Center in Ontario, CA:

Back to the desert: Here is a forgotten beauty behind an old prospector's adobe abode, across from the Miracle Manor Motel in Desert Hot Springs, (near Palm Springs)

It stood amidst some sort of desert garden, I was told that UFO enthusiasts used to gather there...

PS: Most of these are gone now