This article appeared on XL Republic, September 2008 issue. The setting is that delle Hawaii, tutta palme, noci di cocco e spiagge da cartolina. Qui, ukulele in mano e collana di fiori al collo, un Elvis fresco di servizio militare e circondato da graziose pulzelle in rigorosi gonnellini tradizionali, intona ancheggiando uno dei suoi classici, la languida e un po’ tediosa “Blue Hawaii”. L’anno è il 1961. Il brano in questione darà il titolo al primo film di una elvisiana “trilogia hawaiana” che si chiuderà nel 1966 col mediocre “Paradise”, non prima però di aver rinverdito un intero genere (la music comedy) a furia di location esotiche e idilliaci scenari fuori dal tempo. Elvis, d’altronde, dalle Hawaii era ossessionato. Nella sua dimora di Graceland si era made even furnish an entire room theme, the legendary Jungle Room: totem in the middle of hairpieces, Kitcher in a tropical, floral design and redundant, the star now on the decline of rock and roll gave short demonstration, as well as its proverbial lack of taste, of having adequate (with genuine transportation, it must be said) to the nth craze that had hit the U.S. pop culture between '50 and '60, a craze that between a Mai Tai cocktail and a poster of Tarzan took the mysterious name of Tiki.
It is unclear where it comes from the term, although the more direct reference appears to be the "first man" of the ancient Maori legends. And that set the dream of Honolulu and its surroundings, close to the Aboriginal people of New Zealand, immediately gives a sense of what we are talking whim. The invention of Tiki style dates back to the '30s, and is also indicative of an attitude attracted to everything that seems primitive and unusual regardless of ages, geography and traditions, with the declared aim of returning the romantic image distorted a Pacific Ocean able to bind together and forgotten pantheon Southern California, the most beautiful beach life and torrid tribal atmosphere. Whatever it is, the intention of Don Gantt, the man to whom we owe the first Tiki bar of history, was in fact to raise a local Polynesian style with full dell'americanissima Hollywood. Except that Don the Beachcomber - the name of the bar - the menu also included rice, and rum imported Cantonese Caribbean, all in the midst of some piece of decor and Bora Bora, on the walls, which seemed more African masks than anything else. It was a mess, but of those who would do school, and actually invented a new aesthetic. Within a very short time, all of California would grow the first imitations, including the famous restaurant chain Trader Vic's, but only in the 50s the so-called Tiki Culture would actually exploded.
World War II had put in direct contact with an entire generation of Americans with the places and atmospheres of the South Pacific. Someone brought home souvenirs from the islands bizarre names at once primordial and seductive as Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, and from there to the spread of a taste for an imaginary unspecified neoprimitivismo fairy tale, the step was short. Don the Beachcomber's insights were updated at the time, the movie industry - long before dell'elvisiano "Blue Hawaii" - is adequate, and even began a new musical category, answering to the name of Exotica. People like Les Baxter began to introduce, on a loosely woven jazz, winking references to lost geographically indistinct traditions, seasoning the pieces of unusual equipment and distinctive rhythms jungle. It was released in mid-euphoric blend of music to strip and checked in summer cocktail sauce, which would be called heroes Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman and what is perhaps the greatest of all, the Mexican Esquivel. Any suggestion that might sound eccentric was passed to the blender and reduced to a sparkling swimming pool plaster: Brazilian rhythms, roaring lions, Hawaiian guitars, howling tarzaneschi, Chinese percussion, became mandatory ingredients of a sound that is at its best as a soundtrack for 'endless string of b-movies in exotic character, and as entertainment leggero per i ritrovi da salotto o meglio ancora da piscina, come quella – in rigoroso stile Tiki, ci mancherebbe – di Hugh Hefner, ai più noto per essere il fondatore di Playboy. Facile immaginare il clima che si doveva respirare a bordo acque, tra ricostruzioni di capanne in paglia, lascivi ritmi jungle, e disinibite conigliette a intonare aloha.
L’Exotica, come l’intera Tiki Culture, era condannata ad eclissarsi con l’arrivo di quei ’60 che alle palme di Honolulu avrebbero sostituito le foglie di marijuana, ma prevedibilmente rinacque tre decenni dopo, nel pieno dei ’90. Prima fu il grande revival lounge che riportò in auge Esquivel e soci, poi una nuova scuola di illustratori e artisti resuscitarono la caratteristica iconografia neoprimitivista messa a punto più di sessant’anni prima da Don the Beachcomber. Personaggi come Joe Coleman e Mark Ryden ricorreranno più volte all’immaginario Tiki regalandone una versione surreale e spaesante, in perfetto stile lowbrow, e in generale l’intera estetica che fu dei Trader Vic’s vivrà un’esuberante stagione di riscoperta, sia per via delle ristampe di musica Exotica, sia perché a quel bizzarro coagulo di influenze che fu l’arredamento in stile pop-polinesiano ricorreranno sempre più locali di tendenza e club avant-chic (o kitsch?). Persino la Disney, in Lilo & Stitch, renderà implicito omaggio all’Elvis di "Blue Hawaii". And the followers of the Tiki-Art luxury come to identify ancestors in figures like the great surrealist Man Ray. Of course, no longer the time of the Jungle Room and Hugh Hefner's pool, but at least every summer, the "first man" is back: and lo, a roar from the background on Hawaiian-jazz and a grotesque totem Pacific never existed, Tiki lives.
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