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This section was created to guide you through all of the artifacts and show pieces located within our restaurant. We have the very rare and authentic and the wild and crazy. Are you up for a treasure hunt? Well, here we go!
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Item #1 - The Lights. Most of the lamps you see are made by Joe "Tiki Vato" out of Whittier, CA. Joe has taken a page from Oceanic Arts which was the foremost supplier of everything tiki and was just down the street from his home. His specialty are the glass floats, puffer fish lights and the large puffer fish trap located in the center of the bar. Over the door is a true work of art by Ron Monster and a few of the lights that flicker are from Oceanic Arts. Other miscellaneous lights were found at tiki marketplaces around SoCal. Joe is seen here selling some of his lamps to David copperfield.
Item #2 - #3 - Find two portholes located within the bar. One has the fake ID of "McLuvin" from the movie Superbad and the other has a crew patch labeled as "Chandler Surfboards" from the 80's cult classic movie, North Shore.
Item #4 - Our 9' Gorilla, Dave. We found him on Facebook Marketplace where he was securing the front yard of a home in Burbank. Driving home with him sure did turn some heads. Feel free to take a picture with him. You can even sit in his hand for a pic (if under 200 pounds).
Item #5 - #13 Many of our tiki carvings are done by famous Disney carver, R.L. Blair. R.L. Blair was the main wood carver for Disney, having carved over 150 sculptures for the company since 1986, with his work appearing at many of their theme parks including both Disneyland and Disney World. Two of his carvings flank the front entry of the bar and the rest are surrounding the jungle themed area near Dave the Gorilla.
Item #14 - Since most everything in a Tiki Bar is a throwback to a different time, you might be looking around the bar and wondering what this or that is such as a back glass of the Gilligan's Island TV show pinball machine from the 70's and early 80's. Notice they are making tiki drinks. We also pay homage behind the bar to other 70's and 80's shows and characters such as with the painting of Mr. Roarke from the TV show, Fantasy Island (appropriately having a tiki drink). Behind the bar is a picture of Isaac the Bartender from the TV show, The Love Boat and there is a bobblehead of Tom Selleck from Magnum P.I., a TV show shot in Hawaii. Other items you might see are shrunken heads (behind the bar), a decanter of "Uncle Menehune" of the Menehune which are a mythological race of dwarf people in Hawaiian tradition who are said to live in the deep forests and hidden valleys of the Hawaiian Islands, hidden and far away from human settlements. The Menehune are described as superb craftspeople.
Item #15 - On our walls and on our TV screens here in Tiki Republik & Sunsets (our sister restaurant next door), you will find works of art by Steve Matson. Steve is a famous artist from Hawaii who sells his art all over the world. At one time Steve also worked for Sony and animated films such as Star Wars and The Life of Pi which he won an Oscar for. Steve took his love of painting and his skill for animating and blended them into his own invention called, The Moving Painting. The Moving Painting consists of him painting a landscape or other scene, then taking a hi-res digital picture of the painting and importing his painting into an animation system where he brings them to life through a process of painting and animation that takes almost a year to complete. So innovative, his work was featured at the Louvre in Paris in 2022. We are fortunate to see his moving paintings on our screens, his art on our walls and to have had him also design the Tiki Republik logo. Now a Lake Arrowhead local and friend, we are blessed to have his work featured on our walls and on our screens.
Item #16 - #24 - Now for the "Holy Grail" which is our authentic collection of original early 1900's carvings by the Asmat Tribe in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia. Known as master carvers and also cannibals, which makes obtaining their artifacts so rare, we are fortunate to have several on display. You may notice some war & ceremonial shields on the pillars and in between tiki huts. You may also see a war drum and boat prow carvings behind the bar, but the highlight of our bar is the rarest artifact and their most prized possession, the Asmat Tribe Spirit Canoe which sits over the top of our bar. Carved from a single Sago Palm tree, this 24 foot Spirit Canoe is a supernatural vessel and contains several spirits in an open bottom canoe. These canoes are ceremonial carvings designed for a single use. This canoe celebrates the spirits of the recently dead and initiation of young boys into manhood. Called The Bone House Feast (Emak Cem). Crewed by spirits it has no bottom to its hull as spirits do not require a complete hull for their journey. A turtle (Mbu) near the center symbolizes fertility. Behind it is an okom-a dangerous Z-shaped water spirit. The figures gazing down represent menacing water spirits (ambirak) or human-like spirits (etsjo,). The only other known spirit canoe in a private collection resides in the Metropolitan Museum of art in their New Guinea collection. This was collected by Michael Clark Rockefeller before he disappeared on his visit to the Asmat. After swimming ashore from his boat, he was presumably killed after he reached shore. Debate as to if he were killed and cannibalized by the Asmat over taking of the spirit canoe exists. Such a primitive art piece is almost impossible to find, especially due to its size, danger in obtaining and remaining as a single piece.
