"We tell ourselves stories in order to live." 

Joan Didion wrote these words in 1968. She was my favorite author, and she died late last year, just before Christmas. In spite of an over half-decade gap, there is a certain wisdom and truth that ring true in Didion's words today. My reverence may seem peculiar, coming from the head bartender of something as ostentatious and gauche as a tiki bar— Didion made a career out of her dissection of culture from an alienated and almost scholarly point of view. But the brilliance of Didion was not in her judgment but the lack of it: she could observe and report not from a statement of judgment but a naked brevity of experience before her. And in spite of her seeming detachment from what she reported on, Didion was, at heart, a romantic: she was ravenously drawn to the metaphor at the heart of every story she covered. This makes Didion's assessment that we "look for the sermon in the suicide" not an indictment, but an unmistakable admission of the human condition.

People enjoy narratives. People enjoy escapes.

When Vikki and myself stepped off the plane in Palm Springs, we immediately entered into a narrative. We were no longer back in the snow-swept plains of Cincinnati, Ohio – where I had moved to from San Francisco less than a year ago – we were in The West.

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner formulated his grand thesis of the Frontier, and thus the West. The West, since his proclamation over one hundred years ago, had proven to be fertile grounds for innovation. When the Pioneer Spirit which drove the pursuit of gold found its stopping point at the Pacific Ocean, imagination spilled outwards and upwards.  And there truly is no greater artifact of the Pioneer Spirit than Disneyland, where we eventually found ourselves. But I suppose that's getting ahead of the narrative.

Palm Springs is an anomaly— the sort of mystic one which could only be created within a coastal state almost entirely devoid of water. The community of Palm Springs is not only healthy but prosperous— new the trek from the gate to our pick-up was almost entirely outside, surrounded by stifling picturesque stucco buildings and pristine desert landscapes. It was the daring alternate to every lonely trip through Utah on I-80, a city which dared you to compare it to Wendover or Elko in its isolation and nearly Cuban in its timelessness. We spent few serene moments in Palm Springs—  it was but an appetizer.

A quick transition to Anaheim plunged us into the jugular of our trip. I was able to link with a few of my friends from my prior residence in the Golden State, and the first night around Orange County was demarcated by rough and raw immersion to the technocratic solutions to the area: the best tiki bar in the state being within a theme park's hotel – an old Googie architecture McDonald's now serving tacos – an orange packing plant hosting an indoor food market. Yet none of these observations are damning or indicting – quite the contrary.  The extraordinary reigns.

A day spent in Disneyland requires no further elaboration, or at least should not. You won't find me a contrarian, and as someone who spent many happy childhood memories within the park, it's difficult to describe objectively. And yet, for all of my initial skepticism of the recently incorporated IPs with the park, I was pleasantly surprised. Galaxy's Edge does not have the cheap application and shoddy craftsmanship of a quick cash grab; instead, a richly immersive and decorated experience surrounds you at every end. The food is strange – eat it. The drink is whimsical – enjoy it.

As a Tiki bar, we are beholden to an esoteric foundation. Donn Beach died in 1989 and was buried under a name that wasn't his own – "Trader" Vic Bergeron never visited Polynesia until he'd long since established an empire of kitsch chain restaurants. Steve Crane was a failed actor who opened The Luau off the fabrication that he was heir to a tobacco fortune, rather than a bum from small town Nowhere, Indiana. The aftermath will always be primary to the banality of the present.

And if this, too, seems a critique, it is not. Rather, it's an admission of the human condition which drives Hospitality. We find ourselves professional wrestlers in an era where kayfabe is exposed, or magicians in a post-Penn & Teller era. In spite of this, we crave release and we demand escape. I do not wish to use this blog post to measure the marigolds at Disneyland or spoil the narrative of The Nest [which is an experience worth the price of a trip to Los Angeles all on its own]. I don't wish to extemporize on the wonder a coworker of mine can find in seeing Mickey Mouse-shaped cinnamon toast or regurgitate the fantastic tales told to me by Mike Buhen while standing out front the Tiki-Ti on a Thursday night as he smokes a cigar. Rather, I hope to reaffirm the principles we set out to fulfill when Tiki Tiki Bang Bang was opened: that we could offer an immediate escape from the realities of life and offer a soporific alternative, even if for an hour or two, where the world is dominated by leisure and abundance not unlike that recounted in the old folk tunes.

Didion's assessment of the human condition was not only correct, it was pretty close to Donn Beach's famous proclamation: "If you cannot go to paradise, I'll bring it to you."  The stories we tell ourselves in order to live can be found all around us, but in an increasingly post-modern and meta-discursive world, the sincerity of the Tiki bar has never been more important. We crave escape— we demand escape.  And through the rich history of the uniquely American institution of the Tiki bar, we can fabricate that paradise to be as real to us as it was to those in the mid-20th Century when the craze took hold.  

Living is compulsory. But the stories that come with it are as well

Special thank you to you Mike Buhen Sr. and Jr at TIKI TI.; Marie King and the TONGA HUT staff; Kelly Merell, Jeff Garrison, and the staff at TRADER SAM’S; STRONGWATER in Anaheim; Romin Rajan; and the staff of THE REEF and BOOTLEGGER TIKI in Palm Springs for the warm welcome to Southern California.

Cheers!

The Skipper and Trader Vikki

View the PHOTO GALLERY FROM THE TRIP!