Tikied off

Posted by: spacecog

You know that column in The Onion, "The Outside Scoop," in which a perpetually clueless dork attempts to deliver the hottest gossip? Sometimes I think the entire Reader is written by that guy. Take Richard Knight’s Our Town feature on TIKI CULTURE, that exciting trend that’s sweeping the nation – er, that swept the nation, sort of, quite some time ago -- in which young hipsters semi-ironically drink girly drinks and listen to Martin Denny while wearing retro threads!

But wait! It seems the subject of the piece, Tiki enthusiast James Teitelbaum, used to play keyboards in Pigface and Ministry! Which would be weird and ironic – an industrial music guy who loves Martin Denny? – except for the fact that people like ex-Throbbing Gristle-ites Chris and Cosey were making exotica-tinged music something like two decades ago.

Alas, that isn’t even the stupidest thing about this piece. There are at least two things stupider.

Number one: Though the piece is ostensibly about Teitelbaum’s monthly "Tabu Tiki Night," our trusty Reader correspondent didn’t even bother going to one before writing his piece; he just looked at the web site. "Judging from the photos of past events that he’s put online," Knight reports, "Teitelbaum has successfully attracted a healthy subculture of women with a taste for vintage dresses and men who feel at home in floral print shirts and fake-flower leis."

"Judging from the photos...." How lazy is that!?

It’s as if Rosenbaum started reviewing movies unseen, based only on looking at the movie posters. Actually, in his particular case it might be an improvement. But you get the point.

The other stupidest thing: the quote from Tiki King Teitelbaum at the end of the piece, warning us that "it’s really important to keep in mind that it’s just a silly little pop culture thing that I and a few thousand other people get a kick out of. As soon as we lose sight of that, it stops being fun."

Consider yourself warned. Beware the curse of the tiki!