Kate Zambreno

It's difficult to conduct an interview while slurping on a Frozen Bikini--some kind of pink concoction in a big wooden bowl, that the bartender at Rock-a-Tiki on Division Street topped with champagne, although it's mainly loaded with rum. That is, it's difficult to be alert while conducting the interview, especially with the mellow Latin Caribbean sounds coming from the jukebox.

That's the joy of tiki, says James Teitelbaum, self-described "urban archeologist" and author of "Tiki Road Trip: A Guide to Tiki Culture in North America" (Santa Monica Press), as he sips on another goofily named beverage, "Planet of the Apes." "All the classic tiki bars encouraged a tranquil environment. I mean, look around you. The lights in here are low, the music is soft, it's very chill, you're drinking this drink with an umbrella in it and you're basically pretending you're in the South Pacific," says the 35-year-old producer and sound engineer who started frequenting these temples of kitsch twelve years ago, finding that tiki culture combined his interests in mid-twentieth century America and primitive art. "We live in a big, dirty, dangerous, violent world, and ideally you come into a tiki bar and you want to pretend you're on a little island in Tahiti or something. You want to drink a fruity drink, even if you're a man, even if you're a beer guy."

His book, the culmination of his pioneering tikiphile webpage, the Tiki Bar Review Pages (www.tydirium.net), documents 400 tiki bars that are open across the country, and as many that have closed, in order to preserve the history of these classic hangouts. Teitelbaum hasn't been to all of the tiki bars in his book, of course, but "I've been to a lot of them," is all he'll say. The recently opened Rock-a-Tiki ranks high on what Teitelbaum coins the TiPSY factor, an acronym for Tikis Per Square Inch, the hard-to-define measure of authentic clutter for a tiki bar. "First of all, you never run out of things to look at it. You can sit here all night and there's just some object or some thing, something to keep your attention," says Teitelbaum as he cranes his neck to look at the hula dancing lamp or the gaudy tropical monkey painting.

Besides Trader Vic's, Rock-A-Tiki's the only current tiki destination in the city, although there was once a time when there were nine in the Loop alone. But tiki's still thriving on the West Coast, where Teitelbaum just returned from a signing tour, and he says that in the past five years there's been a boom of new tiki bars, with all things retro back in again. "Pop culture likes to recycle itself. I think right now is tiki time."

James Teitelbaum will sign copies of "Tiki Road Trip: A Guide to Tiki Culture in North America" on May 15 at 7:30pm at Rock-a-Tiki, 1942 West Division, (773)384-8454.

(2003-05-07)

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