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Kooper is Outraged...Journalist attacks Tiki and the Tonga Room

koopkooper

Practically Family
Messages
610
Location
Sydney Australia
Hey Tiki Fans...you need to give journalist Chris Roberts a serve over his dismissive comments about Tiki and the Tonga room. Lets show him how important the Tonga Room is !!

Make sure you comment and tell Chris Roberts how you feel about his comments, I am outraged and think that we need to stand up and show this man the amazing Tiki Culture that exists.

At the bottom of the article is a comment section...get to it gang!



http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/10/tonga_room_execution_stayed_do.php






Tonga Room Execution Stayed. Does Anyone Care? by Chris Roberts

Like smoking at work, camel hair coats and a budget surplus, tiki bars are relics of a bygone era, of when Cesar Chavez Street was called Army, when nobody in San Francisco knew what a bike lane was, and organ meat was nothing more than fodder for the cows that we turned into delicious 15-cent hamburgers.




That's why we can't understand the flap over the Tonga Room. Sure, the Fairmont Hotel's tiki bar is... unique, but the hotel wants it out of its ground floor. Now. But this is San Francisco, and the Tiki Lounge was declared historic back in May, meaning all parts of it must be preserved. That didn't help the decision-making ability of the Planning Commission on Thursday, who booted a decision on what to do with the Polynesian Lounge until January 2011.



Evidently, enough people care to bother the Planning Commission with this issue for three hours yesterday. Members of the public issuing comment at public comment were roughly split on the issue, according to reports in our newspapers of record.



"We all know the Tonga Room is about as Polynesian as Hawaiian pizza," said one, according to the Chronicle's food blog. This is true, because Hawaiian pizza was either invented in Canada or in Italy, and either way it has nothing to do with an historic preservation label slapped on postwar kitsch.



Whatever happens to the Tonga Room, it's going to happen somewhere else. The Fairmont's owners reiterated their desire to get the Tonga Room the hell out of its property. (There is a mystery benefactor who has claimed he or she will move the bar in its entirety to an undisclosed location in SF, so there's that.)



So if you want to pay a cover in order to sit underneath a faux bamboo canopy and sip a Singapore Sling, now's the time. In the meantime, you can find us at Trad'r Sam's (shortly before you find us dead from alcohol poisoning), where you get a similar experience for 1/10 of the price.
 

Guttersnipe

One Too Many
Messages
1,942
Location
San Francisco, CA
The best response to that guy was in the comments:

I generally support independent journalism. That said, I am afraid that whatever makes Chris Roberts special is lost on me. I have read the blog and I simply found it to be a smug, vapid, self-satisfied bit of myopic doodling, and not a particularly unique one at that (post-modernism has certainly been done elsewhere). I wouldn't bat an eyelash if this blog were to be discontinued, and I don't think that any of the qualities which truly make the internet special would be diminished in the least if the backup tapes were destroyed.

It's a two way street, and I will leave it at that.
 

Talbot

One Too Many
Messages
1,855
Location
Melbourne Australia
I lament when I see this garbage. Is he being deliberately provocative, or just plain stupid?

The 'Get F#%*ed' school of writing seems like the easy alternative to journalism these days.

Put on some Frank Hunter and pass me a Mai Tai!

T
 

Paisley

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,439
Location
Indianapolis
....I am afraid that whatever makes Chris Roberts special is lost on me. I have read the blog and I simply found it to be a smug, vapid, self-satisfied bit of myopic doodling, and not a particularly unique one at that.... I wouldn't bat an eyelash if this blog were to be discontinued, and I don't think that any of the qualities which truly make the internet special would be diminished in the least if the backup tapes were destroyed.

Throw in eternally angry, and this is exactly how I've always felt about Michelle Malkin's column.

Be that as it may, I'd be very unhappy if my party place were to go the way of the Savoy, but I'd respect the new owner's right to do whatever they wanted to with it. Besides, someone is going to move this whole tiki bar elsewhere.
 

Foofoogal

Banned
Messages
4,884
Location
Vintage Land
Goodness. I had even picked up some Tiki things in case someone needed a fix.

Hopefully it will be moved and saved. What is wrong with people. I loved this response:
-----------------------
Scott says:
Chris Roberts is right. And you know what else we should tear down? The Mission San Francisco de Asis. It's just an old church, and not a very good one at that. Also, can we please bulldoze all these old Victorian buildings. I mean, sure they were OK for your great-grandparents, but what good are they to us now? Cable cars? Give me a break - they're too slow so rip those out too. And who needs the Ferry Building. The clock isn't even digital! And that Coit Tower is an eyesore.
 
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Oh geez! This is probably one of the few places that I actually LIKE in SF. The rain, the dance floor the music on the boat floating in the pond---its great! I hate when these places go away. I still lament the loss of The Lanai for a shopping center. :eusa_doh:
If they do remove it, when are they selling the decorations? I'll take quite a bit of it. It would be great for the cabana and backyard decorations---especially the big statues.:D
 

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