00:25My husband's building shelf after shelf and he wants to know when he can stop.
00:30I've heard Finney say the word completist. You're out of your mind.
00:36The growth just continues. It's nuts.
00:40If you base my collection on these prices, it'd be half a million dollars.
00:45But see, you're the, I love the way you just said what, and what Joshua would say is the, you're
00:49the talisman.
00:50You're the, that, the way to go in.
00:53Because the thing is, is that it doesn't work unless it's like the, the idol in like Raiders of the
00:58Last Heart.
00:58Right. Unless you have that piece, none of it makes sense because you have skin in the game, you know,
01:05and it's interesting.
01:06That becomes a complete thing that makes you a complete part of the legacy, no matter what.
01:10Right. So there's amazing place. You mentioned the Maikai, right? Where, where we had the chance to go, right?
01:17We just went.
01:18So this is Mecca. This is a place that can have an $8 million renovation, right?
01:25Yeah.
01:25Imagine what that, you know, it's not a structure. I didn't get until I got there and I realized it
01:30was like, oh, this is just, you know, it's impossible to replicate.
01:34I have 1,250 square feet in Oro Valley, Arizona. How am I going to take on that?
01:39And the answer is by, you know, blazing your own trail, trying to do something that's different, a new look,
01:48a new take.
01:49In this particular case, you know, it was about the mugs. And if so, you know, I wasn't trying to
01:55sort of take on these, these Polynesian palaces are absolutely that, you know, you're not going to go out and
02:02start building the Taj Mahal in your backyard, right?
02:04You just don't. But it doesn't mean you can't add something or, you know, keep pushing out at the culture
02:11a little bit.
02:12You know, I think Steve Jobs said you poke the world and something's going to pop out on the other
02:16side.
02:17But, you know, what's interesting saying that is that people like in Arizona or San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, or even
02:25like Minnesota or because I found tiki places there.
02:28People take ownership of their local elements, you know, or their regional elements.
02:34I mean, I know people who will do road trips all across the Northwest, the Southeast, just to find tiki
02:39rooms, you know.
02:40So you become a destination. You become that journey point, you know, which is a big thing.
02:48Emotional investment in any subculture. People are into it. And, you know, it almost becomes a lifestyle.
02:55So, you know, clearly they feel something at a core level about this sort of thing.
03:02So, yeah, they take it seriously. And, you know, it's sort of a double-edged sword because if you don't
03:08take it seriously or if they smell bullshit in anything of what you're doing.
03:14Yeah. You know.
03:15I'm used to have the F-coms fly around having a camera around all the time.
03:19I tend to fly around.
03:20But see, we're broadcast and we can still bleep out, which is a good thing.
03:25But like the tiki, you know, the average person who comes in might be, oh, this is really cool, you
03:32know, or I've never seen anything like this as well.
03:33Look at all the detail or whatever. But the tiki enthusiast that comes in, that's a higher standard, right?
03:40And so they travel to these places, you know, they're very good natured about it usually.
03:45But because they take it so seriously, you know, I think a couple of the reviews of the film said
03:51it's because, you know, Josh approached the subject matter with sincerity rather than irony.
03:57And that's what we did with the environment.
04:00You know, it was just it didn't matter that it was going months and months over years, you know, and
04:08the associated film, too.
04:09Because what was most important to me is doing something that's real and true and pure to the biggest critic,
04:18which is ourselves.
04:19Something that you should be thinking about in my book from the very beginning is what are you going to
04:24do to the finishes and the decorations that's going to make the room truly transformative?
04:29What is it going to take to bring people and make them forget they're in a parking lot next to
04:37a car wash?
04:39Anybody can open a restaurant.
04:41Here, it's like every little nook and cranny has got something in it that is a tiny element of the
04:49overall experience.
04:50Most of the stuff that's in our bar comes from our house or, you know, from my office, from our
04:55home bar.
04:56I like to call Latitude 29 the biggest home bar in New Orleans.
05:00It should get you by smell.
05:02It should get you by visuals.
05:04It should get you by the sounds that are around you.
05:07And there should be enough eyeball candy to keep you interested if you're by yourself or you're with somebody.
05:12They're usually all completely dark inside and you walk into another world.
05:16You're having a drink, an exotic drink.
05:19The music is wonderful.
05:21And you're discovering these artistic things around in the space at your own leisure.
05:28Authenticity.
05:28You were speaking about authenticity.
05:32Authenticity makes – it's about seeing the truth of the passion that lies in everybody and how you feel like
05:38that.
05:39Like Atomic Chick, you can see how passionate she is, but you can see it across the board.
05:44Like when they hold that mug, the severed head mug, everybody's like, holy crap.
05:48This is – I've been wanting to see –
05:50Yeah, yeah.
05:51I mean, could you talk about finding authenticity?
05:54Yeah.
05:54I mean, you know, the first conversation that Finney and I had over coffee was – she was talking about
06:01this idea about, you know, about a little short film about a bar.
06:04And it was interesting.
06:05And he started to talk about tiki mugs.
06:07And it was like listening to an encyclopedia of knowledge of this subculture.
06:15He knew his stuff, right?
06:17And that drew me in.
06:19That really drew me in.
06:20And so I asked him, can I come over, as I do with any project that I take on, can
06:24I come over before we commit to anything, can I just shoot you?
06:28And let me see how – you're on camera, right?
06:30You know, if it's a documentary, you've got to at least like me, right?
06:33You've got to at least have something interesting about me.
06:35So let me see how you're on camera.
06:36And from that point on, he walked me about his house and mugs everywhere.
06:42He was great on camera.
06:43A lot of that first interview was in the film.
06:45It was like a big part of the film.
06:48But for me, whenever I do take on a project and I'm going to start a film and finish a
06:54film from beginning to end, I really like films that make people feel good.
07:00Like, that's me.
07:02That's the kind of movies that I like to make.
07:04We need those.
07:05What's that?
07:05I think –
07:06We need those.
07:07Yeah, like, it's good to keep them out there, right?
07:10He had an interesting story on the side, personally.
07:14He's a guy that didn't really know where he fit within his family structure.
07:20He's a dreamer, which I love.
07:22And he lost his father not too long prior to the filming of this.
07:28So there was this absence in Finney's life that he wanted to fill, okay?
07:34And he knew he always wanted to do this, build this bar, and he knew that he's been collecting these
07:39things.
07:39And for me, when we talk about authenticity, when we talk about these things, it's about that person that conveys
07:48it to the screen.
07:49I mean, like, there was no BS with him.
07:52Everything that I was getting from him was real.
07:55And so when you're making a film, that's number one, especially a documentary.
08:00Like, you know, you really want to bring people on a journey, and you want those folks to invest, because
08:06you're asking for 96 minutes of their life.
08:08I mean, try asking for one minute of someone's life with a phone next to them.
08:12So I knew with Finney that I was going to get that.
08:16And I knew if we were able to take these two stories between the subculture and Finney's bar, that we
08:23could come up with something very interesting that I think people would find, you know, what's the right word?
08:32I think it's engaging on a certain point where it's like, yeah, the, okay, I understand this guy.
08:40I don't understand his love for Tiki.
08:42But I do understand him.
08:44Yeah, yeah, because I have the same thing, but for 57 Chevys, you know, or I have the friend who
08:51refuses, still pissed his mom because he threw out his baseball cards, right?
08:55But that kind of thing, it's like, if it becomes a story about people, and not just Tiki people, then
09:03there's a universality.
09:05And I think what you're talking about, when you talk about authenticity, you can talk about the authenticity of Tiki.
09:11But I think what Josh was successful in was capturing people's personal authenticity.
09:17And one thing to piggyback on that, because the big challenge for this, just for me personally, is I want
09:24to make something that's not just super niche.
09:28I want something that's going to be interesting to other people.
09:30But number one, number one, when we had our premiere down in Newport Beach, I want to make sure those
09:37folks that I'm representing on that screen are happy with what they're seeing.
09:41I have to be authentic to them, because they gave me their truth, they presented their stories to me.
09:48And we got that from us.
09:49And they trusted you.
09:49They trusted you, yeah.
09:51That's it, that's the thing.
09:52So.
09:53So, yeah, I mean, that's the other, you know.
09:55They did this special glaze for a Hawaiian luau.
09:59It was a single party.
10:00But because this glaze only appeared there, and then it appeared in a book, you don't see them come up
10:05very much.
10:06But there's one that's being auctioned on eBay right now with the starting price at $1,400.
10:11Tiki mugs, they were really like the linchpin to going further and researching about a place that you maybe didn't
10:19know existed before.
10:20We all had these little collections that we loved, and we were finding stuff.
10:25And, oh, wow, this mug is from someplace in Sacramento.
10:28Is that place in Sacramento still exists?
10:30Maybe I'll look them up in the phone book and see if they're still around.
10:33Otto and Sven were having these underground mug parties slash symposiums for just Tiki nerds who were into this stuff
10:44and found each other.
10:46My name is Otto.
10:47I'll be your host for this weekend.
10:51I started the Tiki News January of 1995.
10:54So I had done a mug party right before it to kind of gather some of the people, some of
11:00the artists, some of the people that are going to write articles, some of the collectors of Tiki mugs that
11:04might contribute to it.
11:06So I'll make it like a little zine, you know, a little magazine.
11:08Because it does have that universality.
11:11I mean, me being a fan of the culture doesn't take me away from it, but it also brings me
11:16further into it, and that's the whole big part of it.
11:19And my last question, you guys let you go.
11:21I've gone further than I thought, but it's good to talk about because this is all about discussion.
11:25And that's when you take it to film festivals like Dancing with Films, you have that discussion on the ground.
11:31And I apologize I can't be there for this one.
11:33I'm usually there, but it's running around.
11:35But the last thing has to do with legacy, you know, because the thing is legacy, it can be personal,
11:42but it can be widespread, you know, not just within, as you said, the Tiki thing, but beyond that about
11:48what, you know, societally we're doing.
11:51Could you talk about the importance of legacy?
11:53And obviously with you, Finney, you know, this was so important to you.
11:56It speaks to, obviously, your family and, you know, the fact that your daughter's in it shows that sort of
12:01progression.
12:01But it also the legacy of what it means to have that experience, to have that community, to have that
12:08moment that you go in and you're like, everything floats away.
12:12You know, this is me.
12:14Well, I think, you know, Tiki has had these sort of ambassadors, these people that were sort of, they were
12:22able to bring it to the people.
12:24And, yeah, we talked about Disney, but you had Don Beach and then, you know, Trader Vic and these guys
12:30built empires, but they were really the ones that were responsible for, you know, bringing this through.
12:37And, you know, the mugs are great because in a sense, they're like the breadcrumbs that have been dropped, right?
12:44And so you can go back and you can trace and, you know, we always tend to think that everything's
12:50known.
12:50And now that we have the Internet, you know, it's an AI, it's all powerful or whatever.
12:54But we're still finding stuff, this urban archaeology where, you know, I will still get on and try to find
13:00and trace a lineage back or whatever.
13:02So these were like little pop cultural popcorn being dropped, if you want to use the Brady Tiki reference, right?
13:10So it's that kind of thing.
13:12But you have like Tiki rubs, the fact that you have the molds, that's such a great urban archaeology, but
13:19a passing of a baton that you can't get an AI, you can't get a 3D printing.
13:25That's, you know.
13:27We had a lot of discussions about the, in the digital age, what it's like to have an analog experience.
13:34You know, that's really what a lot of this is about.
13:37It's like something that was physicalized decades ago, right?
13:42And now I do think that there, you know, in a time where we can experience everything, it's just so
13:49amazing, but it's all too, it's on a flat screen, right?
13:53And it's that idea, and I think that it gets back to, okay, I'm going to pull people out of
14:00their, I'm going to go even further.
14:02I'm just not going to pull their mind out.
14:03I'm going to pull their being out of this day to day, right?
14:08Even if it's for two hours.
14:10I mean, when the, I'm not sure the world's in any worse shape than it was before we started this
14:14film, but the perception is that it is.
14:16I mean, now more than ever, escapism is, you know, it's just something, you know, people might say, use a
14:22cocktail to hang on.
14:23This is just sort of an extension of that.
14:25It's like, I'm going to take you, if I can take you out of your world for just a couple
14:28hours so you can take a breather, right?
14:33And just let it all start.
14:34And then, you know, we're still out there.
14:38The real world is still out there.
14:39It'll be there when you get out.
15:05It'll be there when you get out.
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