davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2023

[Alliecat]

Those are pretty patient pirates!! 
Perhaps it's the lack of weaponry that has prevented them from staging a more dramatic escape.  I don't ex-pect you can do much swashbuckling armed with... Halloween bags?? 

If I recall correctly, when I asked the carvers what wood they were working with, the answers were usually hau, milo, or ōhia (monkeypod).

Guess you got the real deal, while mine is, as the name suggests, just part wood, and mixed with resin.  This made me curious so I googled, and this was interesting: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25508525...dvertiser/
This is bot-quality writing but kind of interesting too: https://discover.hubpages.com/travel/Col...ds-in-Lava
I remember seeing the black ones.  I guess the wood in mine is somehow pulverized as well.

[dargosmydaddy]

Perhaps it's the lack of weaponry that has prevented them from staging a more dramatic escape.  I don't ex-pect you can do much swashbuckling armed with... Halloween bags??  

Lol. Well, between yesterday's picture and today's, Ken seems to have picked up his bag, so maybe the all-important weapon is stashed inside and he's now ready to swash some buckles!

[davidd]

27 February - A Doll A Day 2023:

Free at last, Barbie and Ken quickly learn that freedom is not free after all; ya gotta work for a living!

[davidd]

Guess you got the real deal, while mine is, as the name suggests, just part wood, and mixed with resin.  This made me curious so I googled, and this was interesting: 

Thank you so much for those fascinating links! The Coco Joe's one brought up some fun memories! I'll have more to say about it, but at the moment I'm a bit pressed for time! Fun links, though, thanks!

[Alliecat]

Yaaay, they escaped!!  They look happy.

…maybe the all-important weapon is stashed inside and he's now ready to swash some buckles!

AHH… that must be it! Perhaps it’s a bag of grenades.  

[davidd]

Guess you got the real deal, while mine is, as the name suggests, just part wood, and mixed with resin.  This made me curious so I googled, and this was interesting: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25508525...dvertiser/
This is bot-quality writing but kind of interesting too: https://discover.hubpages.com/travel/Col...ds-in-Lava
I remember seeing the black ones.  I guess the wood in mine is somehow pulverized as well.

Yes, these tikis are carved out of  solid chunks of real wood. The guys doing the carving used to sit on the ground in their stall at the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet or at the International Marketplace, holding a piece of wood between their feet while carving with a chisel and mallet. They would carve the date and "Hawaii" in the carvings as they were purchased, and they'd sign their names if asked. One carver once told me that it was a family business, and as I asked about various carvings on display, he said which ones he had done, and which were by his cousin, and which were done by his uncle.

Several more carved wood tikis that I purchased while I lived in Hawaii can be seen in this old pic from my Flickr account:

For a number of years, it became something of a tradition to add one new carving to my collection each year, usually when friends or relatives were visiting and we went to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet or to the International Marketplace.


I also have some of the "resin" types in various sizes... including a Genuine Coco Joe's key fob!

I loved those Coco Joe links! It was so much fun to learn a bit about Coco Joe's souvenirs.

Way back when I was a tyke, probably nine years old, maybe less, my grandmother and my aunt took a trip to Hawaii, and my grandmother brought back small souvenirs for all the grandkids. Her gift to me was a small black "lava rock" key ring shaped like a tiki head, with yellow plastic "jewel" eyes. I remember the tag said "Ka-Imi: Hawaiian God of Wisdom." Stamped in the back of the little plastic (that's what it felt like) figure was the circular Coco Joe's logo.

When I got older, old enough to have need of a key ring, I actually carried my keys on Ka-Imi for a number of years, figuring I could use the wisdom. At some point the figure picked up a pretty good sized chip, at which point I stopped carrying it. I'm sure I still have that gift from my grandmother somewhere among my treasures; I'm just not entirely sure where.

The "resin" type figurines and sculptures, ranging from keyring size to quite large, are still common in gift shops and swap meet stalls in Hawaii, both in "wood" colors and in the black "lava rock" color. If the articles you linked to are accurate, Coco Joe's is long gone, having gone out of business in the 1980s.

https://mytiki.life/tiki-bars/coco-joes

I have as of yet not found any information as to why Coco Joe's folded up shop. Did it become impossible for a Hawaii-based manufacturing business to compete with lower-priced imported souvenirs? Did the founder pass away? The link above says: "Gallacher [ founder of Coco Joe's ] was honored by the U.S. Small Business administration as the Hawaii Small Businessman of the Year in 1973 at which time he had 50 employees producing 400 designs."  It seems odd that less than a decade later a company of that size would be out of business. But then, Hilo Hattie closed up shop -- twice -- while I was living in Hawaii, after having been a staple of the island tourism trade for over 40 years.

https://beatofhawaii.com/what-went-wrong...lo-hattie/

The Hilo Hattie name continues today, I see, with an online presence.


Lots of info about Coco Joe's, other resin pieces, and all things "tiki" on the Tiki Central forum... if you're looking for a non-doll forum to join:

https://tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic_id=17776

I think I set up an account there once. Let me see if I can find my log-in info. Yeah, I still have an account, under the name "davidd," just like here. I've never posted there much. Those people are serious about their Polynesian pop culture!

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28 February - A Doll A Day 2023:

Temporary Disassembly

One of the Pinky Street gang oversees the temporary (we hope) disassembly of the surf shop diorama to allow for some necessary structural reinforcement.

[Alliecat]

Another job for the Smart Dolls? Pinky looks a little disappointed.
I will also have to come back later and comment more on the tikis.

[davidd]

Another job for the Smart Dolls? 

I'm becoming too predictable.

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1 March - A Doll A Day 2023:

Trivia Sets Up a Miniature Diorama She Uses for her Doll Photography Projects

[Alliecat]

I'm becoming too predictable.

Haha, well, you do make it look like they do all the work.... 
Cute pic... it's fun seeing them playing with the smaller dolls.

I'd like to have gone more than once to the Aloha Flea Market.  As it was, I recall going out on TheBus and buying an extra bag there to tote all my souvenirs home in!    It would've been fun to watch and talk with the carvers at the swap meet.  Yours are cool.  And it would be a fun tradition to add one a year.
I'm also perplexed as to what happened to Coco Joe's, and why, if it was out of business, I got my Kanaloa in 1995.  Although someone on that forum thinks it was later than in the article, and a quick skim through the first page suggests someone was making copies from molds. 
Kanaloa's sticker says he allows one to endure hardship and misfortune, and promises eternal happiness.  I guess I thought the God of Eternal Hope was a good investment.
...maybe I need to shake him or something...?
That forum looks like quite a rabbit-hole of reading... unfortunately I can't take a longer look yet.

[davidd]

I'm also perplexed as to what happened to Coco Joe's, and why, if it was out of business, I got my Kanaloa in 1995.  

Yes, I was a bit confused when I saw references to later versions of Coco Joe's products. Some collectors claim the molds were purchased at a bankruptcy auction in the 1990s, and that later versions are not finished as nicely. As with so many mass produced "ephemeral" products, the history is apparently difficult to track down with any certainty.
The photos of the original Coco Joe's location in Punahu'u were interesting.

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2 March - A Doll A Day 2023:

Janie looks in on Triv's dollhouse project:

[Alliecat]

It’s so funny to see the “small“ diorama with the bigger dolls, in comparison to the usual shots with its inhabitants.

I remember stopping in Punalu’u (HOW does dictation get that right and get so much else of what I say wrong??) and walking on the scritchy black sand.


...Also, going back to the poetry-bot thing... I hope you can see this.  It's supposedly a bot's first page of a Christmas movie script.  It's quite hilarious.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=526767569471443&set=a.457926979688836

[davidd]

3 March - A Doll A Day 2023:

[Alliecat]

Haha, their book club is fun! I had a chuckle.
...wait, so then he wrote another book called "I AM Spock"...??
There's a doctor or two in the extended universe.

[davidd]

...wait, so then he wrote another book called "I AM Spock"...??

Yes, he did. 

When he wrote the first book, he was still trying to be a "serious actor" and avoid being typecast.

Later, I suspect he realized the real money was in merchandising and riding the wave of Star Trek nostalgia.

Eventually, he went back to portraying Spock in Star Trek movies -- even in one of the ones where the character had been re-cast with a younger actor... who meets his older self.

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4 March - A Doll A Day 2023:

Behind the Scenes: Setting Up a Photo Story Scene

[davidd]

5 March - A Doll A Day 2023: