Ah, Rarotonga
A missive from an actual Royal personage
From: Crown Prince Jonah Fa’auigaese, Archduke of Makiavelli, King-in-Waiting (Still), Big Kahuna (1st Class with Coconut Clusters)
To: James Griffin, Honorary Member of the Friendly Friends of Fe’ausi (3rd Class), ONZM
Dear Hey James Writer Guy,
Bulofa, my dear departed friend from whom I have been apart for too long!
Bulofa, my comrade in the struggle and the fight to bring Fe’ausi’s version of truth to a world not ready for such truthfulness!
Bulofa, bulofa, bulofa!
James, it seems like an eternity since we stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the TV barricades making our groundbreaking documentary series Diplomatic Immunity. What stories we told, cut from the rich tapestry that was everyday life in the Auckland consulate of a small Pacific nation, oppressed by the narrow-mindedness of our colonial protectors/oppressors.
But now that things like “journalism” and “news” are dead, and the boundaries between fact and fiction have all been eradicated, maybe it is time for our comeback, with a series totally all my own idea, called Welcome to Makiavelli.
In this series we persuade two Hollywood big-shots to pour millions of their box-office dollars into Fe’ausi’s struggling underwater hockey team, in the hope that they can rise to the top of the All-Pacific Underwater Hockey League. Or, in the case of some of our players, to rise to the top of the pool without someone having to dive in and rescue them. If you have email addresses for Timothee Chalamet and Denzel Washington that would be very helpful.
But all these TV dreams are not why I am reaching out to you, my friend. No, I am here because a little bird told me that you have recently been on a holiday to the wonderful Pacific wonderland that is Rarotonga.
Actually the “little bird” was a spy satellite we co-own with our new Chinese friends, but that’s not really important right now.
No, what is important right now is that your presence in Rarotonga might align with our presence in Rarotonga.
Not that we have a “presence” you understand.
Ah Rarotonga. Where the choices facing the balangi tourist are simple. Do I swim in the lagoon? Or do I swim in the resort pool? How soon is too early to start drinking cocktails? Oh, what a joy it is to see all these balangi visitors arrive a pasty shade of off-white-sort-of-grey, then turn themselves red like saveloys by the time they leave a week later.
Ah, Rarotonga. When I think of that jewel of the Pacific, strangely I often think of the many roosters of Rarotonga. Roosters who have no sense of time, when it comes to the loud crowing, be it dawn or dusk or in the middle of the night. Ah, what fun the roosters of Rarotonga are when it comes to their jolly japes of keeping the humans awake with their piercing proclamations of male dominance. As you know Fe’ausi is known as the Land of a Thousand Sayings (Not All of Them as Pithy as They Could Be) and in Fe’ausi we have a saying about the blessed but stupid rooster who crows in the middle of the freaking night. It goes: “Winner, Winner, Coq au vin dinner.”
Ah, Rarotonga. When I next think of that little black pearl of an island, plopped into the middle of the vastest of vast oceans, I think of their many many scooters. We do not have scooters in Fe’ausi anymore. We used to have them, but we found they divided the young people of the nation into Mods and Rockers. And after many beach fights, where the greasy Rockers would slap the fashionably-dressed Mods with their black jandals, a hue and cry went up about how easily impressionable the youth of Fe’ausi were, when exposed to weird balangi fads.
So our beloved King, the Vastness of Sea and Sky and the Mountain Who Blocks Out the Sun, decided to see for himself what the scooter fuss was about by riding one. A short time later it took three of our strongest men to remove the scooter.
After that scooters were banned – along with black jandals. Now, instead of forming scooter-based tribes, the young people of Fe’ausi have formed EV tribes – the Teslas versus the Ioniqs. It is mayhem, but a much quieter mayhem so no-one really minds because they are all at home watching Netflix in their home cinemas.
Which reminds me that another idea I have for a great documentary series we could make together is called Drive to Arrive. In this series we would bring famous F1 drivers to Fe’ausi and film them as they drive from, say, their hotel to the bank to check their huge bank balances. If you have Lewis Hamilton’s email address that would be good.
Ah, Rarotonga. With your interesting banking systems and fiscal opportunities. But that’s not a story for now.
Actually it is a story for now, because the reason we have the whole spy satellite thing that happened to track your entire vacation (did you really need a starter and a main at Antipodes on Wednesday night?) is that we are thinking of buying Rarotonga.
Just between you and me, my balangi friend, having made so much money by selling the otherwise useless out-lying atolls of Fe’ausi to tech billionaires looking for places to launch their giant penis rockets, we are now looking for countries to buy, in which to stash all that cash.
Ah, Rarotonga.
Again, just between you and me and your sunburnt shoulders, what we are thinking is that after we buy Rarotonga we will build a brilliant stadium like the one they’re never going to build on Auckland’s waterfront. Then we get Taylor Swift to do a residency at the stadium for a year or three. Three shows a week. Fly the crowd in, take all their money, fly them out again. Rinse and repeat. Cannot fail. Maybe we can even make a TV documentary series about it. So if you have Taylor Swift’s or Travis Kelce’s email, that would be good. I know all you balangi types like to hang together.
Anyway, lovely catching up with you again, my pale/saveloy-tinged compadre. Good luck there in Aotearoa, with your broken media industry and your weird three-cornered government who hate each other. Fun times ahead.
But remember, no matter how bad things get, as we say in Fe’ausi: “For every cloud with a silver lining there are more clouds right behind that cloud, often without any lining at all because they are just clouds.”
Not one of our greatest sayings, I admit, but you get my point.
Hugs and kisses,
J Bear