One of these gang is not like the other…

That’s right folks. That is none other then the rapper himself, Lil Wayne, posing with hotel staff of a local hotel here in deepest farthest Fiji.

When Lil Wayne tweeted his intention of touring the Southern Hemisphere, it was a huge surprise when Fiji was announced as squarely in his sights.

And he was touring with Eminem? It was almost too good to be true. However the somewhat vague nature of the tweet, as well as a lack of additional touring information regarding Fiji, meant that Fiji was probably filed under ‘stopping over for a spot of sun and beaches.’

After what seemed like a quiet few weeks post-announcement, a photo surfaced on Facebook. Shock! Amazement! He actually did drop by, even if was somewhat of a quiet event. All celebrities are in need of a little R ‘n’ R, and Lil Wayne is no different.

However, if he thought that Fiji was merely a stopover, then he is definitely missing out on a golden opportunity to have a little unorthodox fun. Here are 5 things that Lil Wayne should have done while in Fiji:

1) Grog

There’s a strong probability that he has already tried this, and to whoever was the lucky person who served him the first taki, onz. In my head, all celebrities, after passing the passport checkpoint, must partake in at least one bowl of grog, as a mix between pleasing the locals and being able to boast to their friends back at home, ‘I’ve partaken in third world tribal culture!’ For some strange reason, picturing rapper Weezy taking time out of his busy schedule to have a sip of the local juice strikes me as funny, though I’m not too sure why. Maybe it’s because grog is considerably the most un-gangsta juice out there. However, considering the fact that he loves his Fiji Water, kava drunk on the very same shores where Fiji Water is made may be the ultimate trip for him.

2) Get a pic on the beach for his next album cover

Nothing says ‘well traveled gentleman’ better than an album cover which features the white sandy beaches that Fiji is renowned for. Sure it’s not exactly the most gansta of album covers, but consider this: how many rappers out there actually have a beach of any sort on their cover? How many can lay claim to the fact that not only have they been to said beach, but actually went through all the effort to bring their own couch all the way from their childhood home, right onto the calming sounds of the pacific ocean washing up onto a picture perfect shoreline? Not many, if any. As an added bonus, Tourism Fiji could get in on the act, with billboards advertising how much street cred Fiji has, now that there’s an album with their beach featured prominently on the cover. “It’s Paradise Bitches” is a real winner. Perhaps “It’s Paradise Bocis” for the local market, but that is still being focus group tested.

3) Get mentioned in the papers for their violent swear-filled lyrics

Aaahh the ol’ controversy mill. Guaranteed to sell you papers, and at the very least, please your bible-thumping parents, controversy over anything and everything pop culture related is the knee jerk response some locals love to bring out whenever confronted with something ‘new’. The last time the Fiji media ‘highlighted’ a performer’s ‘suicidal lyrics’, poor Sean Kingston had to defend himself while simultaneously trying to look cool.

Of course, should Lil Wayne ever come under the same fire as Sean Kingston did, the ‘looking cool’ part would be automatically taken care of. As to his defense about lyrics being ‘lewd, explicit and suggestive’?

‘I don’t even know how to rap’.

Sounds legit.

4) Make a song with Laisa Vulikoro

Everyone knows Laisa Vulakoro. Here, she even has her own wikipedia page. Known locally as the Vude Queen, and somewhat less fondly as the singer for that brain aneurysm-inducing jingle ‘Suncourt! Aha! Aha aha!’, she has performed far and wide, proudly taking Fiji to distant shores with her vude music. According to her Wikipedia page, she has performed with Jimmy Barnes of Cold Chisel, a momentous occassion in itself, but one that would pale in comparison to the prospect of doing a R&B single with none other than Time’s ‘Best Rapper Alive’, Lil Wayne? Imagine the possibilities. A Vude-HipHop collab, the first of its kind in Fiji, or even the Pacific. Possible song titles could be ‘Never Get Enuf’ of dat Taki’, ‘Isa Noqu Bu’ and ‘Au Mili’.

5) Perform at a nightclub. Preferably Whistling Duck.

Most aspiring musicians go through hell to get their craft out there. Starting out in crappy, cramp, damp, badly lit clubs and bars, with patrons that’ll guarantee your daily diet of broken bottles and last nights leftovers, it’s the lowest of the low in terms of performance venues. But, as they say, ‘steel is forged from fire’, and (hopefully) from here you can only go up. By experiencing the worst humanity has to offer, you’ll be able to take anything that life throws at you later on. And in Fiji, no other bar has a reputation as low, or as scary, as Whistling Duck. Situated at the edge of Civilisation, Nausori’s claim to booze, brawls and caged DJs lies within Whistling Duck’s oft tested walls. And here is where Lil Wayne could test his steely resolve. Not only will he have to deal with an unruly crowd of village proportions, but he’d have to win the masses who are used to shallow remixes of vude/hip hop mash-ups. Sure, he’s proved he’s the man. But it wouldn’t hurt to engage in a little edgy venue now and then.

I had the hardest time trying to figure out an introduction to this article. Trying to describe what exactly is a taki without taking into consideration its scope and influence on the people of Fiji is risky, least of all un-patriotic. I tried all sorts of introductions, most of which failed straight away such as “Taki is as Fijian as the mosquitoes on your leg and the kani on your arms.” ; “You will always find things in Fiji – Smiles, coconut trees and a taki.” Rather then expose my substantially under developed ability to pad out introductions, I will instead start off simple.

The good old taki.

Taki, a phrase uttered many a time in Fiji, is Fijian for “serve the drink!”, and is usually associated with drinking grog. It can however be applied to any other drinking situation where the drink is being shared in a group, just like grog. Besides grog, the taki principle is applied to drinking alcohol in a group, either at home around a carton or two, or at the clubs, with a jug. While beer is the more common form of drink to be used in a taki situation, it’s not uncommon to taki other drinks as well such as coke and rum etc. As long as the drink is alcoholic in nature, the taki method serves its purpose well.

If you are a local, chances are you are already familiar with doing the taki, either through grog, or beer, or usually both, and so this article would be old news. However, if you are new to the drinking scene, or were a goody two shoes till you got coerced into drinking by sneaky friends, then fear not, the taki system isn’t all that difficult to get into.

The Stuff

To initiate a taki session, you’ll need:

Taki Master: Mind you, there may be other words used to describe such a position, but for all intents and purposes, ‘taki master’ or in its shortened form for this article, ‘TM’ is the person who is responsible for the taki.

Alcohol: Of course. Beer, Rum/cola mix, homebrew. However you call it, if it has enough of a kick to make you bring on the good times, then by all means taki it. Alcohol could either be served straight from the bottle, or from a jug as commonly seen in the nightclubs.

Taki glass: A typical taki glass should not be too big that filling it 3/4 up with beer would result in a half empty bottle, and not too small that you can fit 3 of it in a shot glass. Glass is preferred, as plastic cheapens the thrill. Of course personal preference could say otherwise, but glass is usually the norm.

Washback cup: It happens. You serve a glass, when it comes back, there’s a tiny bit left over that you’re not likely to share with anyone else (unless you hate everyone else. More on that later…). A washback cup is used after every taki where you pour the reminder into, then continue with the round. Sure you could simply empty it onto the floor (which I do now and then) but a washback cup is so much more…classy.

The Taki

The Taki Master (TM) is appointed either by a self vote (‘Mai I taki’) or a group vote (‘Vacava you taki?’). After the alcohol has been acquired, it is now a simple task of serving it out to your group of friends. To taki, pour about half a glass of beer and hand it out. When the glass comes back, empty the washback into the washback cup, fill the glass again and pass it out. Rise and repeat until the whole group has had their fill.

The order in which you circulate the drinks is entirely up to you. However, to ensure that nobody has been missed (though more often then not you’d be notified by a cry of ‘Oi! You missed me!’) a circular order is recommended, starting off with the person next to you, and ending with you.

After the round has been finished, there’s a waiting time, usually to let the served alcohol do its thing. The initiation of the next round depends on who calls for it, either by a thirsty member of the party, or the TM themselves. Starting the next serve is done by simply saying ‘TAKI’.

Bear in mind:

• When you are doing the taki, note that you decide the speed to which the group as a whole gets drunk. While various other factors may somewhat skew the end result (an alcoholic in the group for example), the general idea in taki is for everyone to get with the drinks together. Therefore the two speeds of taki are: a ‘slow’ taki is when there is a long waiting time in between rounds, and a ‘fast’ taki being the exact opposite, with little or sometimes no breaks in between takis, a tactic adopted either at the beginning of the session, or whenever you just want everyone to get fucked as soon as possible.
• As the TM, respect is in order for your fellow drinking buddies. If someone asks to be excused from the  taki rounds by either not drinking or simply preferring to drink their own drink, let them be. The same goes for requests for either a lesser amount of drink or missing the current round. Common sense yes, but a tact which is easily forgotten during the more drunken stages of taki.
• Full glass takis are usually frowned upon, and are generally reserved for the person who came late to the party or for that special someone who loses at whatever drinking game you were playing.
• The bigger the group, the faster the taki needs to be. Because it takes awhile for everyone to get their taki, in a big group, the waiting time for each person’s taki is increased exponentially, so a smaller break between each taki round ensures speedier delivery.

Smiley kid ca saraga

Remember when you were a kid?

The good ol’ days when you didn’t give two cents about what other people thought of the hole in your shirt, when cartoons in the afternoon were the most looked forward to hours aside from school lunch hour and visits to the shop with 10 whole cents, when you were convinced that your current group of friends were going to be with you forever, when you absolutely knew your class teacher was either the bestest best teacher ever, or was most certainly the cruelest demon ever to walk the earth unchallenged by demon hunting heroes that you gleaned off from the comics that you swiped off your neighbour?

I recently had a run-in with nostalgia a few days ago, when, during a lunch session with a few of my workmates, I happen to come across a popular, I’m not quite sure how to describe this, but for the moment I’ll settle for ‘silly kids poem’.

The chance conversation centred around who was going where, when someone said, “Where you gang all going?”

“Suva,” was the reply.

At that moment, most probably without thinking, my fijian workmate, his eyes lit with that familiar glow of Deja Vu, launched into a tirade of sentences that started one after the other, each sentence continuing on the previous statement with a question, and weaved its way through a jumble of nonsense that culminated in the arrival to the very word that set off the whole verbal fiasco. Suva.

For the sake of keeping nostalgia alive, and for future reference, here is the poem in its entirety. This poem works as a back and forth between two people, and almost always starts off with the conversation having had the word “Suva” mentioned. Note that while this is the version that I heard and am familiar with, you may have a slightly different version in your head, or maybe not.

To start off, someone has to start with the opener:

Fire vei? (Where are you going?)

Suva

Suva cava? (cava – what?)

Suva City

City cava?

Sitiveni (english name for steven)

Veni cava?

Venikau (pencil? Not too sure on this word)

Kau cava?

Kau Ba

Ba cava?

Barewa (uro)

Rewa cava?

Rewa Daily

Daily cava?

Daily Post

Post cava?

Post Fiji

Fiji cava?

Fiji Times

Times cava?

Times 2

2 cava?

2  SUVA!

If you were a child of the 70s, 80s or even 90s, tell me you didn’t just read that and not feel a pang of nostalgia creep up to the corner of your eyes. If not, it’s never too late to start learning it

Its official.

As of this week, Fiji, as well as the rest of the South Pacific, is – I hesitate to use the word officially, now designated as “Bulawood”, in reference towards our common goal of marketing the South Pacific’s viability as a movie making venue to the rest of the world, India not included. That’s because India a.k.a. Bollywood a.k.a. the original ‘B-wood’ community already knows about Fiji being another exotic destination to film in other than the other 1st world countries that they’re already familiar with.

But, questions the street going, run-of-the-mill Alipate, what does such an event have in beneficial terms to your average Tomasi, Jone and Panapasa? A question that is rightfully asked, and shall be answered here “Failed Paradise” style.

By going the 5 points way we are being hip, cool and up to date with the internet blogging scene, since every blog has to have a list, in some sort of excuse or another.

1) Grog will be the official Sponsored Drink of the Stars

Hollywood is the home of product placement and endorsement. You can’t watch a movie without inadvertently seeing a product been used that was paid for to be seen with your gullible eyes. In Fiji, we all know what that’ll be.

By the time Fiji has become a liable place for filming, Chaudry would have already destroyed what little of a bottled water economy we had going on, and Grog would have taken over, a giant monolith of conglomerate proportions, with sponsored rugby teams, break dance competitions, and most importantly, product placement in all the movies that are filmed in Fiji.

2) Movies will be released first on dvds through Comsol, then everywhere else

Source: www.images-amazon.com

Comsol has gained a reputation for being the local hub of all copyright evil, and in the eyes of the repressed, will only go from strength to strength. With their $1 dvds, rapid growth ensures, and the company begins to buy out all the other video stores around the country, becoming the biggest movie dealership in Fiji. There is nothing, reel or related, that doesn’t go through Comsol Headquarters first. So big is their influence, that a deal is struck with Movie companies who have invested in Fiji. All locally produced big budget films are to be released first through Comsol branches Fiji-wide, before being distributed throughout the rest of the world. Its power is so absolute, that the Pirate Bay houses several of its backup servers in one of their buildings.

3) We will have our local version of Shortland Street

source: www.francino.com

The staple diet of every proper housewife, wide-eyed teenager and unsupervised child, Shortland Street is Fiji’s most popular Soap Opera, with Fiji One News following closely. And with the advent of Bulawood, it would only be a matter of time before our very own version of Shortland Street would make its debut here on the local airwaves. With weekly scripts approved by the Methodist Church, “Kakase Korner” would go on to be the biggest local show, where themes of love, betrayal and the occasional rugby game are thrown into the mix and both church and politics play a heavy hand in the lives of the silver screen stars.

4) Food will be served at all cinemas, with an exclusivity towards BBQ

source: www.onebadwheel.com

Movie goers have ravenous appetites that stand toe to toe with the most zombie of zombies, and when it comes the locals, do you think a paltry paper bag of popcorn and a kiddie size coke cup is going to satisfy them? Hell no! Damodar Brothers would recognise this with dollar signs ringing in their eyes. Because of their monopoly over cinemas fiji wide, it was easy to allow the BBQ sellers in, and eventually, it becomes a fine Fijian family tradition to spend a Saturday afternoon munching on roasted chicken, slightly stale cassava, and oodles of onion while cheering the latest action hero on.

5) Serevi will be an Action Movie Star

You know this had to happen. Deep down inside, if you looked hard enough, you know that this was in the making. Serevi is too cool to just be given a hero’s welcome, a coach title and an appearance in tv adverts. No. The only way for him to go down in memory lane as a titan is to be imortalized as a movie star. And not just some whiny, heart strings biography, but a full on out guns blazing, body pieces flying, explosions aflame, and don’t forget the obligatory girl in trouble. Every action movie needs one to make up for the lack of a script. Though with Serevi at the helm, who needs a script? Armed with his winning smile, his deft hands and that ungodly goose step, every movie that stars him is a cinema packer, BBQ food and all.

It’s going to be a fun future for us all.

source: eric.knepperonline.com

Apparently, the picture was from a website for the Peace Corps Volunteers to Fiji and Tuvalu. They were celebrating a reunion back in the US, and of course, grog was a must.

I’m pleasantly surprised that these guys were grogging away far from kava’s home of origin. It’s always great to see our Fijian influence reach far and wide.

As for the picture, I’ll let the photo caption say it all:

NOTICE: Drinking grog around children may be hazardous to their toys. This was the mishap at Alex Feltus’ reunion that I was referring to in my letter. At least the Ken doll kept his clothes on….

Ken sure does look like he’s enjoying himself. Though if he were to try the same stunt here for sure as hell he’ll get his ass kicked all the way from here to Nausori.

…Highlands.