What a Long Strange Trip it's Been

Namaste Jesus

Namaste Jesus

Praise the Lord and Enjoy the Chai
Messages
3,923
Reaction score
1,298
Points
108
Location
Between Celestial Planes
Steve asked me to start a thread based on how Aussie and I met. I don't know if anyone will be interested, but many years ago he and I shared a cab ride in Fiji from Lautoka to Suva. In Fiji, taxis are like buses. They pick up as many paying passengers as the car will hold and off they go. On this trip, beside the driver, there was me, one of my brother-in-laws, 2 rather large Samoans and Aussie.

Lautoka to Suva is a long ride so it's customary to take a break half way in Sigatoka. We all headed to the pub, while our driver refueled. Aussie picked up a pool cue and challenged one of the Samoans to a friendly game. I didn't know him at the time, but I got a big kick out of his playing style. He seemingly knew not one damn thing about the game. There he was hitting the ball as hard as he could no matter how close his shot was to the pocket. A couple of times the ball flew right off the table!

The Samoan slyly suggested they play for money. After a few games, Aussie suddenly got the hang of things and was landing nearly every shot. Before long, much to the dismay of the Samoan, Aussie had accumulated quite a few Fiji dollars from him.

Long story short, things turned ugly and the Samoan was about to run Aussie through with his pool cue! Now, I didn't know Aussie from Adam, but I did know that if he managed to get himself killed, I wasn't going to get to Suva. So, I tapped the Samoan gentleman on the shoulder, I could barely reach it and as he turned I popped him with a left hook sucker punch! He went down like a ton of bricks. As Aussie likes to say, we've been mates ever since.

I guess, if anyone is interested, I or Aussie could elaborate on our friendship. Hopefully he won't mind. I can't really tell you why we hit it off though. We just do, both personally and professionally. Kindred spirits as it were.
 
Last edited:
Namaste Jesus said:
Now, I didn't know Aussie from Adam, but I did know that if he managed to get himself killed, I wasn't going to get to Suva.
Click to expand...

I appreciate you not sugarcoating the truth of the story :-D

I think that's a great account. How long ago did this fateful day occur?
 
And in those 15-16 years, have you ever played Aussie in pool? ;)
 
I remember Aussie mentioning that he spent some time in the US. Was that during the time that you two know each other? How often have you met in person since that initial meeting in Fiji? I'm just thinking of the difficulties of staying in touch in the pre-internet age, especially over such a far distance.
 
StevePame said:
I remember Aussie mentioning that he spent some time in the US. Was that during the time that you two know each other?
Click to expand...
Yup, that's actually why he moved here for a while. We went into business together making short films.
StevePame said:
How often have you met in person since that initial meeting in Fiji?
Click to expand...
There for a while we made annual trips to Fiji. He and I both have family there. Wedding shoots were our usual excuse to raise hell!
StevePame said:
I'm just thinking of the difficulties of staying in touch in the pre-internet age, especially over such a far distance.
Click to expand...
It's much easier now with the internet, but oddly, that's when we lost touch for a while. Our business tanked, his dad took ill, my health issues, his, yadda, yadda. Then, out of the blue he finds this forum and likes something I posted, not realizing it's his old mate. Unfortunately I had stopped posting then. For no apparent reason I started posting again and something or the other I said made Aussie realize who it was. Lots of catching up and reminiscing later and here we are.
 
Namaste Jesus said:
Then, out of the blue he finds this forum and likes something I posted, not realizing it's his old mate. Unfortunately I had stopped posting then. For no apparent reason I started posting again and something or the other I said made Aussie realize who it was.
Click to expand...

I assumed that you had found the forum and then told Aussie about it. 'Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, he walks into mine....' What a small world.
 
StevePame said:
I assumed that you had found the forum and then told Aussie about it. 'Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, he walks into mine....' What a small world.
Click to expand...
Things like that happen to us all the time. During our shared taxi ride Aussie told me about a little Indian girl who kept bugging him in the Lautoka town district, saying that he was her Uncle. Well, that's how I'm addressed in Fiji by my wife's family. Yup, you guessed it, that little girl was one of my nieces. Aussie and I do favor one another.
 
I had friends from England...and friends from Maryland... (the English couple was stationed in DC for a couple of years at the Embassy) we all met when they were in town... But my maryland friend was visiting a location...and our English friends were visiting a location...

England, and US were home base mind you.... they both didn't even know they were on the same continent... but they met...ran into each other...on the top of Uluru... it was 4-6 years after they had left the states and returned to England...
 
Namaste Jesus said:
As Aussie likes to say, we've been mates ever since.
Click to expand...
My, but we have had ourselves a time, haven't we?
Namaste Jesus said:
Long story short, things turned ugly and the Samoan was about to run Aussie through with his pool cue!
Click to expand...
That whole argument was over a single shot. Not that he thought he'd been set up.
Namaste Jesus said:
Hopefully he won't mind. I can't really tell you why we hit it off though.
Click to expand...
Ok by me. I don't know the answer to that myself. There's just some folks you feel like you've known all your life from the first time you meet. Amazing to me that after all these years the amount of things we've learned about each other from this forum. I guess it's just that we get on so well, there are things we never even thought to ask each other.
StevePame said:
I'm just thinking of the difficulties of staying in touch in the pre-internet age, especially over such a far distance.
Click to expand...
Actually, if memory serves, we met in 1998. The Internet was up and running by then. I distinctly remember exchanging emails.
StevePame said:
How often have you met in person since that initial meeting in Fiji?
Click to expand...
It's not like we were in constant contact, maybe once a month or so. That wasn't until we got this crazy idea to make films and I ended up moving to the states. I honestly hated it there though.
StevePame said:
I assumed that you had found the forum and then told Aussie about it.
Click to expand...
As NJ says, after a lot of personal drama we lost touch for a while. I was working on a project not 40 miles from him when I came across this forum. There were these posts that caught my eye. They sounded a lot like my old pal, but I never gave it a thought it was actually him. I never got a chance to find out though, because he had stopped posting, so I did as well. Then a year or so latter NJ started posting again. I still didn't know it was him until he posted a photo of his Corvair. That car is one of a kind and so is he.
 
Aussie Thoughts said:
That wasn't until we got this crazy idea to make films
Click to expand...

If your friendship has been post-internet and emails, are there online copies of the videos you two worked on? I remember in the Cats thread a comment that you recorded NJ's cat speaking Hindi and when I followed that username on Youtube I found a few videos, including one about real x-ray glasses...
 
StevePame said:
If your friendship has been post-internet and emails, are there online copies of the videos you two worked on?
Click to expand...
There were a few trailers floating around at one time from the dozen or so films we made, but they were never available for download as they were all produced strictly for DVD.
StevePame said:
I found a few videos, including one about real x-ray glasses...
Click to expand...
That was one of those ideas that never made it to production. NJ shot it on his own to work out special effect logistics. Amazing how many people believed those glasses were real.
 
Aussie Thoughts said:
That was one of those ideas that never made it to production. NJ shot it on his own to work out special effect logistics. Amazing how many people believed those glasses were real.
Click to expand...

They're good effects. I can see why the two of you would work together. I did a little bit of film work when I was in high school and college but learned quickly that I didn't have the right mix of passion and vision to make it anything more than a hobby.
 
Huh. I never would have guessed. Good work indeed, NJ! For those interested, here's a link to what Aussie mentioned:
. I also enjoyed the line "Go suck a moon deer egg." I've been smiling for the last five minutes :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top