Clive Palmer, My New Best Friend

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about a gentleman named Clive Palmer. I’ll take a quick second to refresh everyone on our dear friend Clive.

All of his life, Australian Clive Palmer had a dream. Unlike most people, this dream wasn’t to become rich and famous. Palmer is a mining tycoon so, as one will find with most people who can be called tycoons, the rich thing is completely taken care of. As for fame, Palmer is doing okay there. He is an elected member of the Australian parliament that has a political party named after him. His name is a political party.

No, his dream was much bigger. He wanted to take something that seemed like a great idea only to end in a miserable failure and then turn it around.

Palmer wanted to build the Titanic II.

For those who have never heard of the original Titanic, this is a visual approximation of how that first trip across the Atlantic ended:

 

As you can see, not exactly a perfect ending.

At the time, I made fun of Clive’s decision. Then today, I ran across a new article. Clive’s dream is still on track for its 2016 voyage of disaster. In fact, it is so much on track that Clive has dreamed up another wonderful and brilliant idea: he is making a romantic movie set on the Titanic.

If your first thought is “Hey! That seems like a great idea. Someone should have done that sooner!” this means you are probably younger than 16. See, kids, in 1997 a man named James Cameron made a movie exactly like this! The plot was simple: a rich girl and poor boy meet each other. Then they fool around in the back of a car that is on the ship. Then they almost drown. Then one does drown. The end. This movie made roughly $900 Quadrillion while it was in theaters. It was all anyone would talk about. Clive has a different idea, though.

“It will be a love story,” he said. As it turns out, the idea is not that much different. He does, though, plan on making it “a lot better.” He also plans on making a cameo in his movie about a ship that sunk and killed a bunch of people on his replica of said death-ship.

About this point in the story, I realized something. I had poked fun at Palmer last year, but in reality I want to be Clive Palmer’s best friend.

Let’s get the quick rundown on Clive. He is a billionaire who created a political party, then got elected to the parliament running on the platform of the Palmer United Party, a party that is really just his last name. All the while, he is building a giant ship, on which he plans on making a better Titanic movie than James Cameron. He sounds like a pretty fun guy already. His other passion, though, is building the world’s largest park of giant robotic dinosaurs complete with a large T-Rex he has affectionately named “Jeff.” I’m not sure how much competition there is in the giant robotic dinosaur park arena, but I fully believe Clive can make his the best.

Palmer seems like that kind of friend that makes it impossible for you to be bored. Just when you are about to watch TV because you can’t find anything better to do, he would show up at your door with a Piñata, two pellet guns, and a rubber snake. There is no telling what he would do or when.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I really really really really really want to be your friend, Clive. I think we could have a great time together. I would even be willing to ride on your ship. Heck, I’d even watch your movie!

You, Clive Palmer, are the craziest human I’ve ever heard of. Let’s hang out sometime.

Related Articles

• 100 yrs after: ‘Titanic’ ship to sail again in new movie (vanguardngr.com)
• Billionaire backs Titanic rerun (ttrweekly.com)
• Palmer flags cameo role in Titanic II film (news.com.au)

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