Public Address - Cracker (Home)

The envelope, please | Dec 23, 2005 11:21

Okay, time's up. Pens down please.

Thanks for your votes. I can now announce the winners from the three rounds.

Round one: When Christmas Parades Go Bad. Also winner of most overall votes. I'm not reading too much into that because voter turnout dropped over the three rounds, and I suspect it had more to do with general apathy than the standard of the entries.

Special mention (and second in overall votes): Claws.

Round two: A narrow win to Chily Willy. Greg, I wish one of the prizes was a book on the merits of sub-editing, but alas, you'll have to choose from those on offer.

Best descriptor goes to David for Early Bird Gets the Worm: "It sounded like a fish being hit against the bench."

Round three: Henry, Henry & I. Scotland Yard have also offered a free trip to the UK if you're interested Barry?

All of the stories mentioned above get a book. Take your pick(s) from those below. There are limited numbers of each, so if you don't sort it out nicely, priority goes to the story with the most votes. Democratic, see.

As previously discussed, the books on offer are:

The critically acclaimed (and actually very interesting) Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories,

A great little book called The Meaning of Tingo

For the more edu-ma-cated amongst you, Noam Chomsky's Imperial Ambitions – conversations with Noam on the post 9-11 world.

Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy by Bernard Lagan (all about Mark Latham's rise and fall, and again supposed to be a Cracker read).

And as I'm too full of methampethamine and eggnog Christmas Cheer to name anyone's the worst story, Hitler Was a British Agent by Greg Hallet and the Spymaster is also up for grabs. If no-one chooses it, I will randomly include it in someone's prize package.

Again, thanks to everyone who entered and who voted. What a great way to end the year here at Cracker HQ.

Finally, a couple more stories. Since you all liked the Christmas Parades story so much, here's a tale from overseas, and I'll finish up with a yarn from my mate Bob that I reckon is worth a read.

Merry etc everyone. E haere ana koe me ena kakahu? (Google it if you're stuck)

GOLDEN ANGELS – LA BABY LA!
By Bob

There are very few skyscrapers in LA. The terra is far from firm. Downtown has a few brave towers stretching through the smog but this city was designed with earthquakes in mind. The latent force of the San Andreas Fault lingers under the surface of everything.

From my taxi I watched film images come to life – mustard-yellow school buses, smudged baseball fields, police weighed down with weapons. My cab drove me through the labyrinth of urban blocks sliced by endless roads streaming tonnes of traffic through the electric city.

I felt like a fragment in the kinetic wash, enjoying the drifting monotony of the freeway, until something snapped and everything stopped – everything except the two cars ahead of us, which collided and rolled heavily down the road.

Through the fog of jetlag my eyes worked in slow motion: two Jeeps slid across the road like it was ice; glass spewed into the air; one Jeep crunched into a wall, the other rolled in the distance; tired locked and screamed; someone got out and jumped off the freeway; a Reebok was left in the middle of the road; people were lifted out of the passenger window; a petrol tank added smoke rings to the smog.

My fellow passengers reacted diversely: one chanted – "Oh-my-God"; the other calmly pointed his mobile phone at the wreckage and took a photograph. I felt I should have been traumatised but, like everything in LA – it looked fake, it felt like a film. In true LA style everyone moved to the left lane and kept on driving. LA never stops; stasis is unacceptable in this city of speeding electrons.

The city moved on and the taxi drove me from a nightmare to a beautiful dream – a night at the Playboy Mansion. LA is a flat scrubland except for one road that rises out of Hollywood Boulevard like a lavish airstrip and lands you in the opulence of Bel Air. Poor hopefuls eek out a living below: rich untouchables cavort above. Besides taxis, all the cars in Bel Air are sumptuous symbols of wealth. Only the obnoxiously rich frolic in these manicured hills.

My cab dropped me at UCLA where big men with clipboards and walkie-talkies confirmed my identity and I was branded with a bunny rabbit stamp and put in a shuttle bus with the other guests. Taxis are not allowed to go directly to Hugh's mansion; the celebrity cocoon has to be protected. Surrounded by paranoid-looking bodyguards whispering into walkie-talkies it felt more like we were off to see the president of the United States. Although I guess in the city of sex the man who publishes the porn is King. And so we drove further into the lush hills to Hugh's castle.

We were greeted by women wearing only smiles and body paint. They treated me like God and I indulged, briefly, in Hugh's porn-tinted life. They were paid to be pleasant – pleasant is not an unpaid guest in LA – but nevertheless I bask in the bright artifice of it all, watching bronzed women flash their Da Vinci Veneers for leering lenses.

My magnetism was obviously working because when I sat down three Playmates immediately joined me – they were all dowsed in perfumes, all wearing silk clothes and all very, very old. They introduced themselves as: Playmate 1954, 1964 and 1973. Soft makeup and violent surgery created chronological confusion: 1954 looked younger than 1973, and 1964 looked like a man. They were women from a different era, golden girls, displaying their wares before I was even a twinkle.

I asked Dolores De Monte, Playmate 1954, if Hugh still lived in the Mansion and she laughed at me – "No honey, Hugh lives up the hill". Which means two things: he does, in fact, live up the hill but, more importantly, in a fairly tale way, the further up the hill you live the richer you are. Altitude equals affluence.

My misspent youth revealed itself when I recognised one of the ladies on the sofa. She had acted in a classic 1960's boobyilicious cult movie called Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

When I said, "Are you Cynthia Myer?" she said, in a rather pleased tone – "I surely am, darlin'". We talked about cult moviemaker, Russ Meyer, focusing mainly on Meyer's – and, in an unspoken way, my own – interest in voluptuous women. Cynthia was a woman who had lived and learned: "I hate LA – too many guns! Too many schmucks! I live out in the sticks with my horse. In the low lands." Once again: the American obsession with gradients.

As I wandered through the party the friend I was travelling with had yet another American Psycho experience, a moment of mistaken identity. A man came up to him, pointed at him, smiled and said, "Hey Johnny – looking good, my man. Didn't know you were back in town, dude." The first few times it happened my friend tried to correct them, "I think you are mistaken. Actually my name is Ollie…" but he soon realised that people in LA don't care, they don't have time to listen, it eats into their talking time; they are too busy pitching their personalities, shouting, trying to be outrageous, trying to be discovered to actually listen. Before Ollie could finish his sentence the man had vanished behind a wall of flesh and was shouting, "Call me, man, we must catch up."

After the party, the paint peeling a little, the digital memory cards brimming with breasts, we were all herded back on the shuttle bus. On the bus home there was a clash of another sort – a generation clash between Playmate 1966 and Playmate 2005. The argument was into its final round and, although they were sitting at different ends of the bus, the two women craned their necks so their insults travelled, before calmly continuing their conversation with their friends.

When I sat down beside Playmate 1966 she said suspiciously, "Where you from?" I told her and she handed me a card with a picture of a young girl, naked, bar a web link across her belly. It took me a moment to realise the sweet girl in the photo was the same nicotine-yellow woman who sat beside me but before I could say anything she was lobbing another attack down the bus at Playmate 2005.

Playmate 1966: "What do these new girls know? Not a pick on her. We had political reasons for doing what we did in our day; we had style!"

Playmate 2005: "Get a Zimmer frame for your dangling tits, granma!"

1966: "Have some respect, young lady!"

2005: "Ah, go blow yourself!"

They were both from different generations but they shared a delight in public shit slinging. Don't let porn's Vaseline lens delude you, boys – these are tough women; galvanised in the kiln of exploitation, hardened by years of being over-viewed.

I was dropped off and got lost in the UCLA campus – so expansive and sterile that it looks like a space station. I wandered into the UCLA police station to ask where I was and, behind the metal mesh, a cop was polishing a revolver – it may have been a Magnum .45 but that could just have been too many Dirty Harry movies fuelling my imagination. Stunned, I mumbled something like – "Where am… Um… Taxi?" – avoiding looking at his gun as though his fly was gaping open.

I retreated to my homicidally hip hotel – The Standard. The proprietor is the disco loon that owned Studio 54 and it shows. Inexplicably a woman in white underpants and bra lounged in a glass cube above the reception area. All day she listened to her iPod and all day she was ignored by everyone – everyone was far too busy paying attention to themselves to notice her. LA is at war, a war of attention: big breasts battling it out with massive cars overshadowed by towering billboards drowned out by loud voices and endless egos.

As I waited for my room key I looked around the hotel and saw a flock of beautiful people drift across the lobby past a gaggle of bored teenagers draped over Philippe Starck sofas. I also noticed the frosted glass of The Standard lobby. It clouded when I looked directly at it but granted me transparent slithers when I walked by and looked at it askance. Of course, walking forward, while looking to my right, resulted in me bashing into a wall. That is LA: an illusion that ends in a slap.

Talking to the moody concierge I once again felt the gap between this man's hopes of becoming an actor and the reality of him remaining a bellboy. In LA that gap divides the young and hopeful from the old and bitter. It may partly be because as a tourist I was a slave to the service industry and all of its faux-formality, but the citizens of LA struck me as being robotic, servants of the fast currents that powered this city – all squeezing quixotic dreams into servile lives.

This city of angels is only for the fallen variety and – though entertainingly superficial for a fleeting voyeur – it is a desert-city where faint lines divide entertainment from exploitation, clothes from paint, waiters from actors, and fabulous success from atrocious failure. I was finally handed my room key, or room card, and exhausted from a day of crashes, guns and porn stars, I turned to Ollie and said goodnight, he told me he needed a drink so I left him at the bar. As I waited for the lift I saw a tall, chisel-jawed man sit beside Ollie and say, "Hey. Johnny, good to see you man. You look great!" Ollie said, "Hi, yeah I'm great, you look great too."

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Storytime - The Finale | Dec 19, 2005 23:32

Okay. Five more stories as written and submitted by you, and that'll be all she wrote. I haven't had as many votes for the last lot as for the first five, so if you don't mind having another look over those too and voting for your best (and worst if you're feeling the Inner Grinch). There's no overall winner, just picks from each heat. My favourite will also get a little something extra.

Thanks for taking the time to put some of your tales into type. I know a number of you have found the process quite rewarding, and judging by the feedback I've had, you've made a lot of readers laugh embarrassingly loud in their workplaces, so take a bow.

I'd also like to thank Phil and Renee for being, thus far, the only actual people to give me a Christmas card this year.

Sure, I've got cards from my local real estate agent, any number of PR agencies, publishers, distributors and other corporate entities. I've even got a few foreign numbers on top of my television addressed to a woman named Sue. Sue, if you're reading, Mike & Ada; Sal, Neil and family; and Amy and Sarah all send their love from abroad. Perhaps you could have at least been a decent enough friend to have let them know you moved house two fucking years ago.

On with the stories. A couple of these have been written in third person, but I'm assured in each case the author is one of the characters. Another even has a pseudonym to disguise its celebrity author (ohhh, how very 'We Live In A Small Town) Poor Judi kicks things off though, and opts for no such disguise…

(Vote early, vote often – winners announced on Thursday)

THE DAY I LEARNED HOW TO HANDLE EMBARRASSMENT
By Judi

John Cleese recently described the meaning of life for the English as getting through life without embarrassment. I, however, must be too many generations removed from my English pioneering ancestors, for I embarrass myself with feverish regularity.

But one incident burns bright in my memory - an incident that taught me how to cope with all the embarrassments to come... Once upon a time, a long time ago when I was a grad student, I was diligently slaving over some dastardly computer code, completely engrossed in what I was doing when, suddenly, a voice behind me asked, "What's that?" I swiveled around to see my PhD supervisor, a roughish gentleman in his early sixties, pointing to a small bundle of red fabric on the floor. The eyes of the other grad students scanned from the floor to my perplexed face.

It took a moment for my brain to recognise this object, this flotsam, which was horribly, horribly, out of context. It was a pair of knickers. Not just any knickers, but my knickers. And not just my knickers, but my most scungiest, grottiest pair! Not a pair of pretty, lacy, or even clean knickers, but faded red cotton, worn through in places, and with sproings of elastic poking out.

Thinking quickly, I scooped them up and shoved them in my pocket, face burning. What could I do? What could I say? Everyone by then had worked out what they were! So I calmly said, with head held high, "they're my knickers." And I swivelled back to work.

To this day, I do not know how they got there.

SAFE SEX SUBWAY
By Mark

She stood there every morning, day after day, handing out pamphlets, looking at the unhappy masses pour out of the Metro station and rush headlong into streets, jobs and lives they were only reluctantly taking part in. Madness.

What was so important to them that not one of them has the politeness, or even the curiosity to stop and listen to what she had to say?

A sick ex-prostitutes perspective on safe sex and HIV might not be to everyone's taste first thing in the morning, but surely someone, any one, would reward her efforts by stopping. Surely today someone would listen.

"Excusez-moi?" she tried again, as a fresh batch of commuters rushed past.

No one stopped. Averted gazes. Angry glares. Guilty looks and sighs of relief as they passed.

"Putain" she muttered, enjoying the irony, and settled down to wait for the next trainload to spill form the station.

"I'm sorry I ignored you just now" she heard, in terribly accented French.

An English guy probably, no, no, the pronunciation wasn't quite that bad, ah oui. Irish.

The traveller stood on front of her, stumbling awkwardly through an apology but relaxed and smiling, looking her in the eye. "It's not like I'm rushing anywhere in particular, I shouldn't have been so rude to you just now; what were you trying to say to me?" he asked.

"I felt today might be the day" she smiled to herself, and launched into her tale, full of dire warnings, sound advice and warm caring. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and he chatted back freely, so soon she was telling her story, asking him his, her mind off the job, just enjoying the connection.

Small personal details were exchanged, separateness displaced by their spontaneous exchange of intimacies.

And then it was over. He started to thank here, shuffling from foot to foot, drawing back from her, readying himself to move on with his day. She felt the distance of strangers appear between them again.

"One last thing, take these" she insisted, grabbing some condoms from her pamphlet bag and pressing them into his hands. "and make sure you use them. We would never have met like this if I had taken my own advice".

"I only hope I get the chance to" he joked, then caught himself, mumbled something in awkward understanding, and was gone.

She settled down to wait for the next trainload to spill from the station.

HENRY, HENRY & I
By Barry

Squatting seems to be over in London now, but back in the mid-80s, it was quite the way for thrifty, adventurous young Kiwis to live. We prided ourselves on our practical ability in breaking into vacant council flats, fixing the dunnies, and living rent-free until we were kicked out.

But my first crack at breaking a squat didn't go too well (neither did my second, but that's another story). It all looked good for a while. A few squatters on the South London estate where our friends lived had been turfed out lately, and there were quite a few empties.

My friends C and J and I picked our night, gathered at a nearby flat, and stoutly set out to get ourselves a place to live. I got to carry out the grisly (and loud) business of forcing open the bathroom window. Eventually, we got in and I was just feeling pretty chuffed when a policeman appeared at the wide open front door. Bugger.

I very briefly considered doing a runner, but there was obviously nowhere to run to. I think C had managed to dive behind an old couch, but that didn't last long.

When we came out onto the landing of the council block, there wasn't just one cop. There were cops for Africa. And a couple of other continents too, probably. It turned out that there was a mass eviction planned for first thing the following morning, and the policing operation had already started. Doing a runner was definitely not an option.

So we got in a van and went to the local police station. In the watchroom, we sat at a table. C and J were processed before me. Naturally, they had to turn out their pockets, and this prompted me to explore my own left front pocket. Horror.

The three eighths of hash I'd purchased for myself and a friend before the expedition were not, as I had imagined, in my big black jacket back at the flat. They were in my left front pocket.

Carefully, I palmed the hash into my left leg. Then, when the sergeant turned to me, I swept it off onto the floor beneath the table. Excellent. The cleaner would find it in the morning and no one would know it was me.

With a sense of relief, I dumped the contents of my pockets onto the table. Horror.

Two little pieces of hash were under the table. And one was sitting there on top of the table, between me and the sergeant.

"Ah," said the sergeant.

He told me I'd have to be strip-searched, and, for the only time in my life, I was. It was not memorable.

By the time I came out, C and J were in a cell, and looking kind of freaked. I was put in a separate cell.

Presently, I was fetched, and brought before a detective. He was straight from ITV central casting, middle-market cop drama. He was stout and balding, with a moustache and a Houndstooth jacket.

He looked at me quizzically.

"So," he said, "What got you into drugs?"

A split second later, so soon that you might even debate whether it was actually a conscious decision, I decided that there would be an advantage in playing the dumb, naïve Kiwi.

I claimed, preposterously, that dope was near as dammit to legal in New Zealand, and I'd assumed it was so in Britain. I made up a cock-and-bull story about wandering unawares into the Railton Hotel with my chums and being pressured to buy by an unnerving Jamaican man. The detective nodded sagely.

I even claimed to have been offered the hash at an unusually low price, then thought that that was a stupid and unnecessary complication. But the detective just nodded sagely and observed that that was, indeed, an unusually good price.

I was pretty sure I was on for a diversion when I was led back to the cell (correctly, as it happened) but I still had a problem. A big one.

Every time I had been walked past the watchroom table, the two other blocks of hash had danced before my eyes, like accusing lollies. They were still there, identical to the block that had been surrendered and negotiated over, and when they were discovered in the morning, my dumb-naive-Kiwi act would start to look pretty bad. Angry detective, quite probably.

So I had to get them back.

Understand that I have never had the courage for shoplifting. But needs must. While C and J signed their forms, it took me an agonising four attempts to casually drop my sweatshirt under the table. The fourth time was really close. I scooped up my sweatshirt, and the two blocks of hash with it, cradled it under my left arm, signed my form and got the hell out.

I kept a straight face until we got around the corner, and then informed my friends what I had done. I had entered the police station with three blocks of hash, been strip-searched - and left the building with two of them.

Chuckling, I removed the two blocks from their place in the sweatshirt, and put them in my sock, just to be safe.

"Mr Barry!" rang a voice as I still had my hand in my sock.

Horror.

There was a young cop behind me. I expected the worst.

"Mr Barry, you didn't sign one of your forms."

He had been kind enough to bring it around for me. I signed it, my heart hammering, and thanked him for his efforts.

When we got back to the flat, at dawn, I skinned up a fattie and we went out onto the landing to watch the circus outside. The mass eviction was in progress: cops massing, tenants massing, the odd squatter getting stroppy

I inhaled, sighed, and felt like I was in a left-wing art movie.

LAUGHTER - THE BEST MEDICINE
By Bruce

I have always had a challenging tendency for uncontrollable laughter at inappropriate moments. It started early, at my Brethren friend's prayers before dinner, school assemblies, the usual stuff. The recurring theme was convention making it impossible for you to get away.

The night tour of the Karori Bird Sanctuary last year was a low point. The volunteers were charming if hokey, and very safety conscious, so we had to stumble around together in the dark. Let's face it, all the birds in there are sleeping at night, there's nothing to be heard. So when we got to the darkest corner and the poor volunteer was desperately hushing us as a kiwi had been heard near this corner a month ago, all that could be heard was my Muttley chuckling, on and on and on.

And so to the worst. My partner's father, who I loved deeply, died this year. He used to be a cop. The police college has an annual service of remembrance and my partner and I went. You can see where this is heading. Uh oh. The problem, if I can deflect a little from my own irresponsibility, was that the convener was a true David Brent. He welcomed us all with grave self-importance. The dignitaries filed in. We sat in chairs lined up with military precision. David's choir, in which I could see from the programme his own son was performing, were very, how shall I put it...down home. He conducted them with a lot of arm movement. They swayed. Then the first hymn was sung. But who was singing so loudly? David was wearing a Madonna style microphone. I felt a smile race across my lips, but kept a lid on.

A central part of the programme was the reading of the names. They were read, and I cried when I heard his name. But then, David started playing his wretched organ as backing music, I want to say the wind beneath my wings, but surely not. And then, the final undoing, he and his choir started gently mooing with big cow eyes, as backing as the endless list of names were read. I lost it, but actually, my partner set me off, as she was away first. It was fucking hell. I tried everything, not breathing, covering my face with a tissue in my hands to simulate paroxysms of grief, pinching my skin to hurt. Nothing worked. A couple of years later, it ended, and we could leave, shaken and chastened.

How bad is that?

OLD MAN ON BROADWAY
By Samuel

The old man seems to be badly hurt. He is wandering about in erratic circles on Broadway's Upper West side, two or three doors away from an all-night coffee shop. His shirt has no collar and his old pair of too-large trousers are held up by a pair of frayed suspenders. The night is cold and he has no coat. When he turns away he reveals that the back of his head is cut open and blood is streaming down through his sparse white hair and under his shirt. He is muttering unintelligibly to himself and gesturing weakly at an unseen audience.

Inside the takeout coffee bar people are shouting angrily. A plain roundfaced girl with dark hair tied up in a dirty scarf has the floor. Her two male companions are hunched over the counter, not looking at anyone.

"What a fine manly thing to do," she yells. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

It is not immediately apparent whom she is shouting at. Everybody is ignoring her. A white-faced cook is nervously walking back and forth behind the counter. He doesn't know what to do.

Then a stocky European with olive skin and black hair mutters sullenly, "Shut your face." He has a thick accent and is standing further down the bar with a friend.

"That's right, be charming, you nasty piece of scum," the girl cries. "We don't need your sort in this country."

Finally the young European is goaded beyond his endurance. He storms out, pausing only to spit a large gob of phlegm at the girl. She averts her face but it splatters in her hair.

"Old men and women are just your size," she shrieks. "That's how strong and brave you are." She is screaming out the door after him. "You miserable little man."

Her words force him to reply. He shouts back a weak excuse. "I can't help it if he fell over."

As he passes behind the old man, who is still staggering around in small circles oblivious to the scene, the European abruptly stops. He grabs the back of the old man's head in both hands and examines the open wound closely. It is a belated gesture of concern. Then he and his friend stride off quickly across the road. It is hard to tell from their response whether the injury is superficial or something quite serious. The two men disappear into the night down Broadway in the direction of Times Square.

A young couple stand on the sidewalk looking at the scene. The man wears an expensive long leather coat and the woman is protected from the cold by a glamorous ankle-length lambskin coat.

The man bends down and picks up a crumpled dollar bill from off the pavement, looks at it, then thrusts it into his pocket.

"Give it to the old man," the woman with him quickly urges. "I saw that too, I thought it was his. He could have lost it when he fell over."

"No, it could be anyone's," says the man shortly.

"It could be his," insists the woman.

"Forget it. It could belong to anyone," he says, embarrassed by his unfortunate luck. "Come on, let's go."

"Why don't you give it to him?" she asks.

"It's only a dollar," he says. He feels he can't back down now. He just wants to get away from the scene. He doesn't want to become involved with the injured man. "It doesn't matter. Let's go."

They walk off down the street past the old man with the bleeding head. He is lit by garish neon signs, stumbling on the sidewalk of New York city. Nobody comes to his aid, not even the girl in the takeout bar.

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Storytime II | Dec 16, 2005 00:19

Right. Thanks for your votes and comments on the various stories.

Despite the best attempts of one competitor to have When Christmas Parades Go Bad disqualified (on the basis that it didn't really happen to the author, but rather her grandfather), I rule it admissable. She was there, therefore it happened to her. No correspondence will be etc.

But, even if it was as ill-fated as Bauble Peters' strike against Bob Clarkson, the challenger had good instincts: When Christmas Parades Go Bad romped home, followed by Claws. And coincidences abounded, one of the votes for All Aboard came from someone claiming to be the stories' sweaty antagonist.

So onto round two. There may be one final round after this, on Monday morning, of any stories sent in since my last post. Gotta be in to win and all that.

As well as the books offered in the last post, the stakes have also been, er, raised, with two new prizes on offer: Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy by Bernard Lagan (all about Mark Latham's rise and fall) and the brilliantly (unintentionally I think) wacky Hitler Was a British Agent by Greg Hallet and the Spymaster. Not only does it describe how Hitler survived WWII, it goes on to draw some startling insights into Aotearoa:

New Zealand is the spies' holiday and retirement home. In New Zealand it is not illegal for a woman to kill her male partner, as long as she is dark brown, lesbian, lesbians are attracted to her, or she has a history of mental illness... New Zealand's legalising of 'female murders male' came under the KGB operative Prime Minister Helen Clark...

Wow. Okay, maybe that book should go to the worst story, because let's be honest, there are a couple of shitters. Votes for that too please.

Also a warning: By his own admission, Greg's story, Chilly Willy, is really long. I've put it last, so you can just read down to there, and if you run out of time you can print it out, and use it to occupy those down times during the next five day international.

Crap titles mine once again.

Oh, and finally before we start: I was searching for Cathy Odger's new blog the other day, and accidentally stumbled on this little gem of a blog. It's like a haiku trapped in ice - perfect in its frozen simplicity.

And now...

EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM
by David

I've never been a fan of waking up. I'm a dreadful morning person and no amount of caffiene can cheer me up. I found it particularly difficult to wake up at a reasonable hour while at university. I tried everything - moving my alarm clock to the other side of the room - hiding it in different places every night - using multiple alarms. All to no avail.

During one of my years at varsity - undergrad or honours, I guess, I discovered a foolproof way to wake up. Only, it wasn't by any action of my own. We were living in this absolute dive. Mould everywhere, freezing cold (Chch winters...) and really thin walls. Anyway, I found myself waking up to this really weird noise. It sounded like a fish being hit against the bench - followed by what can only really be described as being like a wounded possum vomiting hairballs. Bloody possums, I thought, and spent the next several weeks trying to find out where this injured brute was. I'd wake up just before each time (without any alarm being used) to try and pinpoint the sound. It wasn't in the ceiling, on the roof, or in that pitiful excuse we called a 'tree'. I couldn't find the bastard anywhere. Until, as you've probably guessed, I realised it was the sound of one of my flatmates whacking off in the shower.

I felt really dirty but would you really want a shower after that?

I still hate alarms.

BOOTLEGGING
by Kris

I was born in Sweden, and when I finished high school I took a year off and went back there to work on a freight ship that sailed around the Baltic and the North Sea. Duty free booze was sold on board, and everyone made the most of this because of the high taxes on alcohol in Sweden. You were only allowed to bring in one bottle of liquor and one crate of beer at a time, but the crew changed at a small, remote port and the older hands were adamant that there were never any customs agents there.

I was too young to buy booze legally at the time, so I took two bottles of liquor with me when I disembarked. The first machinist was considerably more gung ho, taking several bottles of liquor and several crates of beer which he wrapped in plastic bags. He told me that the amount he had was just under the definition of smuggling: if he was caught with any more he could have faced jail rather than just a fine.

So we got off and, sure enough, there were a couple of customs agents waiting on the dock. Being a fairly clean-cut kid, I hadn't had any run-ins with the law, so when they asked me if I had anything to declare I stuttered nervously but managed to say no. I was sure one of them gave me a suspicious look, but luckily they didn't ask to check my bags and turned their attention to the first machinist. Standing in the midst of all his booze he said breezily 'Nothing to declare, you can have a look if you like.' I was fully expecting one of the agents to say, 'You must be joking, open your bags,' but it didn't happen. Such was his chutzpah that they just thanked us and drove off, though I'm sure that in hindsight they must have wondered what was in all those beer crate-sized boxes wrapped in plastic.

I learned a valuable lesson about bulshitting that day.

IT WAS PROBABLY INEVITABLE
by Carl
Many years ago whilst doing the backpack thing I spent three months in the middle east, flying to Israel in early Jan from Amsterdam. This little trip around Europe had soaked up a lot of my travelling funds unintentionally. Anyway I arrived in Israel with only $300 and an return airfare. Luckily I also had a credit card. Anyway after sleeping on a beach in a cafe, at night, for three weeks, I hooked up with some Scandinavians who were headed back to their Kibbutz.

After a month there we all decided to carry on over the border into Egypt. By this time I was very low on funds, deciding to travel cattle class to Aswan on Egyptian rail (which makes NZ rail look like the TGV). About two weeks into the Egypt jaunt I said goodbye to the scandys and started heading north to Cairo. Please note that this was 1988 and there was no internet.

Anyway down to my last tenner I decided to risk one more trip to the bank to get some funds on the credit card - only to be confronted by a bank official cutting up the Visa in front of me! INSUFFICENT FUNDS!

Emergency calls to New Zealand ensued with 1988 style phone systems and toll charging ($20US for 5min max!). I think that I scared my poor parents who tried to get John Banks (MP for Whangarei at the time) to intervene. Anyway I managed by pawning off my camera to a fellow traveller. (I actually managed to get that back eventually too).

I was only 22 at the time so it was probably inevitable something like this would happen.

MY TWO NANAS
by Louise

My mum had invited my two Nanas round for dinner. (They were both in their early eighties at the time and one has since passed away - although she wouldn't mind me telling this story.) I overheard a conversation they were having on the couch - talking AT each other, as old people do.

They were both talking about 'sets' except that one Nana was talking about TV sets, and the other about sets of dentures. Despite talking about two completely different things, they seemed to be agreeing that 'sets' were expensive things. The best line was TV set Nana suggesting to denture set Nana that she should consider getting a second hand set, because 'they work just as well as new'. The look on denture set Nana's face at the thought of it was priceless.

PLIMSOLLS
by Brian

The sun was warm and the space was clear, I smiled and started removing my plimsolls. Toes together I arranged them, pointing into the yard, heels about say 6 inches from the wall. Socks, shaken stretched, laid over the shoes, at right angles about where the knots in the laces would be. Pants folded flat, creases aligned, layered back and forth. Again placed upon and at a right angle to the socks. With the belt finishing over the heels of the shoes. Shirt the same with the collar ending over the belt, singlet a heap in the middle – a cushion.

Still the little pile under my bum was comfy and the wall was warm against my back. I turned my attention to my kit and removed the brown paper bag, unfolded the top, slid out the sandwich I'd made in the morning and sat it on the flattened bag between my feet.

The bread was white, soft cotton wool, thick sliced for the toaster. Avocado spread thickly as butter. Crisp leaves of lettuce providing the textural contrasts, and a liberal sprinkling of salt and ground pepper for taste. On the way here I'd picked a lemon, I removed this from my and bit into it. I lifted the the top slice and squeezed on the juice, the gooey avocado split apart, some sticking to the bread, some caught in the folds of lettuce.

With the top back on I lifted my head, two guys were standing nearby, well not just standing, it looked like they were hugging. Upon closer attention I realised they were fighting, or one was punching the other but standing far to close to get in a decent swing. I wondered at this and guessed they can't have been too serious. Anyway back to my lunch, I reached for my sandwich, to see soaking into it the last drops of a spurt of blood, that ran back to the hugging couple. Blast! It would be a while before I would get another avocado.

AIRPORT HUMOUR
by Mark

Air marshals in the US yesterday shot dead an airline passenger who had 'indicated he was carrying a bomb in his bag'.

18 months ago I flew to Romania with six hard disks in my hand luggage. I had flown from London to Munich to Bucharest and surprisingly no one looked twice at what I thought was an unusual enough collection of hand luggage.

It was only when I tried to leave Romania that things got a bit interesting, I placed my bag into the x-ray machine, and waited, 30, 45, 60 seconds while three security guards stood around the screen trying to figure out what they were looking at, then they started looking at me, back to the screen, back at me, they finally let the bag continue with the command to empty the contents out onto the table, which I duly did.

More staring at collection of electronics that was my luggage, more staring at me, some head scratching, and all the while the little knot of tension in my stomach was growing and growing. I had done nothing wrong, but I began to sweat. Profusely. The first thing they asked was "what is this?" I explained as simply as I could. More stares, more head scratching, until finally one of them turned to me and asked their second question: "Are you working for Al Qaeda?" Then silence. Three blank stares waited.

"No smart arse comments" I thought. "This is no time for fooling around" I reminded myself. "Keep it together here" I roared in my brain, but – to my horror – the words "you look more like you'd be working for them than I do" escaped from my mouth all by themselves!

A couple of horribly long seconds passed, and then one of his buddies turned to my questioner and laughed "he's right, you do". Mercifully, the four of us fell into joking and teasing as I repacked my bag – their 'airport humour' was great, but I've never been so relieved to get on a plane.

NEROLEE
by Jody

When I was a teenager I regularly attended church at the Salvation Army hall in Whangarei. Often there were times, towards the end of Sunday services, where members of the congregation would be encouraged to come forward to an area below the stage and the pulpit but in front of the pews, to kneel and pray, should they feel so inclined.

Now one weekend, the youth group from the Hamilton Salvation Army Corps had travelled to Whangarei. Amongst them was a pretty red headed girl called Nerollee, upon whom I had formed a crush. I wrote her a poem, and one line of the poem referred to her teeth sparkling like silver, in reference to the magnificent set of braces she sported. It was meant to be in jest but she took it seriously. If that wasn't bad enough, after a particularly passionate sermon, I felt moved to leave my seat at the back of the hall next to the lovely Nerollee and go forward to the aforementioned area to kneel and pray, and beg forgiveness for my numerous sins.

What I had failed to realise, was that I had gotten hot during the service and had removed my jacket.
On that particular morning I had decided to wear under my jacket, a recently acquired long sleeved T-shirt that I insisted that my mother purchase me for my birthday. It was a Bad Boy brand T-shirt and on the back of it was a cartoon picture of a scowling young man raising a fist accessorised with a studded bracelet. But the best bit about the T-shirt was that underneath this image the words "SHIT HAPPENS" were written. (You can imagine my mother's joy when I took her to the surf shop in Whangarei and told her that this was what I wanted for my birthday, more than anything in the world.)

So there I was, asking the Lord above to save my wretched soul, whilst displaying to all and sundry my 'SHIT HAPPENS' shirt, and completely oblivious to this fact. When they had realised what had happened, one of the uniformed members of the church quickly knelt beside me to join me in prayer and placed their arm around me, thereby conveniently covering the offending literature.

After the meeting had finished I retrieved my jacket, said my goodbyes and went home. No one mentioned anything to me about what had happened. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that my father, (who hadn't attended the service in question) bailed me up at the dinner table about it, and accused me of attempting to bring the good name of our family into disrepute. Apparently he had received a phone call about the incident from an irate member of the congregation, who had totally failed to see the irony of it all.

And I never saw Nerollee again.

CHILLY WILLY
by Greg

One night back in 1996, my good friend and flatmate John and I were having a few beers, and both trying to write short stories for the writing competition in Critic, the Otago Uni student newspaper. Periodically as we got a little more under the influence of the beers and a little more impeded by writer's block, we would hurl insults across the hallway at each other, proclaiming our prowess at both writing and beer drinking, a la Charles Bukowski, who we both admired a lot. Finally this culminated in a challenge to a game of Scrabble to the death to prove once and for all who was the superior wordsmith. A little way into the game I began to realise that Speights was not increasing my word power, in fact I seemed to be reduced to scrambling for words like 'cat' and 'and', while John was gleefully laying out stuff like 'irony' and 'paroxysm', as his score raced into triple figures akin to an Australian one-day cricket score against Jamaica.

Realising that I was in for a serious pasting, but never wishing to admit defeat to my old friend and foe, I put on a brave and proud face and declared emphatically that he would never beat me, and if he could, I would happily run down the length of George Street naked.

To cut a long-winded tale slightly shorter [but not much - Ed], of course he caned me, as I continued to drink beer and my score shrivelled. John nobly offered to allow me to forgo my forfeit, as it was about 11pm at night, and surely quite chilly on the Dunedin streets. But I was insulted by this and refused.

So before long I was standing on a corner of Moray Place, handing my clothes including shoes and socks to John, to be placed in his backpack, along with a camera. So with John on his skateboard following behind, I immediately set off at a cracking pace on the left hand foot path of George Street.

Now being a Tuesday night in sleepy little Dunedin, there was not a lot of traffic to contend with but I did get the occasional whoop from a passing car, and because I had chosen the main shopping street, the sidewalk was well lit as I sprinted past Arthur Barnett's, and the Robbie Burns pub, giving any passers by a full view of my state of mind.

I kept going at full tilt until I cleared the main shopping area and was past Governor's coffee shop, where I slowed down and John caught up with me.

We started to discuss whether I needed to go all the way to the far end of George Street, when we suddenly noticed a police car slowly easing up beside us. It was time to cut my losses and run, and I told John to pretend he didn't know me as I shot up around the corner and into a block of flats behind the 24 hour dairy.

The police car followed up but no-one got out at that stage. I disappeared into the concrete block jungle which by coincidence was the flat complex I had been living in for the last two years. After a few panicky circuits with my heart beating fit to rupture I realised the police had done a circuit, but didn't seem to be around.

So I went back down to the corner by the 24 hour dairy, looking for John, and to this day I don't know if it was because I was drunker than I thought, or because I have some sort of mental issues around exhibiting my chicken legs and bony ass, but I seemed to be on that corner for much longer than was reasonable, at some points in the full glare of the neon lights.

I still don't know exactly what happened to John, he got freaked out, naturally, but before I had time to think more a police car again hit the scene, and this time I sprinted up the pathway with some real live officers after me. It's an odd sensation that you have when being chased by the police, it is kind of exhilarating but at the same time there is an edge of the unknown, a kind of giddy terror.

This block of flats has some built on funny angles into the side of the hill, with deep banks by the bottom floor, and as I ran like a hopped up rodeo clown up a narrow pathway, terrifying a poor international student returning from the library, I ran out of driveway and plunged headlong down one of the banks. The resulting cut on my knee didn't faze me at all as I was so pumped up on adrenalin. I rounded a corner and headed straight for a large tree, and threw myself under, trying to bury myself under the leaves and rubbish gathered around the low lying branches at the base of the trunk.

The human heart is really quite like the drums I like to play, and at that moment there was an enormous bass drum right pounding in my ear, right in the middle of the still of the night. I had time to pause for thought, and apart from the unprintable words going through my head, there was time to reflect on the error of my ways, and almost chuckle at how I had come to find myself lying there in the dark, a few metres beneath the window of my old flat, clothed in nothing but leaves and old Twisties packets.

The silence was disturbed by the voice of a police officer nearby, stating words to the effect of he knew that I was in the vicinity, and that he had someone with him, namely a canine companion, and unless I wanted his friend to start looking for me personally, I should do the right thing and reveal myself.

Faced with prospects which would bring a wince to the face of any naked and vulnerable man, my better judgement returned for the first time that evening and I surrendered myself to the nearest available blanket of the law.

From there, it was a long short trip to the police station, being admonished by two police officers for scaring the crap out of the students by tearing around like some flashing pervert, which on reflection was fair comment. The police gave me a stern dressing down back at the station. John arrived with my clothes, and I was allowed to dress, minus my shoelaces and the drawstring from my trackpants.

After some more lectures from the staff sergeant, and the threat of a disorderly behaviour charge looming, I was released with a warning. And so John and I headed over to A & E to get a couple of stitches in my knee.

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Storytime | Dec 08, 2005 19:00

Okay, so I got a few stories from you eventually, and the results are interesting. Out of 10 contributions, two are about masturbation, a few involve illegal activities and one has a papier-mache volcano. Pretty much what I expected.

I'll print five today, and the rest early next week. One has been withdrawn for legal reasons, namely an outstanding Federal Warrant in the US.

If you think you can do better, it's not too late. Book prizes include the critically acclaimed Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories, a great little book called The Meaning of Tingo and for the more edu-ma-cated amongst you, Noam Chomsky's Imperial Ambitions – conversations with Noam on the post 9-11 world.

So here are the stories, largely unmolested by me, save for the odd glaring spelling mistake.

Vote for your winner from each bunch. (The crap headings are mine by the way. It's late and that part of the brain that comes up with bad puns has shut down.)

ALL ABOOOOARD
by Vanessa

I was boarding a train in Amsterdam going to the airport, on a Friday afternoon. These trains are beautiful, clean and on time - often to the second. Some of them are also double deckers, so I made for the top empty carriage and spread out..

Then I remembered I had bought two intricate little woollen scarves that day - one blue, one white... they were a steal at 4 euros but way too small to wear - even to to flip once round the neck.. It was a rare purchase that was deemed useless even at the till - and I was thinking this as I pulled them from their bag and examined them again. I barely noticed the dude who sat to my right, across the aisle by the other window... and I kept battling with my irrelevant scarves... stretching them out and thinking - who would make them this small ? are they really scarves ? could i put them on a cat ? and force the cat to sit in a pram?

As I do this I hear a sound coming from the dude. It's not a typical travelling sound. It takes a few seconds to realise that this sound can only be one thing.

So I look over to see I have indeed apparently stumbled into his bedroom and he's busy - cock completely out, giving it a fairly rigorous wanking, as if that's what most people do, get on the train, send a few texts, jerk one off, and read the paper.

I didn't stay for the finale... just moved downstairs and tried not to touch any doorhandles.

That was last month, and I still haven't done anything with those stupid scarves.

Y2K?
by Jen

Back in 1999, I decided to order a special "Year 2000" LCD light-up T-shirt from hideous London trance-den Cyberdog for the Millennium Gathering on Takaka Hill. Come New Year's Eve, I spent a good 15 minutes wiring it up in my tent, ensuring all the wires at the back were connected in the right order and the timer was set to the right time for liftoff, so that the display would impress and astound all around with its awesome LCD countdown.

Fast forward to witching hour, and I was jigging my arse off (being filmed dancing extremely badly by TV3 as I recall), with my T-shirt revving up for the countdown with a rather excellent "59 down to 0" sequence - waiting for the midnight hour when my cybertastic T-shirt would go mental and flash '2000' in glorious technicolor to the wonder of all surrounding me.

At two minutes to 12 I noticed a young raver looking forlornly on. He was wearing the exact same shirt - except he'd omitted to take the time to connect the wires correctly. All his flashed was "76... 76... 76...".

(Buying an LCD-display Millennium T-shirt: £50. Seeing the look on that young man's face: priceless.)

CLAWS
by Rohani

So when I was five we had this cat, Cadbury – we called him that cos he was black but with brown bits and we wanted to be a bit more inventive than blackie, sooty, milo, other chocolate references, etc. I suspect these days we'd have intellectual property lawyers on our case.

Anyway Cadbury would've been about a year old at this time, little did we all know he only had three more years of life before becoming a smush on the road up the hill. But I can say with certainty had I known he'd be smushed on the road three years later I wouldn't have acted any differently for this story.

My older sister and I were playing with Cadbury in the lounge one day and in the lounge we had these big cushions, about a metre square, that we used to lie on in front of the TV. Dad was sitting in his chair and as we frolicked he said from behind his newspaper, 'Did you know cats always land on their feet?' and we said ooh, really and he said 'yes, you can drop a cat from anywhere and it'll always land on its feet'. So we tested the theory by dumping Cadbury from a small height onto a pile of our big cushions and it was really true.

A few days later, returning from my gymnastics class, I was out of the car before my mum and sister. I saw Cadbury as I got out of the car and chased him up our back steps to pick him up for a cuddle. Nobody was around. I peered over the rail of the steps to our back door – two storeys up. I patted Cadbury and said his name soothingly as I tipped him over the rail to see if he would land on his feet. Cadbury held on. For dear life. To my arm. In cartoon fashion, as I screamed the neighbourhood down, Cadbury's claws made trails down my arm as he slid down it before finally dropping to the ground. His teeth made little punctures near my hand. As he fell Dad made it to the back door and opened it to find me standing there in my leotard in hysterics.

Now I don't recall actually telling anyone then and there or even after any version of what happened. Cadbury scarpered, hid under the car with all the noise and was the recipient of a smack for his actions. A sign went up above my nine year old sister's bed, 'Cats are people too'. I was shipped off to the doctor and had to endure several days of band aid changes all along my arm and hand. The official version somehow became that I had seen Cadbury fighting and stuck my arm between the two cats to break them up.

More than 10 years later, in fact closer to 15 years later, the family sat round the dinner table and for some reason was discussing the Cadbury incident. Mum mentioned something about trying to break up a fight. It was the first time I'd heard this explanation in a long while. 'That's not what happened!' I said. 'I dropped him off the deck!' Horror ensued. More family members were told. I was laughed at. I still get laughed at.

And yes, he landed on his feet.

ALEX WASN'T A BREAST MAN
by Emma

So, once upon a time... there was this friend of mine I'm going to, for a number of reasons, refer to as Alex. None of the reasons is "because that's his name". Alex had this homicidally jealous girlfriend, whom I shall call Kristen. Because that was her name.

At this point, I shall mention that I'll be talking about things that I wasn't actually there for, in which case the events were related to me by Alex. For instance, Alex's mother didn't much like Kristen, and used to tell her interesting things like how I was pretty and nice and had very large breasts. Alex told me this.

Aaaanywho... there was this night that Alex and I and another friend decided to settle at my place for drinkies for the evening. We drove out to Alex's to pick up some stuff, including a change of clothes so he could drive back home in the morning when he was sober. We invented a bloody nice cocktail and after a few drinks, we decided that Alex would collect the massage I owed him. This was pretty normal behaviour in our little 'group' at the time, a lot of non-sexual touching that probably wasn't sublimating for anything. No, really, given the amount of sexual touching going on as well.

While we were doing that, our other friend disappeared. (Okay, yeah, we didn't notice for a good ten minutes.) We decided, in that drunken way you do, to go look for him. We couldn't, however, find Alex's shirt, so he wore one of mine. It had red roses embroidered down the front.

We searched my flat thoroughly, including the places where we'd lost people in the past, like the ceiling and the large kitchen cupboard. Then we went to this guy's house, but he wasn't there either. We ended up at another friend's flat up the road.

Meanwhile.

Kristen rang Alex's place. Alex's mum cheerily told her where he was and what he was doing. The vengeful fury descended. Walking straight into my flat, she found Alex's bag in the lounge, with clothes in it. She grabbed all his stuff and threw it off the balcony of my flat into the driveway. Then she stormed down the hall and burst into my bedroom.
Which was empty. Except for that shirt of Alex's we couldn't find, all tangled up in the sheets on my bed. Devastated, she fled to a friend's flat to cry on her shoulder.

As the great god Co-incidence would have it, Kristen's friend's flat was downstairs from the one Alex and I were in. On the way in, Kristen happened to hear what she described as "that woman's inane cackle". She went straight up, and found Alex, drunk, wearing my shirt, smoking my cigarettes. He'd made her give up smoking. I think at that stage we'd found a wire coathanger and we were doing Joan Crawford impressions.

Well. He went home with her. I'm buggered if I know how he talked her down, but he did. He even dragged her back to the flat the next day to 'socialise'. She used to check his clothes for my hairs. Alex and I have the same colour hair. Once he drove me home and we were sitting in the driveway talking when she drove up behind us and shone her headlights into the car until I got out.

Finally, he dumped her. And went out with someone else, which pissed me off no end.

WHEN CHRISTMAS PARADES GO BAD
by Anthea

My granddad, being a WWII veteran, was heavily involved in the local RSA. Being in the engineering corps during the war, and also being a very talented artist, he was the ideal choice to build the RSA's float in the annual Henderson Christmas parade. Or so you would think.

The theme was an Auckland Christmas. So my Granddad came up with the idea to build huge volcano, reminiscent of Rangitoto complete with papier-mâché pohutakawas, yachts sweeping past in the ocean, seagulls etc. It took a month or so of hard work each weekend, but eventually the chicken wire, newspaper, glue and wood creation was complete. Being somewhat on the dramatic side, granddad decided that the volcano could be improved by adding a realistic eruptions and lava. Pyroclastic flows were ruled out as being too technically difficult to simulate. So in the end he was persuaded to a more traditional molten magma effect.

Various feverish experiments were conducted with blow torches and paint etc, but it was decided in the end that the easiest way to proceed was with fireworks. Someone would be crouched in the bowels of the volcano, and would push them up through the crater top to simulate an eruption. Periodically, small cans of red paint would be surreptitiously poured down the side to suggest red hot magma. Must be due to his experiences during the war, but Granddad didn't feel at all uneasy about this volatile mix and was rather dismissive of the potential dangers.

I was a wee girl at the time, but even I remember being just a little scared of Granddad's backyard volcano. Turns out I had great instincts.

On the day of the Christmas parade, it was warm, sunny and windy. Granddad, funnily enough, couldn't find any volunteers, so he crawled through the little hatch in the side of the volcano and dragged his box of special effect tricks through after him. At the last minute he succumbed to pressure from my Grandma and Dad, and agreed to wear a welding glove and goggles to hold the fireworks up with.

At first, everything went spectacularly well. The fireworks provided just the right amount of wow factor, and the magma was, well, painty but had a pleasing effect. Many people exclaimed afterwards how it was the best float of the entire parade until the unfortunate accident.

Just on half way through the parade, the volcano suddenly seemed to give off a very realistic smouldering smoke, which everyone ooed and aahed over. Then came a small lick or two of fire, which apparently was only seen for a few short seconds before the volcano was engulfed in flames and fireworks starting shooting out in all directions, punching through the side of the papier-mâché mountain, in a scene eerily reminiscent of Mt St Helens. The crowds of families scattered, causing a mild stampede, which added a realistic touch as if they were witnessing an actual volcanic eruption. For those who didn't have their back to the volcano, fleeing for their lives, they would've seen my Granddad, crashing through the side of the mountain, goggles akimbo, beating off the flames before the entire float was engulfed. Not so much towering inferno, but definitely a low level minor 70's disaster flick all the same.

The crowds were then treated to a display of the local fire truck, complete with Santa on board, charging up through the parade from the rear, scattering other floats, marching girls, and boy scout troops, to put out the fire and my Granddad.

My Granddad was a little charred in places, but otherwise fine. He was never again asked to do the Christmas parade float.

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