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Posted at 10:11AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

The grey men of Customs made their own rules. They would stop what they saw fit to stop, and anyone who didn't like it could take it up with the tribunal at some later time.

Indeed - and some feminists would do well to remember who exactly was spending thousands of dollars they could ill afford (back in the day when a paperback though would now cost $20 was a tenth of that) appealing the seizure of utterly innocuous books whose main offence was having the L-word or the F-word that isn't "fuck" on the cover.

And I do hope Cathy Casey feels just a little squicky having Bob McCroskie in her corner... There are 'strange bedfellows', and then there's utter perversity.

Posted at 10:18AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

BTW, could I make the point that I personally find the Santa Parade (which the Auckland City Council apparently has no problems spending public money on, after Farmers withdrew their commercial sponsorship) an offensive commercialisation and trivialisation of a religious festival of enormous importance. (For that matter, I found the Hero Parade rather tacky and serving to perpetuate demeaning, if not outright homophobic stereotypes.)

But nobody was holding a gun to my head to watch Santa, Boobs or Dykes on Bikes -- so my default position remains that if thine eye offends thee, use you bloody neck and point it elsewhere.

Posted at 10:21AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

I still don't understand why a commercial venture can close a public road -- I thought parades were community events? Really, I'm confused ... Would McDonalds be allowed to run a Burgers with Boots parade?

Posted at 10:22AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

This reminds me - I think it was in the 90s that {{http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8039477657790445932|Red Hot Riding Hood] was seized by customs as it made its way to the NZ Film Festivals.

Embarrassed officials released the film just in time for its first screening.

Click through the link to see the whole film (it inspired Jim Carrey's The Mask). It's worth it.

Posted at 10:22AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

Oh poo - I'm going to post that again

This reminds me - I think it was in the 90s that Red Hot Riding Hood was seized by customs as it made its way to the NZ Film Festivals.

Embarrassed officials released the film just in time for its first screening.

Click through the link to see the whole film (it inspired Jim Carrey's The Mask). It's worth it.

Posted at 10:25AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

And now I've had my disjointed rant, could I offer a stonking virtual bouquet to Nicola Mathers -- who actually applied the law as it stands, not how she (might) like it to be.

I'm tempted to check in with the usual suspects, and watch her being pilloried from both the loony left and the rabid right as a 'judicial activist' or a rape-enabler. The really depressing thing is that I expect the abuse to be virtually indistinguishable.

Posted at 10:28AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

I'm tempted to check in with the usual suspects, and watch her being pilloried from both the loony left and the rabid right as a 'judicial activist' or a rape-enabler.

Oh, it doesn't take much time, there was a 'Your Views' on the article at Stuff. I was, well, 'interested' by the number of commenters opposed to the parade who found it necessary to use the word 'skank' while expressing their opinions.

Posted at 10:30AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

I still don't understand why a commercial venture can close a public road -- I thought parades were community events? Really, I'm confused ... Would McDonalds be allowed to run a Burgers with Boots parade?

Indeed. As I've said elsewhere, I am outraged by this parade - because Renkon is on the other side of Queen St from work and I wants me some Japanese for lunch.

Posted at 10:35AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

I still don't understand why a commercial venture can close a public road

Newsprint: I don't mean this as a personal slam, but I think that's a rather disingenuous bit of misdirection that's been allowed to pass basically unchallenged. I don't recall the Auckland City Council ever having a problem with closing roads for the annual branding bonanza of a certain large department store. (Or Wellington doing the same for the now defunct James Smiths, through much of my misbegotten Wellywood youth.)

And dare I say it, more recently, the local and regional government in Wellington were quite happy not only to CLOSE a major public transport artery and cancel hundreds of bus services during peak hours, but heavily subsidise a commercial venture. The high profile première of a certain movie. I don't recall New Line or Weta being presented with the bill for that.

Posted at 10:37AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

Let Steve Crow have his little “parade”, it’s hardly the end of the world if a few wannebe porn stars and assorted strippers want to roar down Queen street topless. After all, they are doing it voluntarily and there is no accounting for taste - a whole lot of Aucklanders spend a whole lot of time in strip clubs and the like, otherwise they wouldn’t exist. The people who oppose this parade are in large part the same sort of people who killed off the Hero parade so as far as I can tell its just an unholy alliance of prudes making a big deal over nothing. Indeed, by opposing the parade in court the council has chosen to play into Mr. Crows hands - yet again - and turned it into a battle between the po-faced, wowser christian property developers who pass as the city guardians and Steve Crow, defender of free speech. Odious as the sex industry (and they are pretty odious when you meet them) is, I'll support their right to be sleazy and odious. And as for the “left wing” Cathy Casey - spare me, that woman reflexively opposes anything and has made a local government carrer out of bitching about everything. All in all, the council reaction is yet another reason for local government reform in Auckland.

You would think that in a grown up city in a grown up country this wouldn’t even be an issue. In a tolerant city we would have a Hero Parade and boobs on bikes and even naked bicycle day, and people would find them a mildly amusing or mildly irritating footnote (unless you are a teenage boy, in which case it is a must see event). Instead, we have a city where a totally unrepresentative council (earnest left wing kill-joys and middle aged right wing Christian fundys appear to make up the bulk of them) spend their whole time either opposing anything or trying to line their own and their mate’s pockets by demolishing heritage buildings. When recently the local licencing N.Z. Police officer seriously suggested shutting down our only city, And it REALLY annoys me to see all the so-called “left wingers” lining up with Bob McCroskie and the rest of the Kiwi Taliban. Bring on the revival of the libertine left! Instead of celebrating the only New Zealand place that actually has an urban culture - an urban nightlife - and revelling in the various joys and tribulations of living in the naked city, the council had determinedly engaged in yet another reductio ad absurdo drive to reduce Auckland to an enlarged Timaru, just in case someone might be having some fun somewhere that someone else doesn’t approve of. One would hope at least Auckland would be a refuge in our own country from our reflexive Presbyterianism.

Posted at 10:39AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

PS Rant over.

Posted at 10:40AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

You are right about the LOTR premiere of course Craig (and don't worry, I was outraged of Karori then too!) but I think it's a push to call the Santa parade a commercial event (in this sense, of course to my mind the whole xmas shebang is a commercial event), even if it has high profile commercial support.

Hmmm, maybe you're right.

Posted at 10:42AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

It's all very well to say if you don't like it, don't look/stay away, but there'll be women who work in the area or who for whatever reason can't avoid the area. They will be forced to make their way through a horny, leering crowd, and made to feel like stink. I feel a bit sorry for them. K Rd at night/dusk might have been a better time and place. Or Hamilton.

Posted at 10:43AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

I was lucky enough to be working next to the square when they had it in Chch. The square was absolutely packed. And there is some church youth group preforming, happy as to finally have an audience.
But as soon as rumour that the parade was coming our way hit, everyone just left. In two seconds the the middle of the square was empty. You should have seen the look of devastation on the face of the god-bothers.
They were the closest thing to a protest I saw. And they were pretty subtle about it too. They just had a little sign saying who they were. And most people I spoke to thought they were performers doing a lunchtime show.

Posted at 10:43AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

Bring on the revival of the libertine left!

The 'libertine left' always relied rather heavily on women being sexually subservient, of course. (The chicks had to make all the cups of tea as well as supply the blow jobs.)

Posted at 10:48AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

The 'libertine left' always relied rather heavily on women being sexually subservient, of course. (The chicks had to make all the cups of tea as well as supply the blow jobs.)

I saw a documentary about the Merry Pranksters and their bus journey once, with lots of archive film. It was a sobering reminder that the freedom fighters were pretty much sexist jerks whose chief expectation of the women around them was to be sexually available.

Posted at 10:50AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

I don't really care for the parade itself...just don't see the appeal.

But I'm pleased that the jedgement was passed as it was...the opponents such as Cr Casey and McCroskie have displayed a lack of perspective and knack for hysterical hyperbole that suggests a career in P.R would be more suited to them (no offense to P.R practioners).

Just as much as they're not happy that Mr Crow is 'allowed' to hold his parade, I'm not happy that these people think it's their right/duty to tell ANYONE what they can or can't see/participate in/attend.

What I do find amusing though, is that a lot of the vocalised opposition on forums such as the ever-reliable 'Your Views' seems, to me at least, to be more offensive than the very thing they're so strongly opposed to...

Posted at 10:51AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

The thing I find most offensive about the whole mess is the way that everyone is talking about breasts, and only breasts, as if there's going to be a collection of floating disembodied boobies floating through central Auckland. Fortunately (or not?) there aren't. There are going to be topless women riding through central Auckland. I.e., people.

The way that the actual living breathing people whose nudity is at question here are being sidelined so completely - by Crow, by the media, by damn near everyone - says everything about this I really need to know.

OTOH, the hysterical "families must be PROTECTED!" rhetoric is, at least, good for a laugh.

Posted at 10:53AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

The chicks had to make all the cups of tea as well as supply the blow jobs.

What? You are allowed both?
Hmmm, gonna have to have words with someone. lol

Posted at 10:54AM on 20 Aug 08. Permalink.

I think it's a push to call the Santa parade a commercial event (in this sense, of course to my mind the whole xmas shebang is a commercial event), even if it has high profile commercial support.

I'm guessing you haven't been to one recently. I went last year, for the first time since childhood and it was full of enormous motorised billboards with a few elves riding on top.