Random Play by Graham Reid

It used to be that getting behind a group of mainland Chinese at the check-in meant lengthy delays at an airport because of language and passport problems. Now the new problem-people are women with babies. And maybe women in general.

Yes, we flew back from Australia the other day, just after the new regulations about what you can and can’t carry on came into effect.

You know the thing: have all your toothpaste, liquids (limited amounts) and so on in a plastic bag -- and ladies, that means all your cosmetics such as lipstick, moisturiser, skin care products and whatever.

Unlike 22-year olds and sports folk I’ve never thought I was going to dehydrate if I didn’t sip water every 90 seconds so carrying water anywhere, let alone onto a plane (where they serve stuff which is much better for you), was never an issue for me -- but at Melbourne they were collecting bottle after bottle.

In a city undergoing a serious water crisis -- and believe me when you drive to the perimeter the “fields” are rust-coloured and they are harvesting dust -- I asked if all the expensive water they collected was being recycled.

But the young woman was too busy insisting that Megan empty out the contents of her make-up purse into the plastic bag provided. Women with babies were undergoing frustratingly long delays as they scoured deep bags for offending bottles of formula and the like.

When we got to the scanner Megan’s bag had to be put through three times, on each pass a new offending item like lipstick forgotten in the side-pocket being removed.

Now as with any intelligent person travelling by air I approve of all and any sensible measures to ensure safety, and I guess if terrorists can mix two common ingredients and ensure I don’t get back home to pick up Zippy from the cattery then I’m all for it.

So I am just warning you that the new regime has seriously kicked in. With sinking heart however we learned on landing in Auckland that they would no longer be providing the plastic bags -- so factor in a zip-lock if you are intending to fly the friendly skies.

Although I suspect the rise in passenger numbers on cruises might be an indicator that many aren’t. And here’s another reason.

We had one of those godawful dawn flights last week -- up at 5am, at the airport at 6am for that two hour-before-boarding thing. People looked like they had come straight from the set of The Zombie Walks.

There were only three check-in counters open and, I am not kidding, maybe 350 passengers waiting: it looked like about four aircraft were leaving within the next hour and so the queue -- woven around what I call the Disneyland snake -- stretched right back into the concourse and out to the doors.

People were really, really pissed off.

I guess it didn’t help that the baggage belt wasn’t working either. And no one’s mood on our flight improved when we were told there was a delay in finding some passengers, then a delay because the luggage being transferred from another flight hadn’t arrived, or when the pilot informed us that the “tug” seemed to have broken down and we couldn’t get onto the runway . . .

On the way home we were only delayed an hour.

But with these new regulations regarding liquids kicking in, I am guessing there will be even greater delays. AND they aren't going to be providing the plastic bags.

You have been warned. (And maybe some entrepreneur will see an opportunity here?)

News in Melbourne these past few days revolved around two guys: swimmer Thorpe and David Hicks.

The consensus regarding The Thorpedo being a drug cheat was “no way, mate” although one guy said to me he’d be surprised if he had abnormally high levels of testosterone. “Oestrogen more like it, you ever seen him? Gay, mate. Totally.”

Newspapers essayed on the need for heroes and, surprisingly, the loss of innocence regarding sports people -- only now? -- and how Thorpe’s legacy had been tarnished just by the allegation.

True. Regardless of the outcome.

David Hicks -- the Aussie Taliban -- is more problematic. He confessed guilt -- and got nine months -- although many feel that was simply to get out of Guantanamo Bay. (And wouldn’t you?).

But the deal struck is full of caveats: he can’t speak to media for a year and cannot say he pleaded guilty to win his freedom. He cannot say he was “illegally treated” while in detention. If he does that he’ll have perjured himself and the Americans will demand he serve something like 20 years.

Previously when he’d tried to get British citizenship and out of Guantanamo he’d asserted he’d been repeatedly beaten, sodomized and forced into painful positions during interrogations.

Robert Richter, a well-known criminal lawyer in Australia, wrote persuasively in The Age last weekend that this first Guantanamo trial was a sham which utterly discredited the war-crimes process set up by the Pentagon and the Bush administration.

"The charade that took place at Guantanamo Bay would have done Stalin's show trials proud," he said. "First there was indefinite detention without charge. Then there was the torture, however the Bush lawyers, including his attorney general, might choose to describe it. Then there was the extorted confession of guilt."

Hicks, by most accounts is no hero and in the words of a few people I spoke to is “a loser”. And let us be in no doubt he was a dangerous guy. He was also misguided, foolish and so on. But a five year detention without trial is the issue.

The prosecutor Marine Lt. Col. Kevin Chenail, said right to the end -- as I guess he was obliged to do and no doubt believed -- that Hicks was a genuine menace to Western society.

"Today in this courtroom,” he said, “we are on the front line of the war on terrorism, face to face with the enemy" and said Hicks had been trained in terror so could call up those skills at any time in the future.

But if that’s the case, said Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union, "why was he given a sentence more appropriate for a drunk-driving offence?"

In a word: politics.

The deal -- if that is what you can call it -- keeps Hicks effectively mute until after the Australian election which is expected in December.

Coincidence?

And was it a coincidence that the Thorpe allegations, first made on a website for the French newspaper L’Equipe should break as the 2007 World Championships were underway?

The world is an increasingly complicated place, right? Accusations, allegations, fallen heroes, back-room deals -- and baby formula is now a suspicious material.

** Finally something in a lighter vein: the best album of the year so far (in my opinion) has been released, and I have posted a track from it at Elsewhere. And if you want to hear Elvis singing Joy Division it too, among many other delights, is in the Music from Elsewhere page here.
Enjoy.

And here are the headlines to this hour . . .
According to Pentagon sources the alleged Al Qaeda head of operations Khalid Sheik Mohammed currently held at Guantanamo Bay has confessed to his torturers another series of inhumane acts for which he is responsible.
A White House spokesman said, “Mohammed told CIA operatives that in addition to planning 9/11, the Bali bombings and a dozen other Al Qaeda attacks, he was also the man who smuggled Lord Lucan out of England to Japan where he now lives as a housewife in a suburb of Tokyo, that he was behind the Milli Vanilli scandal, and admits to having told many people who hadn’t seen the film that the ‘woman’ in The Crying Game was actually a man.”

Fiji military strongman and Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama announced today he will stand down at the end of next week and will call for democratic elections in which he will not stand. Mr Bainimarama said that the military regime would support and allow free, fair and transparent elections and would abide by the result. He intends to retire from any and all positions he currently holds and intends to live at a remote location in Australia. He said the reason for his change of stance is as a result of reading a strongly worded statement of condemnation of Fiji by New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has apologised for past wrong-doings, pledged to make amends to those who have suffered under his brutal regime, will return all his personal wealth currently held in overseas accounts to the country, and will stand down to allow free, fair and democratic elections. He said he had been concerned by a strongly worded statement of condemnation by New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

Police, social welfare workers, supermarket staff, and Child Youth and Family have reported no cases of child abuse since discussion of proposed anti-smacking legislation started to make headlines a month ago.
A spokeswoman for CYFs said, “While we have no wish to be complacent, this is indeed the result we had hoped for, although we would still support the passage of the bill into law.”

The banning of private vehicles from Auckland’s crowded Queen St has had no effect on retail trade say shop owners. The ban which came into effect a month ago has confirmed that few people shop in the central city anyway, and that most prefer suburban malls where they can park for free, don’t have to put up with drunks on the street and can walk around without requiring earmuffs because of constant road works.

Supermodel Rachel Hunter has bought a substantial property in Auckland’s North Shore, but has denied she intends to return to New Zealand to live. “Why the hell would I want to do that?” she said to reporters after a catwalk parade of her new line of swimwear.

Radio host and media celebrity Paul Holmes has announced his retirement from all aspects of public life, starting in late 2012. Or maybe 2013.

And the weather forecast at this hour according to the weather’s special envoy Bob McDavitt: more of it, likely to change from time to time -- so largely unpredictable.

Now here’s Jim Mora with some Cat Stevens and James Taylor songs . . .

So the Auckland Festival AK07 has kicked off and . . . Well, ours got off to a bad start. Our neighbour MIke said he had six tickets for Balada which was billed as a Brazilian night out in the festival club behind Britomart and so we thought, why not?

Some Brazilian music isn’t much to my taste -- all that cooler than thou “bada-bada-badida” vocalising -- but this gig said it featured “some of Brazil’s best: Alda Rezende and Orquestra Brazilika, plus DJ Bobby Brazuka with his samba drummers and dancers“. That was followed by an exclamation mark for emphasis.

The show started at 7.30pm and promised a duration of three hours.

We arrived at 7.30pm and fortunately Mike had booked a table. There are maybe 20 such tables then half a dozen tiered rows of seats at the back. The raised stage was good because it meant we would be able to see the feet of the samba dancers. Hoorah.

We ordered drinks from the bar -- not one of the three staff had a pen so I couldn’t sign the credit card receipt -- and sat and waited. And waited.

I guess that was DJ Brazuka up there who just played one record after another -- doesn’t Kevin Black do that? -- but people began to get restless after about an hour. Some of us even started to applaud after tracks just so he or whomever might get the hint.

After an hour and 15 minutes of watching a DJ with his head cocked people were getting downright bloody angry. One guy was demanding his money back, others were saying they’d paid good money for tickets and wine and when was this show going to start, and others were getting up and walking around because those chairs in the tiers were pretty uncomfortable.

There was a group of young Asian girls who arrived ready to party and they had wilted. Older people were ropable. Some people had simply decided to fill the hour or so with alcohol and so were talking loudly.

Ninety minutes in -- that’s right, NINETY minutes after he first dropped a disc on a turntable -- the DJ wound things up (at the insistence of a put-upon AK07 staff member I think) and apologised saying things were running to Brazilian time.

Does that mean late? Or is it like island time? Dunno. His comment went down like a lead wonton, anyway.

While he had been playing the last few records a drummer had ambled on and pecked away at his kit, then the keyboard player appeared and set up his melodica (which of course he'd had all day to do) and the bassist also ambled out. Then they wandered away again.

I said to Mike, “Nice to see they’ve put a bit of effort in and got dressed up.” They looked like they’d been reluctantly dragged from a beach.

Anyway at 9pm the show started: the singer was okay but I’m inclined to think she was what I call a genre-singer and there are many just as good. “Brazil’s best” looks like it comes from Wellington because the keyboard player was the dishevelled Jonathan Crayford -- who does an eerily good impression of Billy Bibbit from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, all sudden freezes and mad staring eyes.

And so the set ambled on, pleasant but hardly elevating. After that long wait it might have been wise to open with something upbeat to win people over a bit, but no. And there was one too many downbeat songs after another. At one point the singer said she was sorry about the “misunderstanding” over the 9pm start.

There was no misunderstanding. No one had been told of a 9pm start, the programme clearly says 7.30pm.

By about 10pm we had had enough and, along with a number of others, we left. Samba dancers? Wouldn’t know. We’d been there two and half hours by that time and didn’t feel inclined to wait much longer.

This was a very poor and, I think, unprofessional opening act, and there was embarrassment on the part of the AK07 people. And Mike who had bought he tickets was apologetic to us too, not that he needed to be.

We went off to see Camera Obscura at the Kings Arms (who were lovely).

None of this will put us off going to all the other festival acts we are keen to see, but there is something unendearing and amateurish about the way some performers and promoters treat their paying audience. No act should have to introduce themselves for a kick-off, can‘t someone just get up and say, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming tonight, and now here‘s . . .”.

Seems simple to me. Gives a sense of ocassion and so on.

Anyway today it is Pasifika, tonight the free pyrotechnics in the Domain with Groupe F and music from Don McGlashan and The Mamaku Project. Tomorrow it’s high tide at lunchtime again in Auckland, we’re going to Penumbra in the evening, and maybe we’ll try to fit in George Gittoes’ doco Soundtrack to War . . .

Lots to do, it’s good to be alive.

And speaking of Gittoes who has Soundtrack to War as part of the Triennial and his latest film Rampage opening for selected screening at the Academy next weekend . . . it was my pleasure to interview him this week and what a fascinating guy.

I wrote a short version of the interview which appears in today’s Herald but the on-line version is the real oil, very long and detailed. It is supposed to be up there on-line now but . . .

Anyway, check it out when it is posted -- and his docos. The man is courageous and his docos utterly compelling. “Baghdad in Miami”, he says of the hip-hop gangbanger streets in suburban Florida where he filmed Rampage.

And he should know, he’s been to Baghdad four times.

[UPDATE: the link to the long version of the George Gittoes interview has now been added at the Herald website here ).

As with many people, every day last week when I picked up the Herald the news made me feel a little . . . Uneasy? Unclean? Uncomfortable? But I have no wish to re-litigate that trial of those cops -- because that is being done over dinner tables and at barbecues.

And no matter what side you are on -- and yes, these do seem to be sides -- everyone I know is coming back to the same question: what is it with the wives of those guys in the slammer? And the one who is now pregnant to her man who is also inside for the rape?

We just don’t understand these people.

But everyone is having their say about that, the “not proven” option, a certain person’s inappropriateness to be in any position at all in the police, and also -- but I am only hearing this when I have raised it with people -- just how much harder it is this week to be an ordinary hard-working cop than it was 10 days ago.

But this is not what I am here for, I have something else to comment on. It is this.

After reading the paper on Saturday morning and all those grim and grimy details we looked at the sky and the tide table and went to Mission Bay, a lovely beach just 10 minutes from Queen St. We swam and lay in the sun for a while, watched young mothers pushing their kids in pushchairs and old people out for a morning walk, and smiled at fellow citizens lolling about on the sand.

There weren’t many people there, but we were early and had gone by about 10.30. It was beautiful. There were yachts skittering across the water and beyond was Rangitoto, and the islands of the Gulf.

On the way there and back we drove cautiously around all the cyclists who were out, noted that there seemed to be some kind of fun-run planned, and then went home via the Domain where they were setting up for the Teddy Bear’s picnic. That night the Lantern Festival was still on.

Back at home Megan rang her Dad who was briefly in Auckland on his way home to Northland after a big gathering back in Samoa. He’d had a great time with his family.
Later she went over to her sister’s place, took her niece to a birthday party, and just hung out.

I stayed at home and sat in the garden listening to some great new albums (Some of which have been posted under Music From Elsewhere here ). And then I read a book.

It was gorgeous day and the suburbs were quiet, except for the sound of cicadas.
Later that afternoon we drove out to some friends for dinner. They live at French’s Bay in Titirangi (I guess it is) and we sat on their deck until well after dusk drinking excellent wine. And looking at the view across the bush to the bay beyond.

He is originally French, his wife is South African, and their friend Neil who was also there seemed to know a lot about Finland. We spoke of all these places, exchanged stories and laughs, had a delightful dinner (barbecued corn with chilli and lime is eye-rollingly wonderful) and listened to music.

It was a wonderful evening, and That Cop Case only got a fleeting mention in the last 15 minutes.

On Sunday morning we went back to Mission Bay for the 9 o'clock-ish high tide, the runners and cyclists and rollerbladers were out again, there was a Kite Day at Bastion Point, people were walking in the sun, kids were laughing.

Back home later I did a wee bit of work on the computer -- mainly to keep out of the sun -- and Megan baked a cake which we took over to Moana’s house.

She and her band are going to New Caledonia tomorrow on a short tour and she had invited a bunch of people over for a barbecue and to hear them run through a few numbers in their back garden.

So there we were, maybe 60 people (about four times the number as were at poor Jon Auer’s gig on Friday at the Schooner) eating great food, listening to songs in te reo and English in a garden in Grey Lynn surrounded by nikau and banana trees. And more cicadas.

After they had finished others were invited up to sing something from where they came from: there were people from Germany, Samoa, Mexico and Poland in the gathering and most got up and sang. (For your information I sang -- unaccompanied and solo -- The Cherry Rhyme which I learned as a wee boy in Scotland. People applauded, but people can be so kind).

We met Tui and Monsieur Escargot from The Mamaku Project -- who play the Domain this Saturday before the huge fireworks display -- and any number of other interesting people. We met strangers who greeted us like long lost friends.

It was just a relaxing, delightful afternoon and when we left we stepped onto Great North Road after dark to see a glorious full moon so close you felt you could touch it.

It was a wonderful weekend for us in our hometown: it was unconsciously multi-cultural and fun, people were intelligent, good humoured, doing things and glad to be in each others company.

This week Camera Obscura play at the Kings Arms, the Auckland Festival AK07 kicks off, the French Film Festival continues it run (it ends at the Rialto tomorrow), on the weekend there is Pasifika, Music in Parks . . .

Why am I mentioning all this?
Dunno.
Maybe it’s just to remind myself that there is another real life beyond the headlines.

Right now I’m looking at the inside of John F Kennedy’s head, blood and brains have cascaded out, his ears are full of congealed blood. This isn’t how I usually start a clear summer’s day I hasten to assure you.

But the announcement there is new film of that final and fatal last ride -- albeit film shot about 90 seconds before the bullets exploded JFK’s head and tore through his body -- had me pulling out some magazines I bought when I was in Dallas a couple of years ago and went to the site of his murder. As you do.

The magazine I am looking at was the “40th anniversary memorial edition” of “JFK, The Case For Conspiracy” by Robert J Groden who is described as the photographic consultant to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and a technical advisor to Oliver Stone’s movie JFK.

It is quite some glossy, I can tell you: pages of fuzzy photos of the motorcade, a window in the Texas Book Depository building circled, route maps, black’n’white pix of people running, photos of the room from which Lee Harvey Oswald is alleged to have shot from, and of course diagrams of bullet trajectories, Oswald getting his from Jack Ruby, stills from the Zapruder film and . . .

You can guess the rest. Although page after page of Kennedy’s exploded head on a slab might come as a surprise.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but there are ample questions raised (and unanswered maybe after 40 years) that I was vaguely curious when I saw those new images of JFK and how his jacket was bunched up at the back: such detail is crucial to CT people.

I have another magazine that I bought while Megan went off to loll on the "grassy knoll" : it is much the same but also reproduces the front page of the Fort Worth Press the day after the killing (home edition five cents!), and also a “Wanted for Treason” flier about Kennedy which had been pasted on telegraph poles along the motorcade route. Weirdness abounds.

Frankly I don’t know who did Kennedy in and, like many people at this great remove of time, do I much care anymore. But it is interesting that all these decades later new film should get the theorists and chatrooms buzzing again. Will Anna Nicole enjoy the same enduring interest?

That said, I offer here a piece that I wrote for the Herald -- for the Travel section no less -- about my day in Dallas.

It was better than JFK’s I have to say.

……. A simple wrong turn and the pressure of traffic forced us to carry on down the road, looking for an exit. But then, through a set of traffic lights, we were there.
“This it,” I shouted. “Look, this is it.”

I drove on as slowly as the urgent traffic would allow but we looked around at the slow dip and curve of the road, so recognisable from that famous piece of footage we have been seeing for fortysomething years.

This was the place. So I hooked a left, circled around for a couple of blocks and cautiously made our way back. We pulled over and got out of the car. There it was, the Texas School Book Depository, the famous “grassy knoll”, Dealey Plaza . . .

As much by chance as intent I have been to any number of slightly ghoulish places.

I have seen where River Phoenix died outside the Viper Room in LA (they’ve taken away the plaque now) and stood at Elvis’ grave a couple of times.

I have been to the modest plaque over Buddy Holly in his hometown of Lubbock, Texas; stumbled on Jim Morrison’s graffiti-covered grave in Pere La Chaise in Paris; and have been to Jimi Hendrix’s last resting place outside Seattle twice, the first when it was a simple grave which allowed for quiet contemplation, the second after they moved him and built a hideous memorial.

But there is something unique about the place in Dallas where John F Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963.

It is that it is so familiar from those endless -- and endlessly, sickly fascinating -- replays of the grainy 8mm footage shot by Abraham Zapruder. And that the jury of popular opinion is still out on just who shot Kennedy, and from where.

The Texas School Book Depository -- and who knew Texas needed such a huge building in which to store old books? -- is on the corner of Elm and Houston Streets in downtown Dallas. It is a magnet for curious tourists, nutcases, historians, the sceptical and the slightly Kennedy-obsessed, and any number of conspiracy theorists.

For the latter there is more research to be undertaken at the Conspiracy Museum about a two blocks away. I guess if you think Lyndon Baines Johnson had Kennedy killed so he could become president then you are just as likely to believe that Nazis killed the Lindberg baby.

Around the “grassy knoll” men with blazing eyes sell magazines which trace bullet trajectories and have graphic autopsy photographs of Kennedy’s shattered brain.

But if you are in Dallas it is impossible not to feel the attraction of the Sixth Floor Museum in the Texas School Book Depository because there you can hear about Kennedy’s life -- lots of promises but little achieved seems a fair verdict on his short presidency -- and consider the angle of fire that Lee Harvey Oswald would have needed to get off those rapid shots at a moving motorcade below.

You can’t actually stand where Oswald stood -- that area is sealed off by glass panels -- but you can stand in a window nearby. And you look down. And you look back at where Oswald stood and think of the angle. And you look again at the road below, and back to where Oswald would have stood . . .

I don’t know.

All I know is that if Oswald did it, then he was an exceptionally fine marksman.
And that’s pretty much what the guy next to me thought too, although the other guy who laughed and said, “Awwa man, no way” seemed to be more certain of his opinion.

It’s a place where you have to make up your own mind.

It might not be the most pleasant day out, but in the gift shop below you can buy Sixth Floor Museum t-shirts, postcards and kitschy Kennedy memorabilia.

I’ve got the museum ballpoint pen next to the plaster bust of Ho Chi Minh that I bought in Hanoi after going to see his mummified corpse.

But that’s another story ………..