Random Play by Graham Reid

Usually I’m pretty good about getting travel insurance, you never know when you might be somewhere and reflexively look right, glance left and wham . . . a local civilian obeying every rule wipes you out because you forgot about that other-side-of-the-road thing.

When I go to Australia for any duration I always pick up cheap cover which will ensure -- although this has been mercifully untested -- that in case of accident, injury or extreme hangover I can be shipped back home.

But late last week I was just going to Sydney for an overnighter -- to see Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson in concert at a studio room in the Opera House -- so I passed on some Insurance-R-Us deal. Not because I thought nothing would happen, but because I knew nothing would.

Sydney was where Pope Something the German was setting down with his entourage, so I figured that was a whole heap of holiness concentrated in one place. What could possibly go wrong? Surely the advanced good vibes of fresh-faced Catholics would ensure a measure of safety, security and a benign ambience.

Australia -- the Peaceable Kingdom where the lion would lie down with the lamb.

Of course tragedy struck Australia: Jana The Olympian, had to pull out of the Beijing shindig because of a toe injury and that was A Big Story everywhere. Then things got worse: Rudd looked smug and people complained that in his three months or whatever he hadn’t turned the economy around, halted petrol and food hikes, or stopped the housing slump. Clearly he was useless.

On a personal level there was worse for me: Red Eye Records right across from my fine hotel in Pitt Street was hopeless: all I got was a stupid old album by this guy (featuring the deathless The Psychiatrists Joy From Kingaroy) and I rescued the Freakpower 10” Sleazed because I liked them back in the Powerstation days and didn’t want to see them on sale for $4.98. I already had a copy but . . .

Across town was silliness: there was an offensive t-shirt parade where people wore such slogans as Pope Go Homo (this must be the sophisticated gay wit I keep hearing about) and there was Papal kitsch on sale everywhere from postcards to commemorative teaspoons (not to be used for stirring tea the packaging insisted). Shops and brothels expected to do brisk trade apparently.

God’s business is big business as my dad used to say.

Of course in letters to the editor the Pope was being blamed for the population explosion, institutionalised sodomy and pretty much everything else (except global warming, but it seemed he would be in due course).

Personally I couldn’t care less about Catholicism which has always struck me as a quaintly medieval faith -- and lapsed Catholics always want to bang on about their lot much more than those who still practice. I have always found that peculiar. This was their time in the sun again, and they seemed to be out in force too.

Anyway I survived a couple of days in this nexus of faith, commercialism and angry if artless protest -- but it also confirmed my feeling that we secular humanists have it good and guiltless, and seem to have got the right mix. “Be kind” is a pretty workable philosophy, I think.

The Veitch: This will keep burning and is being fed by columnists and talkback hosts, so my pennyworth is utterly irrelevant. But one thing does trouble me: did those Sunday gossip columnists who scribble about people like Veitch and his circle know about this accusation some time back? And if not, why not?

They seem well placed to pick up on such things (and write something in veiled sentences). But if they did know something, then did they not think that this information/gossip/story should have been passed on to their editors as something worth more serious investigation?

If they did know and didn’t do that, then what does that tell us about them? And if they did pass it on at the time . . .?

In this distasteful and abhorrent situation it was interesting to see this pursed-lipped, prissy, and puritanical column by Rosemary McLeod who seemed to lay the blame for all this on what she calls, “a peculiarly Auckland culture that baffles outsiders”.

I knew somehow "Auckland" would be to blame, and althought this rant seemed to come from the "one I prepared earlier" file it was a very funny column anyway. Unless she was serious?

My Brother: Finally to those who keep asking. No, Mike Reid who does those short album reviews in the Herald on Sunday is no relation. Not my brother (I don’t have one) and not one of my sons (all of whom are in London).

But yes, I have noticed he seems to regularly pick up on albums that have been posted at Elsewhere a week or so before. Slim pickings at the moment at Music from Elsewhere because of my absence (and then a nice weekend on Waiheke). But within a day or two Beck, the Pernice Brothers and many more will be put up, with tracks to listen to.

Hit the RSS feed to know when they are posted -- or you could wait a week or so for them to appear in the HoSunday?

Righto, mail from Popefolk, those outside Auckland, someone keen to work out how huge my carbon footprint was by going to Sydney and so on is all welcomed. Better out than in.

Or is it?

Late addition: I have just posted this interview at Something Elsewhere, about a film in the Auckland Film Festival this weekend: free jazz meets music from Java? Who'd've thunk it?

It is in print so therefore official: I am to the left of Winston Peters and -- more surprising -- Helen Clark. I am also, it seems, to the right of CK Stead. At least I am in the new book The Word for Food in which any number of worthies (and worthless types such as myself) were invited to contribute anecdotes about food and a favourite recipe.

My invitation came so long ago -- a year at a guess? -- that I had forgotten all about it until I received a phone call to attend the launch in the Auckland City Library a week ago. We dropped what we were doing at the thought of much fine tucker (alas, finger food only) but it was casual event where various people read their anecdotes. None of the famous names mentioned above were in attendance but this modest book of homespun and simple recipes to the more exotic (mine for Mika's Coconut Fish is here) has already proven a valuable addition to our shelves.

I commend it to you and I think it is only $20 in Dymocks. Contributors were unpaid and get nothing from sales, so I feel no shame of self-interest in recommending it to you.

In which regard might I also add this: in recent months I have been an occasional reviewer of restaurants for the Herald’s Canvas section again and we have encountered some serious disappointments in Auckland.

No reviewer goes out expecting a bad meal -- especially not if, like us, you have invited family or friends along. But with rare exceptions we have often felt we could have done better at home. And often do, or at friends’ places for sublime dinners -- and always in much more comfort than most restaurants provide.

Times are tough in restaurantland right now and will only get worse in the coming months (as I have mentioned in a forthcoming piece) but the national malaise is such that many appear to have given up on service and cuisine already. We’ve sometimes been made to feel we were at a wake for a stranger, and one we were paying for.

That said however, we have also had some excellent experiences and so I faithfully report the good, the bad and the indifferent.

However I want to add this: I have written about local and international restaurants off and on for a very long time, and for a while for this website.

But that was more than two years ago and to my embarrassment and astonishment many of those reviews are still on their site. I have asked them to remove them -- chefs, owners and menus change -- but many remain. They are undated unfortunately but make the site (and me) look foolish: I wrote about Winehot in Kingsland in its opening week (that is clear from the comments) and some months ago it celebrated a second birthday.

Such websites, like restaurants reviews, have to be current to be relevant. Ignore anything I say at that site. But check out my recipe (well, not mine as you will see) and check out The Word For Food, edited selflessly by the tireless Joyce Irving (Heritage Press).

The PM’s fish curry sounds real good and there is a recipe for a proper Cornish pasty (among other winter-fuel delights).

Ten-Four: Before truckies get even more deluded about how much public support they got for their protest could they breathe through their noses and consider the following.

1) People in this country like the idea of rilly rilly big trucks en masse in their city streets. It’s kinda different and exciting, like a muscular Santa parade. I’d honk and wave for that too.
2) Kids waving at you don’t count.
3) CW McCall’s Convoy was a big hit in this country, good buddy.
4) The New Zealand public seems well disposed to assisted-suicide for the mortally imperilled, so the “support” might have just been people’s way of giving an increasingly unpopular and wounded government a helpful nudge. In other words, it wasn't about you.

And before we get too heated about the perceived injustice meted out to poor truckies -- although Annette King scored a brilliant own goal and a PR disaster in one simple, ill-conceived announcement -- maybe some cooler analysis of the government’s case should be considered.

And if you can’t be bothered with the boring maths then Aucklanders might like to stand on Symonds Street on any given day, somewhere around the university where scores if not hundreds of students are crossing the road. That this narrow, pedestrian-heavy, tree-lined road through what is now the centre of the sprawling campus should be a thoroughfare for massive articulated trucks is a dangerous disgrace.

And look at the state of the road there: I doubt it is the gentle step of students’ feet, their motorbikes, or the traffic of Jap imports which is causing the damage. In user-pays land you have to wonder.

Almost finally: a lot of very diverse music -- cult classics, alt.country, neo-rock (I made that one up), Indian spiritual music sanctioned by the Dalai Lama, “metal lounge” and much, much more is here.

And if you are interested in the Patti Smith movie at the Auckland film festival you might like to read this interview with her.

Righto, I’m off to Real Groovy to rummage their cheap vinyl bins again. I do this at least every fortnight (where else are you going to find a mint-condition six-album set of Bing Crosby in a faux-leather box for $2?) but doubt my meagre, across-the-counter contributions are going to help keep them afloat if what I read here is true. It’s an “if” of course -- but this news-cum-astute PR exercise was the talking point at party I was at last night and people were shocked.

I suggested by way of support for Real Groovy -- which is one of the few businesses deserving that overworked adjective, “iconic” -- we should all come to town in our cars decked out in orange banners with “Life is Groovy” on the side. We could drive slowly around the central city in a convoy for an hour or so and see how many honked and waved in support.

My guess is a lot of people would. Hmmm.

I don’t know Northland MP John Carter at all so can’t say with certainty whether he is a total dickhead -- but there seems to be ample evidence to suggest that.

Be that as it may however, this kerfuffle over him cussing out a cop seems a trifling affair -- although it allowed for the amusing spectacle of John Key acting decisive and serious again, and a television news report showing Carter’s empty electorate office with a voice-over announcing there was no sign of him there today.

(The implication being that he was in hiding? Ahh, or maybe he was just somewhere else?)

Anyway the few facts as we know it about this incident are interesting for their banality: Carter is pulled over and the cop suggests the car isn’t registered. Carter says, “Look on the fucking front window“.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I was driving a registered car and a cop was dumb enough to say it wasn’t without checking then I’d be inclined to say pretty much that myself.

That just seems stupid on the part of the cop, if not mischievous and provocative.

Okay, Carter might have been intemperate -- but wasn’t it just a week ago that Alan Duff had the case against him dropped with the judge pointing out, “freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having"?

Frankly, I think both Duff and Carter over-reacted and were probably boorish, arrogant and all those other traits that seem to attend people who have spent a bit of self-important time in the public eye.

But it is not illegal to be a dickhead. (Although you wish, huh?)

The Carter thing was a non-event blown up big (unless some of those other accusations are confirmed). But the real story -- as is so often the case -- was ignored entirely.

Carter was pulled over for failing to indicate.

As an Aucklander used to people changing lanes with no warning I didn’t know that law was still on the books ($150 fine apparently).

Here’s a thought: instead of nailing Carter for saying what we all might have wanted to say in that situation, let’s hail the vigilance of that cop and get him down to Auckland -- and a few more like him.

New music by Emmylou Harris, Fleet Foxes, John Hiatt, Palestinian oud players, Moana and much more at Elsewhere. Enjoy.

Mansion on the Hill: For those interested and who sent me their comments regarding the Auckland War Memorial Museum here’s the update. I attended an interesting meeting on Tuesday night with a number of other people and we discussed our personal responses to the museum, what we thought its strengths were (personal, academic, historic etc) and everyone was given a fair and democratic hearing by the chair Bill Ralston.

Because of the diverse group present it would be unfair of me to attempt any synopsis of the meeting but a couple of things were of interest: first that director Vanda Vitali was attentive, took lots of notes and in her comments at the end seemed very reassuring that she was listening to these roundtables and taking the input seriously.

I have no reason to doubt her. She spoke well about how she appreciated the importance of this institution.

I was put on the spot to speak first because I had kinda cheated and solicited responses from PA readers and so conveyed what you had said, I hope fairly: the “anything but Te Papa“ comments which came through; the “donation/ticket” conundrum which many of you consider annoying and off-putting; the importance of the place as not just an Auckland institution but also as the national war memorial; how badly lit and cramped some of the displays were, how much people liked objects for their own sake; and so on.

Not all of what I offered on your behalf or mine was agreed with by others there of course, but what was interesting was that at the end we made written comments and these were posted under groups of common ideas etc. It was observed that although a previous roundtable, which had had a significant Maori/Polynesian presence, identified very different aspects of the museum (and why some of their people didn’t go there) there was considerable consensus between us and them.

As Bill Ralston said, we took very different paths to come to similar (but not the same) conclusions.

It was a useful meeting and the invited people put their positions with candour and clarity. I went in pretty sceptical but came away thinking that if these discussions are taken seriously then we don’t need to worry about a Ferris Wheel for the kiddies being installed in the foyer next to the franchised fast-food outlet.

Of the staffing matters I cannot say, that wasn’t the issue we were discussing although the importance of institutional memory was certainly raised.

Power to the People: When I was in Seoul I visited OhMyNews, the online newspaper which is a cornerstone of citizen journalism. I interviewed a couple of people there and an article about the background to this important medium, why it emerged in the social and political context of Korea, and much more is here for your consideration. I’m speaking with Damian Christie about it on Public Address Radio this weekend too. It’s a future.

And I have cleaned up my rambling blogs from Seoul, added further information, useful links and some photos, and put them here.

Think For Yourself: Sick of TV3’s Duncan Garner framing the debate and telling you how to think about politics yet?

Dedicated Follower of Fashion: As Russell has mentioned previously, some PA contributors are donning hoodies and “getting down with the kids” next Friday as part of youth week.

I’m not too old and silly for this one -- I have my own hoodie but many thanks to NZAAHD for sending such a flash new one with the logo “young at heart” (which looks like the old Tom Petty/Heartbreakers logo) on it.

Kids get a bad rap in this country and the rhetoric before the election (from you know who) will be racked up to strike fear into the hearts of all decent folk in the nation.

Well, I was of that first generation of adolescent males that grew its hair and adopted jeans as street wear, so I’ve always been pretty familiar with being demonised or dismissed for my appearance (still happens folks, still happens). Girls in that period adopted miniskirts and were ridiculed in the media and called tarts and the like. Then later the maxi-skirt came along and the younger sisters of girls thrown out of school for miniskirts were being sent home for having dresses down to their ankles. It just goes on.

An item on the agenda of the first school I taught in was, how long should we let boys have their hair?. The staffroom went silent and everyone sort of didn’t turn to me, but kinda did. The matter was dropped.

Kids -- and I’ve had three who went through goth and Guns’N’Roses phases and the like -- are too often judged by the way they look and hoodies are just the latest fashion to come down the highway. It’s tough enough being young, awkward, worried about your body image and so on without someone assuming you are an unemployed, glue-sniffin’, spraycan totin’, gang member-thug just because you wear a hoodie and don’t look adults in the eye.

As they say, it’s what’s under the hood that counts right? Let’s hope some positive stories about our children start coming through more often. Seems to me the ones I know sing and dance and paint and think and make mistakes like we all do and pick themselves up again and . . .

The Art of Dying: Mr Brown has drawn attention to Matt Nippert’s interesting Listener article about funerals so I thought you might like to check out The Art of Dying about how we choose to conduct the manner of death, and how we want to control that part of our existence also.

Video Killed the Radio Star: and downloading is killing the CD, right? But many who download songs for $2 a time talk about not having something solid to hold. I have hit upon the solution. You buy from the Real Groovy vinyl dump bins.

Albums there are $2 (that’s $2 for about 12 - 14 songs!) and you also have something to hold in your hand. Or if the cover is bad enough (like Torsson’s Att kunna men into vilja, Dunno, Swedish maybe) or utterly wonderful (Marlene Dietrich at the Café De Paris) you can also get them framed. Don’t bother looking for the Hawaiian kitsch ones from the 60s, I’ve got them all.

Problem: you can’t download this nonsense into your I-Pod?

Well, if you really want to, there are turntable systems available for around $300 which you plug straight in to your laptop if you have the loaded software, so . . .

I have seen the future of rock‘n‘roll -- and it is in the dump bins. Cheap and fun.

(Vinyl lovers have a look at this nonsense.. Very diverting in these ever so serious times.)

Because I love the noise, I still go to pubs and clubs to see rock bands -- and so have become used to being the oldest person in the room. But it is rare that I go to a concert and feel I am the youngest.

On Saturday I had that pleasant if unusual experience when I went to see Ronnie Ronalde at the Holy Trinity cathedral.

Ronnie is an oldtime entertainer: he was a world famous whistler before the war and parlayed his considerable talents to Broadway and the movies. He knew Marilyn Munroe among many others.

During the course of his concert he told stories and read from his autobiography Around The World On A Whistle. He mentioned that he learned to whistle in 1928 -- 1928?!?! -- when he was five. Do the maths and you have to be impressed that here was Ronnie, in an immaculate suit, still entertaining. And lovin' it.

Okay, the singing was wee bit wobbly and he used to be a much better yodeller, but Ronnie Ronalde was an object lesson in the virtue of just keeping on keeping on.

The show was presented by Les and Sonia Andrews who also sang -- I think Sonia mentioned Les was now 90, I can't be sure because the mike wasn't working.

But even he was only 80, he too was still up there bringing music and joy to the large audience of people mostly a decade or two older than me.

Megan couldn't make it and so I felt like an unaccompanied minor in their company.

Some old ladies covered their ears when Ronnie hit an especially piercing whistle, and the old boy a few seats along from me nodded off after about half an hour, but I sat there thoroughly engaged by Ronnie (who shamelesly mugged to the television camera like the old Vaudevillean he was).

Here was a man whose talent is rare and quite ignored by current fashion. I doubt whistling will ever come back into vogue, it was something from "a more innocent time" (although of course it was also a time of war, rationing, bombs raining down on London and Liverpool, the Depression and so forth).

I was not only glad to hear him whistle in th style of any number of birds or essay a melody line like a soaring violin -- but also just to see someone who not only hadn't given up on life as the decades rolled by but was still out there grabbing at it.

Some in the audience gave him a standing ovation (the Queen had once also appreciated his talents, as had crowds at Radio City Music Hall in New York where he had a lengthy stand with the Rockettes and others), and at the end Ronnie seemed relucant to leave the applause and adulation.

Good on him.

We live in a culture which extolls the virtues of youth, when Baby Boomers refuse to grow old (mea culpa me too perhaps?) and when people Botox and Pilate and do anything to offset the inevitable attritions of age.

What I got from Ronnie was that if you just keep doing what you do with enthusiasm and enjoyment and don't resign yourself, then life might just go on as something to enjoy and not endure.

It was a heartening experience on a lovely Saturday afternoon when sunight streamed through the stained glass and Ronnie Ronalde whistled like any number of exotic birds over backing tapes.

There is some Ronnie music here. Enjoy.

And: The future of the Auckland War Memorial Museum? More comment appreciated, the roundtable I attend is tomorrow night. Would dearly like to pass on some consensus of opinon. Anything but Te Papa is a common line. Your comments through the thread here or via Elsewhere.

And Russell is right. Wasn't that a disgraceful and disingenuous story in the Herald on Sunday? Time to call the dogs off lest you become part of the problem, maybe?