Penultimate holiday snap round-up

Ok you lot, sit still and pay attention.

Approximately Ring of Fire

In the Bay of Plenty there's plenty of small, conical volcanoes... some on land and some out to sea. This is Motuhora (Whale) Island, from Waiotahi Beach, near Opotiki.



White Island (not visible), is the most active of the islands.

How the Elephant Got His Trunk

In Huntly, whilst admiring the lovely power-station, I had an ephiphany. I was suddenly struck that here, at last, after all these years, had I finally seen a great grey-green greasy river... approximating, somewhat, the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River of Rudyard Kipling's cautionary fable The Elephant's Child (or as it is colloquially known, How the Elephant Got His Trunk) from his Just So Stories collection. Suddenly, with piercing clarity, I could see in my mind just where it was that the Kolokolo Bird sent the Elephant's Child to find out exactly what it is that the crocodile has for dinner.

 

This river, of course, is the Waikato River rather then the Limpopo, and despite a thorough examination of both banks, did not appear to be all set about with even one single fever-tree.

More mulch for the memoirs

Skinny dipping at sun-rise, Hoffman's Pool, Kauaeranga Valley, Coromandel

Granted, sunrise was about 8.30 am given that we were in the lee of some fairly monumental landscape, but the water was like ice. With shoulders under, you couldn't speak, let alone breathe... communication was limited to short noisy expulsions. Crown jewels disappeared in the direction of the centrally-heated abdominal cavity, much to the amusement of the Jarman. It was a foolish and excruciating - yet invigorating - way to start the day.

Wildlife, Kauaeranga Valley, Coromandel

Yep, that's a cow licking it's arse. Another one of those things we'd all do, if we could. Apparently.

Cows are quite good. If I may be allowed to anthropomorphise for a moment here, they have very wise faces. They will also happily look you in the eye - with their large, souful brown eyes - for minutes, and let you quite close to photograph and admire them. But they're not all work and no fun; the angle their ears describe to the sides of their faces is quite jaunty, and the attitude of their heads often verging on the rakish.

I also quite like how they talk. Very sombre... the lowing of the cattle and all that.

What you don't ever want to do is to think about sausages; specifically in the context of the lips, udders, and anuses of cows.

Quite often, if you spend long enough hanging around on the edge of the highway checking out the cattle in the field, a farmer will come and zoom anxiously up and down the road in his car or on a quad-bike, a bit like a jealous girlfriend.

Horses, a more recent enthusiasm, are also quite good.

Crime-spree in Gisborne

Hmmmm. Long story short... Small commercial book-shop in Gisborne (popn. 43,000). Discovered 5 copies of new edition of Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451 - the 50th anniversary edition - on the shelf. Immediately postulated theory that store clerk mistook same for book-of-movie of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11 and ordered 5 copies, thinking "these'll sell like the proverbial". Chuckling. Delighted with compound irony of situation given theme of Bradbury novel. Delighted with self at inventing 'compound irony'. So delighted, in fact, was compelled to celebrate and liberated one of the copies by putting it in my pocket and walking out of the shop.

Now, let me say at this point I did feel a bit guilty. Also, I did not attempt theft without first checking that there wasn't a security tag on the book, that the staff were busy, and reminding self that we would be driving to another part of the country in a few minutes.

It's a good book. I also have the DVD of the Francios Truffaut film adaptation from 1965.

If it wasn't 0258 in the AM and if I wasn't exhausted and starting to think - and write - like Bridget Jones, I'd link up this post... look back later after I've had a chance to do it, 'k? Edit: Done!

You'll also notice, if you look closely enough, that that is - of course - not the security camera picture of me liberating new edition of classic Ray Bradbury novel. Of course it's not - unless you think I'm writing this from jail. I just stole the picture off the internet. God bless Google Image Search.

Goodness me I'm bad-ass.

Most blatent song quotations ever...

Elastica, for butchering Wire's Three Girl Rhumba [Pink Flag] in their hit Connection. They settled out of court.

Closely followed by Devo's Uncontrollable Urge [Q: Are we not men? A: We Are Devo!] which liberally lifts from Led Zeppelin's Misty Mountain Hop [Led Zeppelin IV] in its intro.

NOTE: Least blatent song quotation ever - Neil Young's Borrowed Tune [Tonight's the Night] which he 'borrowed' from the Rolling Stones' Lady Jane [Aftermath]. Sing to the tune of Lady Jane:

I'm singin' this borrowed tune / I took from the Rolling Stones
Alone in this empty room / Too wasted to write my own

The implications of this lyric are massive and bleak. Massively bleak, even, possibly.

Others, perhaps?

EDIT: Allmusic.com's Stephen Thomas Erlewine comes up with some bullshit argument in support of Elastica's 'song-writing' practices. I also overhauled the post, re-doing all the links that mysteriously vanished from the published version.

The Futureheads in revisionist revivalist copyist shocker

As soon as I heard them I thought The Futureheads were a great band, but right now I'm listening to their album The Futureheads, with a view to deciding which track to play on my radio show tomorrow night... and suddenly they just sound like lame-ass retro-fitted copyists of the worst sort. This is hard to swallow - all at once they sound like The Jam's [particularly In the City], Devo, the Cars, XTC, Psychedelic Furs and Gang of Four. And that's just for starters.

Of course this shouldn't be a problem for me 'cos I love all these bands... and this shouldn't be a problem for me because I think that people who dis' bands for sounding like their influences are unrealistic idiots and, well... wankers; but basically I always have a hard job endorsing such bands when the timing is so utterly propitious to their fortunes.

What am I saying? Great band, but... well, put it like this - there could never have been a better time in the last 20 years for a band sounding like The Jam, Devo, The Cars, XTC, Psychedelic Furs and Gang of Four to put out a record. Know what I mean? [And get fucked, I actually came up with some of those comparisons myself. You think I'd link to sites which make the same comparisons if I hadn't?]

So anyway, what am I going to play in my set? Robot of course:

"I am a robot.. living like a robot.. talk like a robot.. in the habititting way / In the future we all die.. (robot!) Machines will last forever.. (robot!) / Metal things just turn to rust.. when you're a robot / The best thing is our life span (i don't mind).. We last nigh on hundred years (i don't mind).. / If that mean's we'll be together (i don't mind).. I have no mind, i have no mind...

Anyone who knows me will understand. I'm slowly regressing into fantasies from an imaginary childhood of space-travel and robots and shit and... and here's looking forward to some new material from The Futureheads. [Although some of the remixes on singles like First Day and Decent Days and Nights are right-up-to-the-minute and pretty damn hot].

If you haven't heard The Futureheads and you like Franz Ferdinand or Bloc Party - or indeed any or all of the above-mentioned groups - then you owe it to yourself to check them out. Dammit fool, whatchoo waiting for?

Everything is Wrong With Me guy

Folks, allow me to direct your attention to Jason Mulgrew. Jason is the best, the funniest, the plain ole good-god-damn baddest blogger on the planet. In fact, as he tends to keep reminding you with only just enough irony, he's a fully-carded Internet Quasi-Celebrity.

Jason used to blog as Everything Is Wrong With Me but now he's gone legit and got his own site. But don't let that put you off checking out his archives.

There's no-one's musings I would rather waste my precious time reading.

[Jason, if you are reading this, I hope this puff-piece is sufficiently fluff to earn me a blow-job].

EDIT: Someone asked, so here's the answer to the question: He's actually a bloody good writer. Somehow he manages to convey a combination of self-conscious sensitivity and devil-may-care ebullience... which captures something really new and vital in the 'zeitgeist' as well as allowing his readers a hilarious and thrillingly voyeuristic 'schadenfreud'.

Legless in Devonport

At The Depot art space in Devonport, both the coordinator and the coordinator's dog were - in what must be some sort of first - missing limbs. The coordinator had one of those coloured-oxidised-aluminium stick-with-foot-on-end contraptions, while the dog wasn't nearly so lucky.

They both also seemed to be reasonably good-humoured about the whole thing, which is why I trust they will be the first to forgive me for the appalling pun in the title.

We were there on an urgent fact-finding recce for my bruvva, who is showing some work there next week and needed to know gallery configuration and floor-plan and so forth. Nice space... however the stuff on the wall was fairly wretched [when we were there, anyway]. Hopefully Andy will do me proud, especially with the interactive installation piece I helped him build [more soon...].

More travelogue

101 Croations

What we found really strange, as we bowled into Kaitaia from the north, was that the Welcome To Kaitaia sign said it in Croation too. Big letters. Dobro Dosli. I wish I had a photo - it also has weird Croatian-lookin' accent marks over a couple of characters, which helpfully won't show up in this font. [how do I know it was Croation? Lemme just say that it helps sometimes that the Jarman is from East Jarmany.]

The good thing about Croation - or any of those Slavic languages - is that you can pull off a passable imitation/parody of them by talking in strange, gruff, oddly-metred low register monotones. If I was to phonically represent our attempts at pronunciation it'd look something like:

dob-o-roh dozzsh-lee

Try it. It's fun!

So anyway we spent the next few days running round laughing stupidly at cows in fields and saying "Welcome" to them in Croation.

Apparently there is a large Dalmation population in Northland. They used to be gum-diggers.

Look who's back...

I've just gotten back from a two-week touring holiday around the North Island of New Zealand, with the Jarman. Previously I'd never been further north than Auckland City - yep that's right, never even crossed the Harbour Bridge - so the trip's been packed with new sights and sounds.

3,500 km later and it's good to be back. Thirteen days of not being able to properly clean the wax out of my ears has certainly taken it's toll on my mental state.

Cape Reinga in a pea-souper

I've never been to the Cape before and we picked a fantastic day to go - a low front had just moved in off the Tasman Sea bringing with it a depression resulting in cloud, rain and fog all over Northland. Visiting one of New Zealand's premier scenic attractions without being able to see more than a few feet in front of your face gave new meaning to the term "fucken waste of time" but what the hell - I've seen it on calendars and postcards my whole life and the Jarman wanted to go regardless. So go we went. It also gave me an opportunity to piss about with the manual settings on my new digicam to try to get some images for use in artworks.



The lighthouse experience was weird. You could hear the two oceans smashing into each other and the rocks below - the water-heavy atmosphere carried the sound and whirled it around and made it seem as if the waves were crashing just behind you; similarly, you could see only a couple of metres down the cliffs, and I have no idea how far I was from the sea-level.

This was the view from the carpark, looking back up the approach road, and from inside the car. Perhaps it was some sort of act of disappointed rebellion as - despite the presence of two cops strolling around the carpark telling tourists off for doing the same - we sat and ate our sandwiches, well inside the area designated as sacred and so food and drink free. To no avail I tried to spot spirits as they zoomed overhead, making for the afterlife.



An abundance of bauxite or some similar mineral gives the soil a freakish red colouration, and in the weather conditions that afternoon the landscape was distinctly alien.



Then we left and drove to Kaitaia.



Coffee to go in Kaitaia

Looking for a quick fix upon reaching Kaitaia we settled upon the rather charmingly-titled "Flix-Mix". Entering it appeared as if they were closing up; machines were being cleaned, floors mopped, and jokes told. Not wanting to waste any time I chose quickly from the menu-board and advanced to the counter.
"Hi, what would you like" sez proprietor.
"Macchiato to takeaway, pls" sez I.
Incredulous look follows. "You wha'??"
"Macchiato to takeaway, pls."
"What the hell's a macchiato?"
"Um, it's a long black served with steamed milk."
"Are you serious? I've never heard of one of those before."
Pointing... "Um it's up there on your board."
Look of bewilderment replaced with look of amusement. "Ooohhh. When my cousin painted that up for me he looked up some extra coffee names on the internet. Nobody's ever ordered that one before."
Me "Ahhh.." etc.
"Where you from then?"
"Wellington" I say, knowing what's coming next.
Merriment, jokes about city vs. country culture follow. "Ok how did you say you make it again?"
Me looking at ristretto, macchiato, thinking fast "Nah better not. What do you recommend eh?"
"Large flavoured latte."

Mine was Irish cream flavour, and utterly delicious.

Red-Light/Vorortromantik/Architecture/Death

I'm exhibiting new work in a four-man show which opens soon, at One Eye Gallery in Paekakariki. I'd like to extend a warm invitation to y'all to attend the opening on Saturday afternoon from 3 'til 5 pm.

Participating in the show are Jo Russ, Sandra Schmidt, Matt Couper and myself. It promises to be a great show.

If you can't make the opening, please feel free to pop up to Paekak of a sunny afternoon and check out the show for some spiritual and intellectual edification. You can, of course, spend the rest of the day in the fine second-hand bookstore, on the beach or in the pub.

The show runs from Saturday 20 November until Sunday 19 December. Gallery hours are Wednesday - Sunday 11 am 'til 5 pm. You can contact the gallery on 04 292 7044, or check out their site.

Now pray for Yassir Arafat

Yassir "The Moderator" Arafat, probably at the prospect of having to deal with - on top of Ariel Sharon - four more years of the Bush govt's policies of lunacy in the Middle East, has gone into a coma.

Hunter S. Thompson on Arafat:

Yassir has never been well-liked or popular in the Arab League nations. He is ugly and loud, and spittle flies off his lips when he talks. His beard is unclean and his eyes are like bags of dirty water. The starch in his uniforms gets rancid after two or three days of soaking up fatty acids, and even good friends avoid him in private. -13 October 1986 [Generation of Swine, p170]

"There were times when I could Have strangled him
There were times when I could Have murdered him
(But you know, I would hate Anything to happen to him)..."

[or something]

Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-Semitic or even anti-Zionist by any stretch of the imagination. However, as probably the only thing standing in the way of full-on jihad against Israel - and by [almost-]logical extension, nuclear conflict in the Middle-East, Arafat has his uses, so to speak. I hope he pulls through.

EDIT: In the interests of clarity I have slightly reworded some of this post.

Well... piss up a rope... again

Anyone who's ever lived here - Wellington, New Zealand - will know what I mean when I say that yesterday, Wednesday November the 3rd 2004, was a sublime Wellington day. The wind died away mid-morning and we basked in sun from heaven all the rest of the live-long day. God was clearly softening us up for the blow.

Looks like the Top Gun shit did the trick, goddammit.

So the Dorking Labs crew and miscellaneous hangers-on assembled at a pub and - drinking fast and hard - watched the live CNN broadcast of the unfolding results in the US elections a bit like it was a rugby-match. And like most rugby-matches, I lost interest when it became clear at around the 55-minute mark that the result was a given. Then it all got a bit silly for a while - our taunting of the CNN presenters' unwillingness to 'call' this state or that state [obviously wanting to avoid scandalous premature announcements a la 2000] turned surreal as we loudly suggested that they cross live to (the recently deceased) Hunter S. Thompson, a random blogger, the Symbionese Liberation Front, Mumia Abu-Jamal, the exhumed corpse of Jefferey Dahmer, the Una-Bomber and so on, anyone, anyone, and get them to call the result in Delaware or some shit. We also started revising the American electoral system, mooting for example that only Hollywood stars ever be allowed to become the Governor of a state, and that anyone who's ever released a good album be allowed 20 votes - in perpituity - rather than the standard one. Then No Offense, But... bit my hand for reasons that are still a bit unclear - possibly trying to express the collective mood in some sort of regressive act of savagery - if I had a digital camera I'd post a little snap of his teeth-marks some 12 hours later - and after a little while we drifted away into the night.

Today the weather did the only decent thing again, and packed it in.

Everything Is Wrong With Me-guy writes - as per usual - some really funny shit about god, George Bush, and his America.

Elsewhere on this site Blog-In-Mouth presents the unexpurgated version of his 'mourning'-after cartoon. You also gotta check this one, if you haven't seen it yet.

A chocolate fish for the first person that can find me a link to a good blogger who is celebrating the result. Fuck it, I might as well stake a blowjob, it's not gonna happen.

Ex-pat journo in "Flores man" shocker

On Thursday, Australian and Indonesian scientists announced the discovery of the Homo floresiensis, who stood about one metre tall and walked the earth about 13,000 years ago. "Flores man" is thought to be a descendant of Homo erectus, who had a large brain, was full-sized and spread out from Africa to Asia about 2 million years ago. Local folk tales suggest the hominids may have still been living on the Indonesian island of Flores until the Dutch arrived in the 1500s.

Exclusive

But in a Drinks-After-Work exclusive, we can reveal that "Flores man" is alive and well and getting on rather well with the locals. The little fellas, locally known as "Flossies", are said to be the life and soul of the party, have a predilection for expensive cocktails and like to have their heads scratched. They also love to ride around on humans and can get quite amorous, as our reporter Chris Holm demonstrates in a recent photograph from the jungles of Flores. While they don't speak English, or any of the local dialects, it's reported that they have no difficulty understanding and communicating in the international "language of love".

R.I.P. John Peel OBE

John Peel is dead, so I spent some hours in the middle of the night listening to all the Peel Session LPs I could lay me hands on - distressingly only the Damned and the Syd Barret were able to be located - and the CD reissue of the Siren albums on Peel's label Dandelion.

I've already read several carelessly-hurried obituaries wailing "how will we ever replace him". Fer chrissakes the man's barely cold... what kinduva half-witted thing to say is that? I think I'm gonna start issuing contracts for hits on the offenders...

Peel's motto regarding the music he presented on his legendary radio show was "A balance between things that you know people will like and things that you think people will like". Reading it now it may seem a little obvious but it's a hard balance to find; it's also one I've always strived for in my modest efforts on the radio.

Courtesy of the BBC:

• John Peel's bullet point biog.
• If you would like to remember John, or to offer your words of condolence click here.
• For advice on how to cope with bereavement go to One Life's help pages.

Jen-Smacked-Face met the man - more than once - and she stole his taxi. Here she eulogises eloquently about him.

3PM Edit: Lord-only knows why I put "Sir Robert Peel" in the title of this entry. Please accept humble apologies. It was the middle of the night - perhaps I was google-fatigued. Title adjusted accordingly.

He takes my breath away

So-called "President" Bush is on the campaign trail in Florida, and helicopter-hopping all over the state. In Fort Myers on Saturday morning, he emerged from his chopper Marine One to the Top Gun theme blaring from the stadium PA. After the rally he presumably left to have a fist-fight with Iceman, a dog-fight with a few Russki Migs, and sex with Kelly McGillis. Or something.

I was intending to cook up some devastatingly witty and/or sarcastic appraisal of this blatantly ridiculous conceit, combine it with some fantastically thoughtful insight, and retire, satisfied in a job well done. It'd be a blogger's duty at the very least. But I really only want to cuss his stoopid chimp-faced hick ass all the way back to the stump out from under which he crawled and... etc. etc.

Has Been..

William Shatner has a new album out; Has Been, the long-awaited follow-up to 1968's The Transformed Man has just been released. Actually if he'd waited 18 months or so, he'd probably hold the title for Most Delayed Follow-Up Album in History of Rock. [I believe Brian Wilson would currently take that honour for Smile, released last month.] But that's not what I want to talk about.

John Russell reviewed Shatner's new album in Sunday's Herald. It wasn't a bad review, all things considered, but one thing made my hair stand on end. In his review, Russell alerts us to the fact that Mr. Shatner apparently prefers to be known as The Shat.

This is beyond comprehension. The only - and this is stretching it - reason I can think of to explain why Shatner would like us to affectionately refer to him - in the past participle of to shit - as recently excreted feculence, is that he's the dom. in some sort of S+M relationship with a coprophagiast.

Some googling later, and it would appear that Shatner has been colloquially known as The Shat for some time. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em and all that, I guess, but if a bunch of people started calling me 'piss-o' or something similar I'm pretty sure that rather than resign myself to it, I would draw some sort of line in the sand and tell them to fuck off. [Darling aquaintances, this isn't an invitation to test my resolve. Cunts].

John Russell's review isn't available online; here's one at, somewhat appropriately, Crud Magazine. [Happily, Crud Magazine is worksafe!].

Belated thoughts on the late Christopher Reeve

After I saw Chris Reeve's post-accident remake of Hitchcock's Rear Window, starring himself playing the wheelchair-bound voyeuer-guy, I held some hope that the intrepid dude'd be able to forge a whole new career for himself... a second-wind, if you like, as the most utterly perfectly-awfully typecast actor of his generation, y'know...

also starring Christopher Reeve as the guy in the wheelchair...

Or if not, at least the actor appearing the most in god-awful remakes of reasonably-daft-but-classic movies. [Cf. Village of the Damned.] [Also, if you follow the link to IMDB for the Rear-Window remake, check the Trivia entry... "The scene where Jason's breathing tube comes loose and he has to chatter his teeth to get the nurse's attention really happened to Christopher Reeve shortly after his accident". Uh, for fuck's sake!]

Everything Is Wrong With Me riffs pretty-amusingly on Reeve's demise... gotta say right-on about the fucking NY Post and that Metropolis bullshit, too.

I can't believe it's not butter...

Umm, I can. Perhaps a more accurate product name might be I Can't Believe It Causes Cell Damage!.

Some notes about smoking-in-bars...

[Weird.. TV3 news is b'casting live from Fashion Week and the show is over for the night and Dimmer's Crystalator is blaring out, being used as room-clearing music...]


...Anyway... an Irishman walked into a pub... and had a beer with me. Really. With reference to the impending ban on smoking in bars in NZ, here's some snippets of things he told me about the aftermath of similar legislation coming into effect in Ireland.

• Attendance or custom or whatever went down by 70%
• Result of this drop was that the breweries and the bars drop [oh the heavenly punning] the price of beer, conceivably to entice the punters back
• One bar spent over a million quid building a rooftop outdoors area where people could drink and smoke
• Said bar cleaned up, attracting smoking punters away from other bars from miles around [this apparently no mean feat, in the legendarily-parochial Irish pub scene]
• Another bar has built a guillotine-style contraption on its outer wall where a punter can stick his head out into the street and smoke a ciggy. Queues ensued.

The only thing I really had to contribute is that I know that one reasonably well-established bar here in Wellington is building a secret "smoke-easy" beneath its regular bar.

Go Prohibition-styles... Elliot Ness... Al Capone... Untouchables. etc.

Bad dream or...

I just awoke from a nightmare. I was an All Black, and we had just lost the 2003 Rugby World Cup Semi-Final to Australia. George Gregan was there, except his face looked like Kerry Prendergast. He/she was very excited, getting right up in our faces, yelling "Three more years, boys, three more years". Smug bitch. Eventually he to be restrained and hauled away by some of his team-mates, who may or may not have looked like Rex Nicholls and Alick Shaw.

I'm not really sure what happened next but shortly later a microphone was lowered from the roof of the stadium to where Brian Tamaki was waiting in a pink spandex jumpsuit to sing a medley of WHAM hits.

Gone postal

It's not all bad news. I will be appeased - somewhat, but not utterly - if after special votes are counted, we get to wave ta-ta to that bastard Alick Shaw. The turncoat Shaw, former Labour candidate for Wellington Central [before being trounced by Richard Prebble in '96], latterly Deputy lap-dog for Kerry Prendergast, hangs on to his seat on council by the very slim margin of 260 votes; coming quickly up his rear is Green Party candidate [and anti-Bypass group Campaign for a Better City stalwart] Iona Pannet. My sources tell me there are about 1200 special votes to count.

It's already been rather pleasing to have witnessed the ditching of Prendergast 'lieutenants' Ngaire Best, Sue Piper, Ian Hutchings, Judy Siers, and David Zwartz from council. If Shaw exits stage-left after specials are processed, her already-waning support takes another major body-blow. [Though in a cruel twist Hutchings will likely wrench the Northern Ward back from 18-year old newcomer Hayley Wain.] And, rather pleasantly, Bryan Pepperell, Jack Ruben and Helene Ritchie remain to kick Prendergast's ass around, as well as Mr. Ray Ahipene-Mercer who not only can set up my guitar any day, but is not averse to a bit of idiot ass-kicking himself.

And in other news, there were also encouraging signs after votes were counted for the Regional council. Fran Wilde, Chris Laidlaw and Margaret Shields, all former Labour MPs in Wellington or outlying districts [Kapiti], and generally bloody top blokes, are all now Regional councillors. Wilde, who of course had a decent hand in the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in the mid-80's and was also Mayor of Wellington for one term in the 90's, has her sights set on transport issues; said issues would surely have to include the looming inner-city bypass.

Watch this space, as they say.