The Grinding Of My Gears: Bus Drivers.

So, the strike i finally over - at least I assume it is since I managed to actually catch the Link bus yesterday after a long week of walking and taxi-ing to work. As a leftie I'm all for strikes, unions, pay rises, lunch breaks where you actually have time to eat something and let your food digest briefly; however if there's one group of workers that shouldn't really show just how much better the roads are without their existence, it's bus drivers.

Auckland roads have been much less congested, the traffic down Queen Street through normal peak hours has been almost non-existent and the initial annoyance at having to fend for yourself on the roads to get to work pretty much disappeared after two days. Perhaps my personal situation of living in the inner city anyway means the extra five minutes added to my journey is a moot point; however I do feel it's important to point out that if you want to get more money, rights, etc, perhaps one shouldn't go about it by showing just how much easier it is to go about your day without being at the whim of buses that arrive late - if at all. As someone that uses the Link bus, it boggles my mind how ridiculous the public transport system is, for example the Link bus actually comes to a complete stop at Victoria Park, Newmarket, and K'Road for anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes, why? Well, the Link bus is meant to arrive every ten minutes, so if it's five minutes late, they actually wait five minutes so they're on time for when the next Link bus is due. Yep, it makes no sense to me either and as you can imagine it means very often you have two buses arriving at the same time, which seems pointless. I talked to one of the drivers of the Link route and asked why they did this, his answer was, "It takes us 45 minutes to complete the circuit, we have 8 buses on from 7am to 6pm - four each way - and so we have 15 minutes to fill every hour otherwise we overlap too much and our lunch breaks get messed up."

Shall we pause and consider the mathematical intricacies of performing an eight hour shift where fifteen minutes of every hour is spent sitting doing absolutely nothing, in fact one bus driver actually has a PSP he plays in the wait time. So, if one works an eight hour shift, that would be 8 times 15, which would be 120. That's two hours where you're not actually doing anything, add in a half hour lunch break and you're only actually working 5 and a half hours a day. Now I know that this is an isolated story amongst hundreds of other bus drivers that have to deal with the scourge of Auckland getting to work from places like Onehunga, Albany, Pakuranga, Glen Eden and dare we say the dreaded Glen Innes, where the travel time is a topping an hour, with maybe five minutes leftover to sweep the bus then turn around and do the same thing again. But I think the Link bus route actually provides the basic sickness that's inside public transport in Auckland, the laissez-faire attitude of, just wait and be on time for the next one - the level of procrastination has to rank the all-pro category.

Now I know the drivers' have very little say with regards to policy, scheduling and what not, but there is a fundamental truth that they seem unable to understand: what drives up wages is more profitability. What drives up profitability is better productivity. (And so to unravel the business jargon.) Perform a better service then more people will catch the bus, which means more money for the bosses, which in turn means more buses on the road and more money for the people driving them - yes I know it's trickle down theory; however this is how businesses actually work: you're not going to change the beast by whinging about it, you tame it by working with it. It's a brutal reality but it's how the system works, yeah it would be nice if we all got paid what we're worth but it's not how the business world works, the business world works via numbers - increase the numbers and you find a very friendly ear, do nothing and your pleas fall on deaf ears.

And so to finish off the rant, which I know has a very right leaning slant to it, I hope the drivers' got what they wanted and I hope they haven't worked counter to what they actually need to do to achieve it, because I want them to get what they want, I want them to have more money - they have a hard job - but if they want it, please don't piss off most of Auckland to do it, we have cars that we're trying not to use, and have legs we wish we didn't have to use. Remember, we can actually get by without you, the late buses, the waiting, the running to catch the bus when you don't see us signalling you - we can turn on you if you force us to, and if petrol went down in price - not that it's going to happen - you'd be absolutely screwed. This is just a friendly reminder, we've got our eye on you now.

The Grinding Of My Gears: Whinging.

I was reading Brian Edwards Media earlier this morn' and read one of those throw away "what really grinds my gears" style blogs where someone just has a good ole fashioned whine without any kind of thought of what they might actually be writing. In Judy's case it's one of those age old whines about the fabric of society and how asking how someones day is going is just too annoying.

But, hooray for me, now I can have a whine about people having a whine: you see it's a cycle, one person whines, four people join in, and then another whines about those whining and we have a great cyclical beating of brows where eventually we realise the time we've spent whining actually outweighs the real impact it has on our lives, and then we move on - and do it again next time we're amongst friends with a beer or a wine.

But now to the important activity of the grinding of my gears. It always annoys me when people complain about other people, especially for marginal infractions like, trying to be polite and making the social interaction between absolute strangers slightly more palatable, or just plain performing the role they're paid to do. It's what society is built on for crying out loud. It's a social contract that we all adhere to willingly because there really is no alternative.

Oh, yes, we could all walk around not saying a word to each other, getting mad every time we're asked any kind of question at all, "would you like a separate bag for your meat, or can I stick it all in the one bag?"
"How dare you intrude my personal bubble and force me to be a part of society... Separate bags... Oh, and by the way, you're the reason why my day has turned to shit." Yes, let's get annoyed at a waitress asking how your day's going because that's such a hard question to answer, yes let's get annoyed at someone asking if you have any plans for the weekend because, yes, it's such an intrusion into your private life, when in fact you're going to post the pictures on facebook for all to see anyway. Yes, let's get annoyed at someone trying to earn a living to put food on their table for their kids, or just for themself to enjoy a brief flurry of joy in their life. Yes, let's pretend we're five and that the whole world revolves around us and what we want, or how about we act like adults, realise everybody has lives of their own and try and be courteous enough to let them live it without being total dicks; however as a wise old queer once told Uncle Bill, 'some people are just assholes darling.'

Everyone likes to think they're special, worthy of special treatment, above the law, the beautiful unique snowflake amongst the millions of dull carbon copies of each other but we all know deep down inside that we're in fact not, oh no, we're all part of the same infectious human waste that moves around this earth. So, how about people just grow up a little and enjoy life by actually taking part in it, or if that's too much to ask, find yourself a cave and babble about the annoyances of modern life from inside it where others don't have to listen to your drivel.

That Wonderful Load Of Art

The art world has had numerous moments where controversy has stormed blustery, vicious, cold and tumultuous, and like all storms: it passes, the world goes about its business with the wheels of progress never stopping, freshly galvanised and lubricated from the abrupt stop it came to earlier.

Years ago there was the beer crate fiasco, then there was the dildo shaped batons, the embalmed shark, the human excrement, and now... literal rubbish.



Made from the packaging of other entrants, and done via the webs without any consultation "Collateral" by Dane Mitchell won the Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award and is the fresh storm brewing in the art world - or at least NZ for at least the time being. As far as the art work goes one has to admire the simplicity of it, and the sheer - for lack of a better word - balls. What always surprises me about these works is the arguments over the internets. Check out the herald's your views for amazing, well thought out analysis of what art is, and why this is a great piece of art because we're talking about art, or why this is awful because my three year-old son could have done a better job, and pearls of wisdom from the likes of ALISHA091 from Auckland who offers a wonderfully concise comment taken verbatim from the site so as to not detract from artistic merit, 'TRASH! Who were the judges? The locals on K road?'

A wise man once told me that, "a retard debates art's worthiness, and a true imbecile offers an opinion. A wise man would do well to stand back and watch them both squirm."

MMP and such (or the funny thing about referendums)

The other day I was cheating people out of their money over the phone, half asleep, half hungover - or possibly still drunk from the night before - and the oddest thing came on the television, in fact if I remember correctly, it actually interrupted whatever British drama series TV One was showing - Emmerdale, East Enders or something along that vein - with "Breaking News" - like it's an emergency or something, something that's going to change the trajectory of my day in an unimaginable way - I couldn't hear the reporter as the mute button was on but saw the text exclaiming 'Key Announces MMP Referendum' and went back to calling people about a four hundred dollar piece of plastic that's going to change their life - and in only three minutes!

The avid National supporter across from me yelled, 'about fucking time!' and I thought to myself, 'you realise it's only a vote don't you?' What followed was a comedy of errors on the National supporter's part as he made the mistake of talking politics to me. Now, normally if given half a chance to get on my soapbox and wax politics I would jump at the chance; however, being that I'm under a contract which actually states in no uncertain terms that, 'no employee should discuss politics, religion, and other controversial matters whilst working for... failure to do so will result in instant dismissal,' and so I bit my tongue, kept my head down and tried to go about my work but was asked if I liked MMP by the National supporter. I gave a non-committal answer and then was treated to an almost David Brent moment where the Nat supporter went about telling me everything that was wrong with MMP, everything that was wrong with Labour, why National was the only party he supported - ever since he began to understand politics - why taxes suck, why Maori's shouldn't be involved in the supercity, and to top it off, why Asians, Indians, Wogs - anyone not white was ripping him and the country off.

I held my tongue, then asked him to wait for my cigarette break and said that, "then I would be happy to explain my opinions on everything," to him, in words he could understand but he kept at me and so I decided to take my break early. What followed over a cigarette was your cliche' black versus white conversation where no-one would ever back down, no-one would show weakness and even the idea of admitting there was something we could agree on was unimaginable. I finished my smoke and walked upstairs saying, 'let's just get on with our day,' then went and sat at my desk. Five minutes later I was approached by the manager who said, 'we were listening to your conversation through the headset, you handled it well, I'm about to go and fire the fucker.'

And so five minutes later the National supporter was fired and asked to hand back his headset. The word schadenfreude sprang to mind as he left. After an hour or so I got reflective and wondered just how annoyed he'd be when he realised the referendum is two years or so away and the announcing of a referendum doesn't mean a win, it means um-ing and ah-ing, talking about it til you're blue in the face and don't care anymore, but people seem to think the vote is a formality and it's already a done deal, even when John Key himself said, "the country is in no mood to dump MMP." So... one has to beg the question if this is a waste of time that a National government would normally - as their ethos requires them to do - cut, or is this just Key placating the extreme edges of his support base with the hopes of grabbing some more supporters from Act when Act hits rock bottom?

Overall, people need to chill out, not be so premature in their ejaculations of victory when all a referendum is, is a nice exercise of democracy - and sometimes means keeping the status quo.

Mostly magical music news

The Pixies are coming! Tickets go on sale Spetember the 18th; grab yourself a ticket quick as the vector arena - yeah it's a shame it's not somewhere decent - is going to sell out fast. So, mark down the 18th of September in your diary, grab yourself a ticket, then chill out... and then gradually get more and more excited at the prospect of one of the greatest bands of all time gracing lowly New Zealand with their presence. According to The Herald the show is going to consist of the entire Doolittle album plus selections from there other albums. It's going to be good and probably the concert of the year.

In other news Pere Ubu have a new album coming out in the next couple of weeks called Long Live Pere Ubu! It sounds interesting but of course one comes to expect this sort of thing from Mr David Thomas and so to quote from the press release, "Long Live Pere Ubu!" is the album of songs that was the genesis of the entire mess. It is a great leap forward in our pursuit of hyper-naturalistic recording techniques by which we replace microphones in the studio with wooden boxes, junked radio speakers, metal horns, and electrically charged window panes. Sound itself becomes the narrative. Everyone is going to hate it. We know that. The story, though satiric and comedic, is utterly bleak, lacking charm (the usual counter-weight to the band's noire tendencies) and devoid of redemption. Few people have ever read Ubu Roi, fewer heard of it. Wonderful. Altogether two years of work. Pere Ubu, the character, ruined Jarry's life. And now he's ruined our career. This thing is our Waterloo, our Bridge Too Far, our Pickett's Charge. Well, somebody had to do it." As another interesting aside the album will contain the singer Sarah Jane Morris, who has quite a large following in Italy and Greece as shown below.



And so we add that, with this.



And throw in a pinch of this.



And we get... this.



Other releases this month are Neil Young's Dreaming Man, one wonders if he ever just spends a day on the couch watching TV? My bet would be no, he'll write a song about spending the day on the couch watching TV.

Jay Z has an album coming out called Blueprint 3 - does he think he's Led Zeppelin or something?

Nick Cave has another album with Warren Ellis coming out, it should be good, as long as it's not all Nick Cave piano ballads. But overall, one must admit it's shaping up to be a good month for music.

It's about that time.

There was always going to be a day where I'd start a blog with, "apologies for not blogging for so long... but I've been busy," and this would be the day. So, for all those that actually read my blog and have been malnourished for interesting reading here it is... sorry.

Ok, now that that's out of the way let me catch you all up on what's been happening. First, I got a job - an unglamourous job, but a job all the same. Second, I've moved from my delightfully quaint and fiscally prudent house, which could have possibly been the reason for the song Dominion Road by The Muttonbirds - but from all research undertaken by me seems unlikely - to a rather cold, yet nice house on Franklin Road. I moved a month ago and have only just come to grips with the added costs involved with living very centrally, running into celebrities, musicians, actors and other personalities whilst grabbing a coffee on Ponsonby Road or simply grabbing some milk from New World.

So, that's what I've been doing, fairly unexciting, fairly vanilla, fairly unworthy reading really; however there has been some interesting things happening in Auckland over the last couple of months: the film festival, an art festival or two, the smacking referendum, road works on Symonds street bringing traffic to a standstill most days, a rape in Victoria park - which is about five minutes walking distance from my house - and my own personal story regarding the 90 day fire at will bill.

I won't bother talking about the film festival except to say if there is one documentary you see this year, make sure it's We Live In Public, it's an incredibly interesting look at a particularly nutty man who was one of the first Internet pioneers. The referendum, of course, was an absolute joke and I feel there has already been far to much ink spilt in regards to that topic, so I won't weigh in, but I will weigh in on something which hasn't been in the media since it was first announced and that would be the 90 day fire at will bill.

As I said previously I'm gainfully employed in a job with a cringe worthy job title: telesales. Since I have been working there I've learned many things about corporate life and culture (will probably blog about this later) as well as seen first hand the ramifications of the fire at will bill. Since starting my job nearly three months ago I have seen five people fired, two people leave, and four new people start each week - the company I work for seems to have a revolving door policy in terms of retaining its staff. My own personal story is somewhat of a success story, in that, A, I haven't been fired, B, I've made a decent amount of money from my toils, and, C, I'm about to be offered a full-time contract; however it's not as easy as one would expect, before even discussing the contract, the pay rate, the hours, the leave, holidays and other stuff, I've had to undergo a myriad of psychometric tests - you know filling out forms answering questions about how I would react if someone lied to me, or if someone arrived late to a meeting, to determine whether I'm the right personality type to offer a contract.

Hopefully, the tests show me as a fine upstanding member of society and not the marginal alcoholic slash opinionated bleeding heart liberal that I am. Anyways, cross your fingers for me because if I have to stay on a casual contract I could go the way of many other staff members who have been fired within two days of starting work because they had a bad day or week. So, the 90 day bill works exactly how the National government wanted it to work, keep the workers in fear of losing their job so they work harder, take reduced pay, no holidays, no leave and of course if they prove themself to be worthwhile they can keep their job - hooray! - otherwise it's a new soul destroying job somewhere else where the whole process starts again. But it's doing even more that that because not only does it undermine your job security at the start of a job, it has a roll-on effect when you're actually under contract, meaning that when you sign your contract to get that job security that you've been wanting for so long, all that you really get is a piece of paper, your rights as a worker have pretty much already gone done the gurgler and so all you end up negotiating is what rights you have left, and in this current economic climate you can imagine just how many of those rights you'd give up for that piece of paper.

And with that, I'll leave for the time being, my laptop is about to die.

The Cottage Meeting

On a cold Thursday night, people normally have better things to do, like watch television, huddle under the covers, crank the heater up to eleven and dream of Summer; however, for a political junkie like myself, the prospect of meeting the current front runner for the Mt Albert electorate was too good a opportunity to pass up and so I battled the cold, waltzed two streets over to my friendly neighbour’s house for what those in political circles call a “cottage meeting.”
Being that this was my first journey into a cottage meeting there was a certain amount of trepidation I felt as I turned up at the house - being the first person to arrive shows a level of keenness that most people find hard to understand. I was greeted courteously at the door by two people, one was Paul Chalmers, a friend of David Shearer’s, an active Labour party member and someone who ran for Labour in Whangarei in 2005 and 2008 - both times losing by a substantial margin.

“Come on in,” he said, followed by the words, “we have another body,” said in jest as he looked over at his friend Ainsley, who offered me a cup of tea. I was shown my seat on a plush red couch and asked about my political affiliations; this much I expected but what I didn’t expect was to be the youngest person at the meeting, and the only person not wearing Labour colours. Ten minutes passed as the impending arrival of David seemed to be an unlikely event - he was fifteen minutes late. But just as I was swallowing my last sip of tea he arrived dressed in tight-ish black jeans and a grey Kathmandu polar fleece - if there is one thing that can be said about David Shearer, it is that he certainly knows how dress casually. Handshakes were dispensed and Shearer was offered a cup of tea, which he takes black and weak, “the weaker the better,” he said as he was handed a birthday card to sign by Paul - apparently Phil Goff had already signed it. Then after taking time to sign the card Shearer shook my hand and sat down next to me as dips, sandwiches, fudge and crackers were placed on the coffee table in front of us. The one thing that struck me about Shearer was the incredibly relaxed attitude he seemed to exude: after this meeting there was another meeting he had to go to in Sandringham to discuss Plunket, which he admitted to being ill prepared for as well as nervous, he laughed and shrugged his shoulders in a way that the under-achieving generation Y chromosomes in me responded to affectionately.

I felt myself warming to Shearer, but then remembering the man next to me is a hopeful politician I cranked my cynicism up a little and opened my ears in the hope of catching him faking it. Three more people arrived and suddenly the lounge seemed a lot smaller. Paul Chalmers lead the conversation into the right avenues, the talking points of the electorate: the super city, the 1.4 billion dollar - un-costed - motorway National is proposing, the Westfield mall expansion, pollution around Meola Creek, what the electorate is saying, the National agenda to get their hands on the 28 Billion dollars in assets Auckland holds: water, ports, the Auckland Airport et al. Shearer described the super-city process as rushed with conflicts of interests arising from the “tight five” business elite composed board not having any accountability - except to Rodney Hide. Shearer then went on to describe the super-city as a “good thing for Labour,” and an, “albatross” for National. Then came an explanation on how the super-city was supposed to function; I went dizzy from the confusion I was experiencing from trying to understand all the ins and outs of the plan but managed to pick up the bottom line costs that would be associated with it: $700 per bill payer for the transitionary council, plus the costs associated with running for Mayor, $150,000 to $200,000 to do the simplest of campaign mail outs.

After the main talking points were hit the conversation was skewed to student allowances, training allowances, scholarships and grants, all of which had Shearer saying, “I don’t know, but Labour was committed to a Universal Student Allowance in 2012,” then the conversation moved to Shearer and why he had moved back to Auckland for the Mt Albert electorate, what followed was a carbon copy of his statement before he received the Labour nomination. This is where I noticed what I interpreted as a sense of insecurity. As Shearer’s eyes darted around the room occasionally fumbling over his answer his eyes always returned to mine; I felt that he was very unsure of his answer and he was looking at me to for some sort of validation or approval that he was getting it right. It was an odd experience to say the least, and then as he wrapped up his answer someone asked, “How are we doing out there David?” And with that, I saw some other emotions, anxiety and fear, which surprised me - especially after learning Labour supporters were flying in from all over the country to help with the final push, twenty students were flying up from Dunedin, people were flying up from Wellington, add to that the incredible presence of young Labour on the streets and you'll understand my surprise. Shearer shrugged his shoulders and said, “Um… well… we… honestly we don’t know what’s going to happen. Russel might take a few votes off us, we really don’t know.” I looked around the room to see if anyone else was surprised to hear that kind of doubt coming from a Shearer, the front runner, the odds on favourite, but the question of why he wanted to go into politics was asked, of course the clichéd answer of “wanting to make a difference” was offered, and then it was more smiles and handshakes as Shearer made his way to leave. There was a quick photo with all the guests next to Shearer - I tried to take a photo but unfortunately Shearer was going to have to rush to get to the next meeting on time - and then he disappeared along with everyone else.

I’ve met a few politicians in my time, but none have ever struck me as being human. Helen Clark was an impenetrable woman, Phil Goff is almost alien like, but Shearer - possibly, because he hasn’t been in politics long - seems to exude a true commonality that I imagine many people will notice and gravitate towards. I can see Shearer being a very important MP for the Labour party and can imagine him rising up the ranks very quickly; although the level of humility he has wouldn’t allow him to admit that before the by-election is done and dusted, and he knows just as his friend Paul said that, “one can’t expect all this attention to last.”

The anti-long weekend

Long weekend's for someone of my age bracket tend to be a cliched affair of booze filled late night's, domestic travel to a rural area - which triples in size upon my arrival - parties and bands, which are all followed by the inevitable Monday morning hangover combined with a sense of failure for not doing those pesky tax returns, for being broke at the start of the week, for wishing you had done something worthwhile; and as the day goes on, reality eventually pierces through the smell of stale tobacco and mildew and one comes to the realization that the bill for their weekend extravagance is yet to be paid: the empties need to recycled, the kitchen needs to be cleaned, the house needs to be aired out and vacuumed, plus the preparation for the entry level job - if one is lucky enough to have one - has to be done: the brutal, menial task of washing clothes, the buying of cheap convenience foods, the returning of video tapes, and as the fog of the mind begins to lift one comes to the conclusion that, "I'm too old to be doing this," or the question, if one is being particularly reflective, "is this really what I want to do with my life, is this all there is?" which is always followed by the exclamation, "I'm never drinking again!"

My weekend has been a kind of anti-long weekend, the bare minimum of alcohol consumption, the smallest amount of correspondence between friends, the sojourn outside my warm room into the dirty, cold, empty streets of Auckland was done only to engulf some culture. The Academy has a rather good documentary on graffiti art called, "AlterEgo," showing right now and I highly recommend the documentary to any art lover, or anyone looking to get a further insight into one of the most oft' talked about art forms of this century. I was expecting a superficial look at the world of graffiti but was surprised to get an international, all encompassing look at graffiti with some rather interesting theories, our own Askew, some incredible graffiti coming from Brazil, and Berlin - which seems to be over run with graffiti. The doco touches briefly of tagging, and whilst it posits a particularly slanted and un-objective view, it actually makes the viewer reappraise their understanding of tagging and why it exists. There's some amazing artists on the documentary like DAIM, whose work shown in the last photo, SMASH 137, who has a website www.smash137.net showing all his work, and finally Herbert Baglione, who is an incredibly interesting artist that uses an ordinary brush and paint for his street art and has just had a few gallery exhibitions, of which, a sample of his work is shown in the photos above. The trailer for AlterEgo is below but go for a google of the artists I just mentioned and have a look around.



At the Academy screening of AlterEgo there was also a short doco called "Sand Dancer," which is awfully made, and contains no real information, but does have images of some amazing work by Christchurch sand artist Peter Donnelly, check it out below.

Budget 2009, yay!

I'm only really writing this post to nudge the previous post down a little so it doesn't cover up the links to older posts. There's some really good analysis of the budget done by a lot of media commentators, especially Keith Ng on public address amongst others and so I'll refrain from trying to wax economics as I simply don't have the time. I will say that the budget had no real surprises, the cuts to the Cullen Fund are a downer but in all honesty I'm fairly sure everyone knew that was coming. Overall the budget has been described as a, "borrow and cross your fingers" budget, which is fairly correct although I would describe it more as a, "can't someone else do it," budget. It's quite clear that this has been National's plan to fight the recession all along, no ambitious ideas, no forward or progressive thinking, just cuts and wait for the rest of the world to sort their shit out - let's hope it works.

Eels up inside ya.

It's three days until the new album by the Eels officially comes out; however, sneaky people like myself have managed to find a leaked copy. I'm giving it the first listen right now and I have to say I'm enjoying it very much. The album "Hombre Lobo" which is Spanish for werewolf is a conceptual album about desire, and is considered to be a very loose sequel to the "Souljacker" album with its loud guitars, heavy distortion, and big beards - as seen here.



Also we have some rather beautiful ballads - if that's the right term, I've never really understood the constitution of a ballad - as shown right here - is that a bass mandolin?



Here's the first official music video which was directed by Jesse Dylan - yep, that's what one of Bob's kids does for a living. The video seems a little David Lynch, Mullholland Drive, slash Inland Empire inspired and the film-maker inside me finds it a little underwhelming, but it's a good song and worth a listen.



Apparently there will also be a b-side album which will be very interesting as Mark Oliver Everett, or E as he prefers to be called, makes some incredible b-sides which are rich in sample potential. In other musical news Sonic Youth's album "The Eternal," comes out in a week and half "officially," but there are places on the intertubes that provide preview listens. After Sonic Youth we will reach a kind of black hole of sorts as there will nothing of real mainstream interest to come out for a few months apart from remastered editions of some Rolling Stones and Beatles records, which I imagine will have some audiophiles creaming themselves in preparation for the arguments they will have about the dynamics being lost in the new masters.

Ok, time to shower and plan my long weekend.

Melissa Lee's Titanic impersonation.

So... If you follow my blog you'll notice I haven't blogged for a considerable amount of time. Why? Well, life happened: a pretty shocking flu - not swine related, or influenza b to be more correct - friends arriving for a catch up, a very interesting BBC series called The Ascent Of Man, art-house films aplenty from the interwebs, and a pile of things that needed more attention than blogging.

I originally intended to write something on the Mt Albert by-election; however the sands of time have meant that others have written far more depth analysis than I could ever hope to provide and it seems that the election is all over without a vote being cast. With the benefit of hindsight I can say now that I should've blogged as soon as I heard Melissa Lee on bfm for the sheer "told you so" factor; however not even Rasputin could of foreseen her complete and total collapse from a possible - although not very likely winner - to a hopeful third. There have been some very interesting phenomena occurring because of this election: Lee's self destruction - more on that later - the end to National's "honeymoon" period, the super city fiasco and finally the impact blogging has had on this election.
It wouldn't require anything more than a two minute google to see how much of the fighting has been done in the blogging trenches: first we had a particularly over zealous David Farrar claiming victory for the Nats because of his "Vote Twyford get Tizard" campaign which started in the Kiwiblog trenches, then we had the backlash from the left on The Standard following Russel Norman's decision to run and interestingly enough the mainstream media picked up both these stories and ran with them, adding some real tension and drama to what could have been a rather ho-hum affair. Much of the work around the supercity has also been done on the blogs, from organising marches, a hikoi, and of course providing information that gets left behind by the mainstream media, perhaps even the end of the honeymoon period can be attributed the work of numerous bloggers like no right turn, idiot savant, the standard community et al.

But let's focus on the destruction of Lee with a little back story.

Labour signaled very early what their campaign was going to hinge on: world experience, personality, credentials and so on. The Green's signaled that they were no longer going to be the whipping boy of NZ politics, no longer would they sit idly by and be picked last for the lunchtime game of touch rugby (the last drinking liberally was a further display of this particular sentiment) . Act began campaigning on all they know, big business good, people... irrelevant - they know they have no chance and instead are using the campaign as a branding exercise. The Nat's rolled out an ambitious, tough - kind of hot - woman who seemed to be a threat, at least on paper; however - as always - with National MP's one never gets a clear idea of what they stand for - we get pleasant platitudes and smiley faces but not much else. Then it became clear what Lee was going to run on, race. It started with a sneaky article in the Herald with a particularly racist chemist saying words to the effect of, I won't vote for a slant eyes like you - the actual quote is possibly even more racist than my interpretive sub-textual racial analysis - to which Lee mentioned the high percentage of Asian constituents inside the electorate. So it was clear from the get go what National's strategy was going to be, a dog whistle here, a few jabs at the previous government there, but it seems actually winning the by-election was never part of their strategy. As numerous commentators have already pointed out the real plan was to weaken the seat and claim a moral victory.

Proof of this came after listening to Melissa Lee on bfm with the other candidates, it was clear that winning the seat was a clear impossibility for National - people don't like brash, abrasive, arrogant politicians planning to demolish their houses for a mall or a new highway - and so the question has to be asked why did the Nat's run what they say was a very strong candidate instead of a well known candidate that had been active in the electorate for more than a few elections? If Melissa Lee was truly a face for the future of the National party why then did they distance themselves from her after some inflammatory comments at a election meeting and why were they made in the first place? Surely, Lee had some advisors that would've told her stereotyping the poorest and most populated area in NZ is not a good idea. Surely, they would've told her that phoning in an insincere apology after the comments is a bad move. And any advisor with even half a brain cell would've told her that admitting defeat is a move reserved for the likes of the nitwit parties like Bill and Ben, Aotearoa Legalize Cannabis Party, Destiny Church and the McGillycuddy party. It has been mind boggling, to say the least, for a political junkie like myself.

The fact National went negative from the start, the fact they rolled out a very controversial person like Christine Rankin at the same time seems even stranger. It makes one wonder if the wheel's are falling off the blue machine, but the truth is - as anyone that knows how incredibly good the National election machine is - that the by-election is the scenery and what's actually going on is something entirely different. Lee was never meant to win in Mt Albert, what she was meant to do and has done rather well is dog whistle to the party base. The Nat's got into bed with the Maori Party, a move not forgotten by their base, they recently got into bed with the Green's, a move that would scare most of its base, so really Lee's role is to let the National base know that, "hey we're still the tories, we haven't changed." This is why National ran her, this is why they have publicly left her hanging in the wind, so they can keep the veneer of being a soft-centre government for the masses by distancing themselves by her racial comments whilst winking at their party faithful. So I wouldn't be surprised if Lee stays in the party but later on gets bumped up the list.

And with that it's time to turn our attention to what is going to be the grimmest of budgets: prepare for the sky to fall in and the gates of hell to open up, prepare to watch panic pervade the media and people freak out in penny pinching hysteria, or have a glass of vino and chillax - wine's still affordable you know.

I like your old stuff better than your new stuff. (Take 302)

A while ago I mentioned that Bob Dylan had a new album coming out called, "Together Through Life." It would be like shooting fish in a barrel to say the album is nowhere near as vital and ground breaking as his earlier works a la Blonde On Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited, Blood On The Tracks and numerous others, so I won't say that. What I will say is that, "Together Through Life" is possibly the best Dylan album I've heard in years, sure it's got a senior citizen shuffle to it, but what we find on the album is some very catchy tunes sung by a particularly - can we say - rejuvenated Dylan. I've been doing a bit of a back track through Dylan's later catalogue and I have to say that, "Together Through Life" is Dylan's best work since "Oh, Mercy," which is definitely Dylan's best studio offering for the past two decades. There is three disc version of the album which has a - one must say - kooky, disc called "Friends and Neighbours" which is a mock radio show made by Dylan which contains a bunch of country, blues, grassroots and rock offerings introduced by a Dylan channeling a late night radio DJ - it's a particularly eerie listening experience let me tell you. So whilst I wouldn't go charging out to buy Dylan's latest offering it's nice to know that the "voice of a generation" is still alive and kicking, still pissed off, still lusting and getting his heart broken.

Here's the best song from Oh Mercy, which still sends a chill up my spine every time I hear it.



And here's the most immediately likeable song from the new album.



In other news, my friend Chris Matthews - Headless Chickens founding member - is in town with his latest musical vehicle, "Robot Monkey Orchestra" and will be performing songs off the debut album called, "Map Of Love" at Cassette Number Nine on Vulcan Lane - hopefully he'll also do some of his old stuff too. Tickets are $10 on the door, so if you're looking for something to do tonight why not pop down, also playing: Charlie Ash, Bang! Bang! Eche!, DJ A.D.A.M. There's also a benefit - of sorts - gig for the late Steve Android at the Bacco Room on Saturday night, Chris will be playing, as well as Newmatics, Spelling Mistakes and the Androids, entry to this is free.

Anyone sick of hearing about Swine Flu yet?

If there's one thing that's truly annoyed me this week, there has been a lot to annoy me, but we'll stick with the "public health" story that I imagine everyone has been hearing about ad nauseam, Swine Flu - sigh.

While there are some interesting facts about Swine Flu, like the fact that the people most at risk are those in supposedly peak physical condition - the age group of 20 to 40 - and the fact we're one of the first in the world to have an "outbreak" of it, we were even mentioned on Fox News - yay! The fact still remains that this flu isn't as scary as those in the media would have us believe. Remember S.A.R.S? Remember Bird Flu? Remember how many people actually died from those "super-flus," well neither do I, but after talking to a particularly scientifically minded friend of mine I learned some facts that will either scare, or fill you with some sort of glee: more people die from the common cold in the world then from new, funky, hip, cool, super-flus. A thousand or more people die in the United States from the common cold every year - I can't remember the exact figures given to me so you'll have to Google it yourself but we're in the ballpark though - and so considering that in NZ we've only had two actual confirmed cases of Swine Flu, one has to think that now we're aware of this new flu, the actual danger of it is very low - sure wash your hands and don't eat from rubbish bins - but there is a real question that needs to be asked, as it is something much more serious, much more life altering, and it hasn't even been thought about yet: how high is the price of bacon going to rise?

Surely with the pigs being eradicated overseas the demand for bacon is going to rise and we as an export minded country will be exporting more bacon, perhaps making bacon scarce at your local foodtown, maybe the weekend bacon and eggs at a cafe is going to become even more expensive. I wonder if it's time to invest in some pork commodities on the share market.

Eek! Pop Music At 3am.

I'm currently trying to finish off editing this video for ZM Waikato: it's actually a rather large job - lots of footage to scrawl through to edit into a nice 11-12 minute presentation of O' Week for the Zm website. I'd probably be about two weeks away from actually finishing if my computer would actually do it's job and not crash every time i try and edit a new clip - i have a feeling the problem is something to do with the rather large size of the project which is probably requiring too much processing power for what my meagre PC can actually provide.

Anyways, getting to the point of the title in the blog, "Eek! Pop Music At 3am." Most of the video i'm editing has to be covered up with music - two songs to be exact - as the sound - as one would expect from a roving handycam amongst the rabble of drunken students - is particularly wishy washy, and so I have to use music that: would most likely appear on ZM radio, is aimed at the target group of ZM's listeners, and is in some way relevant. Being that Orientation Week is basically an excuse for new students to get a serious "drink on" before the important study begins, the obvious drinking songs sprung to mind: Bliss, One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer, Jesus I Was Evil, Dirty Deeds, Sweet Child O' Mine, Welcome To The Jungle and countless others that I'm sure you've found yourself drinking to before. However, and as I'm sure you'd probably have figured out by now, ZM's target audience, their particular format, is in no way similar to the "rocking" of my fave drinking songs, and so I find myself looking at ZM's website and in particular the "Top 20 Countdown" which looks like this.

1			(--)	3oh!3 - Don't Trust Me
2			(+1)	Flo Rida - Right Round
3			(+1)	Evermore - Hey Boys & Girls
4			(-2)	A.R. Rahman & The Pussycat dolls - Jai Ho
5			(+3)	Midnight Youth - All On Our Own
6			(-1)	Smashproof feat Gin Wigmore - Brother
7			(+5)	Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You
8			(-2)	Ladyhawke - My Delerium
9			(+4)	Basshunter - Angel In The Night
10			(-1)	Taylor Swift - Love Story
11			(-1)	Dane Rumble - Always Be Here
12			(-5)	Metro Station - Seventeen Forever
13			(-2)	Kid Cudi - Day And Night
14			(+1)	Lady Gaga - Lovegame
15			(-1)	Kings Of Leon - Revelry
16			(+1)	The Fray - You Found Me
17			(+1)	Ciara feat Justin Timberlake - Love And Sex And Magic
18			(-2)	Fall Out Boy - She's My Winona
19			(RE)	Beyonce - Halo
20			(--)	Britney Spears - If You Seek Amy

Now, I'm what you'd describe as a music lover, a music aficionado - if you will - and from looking at the Top 20 I'm only really aware, or at least have heard of, ten of the names on the list, some I would describe describe as a plague on the musical landscape: Fall Out Boy, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson and Smashmouth - ew, just plain ew - and some i would describe as passable mediocrity: Beyonce, Kings Of Leon and - not actually on this list but further down the ZM page - Green Day and The Killers. Now I'm not bad mouthing ZM, I want to make that absolutely clear, as I do remember a time not so long ago when ZM, The Rock, Channel Z, Hauraki, and Mai Fm were my everday diet of music - my carbs if you will. But I will say that after around three hours of searching for suitable music, and listening to more U2-esque Kings Of Leon then one should at three a.m, I'm starting to get rather depressed at the state of music and my ears can handle no more Killers - their earlier stuff is ok but the latest album is awful - no more Beyonce - "Crazy In Love" has its merits - no more Green Day - Dookie was a great album but the more recent stuff is a little trite isn't it - and no more Kings Of Leon, no more pop, no more songs about bitches and hos, flash cars, jewellery, and how lost I would be without my "babby daddy."

Then just when I've written off humanity completely I look on CDwow - my favorite site for finding what's new and what's coming out - and find "Doves" have released a new album, "Kingdom of Rust," after two or three years of relative nothing since the incredible "Some Cities". "Kingdom of Rust" is well worth tracking down by whatever means possible to you - it's a superb album.

Here's a clip of why you should get into Doves if you haven't already - check out the drum solo at the end.



And here's them performing one of their new songs on Later... with Jools Holland - I wish that show was still on.



In other news, Bob Dylan has a new album called, "Together Through Life," coming out in a week, it'll be an anti-climax i know - but you never know. The Eels have a new album called "Hombre Lobo" due in June, along with Sonic Youth's new album "The Eternal."

Overall I guess the world of music isn't falling apart completely; all we need to do is get rid of Bono, Justin Timberlake, Snoop Dog, Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Natasha Beddingfield, Daniel Beddingfield, Daniel Powter, Lady Gaga, Pink, Fergie, Maroon 5, the rest of U2, Paul McCartney, and Chris Martin - then the world wouldn't seem so bad.

Top Five (or the never ending need to categorize and rate things I like)

I'm listening to one of my favorite singer/songwriters of all time right now, the incredible, inventive, influential and seemingly indestructible Lou Reed. I'm listening to possibly his most mainstream slash most well known album "Transformer" and as often happens - to me at least - when I listen to Lou, I feel myself wishing, praying, hoping and pleading for Lou to do something new; something amazing; something to prove that he's still current, worthwhile, and most of all, prove that the last decade or so hasn't been a rock and roll cliche of a rock star mellowing out, chilling out, and eventually becoming something similar to Paul McCartney - the perfect example of senior citizen mediocrity.

A few months ago, upon the release of Lou Reed's new album, "Berlin: Live At St Ann's Warehouse" the beacon of Lou shone brightly and my love of Lou seemed to be rekindled like the love of a newly found relationship with your emotionally distant father - inspiring at first but problematic once the sheen wears off and you start thinking of the past.

And so with that in mind I went through my Lou Reed collection and went about a crusade to narrow the work of a 67 year-old man - whose career has at times been astounding - into five albums you absolutely must hear before you die. (Note, I'm disqualifying live albums because of a technical anal retentiveness that resides in the core of my soul which believes a live album isn't a "real" album)

1. Berlin

The concept album of two junkie lovers meeting by the Berlin wall, falling in love, falling out of love, becoming jealous, violent, psychopathic and finally suicidal.
Best Quintessential Lou Lyric: Just like poison in a vial
She was often very vile
Funniest Lyric: I'm going to stop wasting my time
Somebody else would have broken both of her arms

2. Transformer

Songs of transvestites, transexuals, uppers, downers and a hairy minded pink bare bear.
Best Quintessential Lou Lyric: But She Never Lost Her Head, Even When She Was Giving Head
Worst Lyric: 'Cause you know what they say about honey bears
When you shave off all their baby hairs
You have a hairy minded pink bare bear

3. Street Hassle

Cheap, dirty and nasty Lou - just look at the cover - but still great - apart from the first song Gimme Some Good Times.
Best Quintessential Lou Lyric: She creamed in her jeans
as he picked up her means from off the formica topped bar

4. New York

The story of New York and America in general as experienced and told by Lou.
Best Quintessential Lou Lyric: Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor I'll piss on 'em
Most Shameful line of self absorption: Take it Lou.

5. Coney Island Baby


Possibly the most "chillaxed" of Lou's albums, with the classic Lou content of loving hookers, skanks, hos and the like.
Best Lyric: Responsibility sits so hard on my shoulder
Like a good wine, I'm better as i grow older

And so that ends the "Top Five" for this week. For extra credit "Rock n Roll Animal" is also well worth a listen and "Berlin: Live At St Ann's Warehouse" is amazing so buy it, download it - Lou's got enough money anyway - and cross Lou Reed off your "artists to listen to" list.


A great interview with Lou Reed.


A very nice live version of Waiting for the man

The Arbitrary Test Post

This is a test post to see how this actually works.