Posts by Joe Wylie
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I don't believe that the generation that fought WW2 was somehow especially indulgent towards their offspring. In ANZ they were, if anything, a generation damaged by their wartime experience. If we're going to casually toss in mediaspeak terms like "permissive society", how about "generation gap"? In the early 70s the fading hours of Anzac day could be a dangerous time to be out alone with something other than a short-back-and-sides haircut. Women weren't safe either, I recall several cases of attacks and harassment by old diggers who objected to the cut of their jib. By the mid-80s everyone was pretty much over it, but for me Anzac will always have something of the tinge of a death cult.
A small recollection: I'd always stayed clear of the father of one of my schoolmates. He was rumoured to be violent towards his wife and kids when he'd been drinking, which was almost the norm back then. I pretty much dismissed him as a beady-eyed old prick. Later I discovered that, like my father, he'd been taken prisoner in Crete, and forced to take part in a gruelling march over several days. As they passed through a settlement a little girl had spontaneously offered refreshments to the suffering men. A German guard had picked her up by her plaited hair and swung her around. One of the prisoners punched the German to the ground, and was promptly shot dead. That night my schoolmate's dad crept down to the river to fetch water for the wounded, knowing that he risked being shot.
Overindulged or damaged, we're all people. As the pig in the python moves into the retirement phase there are real problems to be dealt with. Glib moralising and overgeneralisations don't help.
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Oh pleeeze Hilary
Dang, sorry Hilary, don't know how I managed that. Bottomless apologies.
Now, where was I?
Jeez Dyan . . . -
So a generation of boomers grew up in a kind of golden age of endless childhood, the most indulged, least responsible generation in history.
Oh pleeeze Hilary - the reality was that, in the US or Australia, if you were male you ran a very real risk of getting your arse shot off in Vietnam. I'm glad that Canada was able to provide a haven for so many. New Zealand, where one was at worst liable for periodic spells of compulsory military training, harboured a few Australian draft dodgers.
As for "permissive society", that was never more than a flyswatter term used by diehard conservatives for anything socially progressive, the late 60s - early 70s equivalent of "politically correct".
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However, one could confuse Dr Strangelove for a documentary..
You're not wrong, Carol.
Scuse me, I couldn't resist:Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Colonel, Colonel, I must know what you think has been going on here.
Col. "Bat" Guano: You wanna know what I think?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes.
Col. "Bat" Guano: I think you're some kind of deviated prevert. I think general Ripper found out about your prevertion, and you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts. -
No porn of an overtly sexual nature in pre-1970s Truth. It really was a case of No Sex Please, We're NZers.
The grubby stuff was the salacious nature of the crime coverage, and probably, though it meant nothing to me back then, the horrible drawn-out business of public divorce. NZ being such a small place until relatively recently, it was probable that you'd stumble upon the icky personal details of somebody you were at least distantly aware of.
Thank Cthulhu for liberalised laws governing human relationships. And for cosmopolitan immigration. Usually when I bump up against an anti-immigration argument I'm reminded of that small-minded backbiting Truth mentality. There really are still a few who'd like it to come back.
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My parents would buy Truth as an occasional vice. It was forbidden to us kids, but I'd sneak a look. Then I'd blow it by casually asking "What's assault?" and it'd be "You've been reading Truth!"
Later I had an after-school job in a plant nursery, sowing boxes of vege seedlings. You had to line the boxes with newspaper before filling them with dirt. That's where I read the stripper story.
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Re The Pretty Things--the campaign was orchestrated by Truth
I seem to recall that the meatheaded moral guardians at Truth were fulminating against the Pretty Things' visit from the moment they became aware of it. These were the kind of get-a-haircut muscles-between-the-ears types whose idea of cutting-edge journalism was to follow up on a tip about an NZ-born woman stripping at a club in Kings X and publish her name, along with a demand that she apologise to the entire NZ populace for bringing the nation into disrepute. Yes, they really did that.
Anyway, the band's name alone was enough to get the Truthoids slavering. If the government wouldn't bar them entry for the good of the nation then all right-thinkers were exhorted to keep their backs firmly to the wall for the duration of the tour. Once it became apparent the the P. Things were something other than a bunch of perfumed milksops Truth adopted the lock-up-your-daughters risk to public order approach. I don't recall Viv Prince's lighted newspaper outrage, but there was an account of misbehaviour on an NAC flight, and a scathing description of how, rather than engage with the media, the band chanted "Reeb! Reeb!", helpfully translated as "schoolboy slang for beer." Shocking stuff.
In its heyday Truth was noted for its marvellous billboards. Notable examples were Let's Give These Ratbag Students A Hiding, and Girl's Riverside Ordeal With "The Pig". My all-time fave was Girl-Crazy Dictator Pins Down NZ Troops, Truth-speak for a minor NZ army brush with Indonesian forces during the Malaysian Konfontasi emergency engineered by Sukarno.
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Then there's the purely cosmetic umlaut.
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The babyboomers hold a lot of money.
Babyboomers. I really should remind myself that not everyone who uses that dismal word works in marketing, but that's pretty much where it originated.
You're probably right, Jeremy, when you claim that a certain demographic holds a disproportionate amount of wealth, but you make a hell of a generalisation. If you're out and about over the next few days you're bound to spot some rather shabby grey-haired unfortunate plodding home with a couple of shopping bags. No doubt you'll assume the the miserable old bugger has left the BMW at home and needs the exercise.
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Robyn Hitchcock - Young People Scream
Young people scream, but the old they don't hear what they say
Young people dance, but the old they just get in the way
Young people laugh, but the old they just don't want to hear
Because it's all been done before and baby, if it hasn't they don't careOld people, they make young people scream
Old people, they make young people lay down and dieOld people envy the young all their vigor and rhythm
Soon they'll be dead and they want to take everyone with 'em
With their leathery skin and their shriveled old underwear too
They're stuck in the past and they'll never do anything newOld people, they make young people scream
Old people, they make young people lay down and dieYoung people always get hot when there's something to say
Senior citizens got us in this mess today
Apples and pears when they're ripe they fall down from the trees
Old people cling on to life like some kind of diseaseOld people, they make young people scream
Old people, they make young people lay down and die