Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Friday Music: Starting Early, in reply to Russell Brown,
I suppose it’s not that bad, but it’s really pretty dumb behaviour. Calm down, everyone.
Quite - but I think it's worth noting some of the media types slagging off Lorde for being a "diva" because she posted - then deleted - a couple of mildly exasperated Tweets are very protective of their own families. One of the new co-hosts of Seven Sharp knows what I'm talking about. Ay, Mike?
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Hard News: Friday Music: Starting Early, in reply to Simon Grigg,
I’ve been in a couple of similar conversations too, with one person telling me that we’ll find out what she’s really made of when the next album turkeys. I replied that we’ve already found that out – 9 weeks at number one will exist forever even if she never releases another note. Why do people need to do this?
Well, yeah... at least commercially, Neil Finn's high water mark was the first Crowded House album twenty seven years ago. Does that somehow invalidate or diminish everything he's done before or since? Is Crowded House somehow automatically shit because they got the deal with Capitol a few months after their first gig?
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That doesn’t make it a “tirade” or her a “diva”.
No it doesn't, and the delicate petals of the local press need to 1) harden the fuck up and 2) thank the Gods Old and New Lorde hasn't received social media training from Alec Baldwin.
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If we can move past the ridiculous headlines our nanna daily has put out there, the fans were thrilled.
Yeah, and I thought this passage from the review was... well, gratuitously bitchy.
The only sign of diva behaviour - after her mini Twitter rant at New Zealand's media following a scuffle at Auckland Airport earlier in the day - was the 20-minute delayed start time and a couple of extra f-bombs in front of those kids.
Jesus, fuck -- Lorde posted (and deleted) a mildly snarky Tweet after her parents got barged by photographers. Come on, Ella, a proper diva would have at least tried to beat a photographer to death with an already half-empty duty free bottle while posting selfies of the act.
Oh, and my sources at the gig reported precisely two "fucks." I'm sure the lamentations of traumatized children and the stench of decaying moral fibre was overwhelming, but everyone else (judging from my social media) really enjoyed the show and a really mellow crowd. Hell, it sounds like something even a crusty old live gig-phobe like me would have really enjoyed.
As for the snark about the delayed start time. Hell, perhaps she was warming up her potty mouth. Perhaps there were tech issues to sort. Or maybe she was just getting her shit together, because the last time I did a long haul flight from North America I was barely capable of coherent, non-vomiting speech for days let alone getting on stage and nailing a gig.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Mr Mark,
This Election will, of course, be very tight indeed and there are a number of scenarios (like the one above) where Right Bloc support slightly eclipses the Left Bloc’s vote, but where the Left win a 1-3 seat majority in Parliament. Undemocratic ? Maybe. Upsetting to Craig Ranapia ? Absolutely.
Wrong on so many fronts there, Mr. Mark.
First and most importantly, New Zealand does have this tiresome habit of holding free, fair and credible general elections. I many not always like the outcome, but that’s just one bridge among many one just builds and gets the fuck over without dragging your feet.
I do have a lot of sympathy for the argument that the 5% threshold (unless you’ve managed to ‘coat-tail’ on a successful electorate candidate) is “undemocratic” and “unfair” in a lot of ways, and should be either significantly reduced or abolished entirely. But that’s practically irrelevant as things stand – all a Government has to do is be guarantee confidence and supply. End of story.
Don’t count on that. Craig would rather campaign to limit a Labour/Green government to a single term than campaign for another term of a National/Winston government.
That’s much closer to the truth, Matthew. (Though who knows – said Labour/Green Government could turn out to be such a paragon of moderation and good sense I’d vote to return ’em on the downlow. I’ve done stranger things while sober.) I would work my arse off to defeat any party that lay down with Winston, again – and let’s not forget Labour’s been *cough* strategically vague about the prospect. I’ve held the man in utter and unyielding contempt for over twenty years, and see no grounds to change my mind. If he’s the price of power, then I’d respectfully that’s too much to pay for far too little.
he’s not a uni-dimensional National voter.
I'd prefer "not mindlessly tribal". Makes me sound much less like a high-end bicycle. :)
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Andre Alessi,
If Winston is going after Maori, rather than refugees or Asians, he must think he’s got a better shot with National than Labour.
When did going after the Maori Party stop being a fashionable blood sport in the Labour Party, and has anyone c.c.’d Shane Jones in on that memo? If anything, Cunliffe should be the one whose ears are perking up – it’s politically useful, but at enough of a distance that he won’t be splattered with any blowback.
On the other hand, it makes it harder to see NZ First working with Labour, because even if the Labour caucus isn’t particularly Maori-friendly, Labour voters tend to be much more in favour of policies like Whanau Ora than National voters.
Yet, weirdly enough, it's hard to find any evidence "policies like Whanau Ora" have negatively affected National's polling -- which may well suggest National voters aren't actually the pack of drooling racists some people assume.
As I've said repeatedly, both National and Labour are fucking fools if they get back into bed with Peters. Not least because a very large part of their respective supporters quite rightly view the man with utter contempt. But, as you say, I guess we have to wait until the results of the only poll this year that really counts.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I’ve spent all of 10 days in NZ, but I certainly get the impression you’re a much friendlier, more reasonable kind of right wing than our current government.
That's very kind, and flattering, but I assure you I can be spectacularly unfriendly and unreasonable with no prompting whatsoever. :)
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I do try to travel as a guest in a house I have freely chosen to come to; to be gracious and patient and respectful of custom. By the time we left Jordan, if one more guy took my bag, pushed my chair in, or reached around me to give my bill to my male companion, I was going to lose my shit.
I can (kind of) identify. There was one rather odd - and awkward - moment when we rocked up to the B&B we were staying at in York, and clerk obviously though two men booked into a double room was a clerical error. (A clerical error, by the way, by the way, David obviously hadn't noticed when making the initial booking, the confirmation after paying the deposit and the call that morning to make sure they didn't cancel the booking because our train from London had been delayed several hours.)
Really, there's a self-defensive part of you that doesn't want to raise hell when you're a very long way from home. But I wasn't really in the mood to come out to every damn desk clerk between Hong Kong and Vancouver either.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Hebe,
I disagree Craig: the Key government is ideologically driven out of the very-definitely-right school of thought.
Um, yes, as am I? But if that consititues "far-right" in any sense other than the kind of hyperbole where, according to DPF's resident trolls, the New Zealand Labour Party is downright Stalinist (even more so than the incumbent President of the United States), I think we're going to have to agree to disagree and move on.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to martinb,
Disagree dude. They are far right
OK, martin, I guess it all depends on where your political center of gravity is but if you think this government is "far-right" I'd sincerely recommend you get out of the house more and check your premises.