Cracker by Damian Christie

One of the things I notice about getting old is how time seems to condense.  What was once simply shorthand – “oh I saw such-and-such the other day” ­– when in fact I saw him a couple of months ago, after a while actually feels true. It does seem like only a couple of years ago I was in Afghanistan, and yet it must be closer to four now. 

Point being, when I went to Sydney on the weekend, I knew I hadn’t been for some time, and it can’t be far off a decade. 

Sydney polarises people I think. It’s like Auckland. For some it seems too flashy, a bit up itself. They prefer Melbourne, which is more of a grungy, Wellingtony sort of a city. People in Melbourne are in bands. People in Sydney are DJs or at least like dancing to them. People in Melbourne wear chucks, Sydney’s all about the stilettos. 

I’d had fun in Sydney in the past, admittedly back when I was managing a house DJ and writing for a dance magazine. And as I stopped doing that so much I generally thought I was a Melbourne-type too, all chucks and grunge. 

But from the time my taxi pulled up at the hotel, I thought Sydney was excellent.

Okay, so the hotel was the Sebel Pier One, which is down at the Rocks, one of Sydney’s most historic quarters. And I’d spent the previous night staying in a place in Wellington by the name of the Silver Oaks, about which the only positive thing I can say is it recalled the ironically named ‘Happiness Hotel’ from The Great Muppet Caper (2'55" in). But the Sebel, great. High stud (the room, that is), day bed, night bed, right by the water. Probably never be able to afford to stay there myself, I didn’t check the rate.

Because yes, tinny chap that I am, someone else was picking up most of the tab. Tourism Australia, lovely folk. I hasten to add this sort of thing happens very infrequently, but you know, gift horse, mouth, you’d do the same, right? And it was my birthday…

The ostensible reason I was there was for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra (YTSO). Kinda like that Iggy Pop Orcon commercial, where musicians audition over the internet, except with more bassoons. And french horns, violas and so forth. And rather than culminating in a virtual performance, the many and varied members of the orchestra were flown from their many and varied home countries to Sydney for a a week of rehearsals and small gigs, culminating in a grand performance at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday night.

Going inside the Opera House for the first time (at a rehearsal earlier in the week) was a real treat. Perched on the harbour, the walkway around the grand hall looking across the water is impressive enough, but entering the hall was something else – there’s something about a room built with such a singular purpose, on such a grand scale.

The Sunday night event was a great showcase for Sydney – the Opera House was lit up both inside and out by projections from ….  If I’m being honest, the projections weren’t the best of their kind. It was as though the projector was stuck on screensaver mode half the time – a nineties screensaver at that. Swirls of rainbow coloured ribbons and spirographs, with little or no relevance to the shape and structure of the Opera House – this to me is the art of the public projection, working with the geometry of your canvas, twisting and melding the very shape itself.

That’s just a minor observation though. The performance was wonderful. An amazing solo on the massive Opera House organ was a stand out for me; surely it’s the only instrument where you are actually playing notes (as opposed to beats, drummers…) with all four limbs at once? As well as the projections, much thought had been given to the audience viewing around the world – short video packages had been produced introducing various members of the orchestra, interviewed in their home country. A friend noted that all the members chosen for the one-on-one star treatment were particularly attractive, and I wonder if that was part of the overall criteria – I mean, there must be a lot of talented violinists around the world right, might as well pick a hot one.  There was also a (hot) visual artist from the Ukraine, whose chosen medium was sand sprinkled and swept over a light box, projected onto the big screen.  And sitting at the back of the hall, the internal projections were quite impressive too.

The event, as it turned out was huge.  This from the PR people:

33 million people around the world watched the YouTube Symphony Orchestra Grand Finale.  There were 11.1 million streams of the event during the 3.5 hour concert, making it the most-watched live music concert on YouTube to date (beating out U2 at 10 million).  A further 19.1 million streams took place it as the concert was replayed on YouTube over the next 24 hours.  The mobile live-stream was viewed 2.8 million times - making it the biggest ever YouTube mobile live-stream.  The total stream transferred 422TB of data - the equivalent of sending 145 million mp3 files.

Which is massive. Almost as massive as Rebecca Black’s Friday (currently sitting on 80 million) or this funny cats compilation (50 million). Unfortunately the problem for the people at YouTube is that no matter how awesome their concept, no matter how much money they spend getting musicians from around the world to converge on Sydney, or media to attend, nothing they ever do will be as popular as “Charlie bit my finger”.  But I reckon YouTube were still pretty happy. I mean, bigger than U2.

The morning after we arrived was booked for a climb of the Harbour Bridge – I was a little tired from the previous day’s early flight, and a few drinks later on, but despite being told the climb was reasonably strenuous, it was almost literally a walk in the park (if the park was a collection of welded steel girders over the harbour). I don’t have a particular fear of heights, so the only nerve-wracking bit was the breath test everyone is subjected to before they are allowed to climb. Again, not that it’s dangerous – the pathways are comfortable, with handrails, and you’re constantly clipped to the structure via a safety harness – but it’s all about safety (and keeping the Sydney Bridge Authority happy, I guess).  And the suits are very flattering...

The rest of the weekend I spent venturing around Sydney. A quick trip across the harbour to the faded glory of Lunar Park - worth it just for the photographic opportunities, though I'd love to head back at night when it's all lit up.  Although be warned, if you've got a phobia of clowns...

Having spent a bit of time recently discussing the future of Auckland City, it was interesting to be in a city that has got a lot of things right. A harbour area which is a focal point for the city. Wonderful heritage buildings, which reinforced how many we have knocked down, and how much we should fight to save the ones we have left. Medium-density housing in the city, rather than a proliferation of cramped apartments surrounded by miles of ‘pavlova paradise’ suburban sprawl.

One thing I envy about other great cities is simply the benefits of population. With 4.58 million people – that’s almost 200,000 more than we’ve got in the whole country, Sydney can afford a greater variety of shops, restaurants and bars. Rows of great clothing stores along Oxford Street (nice to see a few New Zealand names tucked in there), the proper ‘department store’ vibe of David Jones, which echoes Barneys (NYC) or Selfridges (London). The ability to have not just one but a number of specialist shops, and have them on a massive scale – the two storey HobbyCo filled with model trains, planes and automobiles, not to mention enough Star Wars merchandise to make any Padawan drool.

Obviously with just a weekend to venture out, we barely touched the surface, food and drink wise. Lunch at the Quay (“you can’t wear your thongs there” advised the concierge) was a highlight, while dinner at the Ivy was unintentionally hilarious – the food and service were great, I have to say, but shee-it that place is a meat market. A bar and restaurant set around a swimming pool, alongside which beautiful women in body-hugging mini-dresses and high heels paraded as though on a cat-walk – an appropriate name given the onlooking lions, mainly from the financial sector I’m told, who sat and licked their chops.

One thing that’s obvious when you head to Australia – they’re doing very well. It’s reflected in the mood of the people, the discussions on the talkback radio (okay they’re still angry, marginalised right-wing idiots, but somehow they seem less concerned than our angry, marginalised right-wing idiots), it’s just you know, the vibe. Returning home to news of more cutbacks, a ‘zero budget’ and so forth, the gap seems wider than ever, and John Key’s suggestion of catching up with them by 2025 as fanciful as Phil Goff’s suggestion that he still has any chance of being the next Labour Prime Minister.

Not that I’m thinking of moving over the ditch – I’m happy with our 1/8th of an acre amidst the suburban sprawl. But it’s good to be reminded that if you want to be immersed in a proper international city for a weekend, there’s a good option just a few hours away. And next time I say “I went to Sydney the other day”, it’ll be a lot more likely to be true.

(A portrait of the author as a short man)

Yes, I've been a bad blogger, I know.  Disappearing on you for most of this year (all of this year I think). 

But I have an excuse. A good excuse. An excuse that begins tonight - Hindsight (TVNZ 7, 9.30pm).

It seems like a strange time to be launching anything positive and new - forget Hindsight, it's Perspective I've been learning about in the past week. But launch tonight it does, and so there ya go.

It's been an idea that's been bubbling away for a couple of years really.  In fact it started pretty much when I began at TVNZ, and realised the immense privilege I had been given, being able to trawl through the extensive TVNZ Archives.  Millions of hours (probably - no-one actually knows) of footage all locked away in a nuclear bunker-like facility in Avalon.  Some of which we often see - gold medal winning awards, national tragedies and the like - and much of which has probably never been re-broadcast.

It's the latter I love, the true hidden treasures.

So anyway, a couple of years ago, before all this '50 Years of TV' and 'Andy Shaw's Archive Show', and well before TVNZ Heartland, I suggested an archive show.  We did a wee online trial which you might remember me talking about, This Week in TV History. 

But for a fully-fledged show, it needed something more. It needed to be relevant, current. Which is where Hindsight came from. The idea of looking back at our past to learn lessons about the big issues we face today. Issues like Obesity. Animal Welfare. The Drinking Age.

In fact, the more I dug through the archives, the more I found stories which could very much be on the front page of the paper any day. Auckland's growing pains. The push towards a republic. Drink driving. The list of issues (and hence episodes) piled up, and that pile continues to grow every time I spend any time in the virtual vault.

So that's Hindsight. My little baby. Telling, often unintentionally hilarious, poignant archive clips - not soundbites, but decent chunks of the stories as they went to air at the time. Interviews with people who were in those stories, together with modern experts to put the issue in context.

Tonight's show is 'Fast Food Nation', and looks at obesity. A growing problem - the single biggest health issue we face in New Zealand.  As well as some hilarity (Jazzercise... Weight Watchers 1960s style... Selwyn Toogood talking about "queers") it shows how long we've known about this issue, and how long we've done nothing about it. Even the experts were surprised to see just how far back these stories have been happening.

There's a website, and while there's not much up there at the moment, in the next few days you'll be able to watch the episode, as well as some un-edited versions of the original archive pieces.

Please watch, and let me know your thoughts. And any suggestions for future episodes for a future (fingers crossed here) series.

And I'll try and be back here sooner rather than later, but I hope you understand.

I’ve often said that each year’s Big Day Out leaves just two enduring memories.   Whether it was the time the Smashing Pumpkins played in the glorious sunshine while we drank beer on the main field (oh those were the days, before the beer ghettos were installed). Or the time Perry Farrell wailed Janes Addiction’s signature ‘Jane Says’ as the sun was going down. Or the time LCD Soundsystem managed to time ‘All My Friends’ perfectly with the onset of some (legal, of course) chemicals I’d ingested half an hour prior.  Anyway, you get the point.  Each Big Day Out = two moments.

Unfortunately, the two moments I remember from yesterday’s Big Day Out will sit uneasily in what is otherwise a pretty cool mental scrapbook.

I make a point of being friendly, chatty and polite to everyone working at the Big Day Out. I imagine dealing with tens of thousands of punters, serving endless queues constantly, managing the unmanageable is not the easiest of jobs. So I figure the least I can do is be nice. Sympathetic. I even try with the cops, although not generally with much reward in terms of engagement.

So early on in the day I was in one of the beer ghettos (the Lilypad, which was actually pretty good for a licensed area).  I was looking for a way out, and saw that someone had pushed the fence open and people were streaming in and out freely. I thought I’d point this out to the security standing at the nearby exit. Y’know, helpful like. He looked, grunted acknowledgment, and turned away. I went to walk out, and he put his hand on my chest to stop me. “This is an entrance.” Both ends of the gate were empty, save him and me. No-one was entering. Or exiting, apparently. Three metres separated me from the outside world, but despite my collusion just seconds beforehand, I was still the Enemy at the Gate:

“Really? You can’t let me through?”

“Nah.” 

“So you’d rather I walked over there and left via the gap in the fence.”

“That’s not my problem.”

So I did.

Not a biggie, he was only following orders and all that. But it highlighted a mindset of slavishly enforcing the rules even when they no longer made sense. Kinda like enforcing a non-smoking ban in the midst of an inferno.

There was worse to come, unfortunately.

Later in the day it started to rain. Pleasantly at first, and slowly, surely, harder. In the corner of the Green stage beer ghetto there was a large awning set up around what I think was supposed to look like something of an al fresco wine bar. It sold only wine and cider though, so it wasn’t doing a hell of a lot of business, especially compared with the queues at the much larger drinks tent nearby.

 As the rain picked up, people naturally started to take shelter under the edges of the awning. I’m not talking huddled masses, just a few groups standing around chatting and watching the bands. Plenty of room, it’s fair to say.

 Fairness clearly wasn’t on the mind of one squat moustachioed member of the security as he started herding people out into the rain. “Really?” I found myself asking again? The answer this time was a rough shove in the chest. My friend Richard first discovered the shelter ban with a strong shove from behind. No “you have to stand in the rain please”, just a shove.

 That is, to coin a phrase, fucked. I mean, if you want to be a dick about it, it’s assault.

 I appealed to the kind-looking lady behind the bar. She shrugged. “It’s just not a good look” I pointed out, and she agreed. Another gentleman joined our conversation. James Edgars I think he said, and he was the license holder for that area. His name was on the paper, he said. It’s his arse on the line.

 I asked, still trying to be reasonable, which part of the license required no-one take shelter  on the periphery of the generous awning. We need, he said, to keep this area clear so that people can queue and be served. James Edgars timing wasn’t exactly perfect. “How many people are queuing and being served at the moment” I asked, just as the sole customer collected her drink and wandered back into the rain. The place was deserted, the nearest people the recently evicted, those who’d been shoved into the elements.

 The thing is, as I pointed out to James Edgars, License Holder, there was literally no harm in people standing inside the edges of the awning. People weren’t standing anywhere near the bar. There was no queue – had there been I would’ve understood. There were no customers. No-one was being impeded. There was a good few metres of space before you got anywhere near the bar area. People just wanted a little bit on the edge. It was within his power to tell his thugs to chill. Instead he preferred to have security (ironic title) randomly assaulting customers. Not. A. Good. Look.

 But James Edgars didn’t care. The kind lady smiled resignedly and shrugged.

 I have a third memory actually. As we first arrived, and queued to have our bags searched, our pockets emptied (again, I understand, I cooperate), a large chap with a megaphone gave instructions. “No glass bottles… no cans” he said. “No alcohol… if he have any drugs, hand them to me now,” he joked. “Once you are in, you can not leave. There are no pass outs.” He laughed: “Welcome to the Rock.”

 If only he knew that inside security were acting like prison guards from a bad movie, he might’ve lost the smile. We certainly did.

I freakin' love this time of year.

Okay, it's pretty stressful, trying to tie up loose ends (or not-so-loose in my case, with a Summer Tour starting in a fortnight, and an entirely new show to have ready for a launch early 2011...), dealing with the sort of humidity we'd normally save up and travel for.  Then there was that week where it didn't stop raining.

But that aside, Christmas time really excites me. Around November an earworm that's been hibernating all year springs to life, and I find myself humming "Deck the Halls" far too often.

I find myself smiling a lot more. I smile at strangers on the street, and they smile back. I strike up random friendly conversations with random friendly people. Rather than a frothing rage, the crippling traffic jams within a square kilometre of every mall or Warehouse incite only a Zen-like calm.

For a few weeks, life is like it should always be. And probably is, in small town New Zealand. But there's nothing small town about Auckland. Eating out on Ponsonby Road this week, my friends and I remarked how the place looked like Khao San Road; diners pack outside tables trying to escape the humidity, as throngs meander along, on their way to Franklin Road.

Closer to my own home, just before Sandringham meets Mt Albert Road, there's a little Oasis of Christmas cheer, as if one of the Franklin houses had enough and decided to move to the 'burbs.

Cars line the road outside, as people are encouraged to wander inside the front gate and experience the full extent of the festivities. I pull up to take some pics on the way home from the Indian takeaway.

"Have you got any letters for Santa?" asks a young girl in a Santa hat. The granddaughter of the owner, as it turns out. "You can post them in there", she says, and sure enough there's a postbox marked Letters for Santa, which she opens to reveal a dozen or so notes already inside.

I introduce myself to the owner, John Peel (yes, he's aware), who has been making the effort for six years now, and seems to love hanging around outside, meeting the neighbours. 

"It only took me two days this time," he says, pointing out that his decorations mostly consist of large installation pieces, rather than strings of background lights, which are apparently quite fiddly. John says he'd like it if some of the neighbourhood got into the spirit of things, although I quite like this vivid anomaly. I also feel slightly guilty - we don't even have a tree up at home - just a small string of glowing jandals.

But I get into the spirit in other ways. Smiling at strangers. Remaining resistant to road-rage. Giving surplus seedlings or even a spare snapper to the old couple next door.

I do try and avoid the blatant commercialism of it all - apart from spoiling my niece and nephew, which I never need an excuse like Christmas to do anyway. At my suggestion, my siblings and I eschew buying presents in favour of something small and home-made. My garishly decorated gingerbread men (with real ginger!) have been handed out for the past couple of years, and there's always plenty spare for aunties, cousins and those other relatives who wouldn't normally feature on the gift list.

And so tomorrow night you know where I'll be. In the kitchen, wiping sweat from my brow as the smell of baking wafts through the house. 

As much as I'd like to put a few hundred extra gingery guys in the oven for y'all, we might have to agree on something a little more virtual. So let me point out the delightful (and delightfully FREE) album by Avalanche City.

The very cute video of the single 'Love Love Love' (which would be my pick for #1  Xmas Single) can be viewed here.

And there's a link at the top of this blog to an MP3 of Dave (Mr Avalanche City) performing the same song acoustically on the last Public Address Radio for the year. It was a lovely moment in the wee studio.

Enjoy. And Merry Xmas everyone. Be good to each other.

I wonder if it’s all just part of being a thirtysomething, but it seems, along with many of my friends, I am standing on the bridge of some sort of major life change, and am unwilling to commit to one side at the loss of the other.

On the one side, I guess the youthful side, is going out, indulging one’s hedonistic whims, writing off entire weekends in a blur of madness.

On the other side, is trips to (as opposed to tripping at) Bunning’s and tending the garden.

I rather hope I don’t have to choose anytime soon between the two, because I do enjoy both. And often they combine beautifully. I first got into gardening when, one afternoon years ago, I got rather drunk and decided I couldn’t stand the state of the backyard. Armed with a bottle of whiskey and a rusty saw, I took to it.

Just last Friday night I was at a friend’s party, indulging the hedonistic side of my nature. Next thing you know, my mate is giving me a tour of his new vege plot. “Rotational planting, thass the secret,” he slurred. “I bloody love you mate,” I replied, probably.

When we bought our first house, last year, I think we had the discussion right here about the joys of home ownership. Digging a hole in soil largely owned by the bank and planting something seemed to be up there with my newly discovered thrill of being able to bang nails in any damn wall I pleased.

Over last summer, with the help of a landscaping friend, we established a herb garden. I went crazy and planted every option I could consider. A year later I have scaled that back to herbs that I actually might use on a regular basis – surprisingly few, but all needed in large quantities – mint, coriander, parsley, rosemary for the most part.

Towards the end of summer I experimented with a few veges. Baby beets – great, but all gone in a couple of salads. Spring onions – amazing, and being able to pluck one or two at a time saved buying endless bunches from the supermarket and chucking out half of them a few days later.

This year, while waiting for a bit of warmth to get the herbs really racing along, I planted a dozen or so lettuce plants of a couple of varieties in the herb garden.  They’ve taken over (again saving festering bags of putrid greens in our fridge vege drawer). Around the edge I’ve got a few tomato plants growing – I hope the cherry tomatoes take off, they’re great in summer salads, but so pricey.

I bought a couple of special sacks in which to grow potatoes (they have Velcro side access so you can fish around for spuds without pulling up the plants), and germinated a couple of varieties – Swift and Nadine – in the corner of the lounge, planted them, and they’ve gone for gold. Again, I’m not expecting more than a few feeds of new potatoes around Christmas time, but it’s all about trial and error.

 
We’re trying a few things from seed this year, spring onions and basil. It’s a bit slow for my liking – even in gardening I’m a little bit instant gratification – but the spring onions are looking promising. Having a little automated irrigation system definitely helps, my cousin used to work for a big irrigation company, and still has the skill and will to do the odd cashy on the weekend. Otherwise those herb plants easily get fried on a sunny weekend, especially if you’re too busy playing on the other side of the bridge to tend garden.

In the next few weeks I’m planning to build (or have someone build for me, let’s be honest) a few big planter boxes to start a vege garden proper, without having to sacrifice too much of the lawn in the process. Beans. Corn. Courgettes. Capsicum?

 
I just know there are some avid gardeners out there. I want tips. I want to know what is worth growing in terms of yield vs just picking up at the supermarket.