Random Play by Graham Reid

Some time in the late 60s, during what the Vietnamese call the American War, I read a horrifying news item. The Vietcong were throwing babies into the air and impaling them on their bayonets.

I told my father. He’d heard it before, he said, with barely a flicker of interest.

“The Nazis did that in the Second World War, and I’m told the Kaiser’s troops did in the First. I have no doubt someone will do it in the next one as well.”

Aside from what that told me about propaganda, demonising your enemy, and being a warning about the veracity of news reports during wartime, it also has some contemporary relevance to what is going on in our own fair country.

I woke up on Sunday at some time in the mid 70s. I was reading Deborah Coddington’s latest ill-founded, facile and wobbly-logic claptrap column in the Herald on Sunday.

Needless to say she was having the de rigueur bash at beneficiaries who are bleeding the system dry, are too lazy to get a job or even off their fat arses, and spend their days smoking cigarettes or watching Sky television.

Or something like that, just put in one of those more reasonable voices designed to appeal to decent working class folk with whom she doubtless has much in common, and whose interests Act has at heart.

About a decade ago I decided I quite liked the idea of getting old, but now I’m not so sure because it means you have to sit through the same old political bullshit about every 10 years or so.

Coddington’s line is so old it has a beard. It also comes with all the customary trappings of self-righteousness masquerading as social insight and innovative political thinking.

The bit I liked best was when she had a swipe at these lazy bludgers (C’mon Deborah, just say it why doncha? You know you want to) and suggested they were too lazy to grow veges (broad beans, she suggested) in their gardens because the “tax payer will cough up for a Big Mac“.

Sorry Deborah, but I’ve heard that before too. Many times.

Let’s get realistic: growing your own veges (broad beans?) might sound appealing and a little drive towards self-sufficiency, but it doesn’t feed the family. I know. I did it once.

I got a nice little garden going and tended it carefully. I grew tomatoes, chilli, beans, peas, beetroot, a few herbs and potatoes. It was fun and amusing, and I’d still have to go shopping every week to feed the kids. I probably saved about four dollars on a food bill frankly. And then only in summer.

I don't ever recall hearing of an offer of a Big Mac voucher from Social Welfare either.

Coddington and her ilk who advance this line are caught up in some Waltons/Good Life fantasy. Let us remind them then, those were television programmes. Not true. It doesn’t work in the real world.

In that typically divisive way we see from Act and National politicians right now, Coddington’s column made out low paid workers to be the horny-handed sons of the soil who toil honestly, only to find the food being ripped from the mouths of their children by lazy beneficiaries. Not literally but, you know, through handouts and “beneficiaries having the luxury of going along to Winz and getting more money”.

The workers make do and buy second-hand school uniforms and hand-me-downs, the implication being beneficiaries don’t.

I have heard this many times in the past. There might be an element of truth in some of what Coddington says, but only some of it, however there is something else about this line which I feel even more uncomfortable with, more so than with its base dishonesty and dreary familiarity.

It’s when people like Coddington start taking a whack at people for smoking, for having Sky television and videos.

What would they do? Give a benefit but with specific strings attached?

I am suspicious and fearful of any welfare payout which tells people exactly what they are allowed to spend their money on. Think about it. That isn't genuine welfare, that's moral supriority exercising itself. It's the we-know-best attitude that used to come from 19th century church leaders but now we hear mostly from politicians, of all persuasions.

And isn’t that a move to something even more like a culture of dependency, of the socialist nanny state that these anti-welfare people keep banging on about? Isn’t that taking away the power of decision-making, of freedom of choice?

My dad, the wise one, always used to say when any government upped taxes on booze and cigarettes that it was the unemployed and low paid workers who were being hit hardest. But what else do these people have but the enjoyment of a drink and a cigarette?

These people aren’t watching Charlotte Dawson on a holiday programme and saying, “Pass us the phone love, we’re off the south of France.” These are people who probably haven’t seen the inside of an aircraft for a decade, for whom a beer, a fag and a night in front of the tele might be pretty much all there is to look forward to.

And now you want to take that away from them?

My dad had a word for politicians like that -- and they come in all political colours too remember. The word was “bastards“.

And speaking of family. My mum always used to say about clothes, never thrown anything away because it’ll come back in fashion some day.

She was right.

It applies to political “thinking” too. As Deborah and Don -- reviving ideas from the 60s, 70 and 80s, and for all I know probably the 40s and 50s too -- are proving.

But aren’t they looking more than a little threadbare?

A bill in the government’s programme of proposed legislation has already won widespread public support despite drawing fire from civil liberties groups.

The Urban Protocols (And Safety Standards) Bill is intended to make for better living environments and a more polite populace say Labour MPs.

The bill’s principal sponsor Phil Ryan (List, Westharbour) says the bill will “make for the smooth running of unregulated urban areas like shopping malls or main thoroughfares where large masses of people are in transit".

“You need only go to Cuba Mall or Queen St to see people walking three-abreast across the footpath blocking the movement of others, mothers dawdling down the middle of the footpath pushing those oversized prams, or groups of teenagers on cellphones conducting their conversations in the centre of a busy thoroughfare.

“These people have no regard for those who wish to move swiftly and efficiently through streets paid for by the long-suffering tax-payer.

“The problems are exacerbated in enclosed areas such as shopping malls. Over the Christmas period I received numerous calls from disgruntled citizens whose shopping experience at St Lukes and some other place I'd never heard of had been diminished by the inconsiderate actions of others.”

Ryan cited increased incidents of “mall rage” -- up 35 percent according to statistics loosely interpreted from hidden camera footage -- as evidence of the frustration many feel while shopping.

“We have widespread support within the party and already I am hearing from members of Act and National sympathetic to the intent of the legislation.”

Labour MPs, encouraged by last year’s anti-smoking legislation and recent police crackdowns on drinkers who may be doing their best to get intoxicated, are enthusiastic about the bill which they see as regulating public behaviour for the greater good of all.

“One thinks of yesteryear,” says Geraldine Dwight (List, Kakamoana), “and how polite people were."

"We have certainly lost something when it comes to consideration of -- or is that 'for'? -- others. The time has come to legislate in matters of public behaviour.”

Dwight intends introducing an amendment allowing for instant fines “for dawdlers, guttersnipes, lollygaggers, the tardy, and the wilfully inconsiderate.”

If the bill is passed then other legislation -- fines for women who wait until they get on the bus before taking their purses out, students and especially Asians wearing backpacks on crowded public transport -- is being considered.

“If you are not rude and boorish,” says Dwight, “then you have nothing to fear.”

Political observers say Labour is riding a wave of middle-New Zealand sentiment driven by baby-boomers reacting against immigrants and younger people, and that the party is playing on fears of declining standards as well as an appeal to people’s well-being.

But Howard Hanson of the Civil Liberals Association says recent policing in bars could indicate more repressive legislation to come.

“This was met with extraordinary support, or utter indifference which is much the same thing to a populist politician.

"This crackdown was based on the possibility someone might cause trouble. That should have set alarm bells ringing. But it happened in summer when no one gives a shit, basically.”

A leaked memo from within the police seems to confirm Hanson’s fears.

It reads in part: “Many members of the public will be, quite rightly, alarmed by these initiatives. Some will argue you cannot intervene just because you think someone may be getting drunk and may have it in mind to possibly commit a crime.

"We need to reiterate -- until they, and we, believe -- that someone who is drunk could well be a victim of a crime, so we are actually saving people from those who might take advantage of them.

"They’ll buy that shit.”

While there is some unease at the increasing amount of so-called “social legislation” being brought before Parliament -- critics cite the empowering of cinema ushers to arrest patrons who leave wrappers and empty drink containers behind them after a movie -- a recent Colgate-Brunter poll showed 74 percent of the 26.4 people surveyed approved of laws which would get big prams, teenagers with cellphones, and dawdling family groups out of shopping malls and off busy footpaths.

“They’re a bloody nuisance and piss me right off,” says 54-year old Dave Hummer, a Tauranga developer and Labour supporter. “And if we can also make hip-huggers illegal and bring back School Cert this could be a great country again.“

The prime minister, currently overseas, is unavailable for comment.

Anyone bemoaning declining standards in the education system might have wanted to catch the Checks at the Big Day Out last week. In their original Tired of Sleeping (which I took to be a comment on the state-of-the-nation) there was the line, “a satyr for Hyperion”.

These schoolboys have obviously been paying attention in English because that seems to be a flip on the line “Hyperion to a satyr” in Hamlet when the broody student is comparing his late father (Hyperion, one of the Titans and father of the sun god) to his uncle (satyr, the half-man half-goat beast).

So big-ups to these brash lads for not talking down to their audience.

I had a good time at the BDO this year, mainly because for the first time I wasn’t there to review, ask security guards and cops why those kids were lying semi -conscious under main stage, and flitting from one stage to another to try and get a feel for as many bands as possible. Then trying to file before an early deadline.

Last year I recall trying to go down the stairs to the media room as Metallica’s audience was coming up. And they aren’t polite people.

This year I managed to see who I wanted and stay as long as I cared to. (Kid Koala made me want to go buy his albums and comic books, an advance copy of the Pluto album which I am listening to now confirms how good their new songs are.)

So generally I had a good time. Right up until I braved the Slipknot audience.

I know very little about Slipknot other than what I have read. And an interview in the Herald that morning made me want to see them.

I had them pegged as big noisy racket but the article suggested that maybe I had misjudged them. So with the best will in the world and being genuinely curious I made my way as far to the front and centre as I could.

They were shit. Not as bad as the Donnas who struck me as someone’s idea of a joke and a tie-in marketing exercise, but just plain noisy shit. That much I didn’t mind, they are perfectly entitled to do what they do just as I am to conclude they are not for me. What I didn’t like most of all were their fans who, if the black-clad belligerent masses around me were anything to go by, are the kinds of people I wouldn’t have round for a barbecue.

But that too is my choice and I am ever mindful we cannot fairly judge a band by its audience. (I liked Joy Division, but was damned if I’d have Tony and his mates over ever again after they took a pocketful of downers and wanted to sit around my house on a school night till 4am listening to Closer.)

No, we must be cautious about making a direct correlation between artist and audience, but my guess is that Slipknot (who sensibly keep themselves anonymous behind masks to allow for a family life with girlfriends and kids and going to Wall-Mart unhindered) probably don’t ever meet their audience.

Oh sure, they probably do CD signings and in-stores and glad-hand a few competition winners backstage before a show, but they don’t actually hang out with them. You know, get on Jack-binges and go to parties with them. They don’t get their hands dirty and probably wouldn’t want to be in a moshpit with them.

That’s in the nature of the game, but sometimes you wish people commanding the spotlight did actually have to meet their constituents.

That thought occurred to me when Don Brash said at Ratana Pa yesterday his previous Orewa speech wasn’t anti-Maori.

Well, on a literal reading of it maybe it wasn’t. Just as maybe the speech he is predicted to deliver tonight won’t actually come out and say we should really hammer welfare beneficiaries.

But Don, no matter how politely you couch it, out there in the moshpit of middle New Zealand that last Orewa speech legitimised anti-Maori sentiment. It gave voice to those might not otherwise have had the courage to spit their venom and deep-seated, often vile, racist sentiments.

Yes, Brash’s last speech made some valid points -- it would be wrong to damn it out of hand, and even Labour liberals made some quick shuffles when they felt the ground beneath them move -- but it also went much further than that. And I do wonder whether Don knew that. I suspect not. His blithe demeanour suggests he doesn‘t.

Because, like the guys in Slipknot, Don Brash doesn’t actually meet his constituency.

Oh sure, he does the political equivalent of in-stores and gladhands a few of the faithful backstage. But mostly it is tea and biscuits with the elderly who ooze concern about the way their country is going, and it all sounds so reasonable and polite.

Maybe Don needs to get out there and meet some of the talkback types who would happily put the boot in to Maori and their grievance industry, and would like to derail that gravy train they have heard so much about.

Maybe Don would like to spend a day over a few beers with those farmers who want to ride into town to sort out these bloody dole bludgers.

Don, meet your constituents.

Many are satyrs to the Hyperion you would want to be.

Because I have friends in low places, like Buckingham Palace, I am occasionally in receipt of information not available to the general public (or “commoners” as the palace likes to style them).

For example a week or so ago I received the draft of a press release from the palace’s First Adjutant in the Department of Revisionism and Newspeak with regard to the recent controversy about Prince Harry’s choice of costume at a fancy dress party.

I waited for it to be released to the media but it seems that someone further down the track nixed it, although I think if it had come out it would have been helpful in our understanding of Harry’s motives which, as you will read, were much more lofty and intellectual than we first thought.

Apparently he wasn’t just some dickhead in a Nazi uniform, but was making a subtle political statement.

I print it here in its entirety for your consideration.

“In the matter of Price Harry and Prince William’s recent attendance at a costume party.

“It has come to the attention of this office that the media has taken up cudgels against Prince Harry with regard to his attendance at this party where he wore a uniform with Nazi regalia.

“It is with great regret we note how this incident has been misinterpreted and would here like to outline the reason the honourable Prince chose such attire.

“As members of the media will know the Royal Family stands above and beyond base politics and cannot make statements which might be interpreted as political.

“That said however their Royal Highnesses are not unaware that they live in the 21st century and so, mindful of that, various members of the Royal Family have made subtle but pointed gestures which are more in the line of social, rather than overtly partisan political, statements.

“So it was with Prince Harry and his Nazi uniform.

“As you will have noted the theme of the party was ‘Native and Colonial‘. In this instance Prince Harry chose to explore the theme of colonial oppression of native people’s and adopted the Nazi uniform as an emblem of the power of an extreme expansionist colonising power. The subtlety of this metaphor regrettably appears to have been lost on members of the media and the public.

“When placed in the context of what his brother Prince William wore -- a cat suit symbolising animal species rendered extinct or endangered by colonial expansionism -- their gesture of solidarity with the plight of indigenous people who suffered under the yoke of colonial powers (Germany, Holland, France, Belgium and other European nations) becomes clear.

“It is also with great regret that at this time some media organisations, notably the tabloid press staffed by guttersnipes and sleaze-mongers, have chosen to resurrect some instances when Prince Phillip, the boys’ grandfather, has also made statements which have been misinterpreted as racist.

“In this regard I refer media organisations again to previous press releases which will clarify the situation: notably ‘Prince says they are not wogs but decent hard-working foreigners’ and ‘Prince says they are not fuzzy-wuzzies but decent hard working wogs’.

“We reiterate that Prince Phillip enjoys a Pythonesque humour and regret that some of his statements in the past have been misinterpreted.

“As with the current instance regarding Prince Harry, we ask that members of the media and the public look beyond their own narrow prejudices towards the privileged and the powerful, and see the subtle messages they are trying to impart.

“Finally we would note that if these popular misconceptions continue the Royal Family and its Household would seriously consider moving to California where they would be much more appreciated and wouldn‘t have to behave themselves at all.

“So just watch yourself, mate.”

So. I joined the gym today to the delight of my wife and the consternation of the young man whose job it was to design a programme for me.

It would be fair to say that for the past few decades at least I have been committing slow suicide by alcohol and enjoyment. The young man at the gym asked me how I rated my overall fitness and laughed when I said, “it's non-existent.”

When he saw I wasn’t laughing I told him more. He wasn’t judging me but I could tell that deep inside he was thinking that I must have set a poor example to my children.

I told him I worked in a sedentary profession, rarely walked if I could take a car, and believed why stand if you can sit, why sit if you can lie down. I told him I had spent a good part of my life -- and very good part it was too -- in smoke-filled pubs and clubs listening to loud rock music. That I would rather wait half an hour in the rain than embarrass myself by running for that bus, and that my idea of the ideal lunch was a $10 steak at Tony’s with a bottle of red wine and a book.

Then he weighed me which was embarrassing.

The last time I remembered getting on scales was at rugby weigh-in at university and in those days they used the civilised, if mathematically challenging, avoirdupois measure: then I was 12 stone.

Let it be said that thanks to Tony’s I am a little more than that now, some 30 years on, and my congested heart sank because I realised that no matter how much I worked out I’d probably never be a winger again, let alone an All Black. Although seeing brave Jonah across the room dancing around like a prize fighter did give me some small encouragement.

Anyway my young man introduced me to the bike, the rowing machine, and some weights. I said I would never get on one of those running things but the bike and the rowing machine were fine. I prefer getting my exercise sitting down. And I’ve always liked pushing weights.

So then he left me alone and I hopped back on the rowing machine to do my mandatory 1500 metres. Let me tell you, the first 1350 are the toughest, after that it’s a wheeze. A literal wheeze. The man next to me sensibly ignored my rattling chest and just put head down to push on past the 5000 metre mark. I tried to watch the Snoop Dogg video on the screen above but boredom set in.

And that’s always been my problem with going to gyms, I get bored witless by pedalling and the like. My reward is always getting in the pool where I don’t swim so much as flounder around, paddle a bit then stretch out for a length before going back to paddling in the shallow end. I love it.

But it has been the boredom which has undermined me in the past. And no, this isn’t my first time at the gym. I joined the same one a couple of years ago and gave it a good go for a few months before I found I was preferring to watch television and drink wine (good for the heart, right?) than go for a pedal while looking at a brick wall or young people’s booty-shakin’ videos.

The excuse I used for not going was that every time I did the place was full and I couldn’t get on the bikes or in the slow lane of chlorine. And it was true.

I was locked into the day job like most people so I could only go mornings and after work, like everyone else.

Now being a freelancer working from home I have no excuse, I can wander up at 10.30am or 2pm and there will only be me and a few fit people like Jonah and the Tuaman. So I’m into it, and the programme I have looks pretty challenging.

The place is also just around the corner and by the time I backed the car out of the garage I could have walked there. So next time I’m even going to do that too. Just that extra two minute kick of exercise.

So. I joined the gym today. Wish me luck. If I make good progress you’ll hear about it here. If you don’t hear about it that means my good intentions will have been dying quietly and by degrees.

Much like I am.