Humid report

2 Feb 2006

...............................THE BITCH IS BACK
....................
............................... ..
...............................Lets cut to the chase

“It’s hot, wet, and sticky”
said the author, his eyes fixed with cross-eyed determination on the
sauce festooned hot-dog-on-a-stick as he raised it to his mouth.
“and . . . the weather’s bloody hot as well”

Yes. It’s official. Bloody awful weather, I hate it. And because I’m a New Zealander in a few weeks I’ll moan about summer being gone and the weather being cold.
We are never happy.
But it is, oppressively hot at the moment. Oppressive in a way Idi Amin would approve of.
And so humid you could cut the air with a knife. Even with a crap knife like a plastic one.
With a decent knife like a Wiltshire (‘shire’ is pronounced like they did in “Lord of the Rings”) Razor master or a set of genza steak knives, you could cut this air into mince meat, and make an oppressive hot-dog-on-a-stick out of it.

The weather has made everyone out of sorts and ornery (it’s like the inside of an Elmore Leonard novel).
So, not wanting to be left out I’m going to have a moan, I’m going to bitch.
And pose some queries?

Has the Listener gone downhill since Finlay Mc Donald left?
Is Raybon Kan as funny as he thinks he is? OR as funny as I think he is?
Should Pio Terei be followed around at all times by a bored man with a snare drum and cymbal?

Burning questions all, that I will attempt to answer in a humid, ornery and semi-fetid fashion.

The Listener.
On the slippery slope?

Finlay’s gone and he was always good. Sometimes I think he was too good, so intoxicated by his choice of words that he forgot to tell us what the hell he was on about. But he was good and I think it’s lost some of it’s vigour/rigour intellectual or otherwise since he has left.
Russell Brown is always great too, whatever he writes about. An economic user of the pen (I wish he would write something more substantial like the great New Zealand Novel he threatened to write years ago).
Joseph Romanos, in what is pretty much a left leaning publication manages to somehow produce a leftie sports column. I like his obsessive list making (“Top Ten Left handed Communist batmen for England” etc..) , fantastic fodder if you’re a sports nut.
And I have always loved Diana Witchel. When she’s gets her teeth into something, she’s good, ‘laugh out loud in embarrassing moments’ good.
And as someone who likes to slag things occasionally, I see her as a masterly performer in that field– The Slag Mistress General and possibly the funniest columnist in New Zealand.
And of course in the old days there was always the Steve Braunias column-inventive, irreverent, smart, funny. He was capable of writing sentences that would make me say ‘wanker’ aloud.
Good wanker, though.
More, ‘wanker how did you concoct that’, wanker.
But these days while we still have Witchel, Brown and others. We also have the stupid ‘Nicole says’ thing and sadly … Joanne Black.
I know - she had a very hard act to follow, her major articles are good BUT her Black page is just boring.
If it was being a complete bastard I would suggest she call it the ‘blank page’.
Sometimes I have read it 3 times trying to work out what’s going on in it.
What is it about?
Why is it is there?
Why?
It’s trying to be funny but..
No. I’m calling the Listener out. I don’t care whose friend she is, it’s weak, and you cant replace the great Steve Braunias with something so..
sorry, I’ve run out of whatever it is that is the opposite of superlatives.

While I’m on a roll and so that Joanne is not alone …
What about other people who think they are funny but aren’t.
Raybon Kan where are you?
I could read his stuff for hours without so much as a wry chuckle. Way too harsh? Maybe, but I also get the feeling from reading between the lines and from hearing him on Radio B that HE thinks he’s bloody hilarious. The last straw was when he made a particularly weak observation in an attempt to squeeze a lame joke out about Gallipoli or the ‘diggers’ .
I thought, “That’s it mate. You leave the diggers alone. The gloves are off.”
At the time I even wrote a letter to the editor (“Raybon Kan - Asian and funny? Or just Asian?”) but it was never published.
Somebody must think he's a laugh, but I dont know any of them.
I suspect they are the same people who laugh a t personalised number plates.

Raybon Kan - funny in a personalised number plate way.

It’s not as though I have no sense of humour. I will laugh at almost everything:
Dave Allen, The Two Ronnies, The Goons, Friends, all those jewish guys (The Marx Brothers, Seinfeld, Zucker Brothers, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen), South Park, The Simpsons.
I have even laughed at Morecome and Wise.
And out in the real world I find humour everywhere. I can be amused by ANYTHING.

The other day I was standing next to a Maori guy (dirty singlet, overweight, boots on and shorts late 40’s) talking to his mate;
“Yeah bro went to the movies last night”
“Yeah cuz what you see?”
“Memoirs of a Geisha. . .
f***kin Stink!”
yeah.. It was rubbish. Don’t go and see that one”
And THAT amused the hell out of me. Why the did he go to see THAT? Why did he want to tell his mate?
It reminded me of a friend who went to see “Eraserhead” years ago at the film festival and there was an entire row of gang members behind him at the screening who were tripping on acid.
Fantastic!
Why were THEY there? And what the hell did they make of the movie?
I had a image at the time of them back at gang headquarters discussing David Lynch’s breakout movie;

Mark ‘Maddog’ Tito: “It marks a new direction for cinema. . .
hand me that bottle of Lion red and the machete bro”
Black Pete: “Sure mate, here you are.. watch your hand that things sharp… Yes..what will be overlooked in the rush to intellectualize the film as a Dada masterpiece and contemporary American Gothic nightmare is Lynch’s sense of humour”
Maddog: “Well said Black Pete. I think it was, more than anything else, a black comedy about Parenthood”

And maybe the Maori truck driver disliked Memoirs of a Geisha for artistic reasons; Maybe he found he wasn’t as emotionally absorbed as he was when he read the book or maybe he didn’t agree with the casting of a Chinese actress rather than a Japanese one.

I also amused myself yesterday at the petrol station. It was one of those infuriating pre-pay ones. I went to put in my gas and then heard a strange squeaky voice saying;
“you cant put it in, you have to pay”
The voice came from a small speaker above the pump.
I was so annoyed I just talked to the speaker as though I was really confused, until the girl came out of the station, from behind the counter to admonish and instruct me;
“You have to pay FIRST. INSIDE”
me: “oh there you are. Your voice seems better now”
girl: “Pay inside first”
me: “I don’t think so. How annoying. Do you know that once people actually came out and got the money off the customer at these places? Amazing isn’t it?
Why is it called a service station if we have to do everything? Tell your boss I’ll never be back here. I hate pre-pay”

and then I drove off down the road, in a huff but also laughing. So, in a laughing huff.
Of course, because it’s my local, I was back a bout three days later but fortunately the girl who I huffed was not there.
So, you see if I can amuse my self like that, my humour threshold is, if anything, too low.

Finally when talking about alleged comedians look no further than James McOnie.
Has anyone seen him on the show in the morning?
He sounds like he’s funny, the delivery suggests he is saying something funny and yet . . . nothing.
Never funny.
And apart from Kay Gregory cracking up I just wouldn’t suspect it was humour.
Shouldn’t you have to pass a test to say you’re a comedian or can anyone do it?
Just put comedian on your passport and then wella! You are one.
At the immigration desk on entering the country;
“I have nothing to declare but my satire”
And off you go, to a career in comedy.
In Germany you have to be qualified to do anything, even rubbish man So I expect they will have a qualification system in place that we can refer to.
Mind you, off the top of me head, my list of german comedians looks a bit empty, a bit thin on the ground.

Also dishonorable mention to:
Jim Hopkins– 80’s glasses abuse and the chronic overuse of puns.
Joe Bennett – Extraordinary overuse of the word “Extraordinary” (you listen to him on the radio next time)
And anyone in something characterized as on telly as “light entertainment”. .. It will be VERY LIGHT on entertainment and those people ( Pio, Mike “the angry texter” Smith, etc..) tell jokes so lame they ought to be accompanied by a bored drummer with a snare drum and cymbal.

Anyway I feel better now. And things aren’t all bad. . Bro'Town rocks, Eating Media Lunch is pretty much the best NZ comedy on TV ever and at least Roger Hall is inactive..
oops getting grumpy again.. better go - and I think the wind is changing and all that oppression is lifting..
Next week – only positive thoughts!

PS Friday is a terrible day for me to do me blog at the moment so will try to do it on Thursdays.