Suicide: The Final Word

When the great British comedian, Tony Hancock, alone in Sydney and befuddled by booze and barbiturates, committed suicide in 1968 he left behind two suicide notes--he was, after all, a perfectionist.

The first note--by far the more concise--is a classic of poignancy and pertinence; it reads simply, 'Things seemed to go wrong too many times.' There is art in that note. In the end, it succeeds in doing what many of Hancock's other final performances did not: it shows what an artist and premature loss Tony Hancock (at the age of 44) was.

However, Hancock is not alone. Many of the world's greatest artists have saved their greatest work for their suicides--whether in the manner of the act or in their note explaining it. Hemingway did it spectacularly though rather prosaically with a shotgun in his Ketchum (Idaho) kitchen; Brutus, after sticking the knife into Caesar, then did it to himself; Sylvia Path characteristically took the artistic route with her 'Dying is an art like everything else. I do it exceptionally well'; and Curt Cobain certainly gave credence to the claim that suicide is the ultimate expression of self-criticism when he wrote, "I hate myself, and I want to die."

But, where is all this heading? Well, a friend and I were the other day discussing the idea of irony. Irony, being in part: 'the use of language with one meaning for the privileged few and another for those addressed or concerned' (Oxford Dictionary of Current English), is of course a Fryday fundamental. However, my friend drew my attention to an article in New Yorker magazine that celebrates irony better than I have yet managed to do. The article, by Tad Friend, discusses the propensity of people to use San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge as a jumping off place.

It seems that this stately structure has literally and figuratively been a bridge to another world for all of its 66 years. On average, somebody jumps off the Golden Gate every fortnight and it is the world's leading suicide location. The first jumper did it three months after it opened in 1936, 1200 others have done it since. Where the irony comes in is the care that is often taken. For example, the Golden Gate has a sister bridge, the Bay Bridge, but nobody has jumped off that--it is too ugly, apparently.

But the far-from-final irony is that not everybody succeeds. The incidences of surviving a leap from the bridge are quite high (forgive the irony in that statement).Numbers are not exact, because some survivors have simply swum away, but many have jumped, survived, recovered, and then recorded what they then thought were their final thoughts (a leap from the bridge takes 4 seconds). One of those, Ken Baldwin, who jumped in 1985, later made the following magical statement and in doing so reinforced my belief--clung to--that there is always a better way. That he also managed to say it in such a humorous and ironic way adds to its power as a salutary lesson. As he fell, Baldwin recalls, 'I instantly realized that everything in my life I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable--except for having just jumped.'

Now, that's irony! Hancock would have liked that.


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Now playing: Rufus Wainwright - Hallelujah
via FoxyTunes

Yearling

With only a few days to go of the current year, it could be seen as incumbent on Fryday to undertake a review of that year; I reject that encumbrance.

“The best and worst” is done ad nauseum, and you probably find it as boring as I do. The only people who relish retrospective regurgitation are those who actually appeared in the news or those in Palmerston North, Canterbury, and Hamilton who think it still is the news!

However there were a couple of personal highpoints that I should not fail to mention: persuading the highly desirable, inevitably interesting and surprisingly indefatigable Maggie Fordham to marry me was one of them; the wedding itself was another; as was the post-wedding party spent with family and friends.

Elsewhere I look to the unwavering support of friends/colleagues in what, to put it mildly, has been a difficult job as “spokesman” for the Rodney District Council; akin to that, the superb job my friend Mitch has done in taking up the reins of the writing company.

All of which has given me the foundation for what I know will be a difficult 2007.

But, that’s next year: a few days, a trip to Matakana, a sojourn to the movies, and one or two bottles of wine away from now. I’ll worry about it when it arrives.

For now, the only encumbrance I feel upon me is one I embrace with alacrity and sincerity: and that is to wish you all that is fresh and invigorating for the balance of the holiday season, and a rich and wonderful New Year.

Next week: what the newsmakers’ New Year resolutions reveal about themselves.

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Now playing: Meat Loaf & Bonnie Tyler - If You Really Want To
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God Knows

Dear President Bush,

What is it with you?

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that all we have in common is the same first initial. Yet, you persist in writing to me as if I am a great friend and confident. Too often, too, you exhibit an air of superiority, which is difficult to comprehend and, in your case, impossible to justify.

Yet to the best of my recollection this has all happened without you receiving a single acknowledgement or even recognition from me. You refer to our “conversations”. When did these happen? Did I miss something? I have a great many conversations with a great many people, Allah is a particular friend, and it would be true to say that sometimes, late and night, after a good meal, and a bit of a nightcap, my friends and I will attempt to right the wrongs of the world (as one does), but as far as I am aware those conversations have never included you as a participant—though, I have to admit, “wrongs of the world” have undoubtedly included you as an example.

In any case, what makes you think you would get automatic entry to my place? Boy, are you in for a rude awakening!

What concerns me most though are the things you purport to do in my name. You imply you have a God-given right; do you think I give out rights like certificates? Even if I did, a Texan would be so far back on the queue they’d be looking up the backside of Brian Tamaki. Iraq? That was all yours, babe. Do you know how much grief that caused me with the Muslims next door, and they are only marginally better than the Catholics at the best of times.

But it is Christmas and I can afford to be magnanimous. What is it they say: to forgive is divine? This then is in the form of a gentle admonishment, one that I hope you will take on board and digest: from this point you will, I hope, be a little more circumspect in your comments and attributions. You will acknowledge, as Presidents have done before you, that God has no place in the White House. I have not been near the White House in decades—since Kennedy in fact: it was a fun place back then. You will cease and desist from acting in my name; you will also desist from evoking my name; I find it personally offensive the amount of evoking you are doing lately, and I can tell you for nothing your wife Laura is not too happy about it either.

And finally you will cease writing to me. Your ingratiating letters, barely literate at the best of times, simply grate. And, no, before your devious mind turns to alternatives: I don’t have a text-capable phone. This correspondence is at an end.

So is this letter; I have a birthday party to organize.

Merry Christmas.

G.

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Now playing: Bruce Springsteen - Youngstown (Live)
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Ducks in a line

Morning, noon, night, anytime, anywhere: there is a lot to be said for a good duck.

A good duck, particularly in the morning, can set you up for the day. A good duck does nobody any harm. Have you heard of anybody being harmed by a duck?. They, like rabbits and sheep, have a God-given nonchalance about them, without the timidity of the former and stupidity of the latter.

I like ducks.

Witness then my distress when hearing earlier this week of the death of a mother duck and her three ducklings killed, run over, squashed flat, buzzard-meat (or its New Zealand equivalent) on busy Rosemount Road in Henderson. Worse still, the tragic augmentation of four orphan ducklings left behind.

But then...

Then was the company, the staff of whom, espying on this busy road the plight of the ducklings, rushed to their aid. Then there was the burly truck driver, from IMF, who desperately brought his rig to a grinding halt to avoid hitting one of the ducklings then left his cab to help the staff round up the duckling brood; the same driver who then took the orphan ducklings home to be raised by hand, as he had done, it was revealed, with other ducks before.

And then there were the 60-odd motorists, New Zealanders, who patiently and uncomplainingly waited in line and in queue on one of the busiest roads in town at the busiest times of the year while all this was done and then and only then went about their business.

I love ducks; I love New Zealanders more.