The Handsome Sampson Diaries: The One That Sucks.

It is just as well no-one will read this diary.
If they did,  Aucklanders would really know what I think of them.
They suck.
We should call this place Suckland. First off reason is Suckland’s reaction to the 9.9% rates increase. For goodness sake, don’t they realise that is only an average? Some will get a lesser increase; some higher. But the average will get what they deserve—an average. Ironic, really, because what they get in return is an average council (Ha Ha, Bev would like that).
But that is not my fault. The council are mean people and it seems all but the Pennies have dropped on me. What about that proposed move to build a new Council Chamber? Yes, they all wanted it. Once. They all said they didn’t like the four-minute walk down to the Town Hall, especially when it was raining and especially when it was with me with all that abuse and all. What was it you all said—it was bad enough being rained on, but shat upon too? Worth spending a few million dollars of ratepayer money to avoid that. That is what you said.
Now you say you didn’t say it. And now I have to say I didn’t say it. And it is left to the CEO to say he said it, because I said to say it because I didn’t want me having to say I said it. Or having said to him to say it.
Why is it that these days nobody takes anything I say (even if I didn’t say it) at face value? Answer me that Bevan. Oh, you are not reading this are you? Wish you were. I wish a lot of things. I wish Bernard Osman would stop picking on me. I wish Stephen Joyce would go away. I wish Ports of Auckland would go away. I wish Auckland Transport would go away (and give me a carpark at Henderson). I wish I had my time over again with Bevan—over and over again.
Most of all, I wish everyone would go away and leave me alone. Just because I am an elected official, does that make you think you own me? Obviously, you think it does. But, be warned (even though you are not reading this. Are you?).
If you persist on picking on me, I will not stand again. And what will you get? John Banks?
You deserve him.
Suck on that Suckland.

The not so secret diary of Handsome Sampson

So, some of my so-called supporters left me a “blunt” message. What a joke! They say I will have no funding or volunteer support if I stand for re-election. What a joke! Joke! Joke! Joke! I should never have gone to the Left. They are so finicky (is that a word?) and will go with anyone they think will listen to them. For goodness sake, that’s how I got in in the first place! I should have gone to the right where my true heart has always been. They would have stuck by me. They stick by everyone. Doesn’t matter what they do. Bevan told me that. I miss Bevan. Couldn’t stand that Stephen Joyce though. But all is not lost yet. The Pennies haven’t dropped! Ha, ha. Penny H will stand by me, because she has no show against Goff and Penny W, well she will stand by me because I make her feel important. As for the rest of them? Who cares! What are they, 20 votes? What people don’t understand about me is that I am resilient. I can keep it up, as Bevan used to say. I am a survivor. The world can throw everything it likes at me. Who is Mike Hosking anyway? And come election time and my smile—people love that smile—starts appearing on the billboards people will say “Well, Len’s a good bloke. Done a lot for this city. Want him in again.” That’s what they will say. Anyway, I digress. This is a diary. What have I done today? Not a lot, to be honest—and I try not to be. Went to my therapist. And that reminds me, I need to look up the meaning of delusional.

Handsome Sampson

My Dearest Bev

I do so prefer calling you Bev. It is somehow more masculine, somehow less—well…gay, than calling you Bevan. You don’t mind, do you? Of course you don’t. You never minded anything I did, did you? That is one of the things I loved about you…when I knew you.

Sorry about that, I didn’t intend to be maudlin. It is just that I miss you so. I scan the social pages of the Herald, but you are not there. I am. But you are not. It is as if you have dropped off the face of the earth. Understandable, given what you/we went through. But I am a victim here, too. You can’t imagine how excruciating it was to go out in those first weeks after our story broke. I just wanted to stay home and in bed. But I wasn’t allowed there. I could have of course gone to the Sky City Grand and gone to bed. But that would have brought back memories—memories of you

So, I didn’t. I went to those functions instead. To be booed. I was even booed at the Auckland Nines. How unfair is that? After so long. Did you see me on the television? Do you see me, and still think of me as your Handsome Sampson? I am sure you do. I hope you do. I still think of you as my little Chinese Takeaway. Such laughs, we had.

Not many laughs these days. I find most of my councillors revolting—in both senses of the world. How you and I laughed about them! We could in those days, because it was hard to take this rag-tag bunch seriously—after all, they were elected by Aucklanders. To be fair (as the Mad Butcher says), they still can’t be taken seriously. What really hurts is that they don’t take ME seriously. To be fair (thanks Butch), they never did. Just because I came from South Auckland. But I showed them. Just let them open THEIR rates demands and then open mine. J

To get away from them, I could choose to do a round of visits to the CCOs. But very few of them know me or notice me. I went to Auckland Transport the other day, and reception asked for my name and gave me one of those stick-on ID labels. AND I was told that I would have to use Wilson Car Parks because all their spaces were reserved for AT executives! How humiliating is that? Wait until they get their rate demands!!!! AND they should be using pubic transport rather than their cars.

People are so unkind to me. John Key won’t speak to me, Steven Joyce laughs at me, Iwi ignore me, and Cameron Slater has forgotten me.

I am so lonely.

Come home to me.

Room 406.

Your Handsome Sampson.

Stranded in Paradise (with apologies to John Dix)

Charles Dickens, novelist, social commentator and lecturer, also owned and edited a weekly publication called All the Year Round. I have three annual anthologies of that periodical, including the seventh volume, which is for the year 1862.
In that volume is a story of special interest to me, given that I now live in the Bay of Islands.
It is apparently a true story, written by a clergyman who in 1859 was swept out to sea in the bay and stranded on one of its islands for seven months.
He was then found by local Maori (Ngapuhi) whom, our clergyman recounts, he initially faced with some trepidation, not knowing whether they were to rescue him or eat him. They did neither, electing rather to leave him on his island prison—their boat being already overloaded with “wives, slaves and children”. They did however promise to send back a larger rescue boat on their return to the mainland. And that duly happened.
The story, whilst interesting, is of no great significance in New Zealand’s history; the country’s maritime antiquity is replete with such strandings and larger and more tragic shipwrecks. But that very anonymity is perhaps where the most intrinsic interest lays—nobody else as far as I know except me, and now you, know of the story of the marooned, lonely and despairing clergyman and “his” island. Yet the account, if true, is so full of direction and description that it may be possible for someone with a greater knowledge of the Bay of Islands than mine to be able to pinpoint and identify the island.
Such identification will add little to the sum store of our communal knowledge. But, who cares? In these days of incessancy rather than interest—Kim Dotcom, Len Brown, budget blowouts, et al—can the location of New Zealand’s very own Robinson Crusoe’s island home be any less interest?
I won’t bore you with those descriptions here, but I am happy to extract and send them to anyone interested, and particularly anyone with the interest and knowledge to identify the island.

Mayoral Morality and Christian Grey

Overseas readers of Fryday will not be aware that Auckland’s newly re-elected mayor is embroiled in a sex scandal. The revelation that he had a two year affair with a young woman who at times was contracted to council in a number of capacities was made public only after the mayor, Len Brown, was re-elected. Some say the timing was significant, and perhaps it is; perhaps that timing may be indeed the greater issue and concern in this affair. Certainly, if I were still in politics I would be more concerned with that than making judgements on the mayoral morality. In truth though I have no real concerns and only a prurient interest. Mayor Brown has himself to blame, he has made his own bed—or more accurately in this case a couch—and he has to lie in it and hopefully not lie about it. This story will take its course and doesn’t need me to push it along. But where are the jokes? They are curiously absent. Usually in cases such as this the jokes about a celebrity’s indiscretions come thick and fast (and I apologise for that terminology). They are often cruel and always humiliating, which can be a potent weapon. Shane Jones seems to be the only politician to fully survive such an attack. But here with Mayor Brown the satirical sword remains sheathed. The only joke I have read is the predictable Fifty Shades of Brown. And therein may lay a clue. Fifty Shades of Grey could more accurately describe Mayor Brown with or without the BDSM connotations. In his performance and his engagements and in his interface he has exhibited only grey—neutral, unprepossessing, unexciting. I once heard grey described as the colour black would be if it would only lighten up, and Mayor Brown has at least attained that. But he has never been interesting, much less charismatic, which is perhaps why our humourists and satirists are struggling to come up with anything funny to say about this issue. There is nothing to latch on to. In the end Mr Brown’s very greyness may be the very Teflon-coating that saves him.

A Nod is as Good as a Winkler

One of my more humiliating episodes of a life richly episodic was in a play called I Hate Hamlet in which I played the great American actor John Barrymore teaching a young actor how to play Hamlet. I am no Shakespearian actor. I was excruciating and it was fully ten years before I returned to the stage—and that was in drag!
But as bad as I was, it wasn’t as bad as the television appearance of Henry Winkler when he attempted a soliloquy from Hamlet. True to their wont (and credibility) the American audience cheered and whistled as The Fonz finished his farcical and facile portrayal. The point is, that audience thought Mr Winkler couldn’t really act in high theatre and in their admiration for him—or more accurately The Fonz—it is was lost on them that they were exactly right. But The Fonz was the epitome of cool in those days and Mr Winkler played him brilliantly particularly when we consider how remarkably uncool Mr Winkler looks these days.
So what has all this to do with Len Brown?
Mr Brown was cool too. Particularly when compared to that walking stress-inducement John Banks. That may have been the reason for the landslide vote in his favour.
But already after just two weeks in office and in conversations I am having with others I am detecting some disquiet and disappointment at Mr Brown’s performance so far. His Obama-like vision seems to have cooled somewhat and already I am hearing that he is starting to prevaricate on promises made and to hedge on some key issues.
However, it is early days. Mr Brown may yet become the best mayor Auckland has had in decades and Fryday will be proved wrong.
But if I am right, Mr Brown’s election campaign may just prove to be nothing more than a great acting performance deserving both the acclaim Mr Winkler undeservedly got and the public derision I deservedly did.
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