Smell the Flowers

Last week I photographed a man—it need not concern us who.

Suffice to say he is a man of some renown in his field and he has what my good friend Phyllis Fenwick describes as an infectious smile. Phyllis would know: her late husband also had an infectious smile, that later turned out to be herpes.

However, this man (the one I photographed) came across as a sincere kind of bloke who most would instantly like. I did and that surprised me

Why?

Well, I’ll tell you.

 I met this man before, many years ago, and on that occasion, I found him unfriendly, arrogant and dismissive. You know the type—the type that women (and it is invariably women) excuse as being shy. We men know different: we know a prick when we see one. And based on my meeting with him years ago he was one.

He doesn’t appear to be one now. Quite the opposite: open, friendly accessible and—under the circumstances—patient. And the interesting point about that is he is doing the same job he was doing all those years ago. He has had different jobs in the interim, and that may have changed him, but right now, and back at his old job, he is missing one core and defining component of his earlier personality—bitterness.

Recent events surrounding him could have subjugated him. They could have made him bitter. They did last time. Not, it appears, this time. Instead he looks relaxed and rested with no rancour about him. His smile is sincere. He seems genuinely interested in what people need to say to him, and he comes across as down to earth and honest. Which is unusual for someone of his occupation, which I again choose not to name.

I thought about this I thought about me. And I thought about Fryday. Mainly about Fryday.

Fryday over its past 26 years has tried to be like this man—though, until now, I would not have recognised that.

Sure, Fryday has taken the odd-swipe; but never without the quietude of humour. Only once has it shown bitterness, and that was its first posting when it attempted to drive a panel beater out of business. It didn’t and I learnt my lesson.

That lesson was that I have no mandate—let alone faculty—to educate you; only, if I can, entertain you. And the lesson I learnt from observing the individual I photographed is that there is little point in bitterness, and every point in a smile.

I am not suggesting blind acceptance. We all have our concerns. And those who exhibited them most intensely changed the world: Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, Adolf Hitler and my personal hero Mikhail Gorbachev were some.

But, I am not talking the big picture here. I am talking one picture. One picture I took last week of one person. It didn’t change the world; It simply changed my opinion of him.

And to a certain extent it justified 26 years of doing this bloody Fryday. If Fryday gives you a smile today, then I guess it has achieved its only achievable and modest expectation.

For all else to make our day great, look not to Fryday; rather look to the venerable Ferdinand the Bull and do as he did: simply smell the flowers.

To all the children of America

 Trump Annex

Office of The President of the United States of America.

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, USA

Telephone: You’re Crazy, right? Twitter: #millionsofpeopleloveme.

AN OPEN LETTER TO

ALL AMERICAN CHILDREN

FROM

THE PRESIDENT

I can imagine you are as excited as I am knowing the great American, Santa Claus, is so busy right now making great presents for me and you. He will have his little elves—or, as I like to call them, Mini Me’s—hard at work at their little desks making such great toys.

And you know what, children? What is best about that? Santa is giving those jobs to Americans. Yes he is. They may be little people. But they are still Americans. If you visited his workshop today you wouldn’t see Mexicans and other drug dealers, rapists and swimming pool cleaners. No, you would only see Americans. Real Americans. Americans like you and me.

And that is what is good about Christmas. It’s American. It’s ours. None of those folks from the Meddle East get to share it. No Christmas gifts for them. But Christmas is a time for love. So we show love, don’t we? If you have a Meddle Eastern kid in your class (they are usually the darker ones with names like Mustapha or Fatima or something), you go up to them and say how sorry you are that they weren’t born an American.
You tell them it not their fault.  It’s their parents.

On a sad note. Did you read where all Santa’s reindeer are getting killed on Alaskan roads? Runover and squashed. I was sad too when I read that. So I am going to do something about it. I am immediately authorising more oil and gas pipelines all across Alaska so we won’t need as many roads to cart oil and kill reindeers. That will allow us to do more drilling for oil too.

Won’t that be good? And, you know what? You can help! Go right through to your mom and Dad right now and tell them that President Donald J. Trump is saving Santa’s reindeer and they need to get right behind congressmen on the More-Drilling-Platform. Do that, and there could even be an extra present for you in Santa’s sack.

But let’s not forget the true meaning of Christmas—Family. I love my family. I have a great family. But let’s also not forget that other family of long long ago who gave birth to a  son. A special son. Thiers was the true gift of Christmas. A son destined one day to be President of your United States.

Merry Christmas one and all. God bless America.

Donald J. Trump

President of the United States of America.

The Ultimate Comfort

I have been thinking a lot about God lately.
I have a dear friend who is likely to meet Him soon.
But the god I am thinking of is not the god Brian Tamaki and Cecil C. Sackrider see—a cash cow; not the god Dave Dobbin and the rest of AA see—a crutch; not the god Donald Trump and George W. Bush see—a correspondent; and certainly not the god the mainstream churches see—a justification.
No, the god I see is different. The God I see is Reality.
Reality is what I am confronting at the moment. I have always known Reality was there, but often chose to ignore it and sometimes avoid it. I can’t now. I have to face it. So, soon, will my friend, though she doesn’t know it.
I see Reality as God because it is the only thing that brings certainty to our lives. That can be confronting, but it can also be comforting. Either way, we need to acknowledge it and embrace it. We need not, however, worship it. The God I am talking about is a compassionate god who, whilst omnipresent, does not require us to prostrate ourselves or even acknowledge his or her existence. All Reality requires is acceptance. And that is the comfort Reality gives us: the understanding that we cannot change it, and whatever it now is, it is not our fault.
Poverty is real. Death is real. Terrorism is real. Cancer is real. All things that blight us are real. But then so too are those who love us and whom we in turn love. So are the people who work to relieve that poverty and fight that terrorism, and to cure  cancer. They are real. The good things in our life are all gifts of Reality.
Reality has told me that I will lose my friend. I cannot change that. It is God’s will; it is Reality and it requires only my acceptance.

Up the creek without a Paddles

Let’s be honest (I can be now; I am no longer in politics or advertising), nobody likes whingers. Even whingers whinge about whingers. Whingers are the people who incessantly moan and complain about almost everything their, usually narrow, view of the world cannot comprehend.
In New Zealand they were, in past times, most commonly the “whinging poms” who came here  and complained about most everything and did it most vociferously to the point that New Zealanders of my parents’ generation—New Zealand born—questioned why Poms came here in the first place and, more aptly, why they just didn’t go home. In fact, some did go home. The others? Well, they just stayed and ran the Union movement and New Zealand Soccer. After both failed eventually, Poms settled down and with the support of some New Zealanders were content to whinge about the arrival of bludey (sic) South Africans and how stuck-up “Maories” were.
To be fair to the Poms it was then mostly pakeha New Zealanders who were more vociferous in those complaints. Me? I couldn’t care. Don’t care. Maybe, I wonder why we pakeha always get a lower case whereas Maori get a capital, but who cares—the League season is resuming soon. The Warriors are mostly “Maori”—see what I did there?
So, what has the new election result produced for us? In the eternal battle of them and us, the Us has won. The problem is the Us—the self-styled downtrodden and victims—the delusionals, have no idea what do now that they are in power. They never expected to be there and didn’t train for it. Even worse, they no longer have someone else to blame for it. They are it. They have to take the hit. New Zealand’s former opposition parties, now governing parties, are floundering.
And, you see, that is where the problem is. Labour, Greens, NZ First are whingers. Perpetual whingers. And like most whingers they do it best from the sideline, where they feel safe. From my time dealing with them in local politics I know that the last thing whingers want to do is actually go onto the field and get roughed up in the scrum. Same with national politics. Put simply, this nation’s whingers—and there are a lot of them—don’t have the guts or the acumen to do something about what they are complaining about. And when they are forced into having that real power, as Labour et al are, they are terrified by it.
They will be the first to nurture the birth of the Bring Back Bill movement.
Which brings me to Gareth Morgan.
Gareth Morgan is not a whinger. But he is a complainer. A complainer about cats. I don’t like cats. I am a dog person. Some say you can be both. I don’t believe that. You are either a Laphroig drinker or a Lagavulin drinker; a Holden fan or a Ford fan. You cannot be both. Gareth and I are not cat fans.
But Gareth Morgan’s capitalising on the death of the Prime Minister’s Paddles is unnecessary, immature and insensitive. Also unimportant and unworthy of comment by Fryday. Except that it illustrates another aspect of New Zealand that is unsavoury—our willingness, our hunger, to get entangled in minutiae. Gareth is what he is, and I am not quite sure what that is. But why the media give him any air-time and why we suck it in also defy explanation or definition. In this Kadashian world of ours is this the definition of news? Is Seven Sharp our benchmark for current affairs? Is this week’s “Good Sort” as good as it gets?
If it is, God help us.
Not that I’m whinging, you understand.

The Shooting Season

We seem to be going through two omnipresent trends, or news cycles as they are now called. The first is the deaths of much-loved artists, and the second historical sex abuse allegations against celebrities. Fats Domino is the most recent of the first; Dustin Hoffman the latest of the last. Of course, there is nothing we can do about the deaths, other than acknowledge the variable depth of sadness that ensues. For example, and meaning no disrespect to Mr Domino, I am less saddened by his death (at his age) than I am of Tom Petty’s. I still feel the rawness of the loss of three of my heroes: Alan Rickman, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Roy Orbison. Hoffman’s could have been prevented (perhaps), but not the others nor indeed most other deaths. They are what they are.

But what of the sexual allegations? And here I know I am treading on thin ice. Are the allegations not, perhaps, perchance, just slightly, just teeny-weeny, just a smidgen, getting out of hand? Of course, I am not saying that what is being alleged didn’t happen and I am certainly not condoning it, but I can’t help thinking that the sudden rush of them is something akin to the duck shooting season. Everybody, it seems, is fair game. And there is another thing:  earlier allegations—some proven in court, others yet to be—against Rolf Harris, Jimmy Saville and Bill Cosby point to vile and monstrous behaviour, with long-term traumatic effect on some of the victims. But this latest round of allegations against Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman seem trivial by comparison. Not only are the alleged abuses decades old, they are, as acts, minor relative to those of, particularly, Saville. However, my main question relates to timing. Why now? Why choose to now evoke events that happened decades ago? Yes, I know there is the Me Too movement and Weinstein is still not in jail. But I can’t help thinking that the sheer flood of stars saying, “Me Too” is almost as if they don’t want to be left out of the club. Again, I am not saying it didn’t happen to them, but I find it slightly disquieting and disconcerting that some seem to be wearing it as a badge of honour.

What is to be achieved by these continuing revelations of historical abuse? Is it cathartic? If it is, why couldn’t they have been brought to the fore years ago? What worries me most, though, is that they divert attention from what may be happening now. It was the same with the Roman Catholic Church scandals—all those awful allegations about what happened years ago; yet, as far as I know, there was no serious investigation into whether such practices permeate the Church today.

So, what I would like to feel would be more helpful in dealing with the sexual abuse issue is for the media to move on from reporting historical events, which—like death—are what they are, and focus on investigating and bringing to the fore what is happening now. They have gone some way in doing that with Weinstein, but I assume there are others out there. Go after them. Stop them.  Dealing with Spacey and Hoffman is retrograde—literally and figuratively.

Welcome to the Fryday Blog

Friday 27 October 2017


Vodafone's decision to phase out its email service has got me thinking about Fryday. And I, too, have made a decision.

This is to be the last Fryday in an email format. Fryday as an e-letter has been going a long time. I started it in 1995, which was not long after the advent of the internet in New Zealand. It may even possibly be among the longest-lasting NZ e-letter still going.

But no more.

I am not going to take it over to a new domain, because of Vodafone’s decision. I have also this week lost a few names from the email distribution list and it is not now worth searching and retrieving them.

However, Fryday will continue. It has for some time been replicated as a blog and that will continue at this web address: https://frydaysblog.blogspot.co.nz/

If you want to “follow” Fryday, simply go to that site and click “follow by  email” at the base of the page. You will then be notified of all new postings.  Notifications are also made on various Facebook pages I run.

So, that’s it. No more e-letters. It’s generally been fun. It started as a vicious roast of a Glen Innes panel beater, but I hoped I have injected more humour than vitriol since. The single most popular post was on, of all things, sea monkeys. But you have also been very kind in telling me you like Whetu, George W. Bush’s Letters to God and the Dear Michelle series. I have moved on from the latter, as circumstances dictated. But Whetu will return and there is much more to come—just in a different format.

I am told that there is to be a scheduled power cut in 30 minutes, and no internet coverage.

Symbolic really—I have to go.

See you on the blog, I hope.

And, thanks.

Winston's Winter

I have my concerns and reservations about our new government. Most revolve around its stability and its impact on the economy.

However, I have neither the foresight nor the inclination to dwell on them now. What I have though is a distaste and a concern about the events of last night. And, no, I don’t mean the supposed brinkmanship, the “missed” deadlines or even the decision. I mean the way it was handled; it was a mess.

Let’s start with Winston’s speech. First, it had a Trump-like credibility as Winston unsuccessfully tried to deny that a party with just 9 out of 120 seats and 7.2% of the votes was deciding who would govern us for the next 3 years. Then, he, again unsuccessfully, tried to defend how long it took to arrive at that decision, comparing it spuriously to the German election result whilst conveniently not mentioning that our problem was not the length of the deliberations but the number of missed deadlines—read promises—that Winston made. Then there was the clincher: Winter is Coming. A supposed downturn in the global economy persuaded Winston and his caucus that our only protection from it lay with him turning to the Left, instead of to the Right who had so effectively protected us from the Global Financial Crisis of 2007—2008.

We would have been better off electing Jon Snow.

And then, there was the whole unfolding event being predicated on the supposition that The Greens would join the Labour/NZ First coalition. Yes, it seemed a foregone conclusion and there was a Memorandum of Understanding with Labour to that effect. But only with Labour. It didn’t include NZ First. If I had been Bill English I would have been on the phone to James Shaw immediately after Winston made his announcement and before Shaw made his conference call. In fact, I would have made my call to Shaw immediately after the election and offered The Greens the opportunity to make a real change by becoming the environmental wing of a strong stable government—and shutting Winston out altogether and forever.

But, no, it wouldn’t probably have worked. The Green Party has its head so far up its arse it has perpetual tunnel vision and it will take a colossal and polluting dump for them to come out and see the real world.

So, one final word on last night’s surreal events: two, really: Kelvin Davis. Did you see the look on his face as he stood behind Jacinda during her acceptance speech? It certainly wasn’t the face of a winner; it was the face of what it was—a loser. A deputy leader of the party who would form the government but would not be the deputy leader of that government. I could actually feel sorry for him had he not been such an arrogant prat leading up to the election. As it is, he will probably be further punished for his demeanour last night—it was not a good look.

In fact, nothing about last night was a good look for the parties involved, for the country, for MMP, or, dare I say it, for the future. You might be right, Winston: winter may be coming. It may already have arrived.

Winston Meets Weinstein

Winston Peters lost his Northland seat for four reasons.

First, it was never his in the first place. Second, National put up a strong candidate who worked hard—very hard—to regain the seat. Third, Winston’s heart was never in Northland; we hardly saw him here and he did nothing for us. Fourth, Northlanders were the first, on mass, to see Winston for what he is: a charlatan and a sham.

Now the rest of New Zealand are seeing it.

It’s not the negotiations; they are inevitable under MMP and a hung election. It is that once again they involve Winston Peters, for whom being important, or being perceived to be, is a pathological hunger. One that he will prolong as long as possible.

He is childish and pathetic, and so are his promises.

First, he told us all on election night that he would announce a coalition decision no later than October 12; that was yesterday. Now he tells us that it will be an indeterminate date in the future because it will be a New Zealand First Board decision and some of the board—and we don’t know who the board is—have to attend funerals.

This is farcical.

The only funeral they should be attending is that for a realistic, progressive and mature democracy in New Zealand. And if anybody really thinks that a coalition decision is a board decision rather than a Winston decision they are living in a different world.

For the rest of us, we are once again left with a shambolic mess, thanks to one man.

Winston is treating us like Harvey Weinstein treats his actresses.

We are being screwed.

In Praise of Hamilton

Mortality and moroseness are like co-joined twins, inextricably linked. I received the news a few minutes ago that someone for whom I have an immense amount of respect died last night. The man (his name need not concern us) enriched this world of ours in uncountable and incontestable ways. I am privileged, as many others are, to have known him. I think we were about the same age—which is where mortality and its co-joined twin come in. However apart for that announcement and imparting my private hurt, today remains Fryday and moroseness is hereby banished…to Hamilton. I was in Hamilton this week, where so many reside in exile and hope to be summoned back to Auckland. Or, at the very least, hope to move to Cambridge. It is not as if I have anything against Hamilton—the least physical contact I have with it the better. But when my GPS refuses to work and the town’s drivers seem oblivious to all other road-users, you immediately know where local-boy, Richard O’Brian, got his inspiration for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Of course Mr O’Brian had to leave Hamilton and seek a more creative environment to write his show. I know that while down there I struggled to write even a Facebook post. And my reading was largely confined to a KFC menu, given that I found most Hamilton road signs and directions totally incomprehensible. And what is it about Hamilton’s propensity for roundabouts? They seem to love them down there. They build them everywhere. And that is the thing with Hamilton, you see: they love to build things. And they do it well. The reason I went to Hamilton was because of that. Most of my writing these days tends to specialisation in a certain sector, and Hamilton is the hub of that sector. Moreover, the Hamilton companies and the individuals involved in that sector are renowned and acknowledged for their innovation and creativity. They are in many respects an inspiration. But, they also seem to hide it away. And that, perhaps, is Hamilton’s problem. They seem to hide everything away, behind and below a veneer of too many Bunnings, too many Mitre 10s (Mega), far too many fast food joints and far too few restaurants. Hamilton, you should be loud and proud. Proclaim your prominence. If you don’t, I will: I’ll tell everybody that you are the BDSM capital of New Zealand, that you have more witches’ covens than any other New Zealand town, that you did produce Richard O’Brian and gave him inspiration, that you like cows, that you have one of the best motels I have ever stayed in. And, yes, you are home to some very very talented people. It just seems a pity that you seem too shy to tell anybody about it. So, I have. Say thank you Fryday.

Welcome Home Hone

Are you over it yet? I am. It is not fun. It is not striking. It is a pain-in-the-butt. Above all, it is not what they say it is. I am talking about the general election. Those are my descriptions of it, and I would like to think that they are wholly accurate and widely shared. The media, however, have another and it is both omnipresent and inaccurate; they describe the current election as “the most volatile of recent times.” It is not. Except for a late leadership change by one of the major parties, this election is no more volatile than any other that I can remember. What is volatile are the polls, and even there the swing margins hover around the margin of error, and I have to wonder whether polls have any credibility at all despite the breathless and dramatic way they are teased and presented by television commentators. Yet another “shock poll” anyone? Fact is, most of the so-called volatility is a media beat up. A relieved media. Before Andrew Little was rolled, the media were confronted with what probably would be the most boring—and predictable—election ever. But, then came Jacinda, and the orgasmic-glee of the media was palpable. Whoever in the media coined the phrase The Jacinda Effect has a job for life. But that is all it is—a media beat-up, by desperate media. We deserve better. At the very least, we deserve not to be treated as idiots…as ratings. I am over it. But, before I go, I will stick my neck out. Fryday will make some predictions about this election. Obviously, some or all of them may not eventuate, but I don’t care. For this, the most boring (not volatile) election I have ever experienced, I need to live a little dangerously. My predictions are:

• National will win handsomely and become the government without the need for a collation partner.
• Labour will be ten seats short.
• New Zealand First will return to Parliament but only on the party vote.
• Winston Peters will not win the Northland electorate vote.
• Hone Harawira and Mana will return to Parliament when Hone wins Te Tai Tokerau.
• The Greens are gone.
• ACT has left the stage.
• Hamilton will still be Hamilton.

Political Parlance

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In 1975, when I was working at Colenso Advertising on the infamous Dancing Cossacks Campaign for Rob Muldoon, I was asked how I could reconcile that with having worked for Labour and Norm Kirk in the previous election. My rather glib reply was that it was just Kentucky Fried Chicken, another Colenso client I was being paid to promote. Ideological or political preferences didn’t come into it. Ten years later I was helping out David Lange—the Carl’s Burger of New Zealand politics at the time.

All those campaigns had political slogans, but despite being involved with them the only one I can remember today is Labour’s 1972 clear and explicit statement: “It’s Time (for Labour).” It was spot on. It was time: time for a change, time for fresh thinking, and time—for the first time—for many of the baby boomers to have their say in how the country was run, and by whom. It was also the time, by the way, that Kentucky Fried Chicken came up with the resonate and resilient “Finger Lickin’Good.”

However, those days are gone, and having a look at the current election and its campaigns I have to question whether so too are the days of political slogans. 

I mean, do we really need them? Do they really mean anything? Moreover, do we really believe them? To me, they are little more than patronising pap with about as much credibility and substance as the once ubiquitous but now long discredited (thank God) company mission statement.

Political slogans had their day and had their effect: “It’s Time” was great (and right for The Left), “I Like Ike” from America arguably better. But, the last effective New Zealand political slogan I can remember was Winston Peters’ Northland by-election pitch “Send a Message to Wellington.” That obviously resonated with the Northland Electorate, but having been sent, the message, like the man, is now largely redundant.

However, our political parties persist with meaningless phrases patronising every one of us.

They are not even very good. Let’s look at the current batch. National’s “Delivering for New Zealand” might as well be for a courier company; Labour’s “Let’s do it” sounds like a rallying cry for American GIs in the Vietnam war, which is somewhat ironic. Neither has substance or relevance to New Zealand politics.

The National one in particular lacks imagination and vision and makes me, at least, long for those far off days when Cossacks danced across our screens. Please don’t tell me the National Party paid somebody to come up with “Delivering for New Zealand.” 

But, the core question remains: why do we need political slogans at all? Shouldn’t, couldn’t, the political parties learn from their corporate contemporaries, KFC included, and dispense with them entirely?

I think so.

When it comes to political slogans, let’s NOT do it. 

It’s Time.