Good Fryday and bad times

This is not the Fryday I intended to write. Nor is it a Fryday I wanted to write. Perhaps it is not even the Fryday I should write, but you must be the judge of that.

Earlier this week I lost one of the two dogs my wife and I owned. The dog was eight years old and succumbed after a protracted battle with cancer, lasting many months. When she was diagnosed we were told that even with the best treatment, we could at most expect her to have another year with us.

Death is the domain of decisions.

Our first was not to subject her to invasive chemotherapy for the sake of a year. We instead opted to put her on medication that would for a time protect her from the worst excesses of cancer.

For many months the medication did just that and was only recently--the last few days--that her deterioration became evident and inevitable.

It was then that I took a second decision: to take her off the medication and have her die as peacefully as she could at home.

When her last day came, I think she knew it. There were a few things out of character: a slow circuit of the property boundary stopping to watch the sheep on one side and the children playing on the other. There was an attempt to get back to the house, but she never made it more than half-way. My wife and I carried her the rest of the way and put her in her bed next to ours. It was there she died that night.

I have lost dogs before, but it never gets easier. And I don't wish to single out dogs--all pet-owners feel the same range of emotions and have to deal with them and can be excused for dwelling on them.

And nor is it just pets. I spoke to a farmer about this and he said that he feels the same about every working dog he's owned.

Laila led a charmed life. Her world was one of adventure. She was a boxer, named after the most famous female boxer in the world Laila Ali. Our Laila charmed most who met her and made everybody, even those she couldn't charm, feel that they were the most important people in her life.

She loved going to the vets and being poked and prodded--even in those last days when she could barely wag her tail, her whole body shook with pleasure as we entered the vet clinic.

Yes, she had issues. Boxers tend to have a few--ask any owner.  She was never good around smaller dogs. Yes, she stole apples from our tree so frequently that we had to let it go and turn a blind eye.

And, yes, she did adopt an air of "It's all about me". And, of course, it was.  However, as long as she could also make you think it was all about you. That was okay too. You had to love Laila for that.

And we did.

For that...and a whole lot more.

Old friends and the art of Gonzo

Cecil C. Sackrider is taking me to task. So is Whetu.

They claim that Fryday has forgotten them. They accuse me of being Jann Wenner, though Reverend Sackrider thinks Mr Wenner is a pornographer and Whetu thinks he is a hamburger.

Mr Wenner is in fact the recently retired founder and executive editor of Rolling Stone magazine, a magazine that capitalized on brilliant columnists such as Hunter S. Thompson, P.J. O’Rourke, and Cameron Crowe, and for a variety of reasons let them go.

My correspondents feel I am doing the same. They consider me to be Jann Wenner: without the toke and the coke.

They are right. I need to have another belt of scotch and give them their space in the sun.

But, not yet.

Let me give this last lingering look at what Fryday conveys.

It conveys shit. At least in conventional journalist quarters.

You see, I finally read (in Rolling Stone) the accessible definition of Gonzo Journalism, a term coined by Hunter S. Thompson to describe his particular, peculiar and proficient form of journalism.

In a word, he described it as subjective.

Subjective means that the story is written from the writer’s point of view—his or her perception and perspective. If they wanted to report the facts, and only the facts, they would be objective.

Many readers would suggest that objective is better. And that is okay. I get that.

But, think about it. Are the facts really that interesting? And are they even facts? I interview someone and quote them. That’s their story. But is that the real story? If they are cutting a ribbon, is that interesting? Are their ceremonial and sanctimonious sentiments more interesting than the stories of the people who made the ribbon or the scissors?

Who wants to know? I do.

So where Gonzo comes in is that the writer injects themselves into the story. And you know what? In doing so, they are representing us—the reader. They are not asking us to agree with them, all they are saying is that if you were there, with them, this is what you may have felt.

There is a story behind a story.

And please do not tell me you think I am wrong in believing that is less interesting as a story.

So, we have editors who say let the subjects tell their own story. Okay. But as Cameron, P.J and in particular Hunter S. told their stories, they are a bloody-sight more interesting than the subjects themselves.

But, I succumb.
Next week, Cecil C. Sackrider has his subjective say. And after that…Whetu, if he is out by then.

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Laying down the law

I worked for an organisation where the most despised department, and one of the few never to be down-sized, Human Resources, decided that the solution to its perception problem was to change its name. It became People and Capability. Setting aside the grammatical and operational contortion that name evokes, the precept that a name change is the panacea for problems is seemingly endemic: Hamilton could become Kirikiriroa but it is still Hamilton, and insisting on calling yourself Richard doesn’t make yourself less of a Dick.

You cannot solve a problem by changing a name; you solve it by changing your culture. Strange thing about culture. Its literal definition is the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively, but in the corporate context it is the prevailing atmosphere, demeanour and attitude of the management and staff—mainly the management. It can be good and it can be bad. And it can change. I worked for one organisation, the Rodney District Council, that made such a change, from the bad to good, through the simple expedient of having a new mayor. I have worked for another council, Far North District Council, which is yet to make such a change.

But the worst corporate culture I ever came across, and one that is rightly coming under fire, is that of Russell McVeagh. It had nothing to do with alleged sexual misconduct, but it did have links to their recruitment process involving university law students. I was working for an advertising agency instructed by Russell McVeagh to create an advertising and promotional campaign to attract university graduates. I attended the campaign presentation in one of the firm’s many meeting rooms. The agency team, five of us, along with seven Russell McVeagh staff, were in that meeting room for 30 minutes waiting for the arrival of a “senior partner” who was to chair the meeting.   And believe me, advertising people and lawyers (however junior) have very little in common and even less to make small talk about. When the senior partner finally arrived with a putter but not an apology, he got right down to business. He said he was late for a round of golf (late for at least the second time that day, I thought) so rather than waste time—ignoring ours, which he had already wasted— his view was the campaign was crap and he was leaving it to his “underlings”, motioning toward his staff in the room, to sort out. He then walked out. Yes, that was the term he used: underlings. Remarkably, the only people in the room who were visibly shocked was the agency team; the young lawyers seemed to take it as the norm…as their lot. Let me make it clear, this guy was not joking; he was acting on and from a position of sheer arrogance. That told me a lot then—confirmed now—of the culture of Russell McVeagh.

Every company, except mine, has good and bad people in it. Mine is the exception only because it is only me and my wife and we are both good people. But all larger companies and organisations have a mix. However, law companies such as Russell McVeagh and now, we hear Chapman Tripp, seem to have a greater intolerance for, and missunderstanding of, basic human decency. At this time the universities seem to be boycotting them; perhaps their clients should consider doing the same; there are law firms in Kirikiriroa who would gladly accept their business.

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A Fryday Fillip

I have learnt from bitter experience that there are two things you should not do when drunk, apart from getting drunk in the first place, and those are: visit Trade Me, and send emails. The first is self-evident and the second was in my case, a lesson learnt when I wrote an email to Hell’s Angels in Oakland California criticising the quality of their website. For months, I dreaded the roar of Harley Davidsons coming up my driveway. Of course, none did (yet), but I was tempting fate.

I am doing so again today by imparting something my wife said to me. During the taxing task of boiling a couple of eggs for my breakfast (I am very particular about my eggs) she stated the view that terrorists seem to have been quiet of late. My first thought was that I failed to see the juxtaposition between terrorism and my eggs; my second thought was that for the sake of Peace—Household Peace, not World Peace—I should not reveal my first thought; and my third thought was that she is right—there has been very little in the way of reported terrorism.

The question I pose is why? The ideological divide remains and so too, I imagine, does the fanaticism. So, what has changed? If anything?

Well, in terms of umbrella groups ISIS has its problems and is now fighting for survival, and does Al-Qaeda even exist anymore? So, that may have something to do with it. But there is nothing new there---when was the last large-scale, military-style attack? Most recent attacks have been of the lone-wolf variety, involving at most four or five perpetrators. However, even they have dried up—if we don’t count the all-too-frequent and tragic school killings in the United States.

There are two approaches we could take to answering this question. The first is that the global intelligence community has got on top of terrorism and is effectively shutting it down. That is the positive view. The converse view is that someone somewhere is planning something big. I can’t subscribe to that, though. I don’t know much about global intelligence, but I do know that after the failure to detect and predict 9/11, every intelligence organisation in the world, including New Zealand’s, lifted its game and it is virtually impossible to keep anything secret these days; if something big is being planned, I think we would know about it. I also think that terrorist groups such as ISIS no longer have the resources to mount anything substantial, at least in a conventional sense. Of course, there remains the spectre of a biological attack, a cyberattack and the ever-present threat of nutcase with his finger on the nuclear button. But we have lived with those for years.

So, are we through the worst of it? At the risk of courting fate, I very much hope so. We may be at last looking at a better world. A world where Jacinda delivers her baby, if not much else; where Clarke Gayford gets propositioned by an over-amorous shark (and the Herald reports it as its lead story) Hamilton keeps doing what it does best—trying, and I am left in peace to eat my eggs.

As Satchmo said, it is a wonderful world.

Unless I hear a Harley.

We're flat out wrong, Freddie says so.

A saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln is that you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
I firmly believe that America’s delusional President Donald Trump believes he is proving Lincoln wrong on that last point. However, I have now clear evidence that President Lincoln is right on his second point: you can fool all of the people some of the time.
I have that on no lesser authority than former English cricketer Freddie Flintoff.
Mr Flintoff believes that NASA and hundreds of scientists have fooled us all into believing the Earth is round. It is not, according to Mr Flintoff. According to him, it is either flat or at most bulbous “like a turnip.”
As if making the claim on a British radio wasn’t already enough to make the former fast bowler and England captain look like a turnip himself, he then went on to compound it by stating that the Moon landings were faked.
Allegedly, according to Mr Flintoff, NASA and government agencies—along with, of all organisations, Disney—are involved in the cover up.
Mr Flintoff presents no real evidence to support either of his claims. But, he is not alone in making them. Hundreds of flat-earthers attended a sell-out conference in November 2017.
The annual event is held by a community who rejects the idea of “a heliocentric globe-earth model” in favour of a flat, stationary Earth.
FEIC said on its website: “After extensive experimentation, analysis, and research, we have come to know that the truth of our cosmology is not that which we’ve been told."
The website explains the community suspects the planet is a circular disk shape that relies on Antarctica to provide an icy wall barrier.
The ice barrier is supposed to prevent humans walking off the edge of the Earth.
So, if Mr Flintoff and his fellow flatearthers are right we are drawn to the inevitable, though sad, conclusion that Robert Falcon Scott and his companions were on a hiding to nothing. After the disappointment of reaching the South Pole after Amundsen, they turned back and died; if they had gone on—according to the flat earth theory, they would have fallen off Earth anyway…and died.
Maybe that is what happened to Scott’s companion, Captain Lawrence Oates when he bravely said, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” Maybe he just fell off.
Or is that just a step too far?
Our own Sir Edmund Hillary must have indeed counted himself fortunate not to have arrived at the same fate.
However, what intrigues me most about the hypothesis, particularly Flintoff’s pronouncement, is his allegation of Disney involvement.
Really?
It sounds a bit Mickey Mouse to me.
Not unlike the English cricket team when Freddie was its captain.

Where nobody can sell a pen

I have long been a huge fan of Martin Scorsese. However, this is not entirely unqualified; like any director his work is uneven and classics such as Goodfellas can be followed in time by failures (in my view) such as The Departed. Nevertheless, I personally owe him a debit of gratitude for directing The Last Waltz, which many consider the greatest of all live concert films.

Mr Scorsese is known for his consistent collaborators. One is Robbie Robertson from The Band who is the music director on many of Scorsese’s films; the other is Leonardo DiCaprio. Scorsese and DiCaprio have collaborated on five films; none, in my view, of great quality, though The Departed won a Best Picture Oscar.

However, I remain a fan of both Scorsese and DiCaprio.

At least I did until last night.

And that was with the stroke of a pen.

Last night I watched The Wolf of Wall Street, which is directed by Scorsese and stars DiCaprio. It is the “true-life” story of the rise and fall of erstwhile Wall Street stockbroker Jordan Belfort. At his height, Belfort attained incredible levels of income, expenditure and decadence—all of which are captured in the film by the incredibly gifted writer Terence Winter of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire fame.

Where Winter and the film fail for me, though, is not in the portrayal of Belfort’s fame but in his fall. And this is where it gets personal and it involves a pen.

You see, early in the film when Belfort/DiCaprio/Winter are boasting that Belfort can sell anything, Belfort invites stockbroker recruits to sell him a pen. Of those asked, only one succeeds by, after taking the pen from Belfort, asking him to sign his name. Of course, Belfort cannot and has to buy back the pen.

Simple, but brilliant. And we will come back to that pen.

Roughly all but the final five minutes of the film is about Belfort’s success in duping naive and not so naive investors and making millions doing it.

Scorsese and no doubt DiCaprio revel in portraying the resulting decadence—it is omnipresent and explicit. It is when they turn to showing Belfort’s contrasting fall from grace (after a prison term) that the film fails for me.

Why? Because, as the film shows it, Belfort’s fall from grace and consequent disgrace is, in the view of the film-makers, best portrayed by Belfort conducting an investment seminar in Auckland, New Zealand.

Yes, I know Belfort did in fact do that. But he also conducted those seminars in numerous sleepy hollows of the United States, and Australia (where he now lives). Why could the film have not used some of those places to portray the depths to which Belfort has fallen? Why treat Auckland as a financial backwater—as the very obverse of Wall Street and New York?

Has Scorsese/DiCaprio/Winter even been here? And if they have, did they not visit Hamilton?

Now, let’s get back to the pen. In the final scene Belfort/DiCaprio use the same device/question, inviting “Auckland” investors—four of them, and only one with a distinguishable Kiwi accent—to sell him a pen. None can. So, the implication that can be taken from this one scene that plagues the entire film for we New Zealanders is that not only is Auckland a backwater, it is also inhabited by morons.

Thanks Martin.

Incidentally, DiCaprio won a Golden Globe for his acting performance in this film. I personally would have given it to that one American extra who managed a kiwi accent.

Corker, mate!

Feminine fixations, foibles and phobias

This may offend some. I don’t apologise; your offence offends me. Besides, you are wrong, and I am right.

First, international darts, and now Formula One, have dropped the women who add the glamour to their events.

They are the models who accompany the darts players to the rostra, and hold flags or umbrellas on the starting grids. They look glamourous. They look great. They look happy.

So, why have they gone?

Because it is no longer politically correct and in the view of whom, God knows why, these organisations listen to, it is demeaning to women.

FU.

Did you feminazis take the time to ask the women themselves? I know you didn’t, because from what I am reading the women who do/did those jobs, liked those jobs and earned good money doing those jobs.

So, here we have one group of women telling another group of women what they can’t do—all in the name of female empowerment. Could someone please tell me how that works?

And here is where I get really offensive…

It seems that this year feminism is the new black. I thought it was dead and buried. Women had taken it as far as they could and had effectively shattered the glass ceiling. So, why the resumption? Why the interference? Why are feminists taking jobs away from women who want to do the jobs?

Are they bored or, spoiler alert: really offensive, simply envious?

And, while I am on the subject, are we also so bloody bored with life and talking about Donald Trump that we need to raise issues such as this?

The awards season appears to be the catalyst and the vehicle for getting “political”. Last year it was the lack of ethnic minorities nominated for Academy Awards. This year it was the Me-Too movement and sexual harassment in Hollywood.

Setting aside the fact that I don’t give a rat’s a***s about celebrities’ opinions, I question why these occasions have turned from being celebrations (and fashion statements) to political statements.

What is going to be next year’s issue de jour? I am certain there will be one.

Nothing I have written is intended to demean or diminish the core issues, though I do take issue with other people telling other people how they should act and think and work—as is the case with the Darts and Formula One.

No, my issue is with having an issue—or more particularly the manner and vehicle in which the issue is issued.

It shouldn’t be an issue, but it is.

That is my issue.

Let's sex this up

With a few minutes to spare this week, my thoughts turned to sex. Strange word: sex. It can be a verb, as in having it; a noun in terms of the act; and again, a verb as in determining the gender and even an instruction (not in the 50 Shades of Grey context) of “sexing” something up.
Two articles in today’s NZ Herald, a publication I rarely find interesting, prompted my new-found, though brief, interest in sex.

One was an article listing New Zealand’s top five dating sites. Yes, I know dating doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with sex—but let’s not be pedantic, and you have my sympathies that it didn’t work out for you. However, I digress.

What interested me about this article was that the second most popular dating site is called Academic Singles, which promises to “put you in touch with intelligent people near you.” Well I guess that could work; anywhere except Hamilton.

But what would a date with an intelligent person be like?  What would happen? Would the main subject under discussion be philosophy, the classics, or poetry? Would the sexual component consist entirely of an academic critique on Masters & Johnson? Who knows? In any case, the questions themselves are—well—academic. Surely, intelligence is indefinable—even adjustable. In the context of this site, it is also a conceit. I applaud anyone for going on to the site to find someone intelligent—we are all lonely at times—but are they not making a rather large assumption that they, themselves, are intelligent? I am not sure I would like to go out with someone so arrogant. However, good luck.

The second NZ Herald article about sex was a Kinsey Institute study of the amount of sex we should be having according to our age. Well, of course we would want to go and read that, wouldn’t we? I was not surprised to learn from the Kinsey study that those aged 18 to 29 had “sex” on average 112 times a year. Between the ages of 30 and 39, it drops to 86 times annually.  And sexual activity droops (pun intended) for 40 to 49-year-olds to half the amount of sex of their 20-something counterparts, making love 69 times a year on average…and some of it, I guess, must be distinctly average.

However, what disappointed me was that there was no mention in the study of the quantity (or quality) of sex for those aged over 50. The Herald tells us that is because (the study) “appears to back up separate research which found that sexuality among older people is largely ignored.” Really? Which separate research was that, and who did they ask?

To be honest, and here I am being both honest and through Fryday anonymous, I find it easier to ignore the Herald than sex. I am also here interested in their use of the word “sexuality.” One definition of that word I read said it was the study of human sexuality, which should certainly appeal to Academic Singles. Another dictionary defined sexuality as “a person’s sexual orientation or preference.” In stating that we over 50s are ignoring that, is the Herald suggesting we don’t care? That we’ll have it off—so to speak—with anyone? Well, all I can say to “Granny Herald” is that we over 50s are (usually) more selective in our partners than you are in your use of terminology.

So, this is The End...The Doors

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So Jacinda Ardern is pregnant? Or is it more socially appropriate these days to say Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford are pregnant.

And, by the way, the NZ Herald caption for the photo making the announcement says, “Clarke Gayford and Jacinda Clarke are to become parents soon!”

When did that happen? When did she become Jacinda Clarke, or is that just her homage to her mentor Helen Clark?

Anyway, Fryday sincerely congratulates them both, but hopes fervently, if curmudgeonly, that we won’t see a repeat spurt of babies in Parliament as we did post-election. Spare us that, please.

And spare us the NZ Herald…for just about everything these days.

Where is the venerability, where is the gravitas, where is the news of yesteryear?

It has gone. Gone from once sage pages. Replaced by such headlines and “news” stories (today) as: “Kiwi Stars React to Jacinda’s Pregnancy”. The story that follows is comprised mostly of tweets from so-called stars such as ColinMathura-Jeffree, Urzila Carlson (who?), and Matilda Rice—among others.

With the obvious exception of Colin Mathura-Jeffree, they may be important and talented people in their fields (Colin doesn’t have one), but are we really interested in their messages to Mr Gayford and Ms Clarke?

I admit that it takes very little to track down a tweet, but hasn’t the NZ Herald got better things to with its time and staff? And who made these people “Stars” anyway and their views any more relevant than—say—mine, or yours?

I am sorry. This is a story that, as hard as I try, I can’t find any excuse for. It is drivel. It is dross. And if the caption is anything to go by it is also wrong. 

It is, in the end (and it may possibly will be), the NZ Herald, but not as we knew it.

The Democratic Republic of Wogistan (Inc.)

Office of the Foreign Secretary

123 Bruce Springsteen Boulevard (third door on right). Telephone: 125.

Mr Donald J. Trump

Presidente of the USA

Washington District Council

Washington

In America

Greetings from the Democratic Republic of Wogistan.

Our xalted leader, Presidente Yoseph Flagrantlie (God give him long life and much children), believe he friend of yours. Not now.

He say you call some countrys of which Democratic Republic of Wogistan friends be shitsholes. They not shitsholes. Your wife comes from Slovenia. That shitshole. Have you looked at your wive’s shitshole lately?

Presendentie thinking of declaring war on United States and Slovania over insult. Will have nuclear hollowcast as soon as we can hire plane.

If you want to save United States of America, you says sorry to all shitsholes that are not  and deposit US$50,000 into Presidente’s Help The People Account.

You do that now, or you will not see your United states or wive’s shitshole again.

Yoseph xxx

Yoseph Wankerstan

Foreign Secretary The Democratic Republic of Wogistan (Inc.)

Proprietor Spartacus Male Gym and Bathhouse.

My New Year's Resolutions

Man Fryday has made a list of New Year’s Resolutions:

1.     I will not mention Donald Trump this year. Bugger!

2.     I Will not slag off Hamilton, though it deserves it. Bugger!

3.     I will never criticise “Bishop” Tamaki’s stupid hairstyle. Bugger!

4.     I will never mention, comment on or even think about Whetu. Bugger!

5.     Having done it last year, I shall not make any further comment about Jacinda Ardern’s teeth. Bugger!

6.     I shall not use any big words in an effort to obfuscate an issue to demonstrate my immanent, though chimerical, superiority. Bugger!

7.     I shall not make up words to give further credence and croiadence to that superiority. Bugger!

8.     I shall not deign to use double-entendre in a scurrilous and superficial attempt to make you feel my button is bigger than your button. Bugger!

9.     I shall stop using swear words. Shit and Bugger!

10.  I never again write Fryday under the influence of whiskey. Bugger!

Now, having not kept to any of 2018’s resolutions, I’m free—free at last. Bring it on—it’s going to be a good year. All the best for yours, as well.