A low morning

I tuned into 1035am this morning for some pre-breakfast junk food... and now I think I need some fillings.

They were broadcasting live from Coastlands in celebration of the malls fortieth birthday. Our national talk back station broadcasting from a fucking mall! Now maybe the absolute whorish-ness of this is down to individual taste. But c'mon, really? The live, chirpy hustle of consumerism in the background? Announcements of specials and sales every two minutes? This is the most poorly veiled attempt at mobilising an audience to buy I have witnessed. Coastlands is in incredibly poor shape. It is no doubt - visible even from its appearance - struggling financially. Could this have any relation to the number of ZB interviews with shop owners, security guards... the guy who handles Coastlands rent. "This is an important place, see? It's been here for forty years! Come buy!".

Sure Coastlands was the first indoor pig-fest in the Wellington area, but is this really where our priorities lie? Will there be a celebration when that consumer paradise Westfield Queensgate turns ten? And what exactly are we celebrating?

I understand that malls allow us to shop at seventy-five degrees for 363 days of the year, maybe this is something cool in Auckland. But not Wellington. Apart from the small town-centres, the entire Wellington region only has three 'malls': Porirua, Queensgate, and Coastlands. The Wellington CBD has none. We're not a mall city. Maybe we're a city of over-priced second hand clothes, under-performing sports teams, soy flat-whites, cultural capital, and as much short-term self-interest as any other city in the world, but a four-walled consumer hell-hole city we are not.

It's a deflating way to start the day.

Please leave the celebration of consumer culture in Devonport and Sylvia Park.

Huia

Last night I attended the eighth Huia Publishers awards at Te Papa.

My brother was a finalist for the Extract from a Novel category, for which he achieved Runner Up (congrats Paul), but apart from that unique experience it was a wonderful occasion which reintroduced me to Maori culture.

I didn't realised how distant I had become, how swirled and stoned in media rhetoric. Last night was like a time warp, pulling be back to the primary school mat where I clumsily twirled poi and sang waiata. It was innocent, heartfelt, and earnest.

The music was wonderful, the language beautiful. The ceremony was passionate, and it touched me.

Most of all, it made me want to pick up a Maori author, and the Maori language. I hope more do so.

Dog = Yum

Here is me throwing my hat in the political ring:

Concerning the story all over the news, here is what I think:

1) There are arguments on both sides, and they both bore me.

2) There has been beige racism since the story hit the media.

3) Diasporic cultures still thrive in New Zealand.

And despite all the hoo-rah-rah around this I can't help but conclude:

A man ate his dog... who gives a fuck? Really.

Because:

1) We should be more understanding of other cultures since,

2) the dog was killed humanely and

3) Despite what you hear on talkback I'm sure the majority of NZers don't have knee-jerk emotional reactions to such stories, despite how icky eating dog might seem.

Can we get back to real issues now?

Dimmer

Taking a moment to post some videos of the Dimmer gig I went to in July.

It always frustrates me when people call them 'boring'. Seeing them in action, I understood that experience does count for something. The confidence, the security, absolute faith and esteem in what they were doing; surely that is Shayne Carter's influence. It's so nice to see a band who doesn't feel like they have to prove anything - it really shows on stage, and it looks awesome.

Two Interesting Ideas

I have finally got around to watching two of the most discussed documentaries of recent times: Ross Kemp on Gangs: New Zealand, and Loose Change: An American Coup.

Some quick conclusions :

Ross Kemp

Kemp provides a valuable introduction and mild insights into gang (namely Mongrel Mob) culture in New Zealand. But I couldn't help but conclude that his personal approach contained all of the character of TV3's Money Man. The fact that the documentary was made with an eye on the *gasp* factor for it's British audience was horribly transparent. Kemp does well in his investigations, but is too uneducated in both New Zealand and Maori culture and history to ever really venture beyond the 'introduction' stage. And I very much disliked his conclusion, during which he describes his shock at 'discovering pockets of such savagery in such a civilised nation' (to paraphrase). It seems some discourse doesn't even change in four hundred years. However, having said this he manages to handle the subject with integrity and from an appropriate and (for the most part) objective angle. I would like to see the same subject approached similarly from a New Zealand journalist with an education on New Zealand and Maori culture, for a New Zealand public. The documentary had real merit.

Loose Change

A believable bundle of ideas delivered in an unconvincing package. The documentary attempts to argue that the US Government has lied about all the events of September 11th, 2001, and it was infact the Government which planned and executed the attacks on the WTC, Pentagon, and the 'crash' of Flight 93. The documantry provides evidence that both the North and South Towers of the WTC were brough down from explosions originating in the basement; the Pentagon was struck not by a plane, but by a cruise missile; and that Flight 93 never crashed but landed safetly in Cleveland. It does so with media analysis, scientific invesitgation, and exploiting inconsistencies with supposedly hard evidence that the attacks were executed by terrorists. Once such example of this is an argument that phone calls made from passengers on all four aeroplanes to their loved ones were faked, and constructed by the government using voice-morphing technology.

As I said, much of this evidence is believable. But it is thrown together in such a rag-tag way that it looks as though the producers were glossing over noticable holes in their arguments. Namely, they don't take into consideration any alternatives, which is highly detrimental to the credibility of their argument. The compilation of evidence for their argument consisted of practically anything and everything they could find thrown together, sometimes without explanation for it's inclusion in the debate. So much time is spent trying to draw links between the events and the government, that they never focus enough on what they're actually talking about to concrete their arguments, and thus making the arguments appear silly. Perhaps the filmmakers fell victim for their passion about the subject. Overall, I would suggest this documentary for anyone who has a spare 120 minutes and can't be bothered doing their own research.