Save Radio New Zealand

Our reactionary, know-the-price-of-everything-and-the-value-of-nothing-Government has non-commercial, publicly owned services in its sights for destruction. Having a Minister in overall charge who made his loot in commercial radio, it's not surprising he's puppeteering the Broadcasting Minister (a medical doctor, go figure) to redirect the large market share public radio enjoys (no wonder given the aural crap on our airwaves) to his commercial mates.
A Facebook campaign has been set up to counteract these retrograde moves, so unfortunately you need to be a member to join the campaign. Which I did temporarily until it is has been saved.

When Jehovah runs out of puff

There I was, this morning, minding my own business, having a breakfast of egg soldiers, when a knock on the door woke me from my mid-morning reverie. It sort of startled me because we hardly ever get any visitors who have to knock on our front door when they visit (the last one was Denise Roche when she was canvassing for votes in her successful bid to become our City Councillor almost 3 years ago).

A duo of women of a certain age stood there huffing and puffing. The trek to our front door is, firstly, a steep concrete driveway, followed by about 50 steps and, we suspect, many give up halfway, which keeps us thankfully free of street hawkers, beggars and assorted street riff raff, but on the other hand, when faced with a the intrepid climber who actually has made it, I cannot simply turn them down with a stiffly unfriendly grunt. Not even the Jehova's Witnesses, as they seemed to turn out to be - I can't be sure, they never actually identified their faith, but their frequent use of the word Jehova gave a clue. I'm not that au fait with the minutiae of Christian faiths.

So I took pity on them and decide to hear them out, even though I couldn't actually make out what they were preaching about: their trek had left them so short of breath they barely could utter any words. I almost offered them a cuppa but I returned to my senses before I would be saddled with them on the couch for the rest of the morning.
It actually turned out to be a spirited, polite discussion about the "ideal society" and whether man or "the Creator", as she called it, could bring it about.
No prizes for guessing who won that one.
Her fitness was helped by her trek up the stairs so that was one thing she did that was beneficial for her health without the need for her creator. And if she had had a heart attack at the bottom of the hill, our taxpayer-funded health service would have whisked her off to hospital. "The Creator" would have been quite useless as he's not at the other end of a 111 call.

What kind of fratboys are you?

Latter Days is a film that could only be made in America and only be fully appreciated there. It pushes all the au courant buttons in a culture that is still at war over issues that have long been settled in secular societies. The existential struggle between being gay and being religious going to the heart of American identity (deemed worthy of the epithet "culture war" but really akin to the inability to have tolerance at the core of your society) is such an alien concept to the rest of us living in secular societies.
Mormonism ("The original alternative life-stylers" as described in an all too rare insight by the main character) is this really outlandish form of religion few of us have any connection to, especially outside the USA, and is portrayed in the film in all the familiar cliches: stern patriarch father, neurotic mother and absolutely no insight into family life - even to the point that the "family unit" is never actually seen together at home. They look, sound and act like aliens, strange frat boy pod people on bikes.
I guess if you want to make an 'opposites attract' romance, the other side has to be portrayed as cliched as possible too and the film doesn't fail in that: Los Angeles as a honey pot for fame, fortune and sexual conquest never fails and the movie's non-Mormon characters do their best to act, look and sound as predictable as their religious counterparts.

The storyline is trite: boy meets boy/boy falls for boy/boy loses boy/boy finds boy (it's not like I'm putting any spoilers here); the sex scenes are as vanilla and PGR rated as you can get away with; the evil characters on both sides (usually always the most interesting parts in a movie), the Mormon father and Dirk "the Watersports Boy", undeveloped and cartoon-like; and an obligatory coterie of sympathetic fag hags and their fairytale safe haven refuge (Lila's restaurant - as the Land of Oz reference?) make it an unsatisfactory movie.
If you are looking for gay romance against all cultural odds, maybe try "My Beautiful Laundrette" instead.

Totty award to Steve Sandvoss

Golden Stud 2010

Belgian TV magazine Humo again is organising its "Golden Stud" competition where you can vote for the sexiest sportsman of the year. Nothing like this ever happens in New Zealand, unfortunately.
Photo specials of the candidates are here, and you can vote here.

I have voted for volleyball player Kristof Hoho. I do like a scarred boy.

Previous Golden Stud competitions are here: 2009, 2008 and 2006.

I think the quality of the field has gone down over the years.

Vostok Lake

Last night the choice for showbusiness lovers was a tough one in Auckland: AC/DC or Vostok Lake.
So off we went to the Indie Club in Hobson Street for the CD launch tour of Daphne Lawless's latest music project of Small Group Psychosis.
A coterie of hardcore fans were summoned to the upstairs bar room and the $10 entry charge got you a copy of the CD too. (I bet AC/DC fans who forked out $160 for their ticket only got a wet beer towel in the neck).
So it's Daphne onstage with her assortment of keyboards and laptops to produce an eclectic array of vaguely 1980s synth-pop sounding songs, but with more angst. Sort of Stranglers' organ meets inter-generational and sibling issues.
Well worth checking out. Tour itinerary and dates here.

UPDATE: Encore gig at the Indie Club, 68 Hobson Street, Aukland, on Thursday 18 March 8.30pm

Fisking Garth George

Garth "Vader" George had another burst of verbal diarrhoea recently:

There are three things I acknowledge, and accept that they exist, but which I have never been able, for the life of me, to get my head around. They have always remained far beyond my understanding, no matter how much I ponder them or how old I get.

How many words do you need to say "WTF?" Garth is obviously on a per-word-published-fee at the Herald. Or is he making up for all the words he took from others before?

The first is child abuse, paedophilia and cruelty to domestic animals;

Note the rider in there: domestic animals. Cruelty, neglect, crating, slaughterhouses for farm animals get his blessing, or at least he does understand.

the second is male homosexuality;

I, for the life of me, have never been able to get my head around male heterosexuality either. Our Garth shows himself much the Victorian (as in Queen) he always has aspired to, even down to the denial of the existence of female homosexuals, much like the old Queen did. Or are there no visible lesbians in Rotorua? I'm sure he's yodelled along with the Topp Twins for years.

and the third is vegetarianism.

Which explains his obvious understanding and approval of slaughterhouse animals and their treatment.

every time I encounter a vegan or vegetarian (I'm told there's a difference) I simply shake my head in wonder.

This from a man who claims to know and taste the difference between pies in New Plymouth, Rotorua and all points south, but has no idea of two of mankind's oldest cultural (and often religious) traits.
Then comes a long litany of recent domestic animal cruelty, which I will spare you because it upsets me too and should lead to unspeakable punishment of the perpetrators, involving the future inability to reproduce, lest they perpetuate their animal cruelty gene line. On that score Garth and I are in agreement.
But strangely enough, he seems to want to exempt any animal farmer from the same standards. The Ministry of Agriculture very much follows this line already with barely any prosecutions despite the harrowing cases that have come to light. I guess Garth's inability to distinguish between vegetarians and vegans stems from the fact that he ignores how they land on his plate (or in his pie)