Work fascinates me, I'd could watch it for hours

There has been rather a torrid exchange of letters in the New Zealand Listener around the issue of NZ Super and eligibility. We have had self-employed letter writers moaning and being righteous and employed people kicking back against that high-mindedness.

Which got me thinking about work and its place in our Western, developed, industrialised societies.

I am currently a house parent (stay-at-home parent...fill in appropriate title here) with some self-employment as an actor and writer thrown in. When people ask me what I do and I tell them that I am, in the main, the parent with the main childcare responsibilities, they often look at me aghast. As you would probably expect, I usually have more understanding responses from women.

Work has come to define us. When did this happen? Are you any better a person if you are a lawyer as opposed to a road worker? Right now, I'm pretty enamoured of road-workers. They are putting our streets back the way they were and they are working long hours to do it. But that is by the by because you could be a wife-beating lawyer or you could be a Proust-reading plumber or anything in between.

I like what Martin Luther King said in his famous "I have a dream" speech. He wanted his children judged, not by the colour of their skin, but by the nature of their characters.

Many of us, less enlightened than Martin Luther King, do judge. We judge by race, we judge by cars and houses and we judge by occupation. If I drive a truck, I'm pretty stupid and I drink beer and watch crap TV. If I'm a lawyer or accountant, I drink fine wines, have a high IQ and watch arthouse movies. NOT!!!

I've met truck drivers who read poetry at truckstops and lawyers who like to unwind in front of Wipeout, either the US, UK or Australian versions. So don't buy into stereotypes, folks.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not down on work, per se. I'm not advocating some massive shift to a global slacker culture, but work has to be meaningful to people I think. People who are lucky enough to find that passion that drives their career path are lucky indeed. I think it was Confucius who said: "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."

But how do we address a society shaped by the Industrial Revolution that demands consumerism, that demands goods and services to whiz around the globe? In turn, that demands that many people all around the world work in menial, low-paid jobs which offer only drudgery not personal satisfaction, tedium not advancement, inertia not aspiration. Think of the workers in foreign call centres, or all the Nike workers in Malaysia and Indonesia that made less money when all their incomes were combined than Michael Jordan got paid to advertise Nike Air Jordans. To me, this does not represent the dignity of labour.

So the next time you are at a party or some other social function, drinking your FairTrade espresso and nibbling on FairTrade chocolate (it gives you a warm glow, knowing your consumerism is not driving Third World workers into abject poverty), don't ask that man or woman that you are introduced to by the host or hostess: "So, what do you do?" Instead perhaps ask them: "Have you read any interesting books lately or seen any inspiring films?" or "What are your thoughts on Libya?" or even, "So, what is it that gets you out of bed in the morning?"

Jealous, who me?

"Moral indignation - jealousy with a halo." - HG Wells

I don't really know anything about H.G. Wells other than his books. I have no idea what sort of a personal life he led, but I came across this quote by him and it struck me that he was probably mischievous, liked a good time and had a great sense of humour. A sense of humour can redeem even the greatest of swine while being humourless can make even the nicest personalities hard work.

Lately, I've been experiencing a great deal of indignation, but, none, I hope, which could be construed as of the moral kind.

I was walking down our much-damaged street (earthquake fatiguers alert: turn away now, find another blog or make a nice cuppa for your loved one and/or partner) and this idiot, and I'm being charitable here, sped down our street weaving around all the holes in the road like he was doing an obstacle course at Brands Hatch. Then, unbelievably, he turned around and came back the other way as I yelled ineffectively from the wobbly footpath: "Slow down, you idiot!"

So, be warned, tiki tourers, non-observers of the lowered speed limits, looters and chancers and exploiters of every stripe, my indignation is rising. Not that I can do anything about it. I'm as impotent as Peter Finch's character in Network yelling out of the open window of a high-rise: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to stand for it any more!"

But what you do in your bedrooms, boudoirs or wherever you do it, concerns me not a whit. As they say: "Make love, not war." I'm with HG on that one.

Tuesday Poem: "Sadness"

(For William Yang)

From sadness into darkness,

the associations rising in the auditorium

fought down as the house-lights go up,

old habits die hard.

How many times have we been cautioned against

public displays of private grief?

Darkness welcomes sadness,

the sweet release of streaming tears

shed freely on these strange windswept streets.

Tears of memory,

of other darknesses.

Like the darkness that devoured my grandmother

or the darkness of the womb wherein

one of my brothers was damaged by God

or the darkness of a Perth garden where I wept

in the early hours of the morning

and searched the starry firmament

for the star that was surely Don

after he had fled his AIDS-ravaged shell.

If the soul is a river flowing through our procession

of lives, perhaps tears

are the moments when our souls overflow.


I wrote this poem in 1995 after seeing a beautiful show at Downstage Theatre in Wellington called Sadness spoken/performed/illustrated by William Yang, an Australian photographer/performer of Chinese descent. It was essentially a kind of lecture, but that doesn't do justice to the emotional power of the piece, accompanied by slides taken by Yang. It had twin themes of loss and recovery. Yang, a homosexual, had lost many friends during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and he also embarked on a journey into North Queensland to research his Chinese ancestry.


I was deeply moved by this show. It did what the best of theatre does, it elicited an emotional response. I walked home to where I lived in Mt Victoria, crying all the way. When I had completed the poem, I gave a copy to the folk at the Downstage Box Office and they very kindly passed it on to William Yang who sent me a lovely postcard from North Queensland where he was touring the show.


The poet would also like to acknowledge the 1995 Whitireia Poetry Competition in which the poem subsequently won an award. 

Pollies like us, baby, we were born to rule (with apologies to Bruce Springsteen)

“I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing, the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.” – Bruce Grocott

I came across this quote in the newspaper the other day and it made me think of a news article I heard recently on National Radio (or is it Radio New Zealand National this week?). Greens co-leader, Meteria Turei, was critical of John Key, the New Zealand Prime Minister, for taking an Air Force helicopter to fly him from Auckland to Hamilton (a distance of about 80km, I believe) for a photo opportunity at the Hamilton V8 Supercars race and then fly him back to Auckland so that he could attend a black-tie dinner. His pathetic excuse was that the Governor-General was going to be at the dinner so it would not be acceptable to be late. Turei claimed that Key could have attended both events in a timely fashion by merely using a Crown car. The helicopter, she claimed, was a gross misuse of taxpayers’ money at a time when Key and the governing National party are urging every New Zealand citizen to tighten his or her belt.

Once again, I declare up front that I am a leftist. For most of my life, I’ve not wished to align myself with any political party, but about two years ago I thought the world we were leaving for our children and grandchildren was going to environmental hell-in-a handbasket so I joined the Greens. I’m not active politically in the Greens but I do want to contribute in a small way financially to a cause I feel is very righteous.

Sadly, the vast majority of voters are easily hoodwinked by spin and the baubles of television. Key is their everyman, smiling and affable and deliberately inoffensive. He lets other MPs do his dirty work while he smiles all the while like some country bumpkin at a county fair.

Voters tire of one party and kick them out, regardless of how well they are performing. Helen Clark was a very intelligent, cultured, capable woman and I feel there is a lot of bias against female leaders. They have to be Superwomen before the public will accept them and then the public is deeply suspicious of a female leader. They truly are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

Before Helen Clark and Labour lost the last election to Key and National, there were all these people saying it was time for a change. What they neglected to take into account was that a change for change’s sake is not always an improvement. I knew Key and National would play the moderate, non-threatening centrist card to lull voters into a false sense of security. The real right-wing agenda is starting to emerge now though and if they win a second term they will see that as a mandate to push their more right-wing ideologically-driven issues to the fore and make them law.

We are seeing it emerge into the harsh light of day with Gerry Brownlee, the Herman Goering of the National party. He is using the Christchurch earthquakes to accumulate enormous power for himself and he will push a lot of things through that favour his rich cronies, but don’t necessarily bode well for the citizens of Christchurch. A lot of our democratic freedoms will disappear under the guise of “state of emergency powers”. Many citizens already feel that they are not being consulted on the future of their city.

The folk that populate the National party are of the “born to rule” mindset, as is evidenced by Key’s use of the helicopter. He sees the Air Force as his own plaything, at his beck and call.

He made his millions as a currency trader, a parasite, not someone who produced anything of value, not something that advanced the wellbeing of the human race.

Recently, I heard that Key and Bill English, the Minister of Finance, had agreed to loan public money to bail out one of their mates, Brent Impey, because his media conglomerate is in financial trouble. Why aren’t the media all over this like a rash? This is scandalous, this is corrupt, and this is an abuse of power. This is that sense of entitlement coming through, that “born to rule” attitude shining through once again.

This post needs to be bookended by another quote from Charles Bukowski, the American poet:

“The difference between democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.”

I have a sinking feeling that Johnny, Billy and Gerry will be issuing a lot of orders in the weeks, months and (possibly) years to come.

Tuesday Poem: "Not God But Close"

Sometimes someone will strike

like lightning in your life,

setting your trees afire and searing their presence

deep into the bark of memory.

Such a one was Michael Parmee.

It was 1968.

Paris was burning, the Chicago Seven were protesting

the first war to be televised

and hippies were celebrating the Summer of Love

in Haight-Ashbury,

but 55 miles north of Auckland

the turmoil of the times did not touch

the sleepy hamlet of Wellsford.

New Zealand was enjoying its fat years as food-bowl

to Mother England

and downsizing, restructuring and employment contracts

were but distant nightmares undreamed.

Wellsford’s raison d’être was farming

and a large primary school catered for townies

and the children of the clover

converging from all points rural

in red and tan Education Department buses.

It was 1968.

I was 11 and our Form One class had a new teacher.

He was young and he radiated energy and joie de vivre.

I do not know where he came from or where he went to,

but for two years he had a profound impact on me.

Michael Parmee brought basketball.

The paraphernalia and American cultural colonisation

were two decades distant

and all he had to ignite our imaginations

was the celebration of speed, power and grace

that is the game of basketball.

It was more than enough.

He showed us the rules and bullrush gave way

to basketball as the preferred unisex pastime.

To go beyond the call of duty was second nature to him

so that he set up and ran a district competition.

In Form Two I had another teacher, but Michael Parmee

continued to illuminate my life.

He came up with the idea that the children

would write an original play and perform it

for the town.

About ten of us, in whom he had discerned

a passion and flair for writing,

were allowed time out of class to meet regularly

in the staff-room under his guidance

to fashion a full-length play from imaginations

still one step ahead

of being socialised into submission.

Brainstorming, seizing on a concept, plotting,

giving our ideas a structure, writing scenes as

individuals and melding them as a group – the creation

of the play was the highlight of each week for me.

And each week Michael Parmee fanned the flames

to burn brighter.

The brushfires he had started in our hearts

now towered the sky with their tongues.

The play completed, he auditioned actors and musicians

and I got a part.

My first experience of the stage

before drama sadly lay dormant for many years.

But at twelve years of age, it is a powerful thing

to see your idea born and nurtured into 3-D.

And it was only when I heard Michael Parmee say,

“Fuck!”,

one night in the wings while witnessing

a minor disaster occur on stage

that I realised he was not God.

We all have those one or two or three teachers that we really remember who had a profound influence on us. Michael Parmee's father was a published poet, Frederick Parmee.

Michael would probably be in his late sixties now. I don't know what he did after he left Wellsford, but I'll bet whatever it was, it was impressive and creative. I hope he is still alive and I hope he has had a great life.

Mandated Looting

You will have to forgive me if many of my blog posts revolve around the earthquake and, if you have “earthquake fatigue”, I completely understand. We get “earthquake fatigue” too here in Christchurch. But, like it or not, the events of September 4 and February 22 have coloured the lives of Christchurch’s citizens in ways they may never have envisaged.

I was out at Amberley, a country town north of Christchurch, on Saturday evening. A friend was having a bonfire and party to reconnect with all her friends as she was an exile from deepest, darkest Bexley (she had to walk away from her house which was very badly damaged and flooded with raw sewerage and liquefaction). Another friend told me about how he and his partner had just been able to retrieve their crushed Toyota Hilux from the Smiths City carpark building. (He joked that it was, when retrieved, very much a “Lowlux”). He told me that an expensive set of snow chains had been looted from the vehicle by the demolition workers and that they had stolen some computer accessories from the glovebox and then crushed that part of the car to cover up their crimes. He was told by the official in charge of the car retrieval that his was a common complaint. Apparently, the demolition workers had thoroughly looted everything they could from all the vehicles before the owners could retrieve their vehicles.

These tales of amorality are widespread through Christchurch. Business owners in the central city had to abandon their premises and many have found when they were eventually able to access their businesses that they have had everything valuable looted. One business owner who knew that demolition workers stole a load of valuable native timber, matai, called it “mandated looting”.

The authorities have done nothing. These demolition workers seem to think they have a right to steal from people with impunity. I think they think that the insurers will pick up the tab, but legally anything in the owners’ premises is theirs until the insurers pay out the owners and then it becomes the property of the insurers. It is NEVER just up for grabs.

Sadly, after the initial rush of post-earthquake nobility from many citizens, and many private citizens and organisations continue to do fantastic things for their communities, the sickening stench of profiteering, looting and exploitation is becoming stronger.

Granted, some demolition companies are behaving well, but any demolition workers found to be looting need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and their companies banned from any further work in the CBD.

Amorality of this kind cannot be allowed to continue and the authorities cannot get away with turning a blind eye or putting the issue in the “too hard” basket.

This is the link to the Midnight Oil album referenced in Blog Post: "redneck Wonderland"

http://www.midnightoil.com/releases/98redneck.do