fossgoss

Kia ora!

I love my new nickname - it is the best nickname I have ever had, I think.

Porangi Hoiho!

It loosely translates to 'Crazy Horse'. (Errr.. it can also mean 'Stupid Penguin' but that aint half as cool)

Previous nicknames through my life have included Boggs, The Foss, Bondy, Betty, Flick, The Moth, The Bonz and Tripod.

But I think I like Porangi Hoiho the best. :-)

Ka kite ano.

Consider, first, 60 - 90 years ago we had some fairly serious wars. The basic premise behind these wars was a greedy desire by some Nations, to become Empires. Japan would be a case in point. However, the result of the wars is that the likes of Japan became/remained nations, the empire dream was over and none of the Empires were formed. Also, from 1946, the world was well and truely opened up. Way back in the day, an American President was heard to utter something along the lines of: 'Our doors are open to your sick, your poor, your unemployed; the land of the free and the brave will look after them'. (Try telling that to a Mexican family trying to sneak across the US border today!). Things have changed.
Anyway, with the opening up of the world, we are seeing a distillation of what were once, almost 'pure' bloodlines - and that very distillation effect is exponential in its growth. For example - in just 4 -5 generations from now, 99% of New Zealanders will be comprised of the following bloodlines: NZ Caucasian, Maori, Pacific, Asian, European.

Yep - the great, great grandchildren of young NZr's living today will all be the same. In many ways, this will be a good thing - the race based arguments and conflict we are experiencing today will be irrelevant. They will be over.

And, the same thing will hapen all over the world. The big melting pot will be churning out coffee coloured people by the score.

Australians will look and be just like us - a mix of Caucasion/Pacific/Aboriginal (perhaps?) Asian, European, Pacific and Middle Eastern. Similar to us and identical in appearance. As will be most of the rest of the world - ultimately - we will all look the same! Seagulls will wonder how we tell each other apart!

Unfortunately, the human condition includes a capacity for hatred and conflict. Today, one of the ways we vent that hatred is via rascism. When we lose that outlet, sadly, we will replace it with something else. And when we are all built of simlar bricks, I think Nationalism will replace Racism. NZ will vent its hatred at Australia - because they are economically 'luckier' - or something. Whatever. Americans will vent their Nationalism on Britain. etc. etc. And vice versa. Our leaders will be distastefully jingoistic in their nature. This trait will taint their thinking.

Just like 1914 really. When one nation expressed their hatred of another nation by way of violence, and hey presto, a world war was born.

Can you see how a cycle is evolving here? A most unfortunate cycle is possible as nations, once again, will try to build empires perhaps?

Yep - the new Nationalism will become the new Racism. Humans! Phfft... so bloody predictable.

There is of course a solution; our future need not be so bleak; there is a way to prevent this from happening.

This, my friends, will be the next chapter.

Here in New Zealand, just like you, we have lots of Government Commissions.

One is designed to ensure no companies monopolise the market; to keep commerce fair.

It is called, not surprisingly, The Monopolies' Commission.

But, get this! - there is only one of them!

Only one.

Ironic eh?

:-)

A man had two great tickets for the Football Cup final. as he sits
down, another man comes down and asks if anyone is sitting in the seat next
to him.

"No", he says, "the seat is empty".

"This is incredible!" said the man, "who in their right mind would
have a seat like this for the FA cup final, the biggest sporting event in
the year, and not use it?"

He says, "Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. My wife was
supposed to come with me, but she passed away. This is the first Cup Final
we haven't been to together since we got married".

"Oh . I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. I guess you
couldn't find someone else, a friend or relative or even a neighbour to take
the seat?"

The man shakes his head... "No. They're all at the funeral"

She told me we couldn't afford beer anymore and I'd have to quit.
Then I caught her spending $65.00 on make-up.
And I asked how come I had to give up stuff and she didn't.
She said she needed the make-up to look pretty for me.
I told her that was what the beer was for.
I don't think she's coming back.
Nope. That's fo' sure.


;-)

Be very warned. This is a graphic example of why you should never drink Absinthe. :-)

When Pink Floyd recorded DSOTM in '72/'73, they experimented with one of the world's first genuine synthesisers developed at EMS studios in Putney. It was computer based and had a video monitor and a whopping 1k of memory. It created tones by altering voltages through myriad copper wound tranformers and the whole setup weighed tonnes and needed a big room to house it.

It should be noted that at the time, to have access to a 12-bit computer with 1K of memory was unheard of outside of government or military establishments, let alone using one to create music. To have a video screen as well when most people programmed with punched cards was almost beyond belief.

12 bit.

1k.

How things change eh.

Boy, today sure has been a weird day at the office. I walked in this morning to espy Kevin being confronted by two completely naked African American lesbians who were jumping up onto his desk while rapping Kumbaya. Yet Kevin’s eyes barely flicked.
There was a time when they flicked barely on a regular basis. But he was older back then. And considerably more attractive.
Anyway, the two women stared exploring each other with knowing hands – and I had to consider for a moment how many hands the average person knows – but they seemed totally oblivious to the fact that they had somehow been teleported from a dark, private, velvety room above the Viper Room in LA.
Anyway, Kevin then tried to retrieve a pen from beneath the heavily oiled, well muscled thigh of one of the women, when Bob arrives. And Bob is staggering and clearly reeling from the effects of a datura overdose and he’s trying to read brief that he had written in his own blood, on the side of a fossilised Groper. It was difficult for him to read though, because the fish was upside down. The weird rthing is though, that this was just after 8am, and Bob usually never takes Datura before midday.
But then, there is a lot about today that is deviating from the norm – and you probably already know what a deviant Norman is, but he has run away, and nobody can find him. Then Pete walks in, rabbiting on about how fast the hands on our wall clock were moving. And he was right – whole hours were passing in what we used to know as 5 minutes. Weird man. And then the rumbling started. Oh dear. And this was followed by a strange purple light that started wafting from the photocopier.
And then we looked up and noticed, at last, a whole lot of babies – about 6 months old – and they were all glued to the ceiling, but we got distracted from them by Alan – who suddenly launched into an Aria – but he had a female mezzo soprano voice all of a sudden and it really was quite beautiful. So now it was about 11, and it sure was a strange day, you can count on that. But was it really today at all? Could this actually be tomorrow – accidentally programmed in advance – but accidentally slipping into today on some metaphysical level, a bit like Stephen King's Langoliers?
Or could it be the day after tomorrow – it was getting real hard to tell by now. I guess time will tell, but right now I can tell you that this is getting more difficult and I really don’t know if time will ever be able to tell, ever again. Because if time did tell, would it really be told? Or, tolled?
Anyway, as I write this, Kevin and Bob have started floating, totally defying gravity; but the weird thing is, they are holding hands! Oooh look, the purple light has gone out and that rumbling noise just stopped, thankfully. Oh dear, crikey – one of the lesbians just turned into a tenor saxophone. Oh no! And now Kevin is jamming persimmons into the sax to shut it up, and Diana just ate everyones cellphones.
Yep, I’ll tell you this for nothing – today sure is turning into a very weird day. One of the most unusual ones I’ve ever had and it aint even 2 o’clock yet.

I live in New Zealand, a multi-cultural society; the indigenous people being Maori. Most non - Maori New Zealanders descend from the English, who started colonising NZ from around 1860. Like most countries there have been some issues between the two groups, although I sincerely belive that we are, on a world scale, pretty good at respecting the indigenous culture; many of the wrongs of the past (eg. land confiscation) are being put right. And the Treaty of Waitangi, signed in the 1860's, is today being treated as 'current'. We have a way to go, but we are getting there. When the subject comes up, this is a story I like to tell:



A couple of thousand years ago, a group of Polynesians jumped in their waka and paddled South-East for a couple of thousand miles across the ocean to a land they had no idea existed.

Chance (or was it?) took them to 2 islands nestled under a long white cloud. Aotearoa. New Zealand.

Think about that for a moment.

What sort of courage and spirit did that adventure take?

To take to the Pacific for many months’ paddling without ever knowing if there was a land to be found. Never knowing what they would encounter. And knowing that when they stepped into that Waka, saying goodbye to loved ones – family and friends, those farewells would be final. They would never see those people again. Either they would find a new land or they would perish at the hands of the sea. There was no possibility of a return trip.

That is formidable spirit.

Now timeshift to about 165 years ago when a group of English people boarded a sailboat at Portsmouth’s harbour.

Their destination was a new land. Aotearoa, inhabited only by tribes of ‘natives’ or, ‘savages’ as was the disparaging term of the day.

This was another one way trip.

When these people said goodbye to their loved ones, family and friends, this too would be a final farewell. They would never see them again. There was scant, if any, chance of a return voyage.

To board that ship took a formidable spirit.

Perhaps we, the offspring of these two disparate groups of voyagers share more than we may suspect: our spirit. For since then, we have shared our blood and many of our people share the spirit and the makeup of these two groups. It is in our genes.

There was another aspect that was shared. Both groups were bred in a hierarchal society. Maori were warriors. Toa. The strong led. The weak were slaves. You accepted your position on the hierarchal scale without question.
This was Tikanga.

The English too, were hierarchal. Working class. Middle Class. Upper Class. You knew your place and stayed there. You moved only with your own. Tradesmen’s entrance.

This was the way of things.

Boarding the boat there were no upper classes, this was a strictly working class adventure with the allure of, perhaps, a better life.


The obvious happened when the two ‘tribes’ met. They both understood hierarchy.

But the English saw an immediate opportunity. For these natives were, in their opinion, stuck in the Stone Age. The English were from the Industrial Age – leagues ahead in ‘development’ as they saw it. That made them ‘better’.
It did not take the working class English long to establish a new hierarchy; one that they saw with themselves at the top of the order. Top dogs for the first time in their lives.

The respectful Maori were of course wooed somewhat by the English, by the ‘white man’s magic’. For these pale newcomers had a written language. Books – one called the Bible with a God that seemed to be The God. They wore fabrics, materials never seen before. They had eyeglasses. And, they had guns; unbelievably efficient weapons. It all seemed like magic. The deals were struck and Maori, very quickly, accepted their position in the new hierarchy. And that was squarely below the English.

And they did accept it. On the new criteria how could they possibly compete?


This was just five or six generations ago.

Following hierarchal rules, the Pakeha, the top o’ the heap, quickly and consistently cast Maori as second class to themselves. And because Maori were already subscribers to hierarchal structures, many of them believed they were second-class. Mostly, they accepted the status. No argument.

As did their children who were taught to accept the fact that they were second-class.

As did their children. And their children. And their children.

It is only with the most recent generations that this status has been, rightfully, challenged.

But, the price of this breeding, this belief, has been heavy.

First, understand this: It’s not that Maori did not want to compete with and equal Pakeha, it’s just that they did not believe they could.


This belief was then passed on through the generations.

And this is why Maori head the stats in the likes of failing at Education (a system that once outlawed their own language!). The stats in unemployment, crime and violence are, also, not good. Maori feature heavily.

But dammit, that was always going to happen in the system that started in around 1860. In any hierarchal culture, the stats will always be weighted heavily towards the lower classes. Always. Is that so hard to understand?

And ‘lower’ is exactly where those English - who disembarked the boat from Portsmouth – put the Maori.


It is time to rectify.

Where (some) Maori have been left behind, we need to open the path to a step up. At the same time we have to inspire any Maori that believes him or herself to be ‘lower class’, that this is not so. Ki te taumata.


* * * *

I am walking through a mall.

It is 1.37 am on a wet Tuesday morning and I am staggering a little. Drunk. Looking for a cab. My suit is crumpled.

I look up to see someone else, drunk, walking towards me. We are the only two people in the mall.

He is a big man.

He wears a leather jacket with a large logo on the back; wears it all the time.

He wears something else that he will never take off: a full face Moko.

I suddenly sober.

I have nothing in common with this man.

I feel intimidated, scared.

As we pass, I keep eyes down, praying that nothing happens.

But it does.

“Got a spare smoke bro?” he asks.

I give him a Dunhill Red, pass the lighter.

“Thanks man.”

“That’s cool.”

And on we walk. Phew!

Suddenly, I find that I am walking on the Moon. Totally alone. Strangely, there is air to breathe.

After days of walking, aimlessly, alone, I see him in the distance, walking towards me.

He is a big man.

He wears a leather jacket with a large logo on the back; wears it all the time.

He wears something else that he will never take off: a full face Moko.

I feel incredible joy.

I have everything in common with this man.

We are from the same place, yeah, that blue planet over yonder.

We run towards each other, laughing.

We hug.

We look back at Earth.

Yes, it is where we are from.

We share the same home.

We share the same spirit as our one-way-voyaging forbears, a spirit we have bred through generations.

Our planet is small, distant. Still blue.

Yet when we view it from the Moon, we instantly realise that the world is one small place. And that its people are one.

No matter how different, we are the same.

All it takes is a little perspective to realise it.

It is good to think about the things you like from time to time, if only to remind yourself of the fabulous and delightful things that make you happy.

Me? I like crowded, dark, sifty house bars with secret rooms out the back where people still smoke. And sitting there, right there at the bar drinking Brooktinis, I like to watch the smoke tapering like deleriously out of control jetstream vapour trails (slowed down by the power of one thousand) swimming from the glowing butts, nestled amid orange-stained fingers.

This place is where you’ll watch the mating dance of outrageously thin, snake-like, lesbian junkies and note that they resemble those tassles that hang from the nipples of Burlesque queens at the Moulin Rouge in Paris.

And it is here, right here, that thoughts of wicked things and wonderful adventures are born; hedonistic ideas germinating at the speed of electrocuted tadpoles - like time lapse scenes from a Richard Attenborough documentary about the secret life of plants.

Next day, enjoying a long black on the street, you hear the rumble from afar, and remind yourself that you love retro, Detroit-built V8’s.
Here we have chrome trade-shows on wheels, with doors a foot thick and huge metal shark fins housing more lights than the Ginza.
Speedometers stretch a good half kilometre across a (more chrome) ribbed and riveted dash, below which hangs – beckoning, no, beseeching you to fire up a Dunners Red – an ashtray the size of a wheelbarrow.

Oh, and back to that rumble. Eight giant pots singing a slow, sensual baritone that challenges the human hearing range, draining a good couple of litres of 98 with every sweep.

These are not just cars. They are monuments.

We call them 'She'.

They are just way too fabulous and delightful to be called 'He'.

;-)