Other People

                         People Like That

On the morning of kerbside collection day

a thirty-something bloke wearing skaties

and some team’s bright-blue strip

drove his station wagon to the end of the driveway,

opened the boot,

carried his black rubbish sack

to where the neighbours’ refuse was already ensconced,

tossed it on top,

returned to the boot and carried two recycling bins,

one in each hand, to the kerbside location,

and tossed them, too.

A large empty Sprite bottle bounced out of one of them,

but he left it lying on the ground.

Next he went and grabbed a loose handful of stuff for the Paper Chain

and tossed it, too,

not even bothering to appreciate how it scattered.

Then he climbed back into his car

and drove back up the driveway to his house.

                  Academics

She had considerable intelligence,

but her intellect wasn’t shit.

She clung fiercely to preconceived notions

and assumed that her prejudices

were real and made sense,

even when they weren’t.

Now, of course,

she’s a PhD and an associate professor somewhere

in one of the social sciences.

She disliked me from the start.

He asserted his confident opinion

ostensively about a piece of music,

basing it on a glib and amusing

observation about the ages

of those on the recording,

and the recording’s sociological position

without any mention

of the musical factors involved.

He was the sort of fringe academic

who could slide the word ‘discourse’

into his ordinary, everyday, well,

discourse,

and do it so naturally

that he could almost make it

sound less pompous and affected than it was.

His tendency to look and sound jolly helped.

He was good on committees

and was always in tune

with the academic fashions of the day,

but he promoted a ludicrously unlikely ideology,

employed pathetically sophistic argumentation,

and in his private life preferred superstition to science.

         Pissing Into The Ocean

The death of any morally inferior person

responsible for widespread

death, destruction, and misery

means little.

More will always appear on the scene

to carry on with the ugliness.

                       Jorge Is So Cool

He’s the boss.

Every day those other dudes in their various ritual drag,

they’re supposed to be in a serious, “Jump?

Yes, Boss! How High?” when he speaks.

Shit, you know there’s back-bitin and back-stabbin

and all that other personal self-promotion

that goes on in huge organisations goin on all around him.

He’s locked in on tying to use this antique organisation

that’s more or less under his authority

to cut the bullshit in which it’s accustomed to wallowing

and do what it says it’s supposed to do.

One of his biggest obstacles, of course,

is the bullshit inherent in the reason for his organisation’s existence.

He does his best, though,

or so it seems,

to set a good example

and do the maximum good, as he sees it,

and his personal values and biases

seem to be mostly based on empathy and decency,

based on that foundation

of rotting, hypocritical evil

that gives him his willing global audience.

          I Know It Wasn’t His Fault …

He was well-mannered, even deferential –

unusual for a door-to-door salesman –

knocking at my outer gate

rather than letting himself into the patio

and then knocking at my door,

as all the rest have always done.

He introduced himself politely

with a subcontinental lilt in his voice,

but when he said he was from Telecom,

which during the early days of dial-up internet

had ripped off one of my teen-age daughters for thousands,

I had to tell him that I don’t do business with Telecom

because they’re a bunch of fuckin’ thieves.

He smiled as best he could and backed off.

I suppose even nice young men

have to take whatever jobs they can get

nowadays.

      Gotta Find Somebody To Blame

not much work lately

he doesn’t really know why

gotta find somebody to blame –

anybody not like him will do

better take somebody’s word for it.

fuckin job’s a fuckin drag

the pay is shit for what she does

and she has to take a bunch of crap

from dumbasses who aren’t half as smart as she is

gotta find somebody to blame –

anybody not like her will do

better take somebody’s word for it.

a sign on a tree near his favourite spot

says the river’s not clean enough to fish in

and that people shouldn’t let their dogs drink from it

gotta find somebody to blame –

anybody not like him will do

better take somebody’s word for it.

winter power bill

means no warm coats that fit the kids

or new shoes for anyone

shortened rations, too

gotta find somebody to blame –

anybody not like her will do

better take somebody’s word for it.

             I Used To Be An Actor

I see these actors

promoting the neo-fascist government’s

anti-democratic policies

in TV ads designed to make the whole cynical

power-junkie greedhead rip-off

of people just like those actors

seem as wholesome and everyday

as porridge or muesli in the morning.

I always knew that actors were whores,

but I wonder if I would’ve been desperate enough

to stoop that low

back when I drove up to Auckland

for auditions.

             Heroes and Role Models

I suppose my daddy was really a hero for me,

protecting me from my mother when he could,

but he died when I was nine.

Otherwise I’ve had as heroes

the usual panoply of athletes and rock-and-rollers,

then satirists and writers and artists,

and pacifists and people who stand up to bullies

(I don’t recall ever hero-worshipping any actors).

Many of these have been more or less transient admirations,

fading – sometimes with their notoriety

and sometimes as I have gone on to other things.

My daddy could only be a partial role model for me, though,

renaissance man that he was,

as the directions of our talents

only partially overlapped,

and I never knew him from an adult perspective.

I actually met and became friendly over time

with two of my grown-up heroes:

Frank Zappa and Charles Bukowski,

but neither of them could be a role model,

both being unique personalities and talents

it would be fatuously impossible to emulate.

                       My Role Models

I’ve never had a real role model,

so I’ve constantly had to invent myself.

Okay, for a while there in the mid-seventies

when I was doing some voice-talent work in radio commercials,

I sought to emulate Mel Blanc,

the Man of 1,000 Voices from the Warner Brothers cartoons,

but it was too big an ask

with no real encouragement to keep me at it,

so ‘That’s all, folks!’

Now that I spend my time composing and performing

bagatelles made of words

in an effort to connect with audiences of any size,

I’ve adopted as my role model

a heavyweight boxer from the fifties, sixties, and seventies

named George ‘Scrap Iron’ Johnson.

Scrap Iron had 22 wins, 27 losses, and five draws.

He got beaten by every big name of the period except Ali,

lasting seven rounds against George Foreman,

the full ten against Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry,

and beat most of the rest.

He was durable and known for being able to take punishment

and always coming forward,

head down,

slugging away.

Nothing fancy.

That’s the way I aspire to write.

              Times Change, But …

Back in the early 90s,

not long after they made it an offence

for a driver to allow a passenger

to ride without a seatbelt and shoulder harness,

I drove a muso, with whom I was acquainted

because he helped his builder brother

on a job at my house,

to get lunch.

He didn’t like it when I told him

that he had to click it on.

“It’s a freedom thing with me,” he explained.

“It’s an intelligence thing with me,” I explained back,

adding that if he wanted a sandwich and chips

he’d wear it.

I wonder if,

seventeen or eighteen years later,

he still avoids wearing them

unless directly coerced.

                             Pride

Clem had ‘White Pride’ tattooed onto his neck.

Phil says it loud – he’s black; he’s proud.

Missi proudly hung copies of her generally unreadable article

that an obscure academic journal had published

onto the door to her cramped, windowless office at the uni.

Mikhail is proud of the size of his dick.

Marci is proud of having a positive attitude.

Steve is proud of his Jewish heritage and ethnicity.

Nancy is proud of staying sober for thirty years.

Barry always marches in the Gay Pride parade.

Katrina is proud of losing 15 kilos.

Matt is proud of his new Jaguar –

it’s British racing green.

Sue is proud of her boobs.

I’m proud that both of my daughters

grew up to be good people,

even though I wish I’d been a better parent.

Tens of millions of people are aggressively proud to be Americans.

I myself am proud that I legally renounced that country,

and have an allegiance only with New Zealand.

Uruguay might have been better, though, or Costa Rica,

but my Spanish isn’t good enough.

More of This Sporting Life

                      Partisan Supporters

English and German football spectators

seem, on TV at least, to be crowded together

there in the stadium grandstands,

at least in the top-level leagues.

They often sing non-stop

in unison,

unless their team’s being hammered.

The German crowds

sometimes jump up and down

in unison

for the full ninety minutes –

plus injury time added on.

It certainly adds enormous atmospherics

and a sense of occasion

to every match.

They seem to be there

more for the social bonding

than to watch the game,

and I’m sure it provides them

with psychological benefits galore.

I’d hate to be amongst them, though,

myself.

                   Awarding Points

Whenever I took a squizz at the sport channel

and there before me was the image of yet another

snowboarder, skateboarder, BMX cyclist,

or some other repetitive-stunt sportoid performer

having fun once more sliding

down a banister or some other railing

and pretending that it’s serious sporting competition,

I surprise myself that I manage to refrain

from throwing something at the screen.

Judges should award points for this.

                        My Role Models

I’ve never had a real role model,

so I’ve constantly had to invent myself.

Okay, for a while there in the mid-seventies

when I was doing some voice-talent work in radio commercials,

I sought to emulate Mel Blanc,

the Man of 1,000 Voices from the Warner Brothers cartoons,

but it was too big an ask

with no real encouragement to keep me at it,

so ‘That’s all, folks!’

Now that I spend my time composing and performing

bagatelles made of words

in an effort to connect with audiences of any size,

I’ve adopted as my role model

a heavyweight boxer from the fifties, sixties, and seventies

named George ‘Scrap Iron’ Johnson.

Scrap Iron had 22 wins, 27 losses, and five draws.

He got beaten by every big name of the period, except Ali,

lasting seven rounds against George Foreman,

the full ten against Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry.

He was durable and known for being able to take punishment

and always coming forward,

head down,

slugging away.

Nothing fancy.

That’s the way I aspire to write.

Taking Pride In One’s Appearance

I saw a UK rugby league player on TV

with a sculpted hairdo

greased so stiff

that it kept its shape

no matter how much

violent contact

the bloke got into,

and rugby league is a hard-ass sport.

I wondered if he used it

as a weapon

and if it would shatter

if somebody were

to hit it with a hammer.

          Droll Sport

Watching a Fox

Memorial Shield

amateur league match

on the Maori Channel,

it seemed odd to me

that all the big blonde blokes

were playing for the Barracudas

and that all of the Vikings

were Polynesians.

              Sports Announcer Intelligence

Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?

Back when I lived in the old country

I used to joke that to get a job as a sports announcer

applicants had to take an intelligence test

and fail it.

This seemed especially accurate with retired athletes.

Here in Aotearoa, however,

I’ve admired two notable exceptions –

Peter Williams, who as far as I know

had just been an amateur golfer,

but then they moved him to doing straight news,

and Wairangi Koopu on Maori TV,

a former rugby league standout,

whose mind works rapidly, with a great sense of humour,

and comes up with surprisingly deep insights.

I only wish I could understand his commentary

when he’s speaking Te Reo Maori.

                  This Is Not A Quiz

Tuning on the TV on a Sunday afternoon

to women’s club softball,

with the sound off, of course,

I watched a replay of a game I’d seen the previous season.

One team’s pitcher was a huge, glowering bear of a woman,

who could’ve easily intimidated me physically

if I were to meet her face to face.

The other team’s pitcher was cute

and had remarkably pretty legs.

No prize for guessing whose team won.

            Goal Celebrations

Watching highlight videos

of some spectacular and skilful football goals

over the decades

I wondered,

never having scored any kind of goal myself,

if the choice of celebration techniques

is really so limited

that the players have no choice but to go through

the same small number

of repetitive, ritualistic, bullshit motions

year after fucking year.

Maybe it’s because they idolised

the star players of their childhoods

so much that they feel obliged

to copy their behaviour?

                    Vroom! Vroom!

Watching the TV promos

for motor so-called sport shows,

it strikes me vividly that no matter what the medium,

whether motorcycles or modified stock cars or Formula 1

or whatever,

those promos always include ample servings

of the objectification of young female bodies

on the barely-covered-asses-and-tits level,

with plenty of exposed belly buttons, of course.

            Basketball Is His Life

He dreams of diamonds and grateful charities,

of fashions and fast cars and eating caviar

– whatever that is –

although he now has just one pair of shoes

and eats white bread on lunchmeat every night;

his teachers write him off as dull and a dreamer;

the bullies make fun of his glasses.

He doesn’t care.

‘Basketball is my life,’ he says.

He can hear the crowds erupt with love

and sign endorsements that gobble up his time.

His parents are both working day and night,

jobs that feel and pay like death,

as he works on his spin moves and his bombs

till the playground lights switch off.

 ‘Basketball is my life,’ he says.

In his sleep he thrills to dreams

of muscling dominant in-your-face

slam-dunks and rejections against superstars,

yet he has no idea how big he’ll grow,

if he’ll wind up NBA-sized at all,

or only grow to be too short to get a contract

in the Paraguayan or Kazakhstan leagues.

He doesn’t care.

‘Basketball is my life,’ he says.

He can almost feel the caresses and the lips

of the angel-faced, toned-bodied bikini babes

at holiday spots for the global elite.

He doesn’t care that more than a half a million boys in the US

make their high school basketball teams,

while only a handful break through each year in the NBA,

about a quarter of them from other countries.

He doesn’t care at all.

‘Basketball is my life,’ he says.