Monthly Archives: May 2001

Letterbox Things

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When I lived in Mount Eden, I’d find all sorts of crazy stuff in my letterbox. Here are my favourites:

1. This letter turned up in my letterbox one Sunday afternoon. It was a little odd because it was hand written. The letter says that they had been unable to reach me at home, but I’d been at home all that day, so they obviously didn’t even try. The mysterious “B Evans” and his/her neat handwriting comes to the defence of the bible.

2. One day I found a little pamphlet with four sets of before and after shots of people who’d lost weight, most of them looking like Hispanic Americans. No company name was mentioned, there was only a blank space with a name and phone number written in biro. I hope the guy’s midget friend is still mates with him after his weight loss.

3. Another religious themed pamphlet, also in defense of the bible. It wasn’t as interesting as the hand-written letter, but I did dig the well-groomed gentleman engrossed in the holy word.

4. Nathan wants to give you a massage – but only if you’re a man. Like the bible letter, this one is hand written, but surely it would have been easier to write out one notice then make some photocopies? Or was he so desperate for cash (or perhaps for manflesh?) that he wrote them all out by hand?

Bad Magazine

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I’ve moved flats (again) and I’m now living in a reasonably classy neighbourhood. I found in my letterbox a magazine full of advertorial, hawking stuff that rich people are supposed to covet. It has a cover price of $5.50, but it distributed free to suburbs such as mine.

It seems to be written by a bunch of writers who have to engage in creative writing exercises to write the sort of articles that they think that rich wankers who lead busy, stressful lives and have too much money, would like to read.

It doesn’t quite come across as being real, though. It’s like those rap videos where the rappers sit around with all their possessions, drinking champagne, showing how they are livin’ large, but you know it’s just a front.

The results are some of the most hilarious and sickening sentences I’ve read in a long time.

The magazine’s editorial starts with a call to arms:

“The mornings are getting crisper and winter is creeping up. It’s time to buy snuggly woolies and new ski gear.”

New ski gear every year? But of course!

First up was a section on organics, with a handy section of commonly held myths regarding organic food. This was my favourite:

“Myth #2: It’s more expensive
-Wrong. We bought meat from an organic butchery in Auckland and then went to the supermarket and bought the same meat and the supermarket was more expensive. And the organic meat was much less fatty.”

How creative to present their research findings in the written style of an enthusiastic nine-year-old (“and then we went to the beach and it was cool and I had an ice cream and…”). It’s also interesting that they dis “the supermarket” but in an article on the same page they praise a supermarket for stocking a large range of organic products.

“Lothar says the hardest thing about buying produce today is that it often comes pre-wrapped in cellophane and as any good buyer knows, it is imperative that produce passes the ‘smell and sniff’ test to confirm that it is in peak condition and not past its prime.”

I sometimes buy produce wrapped in cellophane. I do not ‘smell and sniff’ produce before I buy it. I am bad.

“Just reading the bill of fare will send shivers of pleasurable anticipation through the most seasoned gastronome.”

They could have written “menu” instead of “bill of fare” and “food lover” instead of gastronome, but no. Simple, concise language isn’t the sort of thing that busy, stressed-out people understand.

“This has got to be a godsend for busy urbanites. You know the routine – long hours at the office, tired and travelling home in traffic, asking “What shall we do for dinner?” Here’s the answer.”

Whilst it might seems that the answer would be to quit your job and go and live on a kibbutz for a year and get your life back, the answer is actually just a more expensive version of meals on wheels.

My favourite item was a list of “fashion faux pas”, allegedly according to Coco Chanel. I say allegedly, because despite the fact that Ms Chanel died in 1971, item number 12 was “do not buy makeup on the internet.”

There was also a shopping hints page, sponsored by a credit card company. Hints included, “always carry a bottle of water. Shopping can be dehydrating and exhausting.”

From an article about a fashionable shopping street:

“The whole street engenders a feeling of community spirit – even the metre maid had a smile.”

It’s almost tempting to go there to see if I can find this 100 centimetre maid.

This description, of an apparent nightmare situation, started off an article for a panelbater:

“It’s often hard enough coming to terms with the fact that your beloved German sportscar has been rammed up the proverbial through no fault of yours, coping with the insurance companies and reams of paperwork, imagining being without wheels for weeks on end and, to top it off, realising that you’re late for a meeting.”

It’s like, oh crap, your car’s been hit, that’s bad. But wait, you’re late for a meeting, that’s, like, a total disaster, dude! And what, you can’t call the office and say “I’m not going to be able to make the meeting. I’ve been in a car crash.” Or will this panel beater be able to fix up your beloved Deutch mobile so you can make it back to the meeting?

A gaggle of drag-queens pose glamourously next to a car. The article first defines what a drag queen is:

“This differs from the sisters of drag, the “trannies” who live as women and therefore are women.”

I’m reluctant to call anyone with a penis a woman, but if some bad magazine says men who live as women are women, then it must be true.

A page offering tips for not spending too much on a wedding says:

“Use invitation stationery that’s light enough when assembled for delivery that it doesn’t require more than one stamp.”

According to New Zealand Post, the maximum weight for a standard letter is one kilogram, so I guess that rules out using granite tablets to chisel the invites onto.

In an article for car grooming products, a story is told of a valet who saw a dirty BMW pull up and was expecting an equally dirty driver.

“To his horror and amazement, a well-known personality stepped out of the car, designer clothing and picture-perfect hair, and handed over the keys.”

This event permanently scarred the valet, and “even now, some years on, he can’t see her photo in a magazine without first remembering that car.”

Two pages offer an adult section. The highlight being a stripper service, offering “strobe and neon lights, smoke machines, mirror balls and techno laser graphics,” in case seeing a naked lady isn’t exciting on its own.

An article about the joys of a Maserati tells of “a day in the country” and describes “heading south”. But the accompanying pictures show the car at Piha beach, which is neither rural nor south of Auckland.

“The New Zealand equivalent of London’s exclusive Notting Hill will soon stand as an integral component in the make up of Auckland City’s exclusive Viaduct Harbour.”

No, it won’t. It’s just another harbourside housing development. It won’t be anything like Notting Hill. There won’t be a multi-cultural street carnival. Julia Roberts will not fall in love with Hugh Grant in Freemans Bay.

“Our eldest daughter told us recently how much she enjoys the regular ‘family dinners’ held at our home.”

Why the scare quotes around ‘family dinners’? Could it be that they aren’t really family dinners, that it’s just someone sitting on their couch with an up-sized burger combo?

An article titled “Stop being a victim”, offers safety tips for women who are sick of feeling vulnerable. Highlights include:

“I am fed up with the limitations these evil-minded muggers and rapists put on our lives.”
“Self-defence courses for women are NOT martial arts schools.”
“Women have a very strong 6th sense, but it’s not often we heed it.”
“Be safe at home – e.g. don’t hop in the shower if the ranch slider is open.”
“We want our lives back without fear and intimidation.”

The social event pages bring us pictures of the beautiful people at such events as “New Years Day at the Tauranga Racing Club” and “Hillary and Tracey’s Farewell”.

The back cover has an ad for a sports car rental company. It features a photo of the back of a Porsche with three women standing in it bending over so their bums were on display. The incredibly witty caption read, “It’s a REAR thing to hire a Porsche.

A bunch of arse, really.

Bad Directions

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I have a car and a drivers license. Several of my friends don’t. So sometimes I find myself giving them lifts to places. I have eventually come to realise that people who don’t drive can be really bad navigators.

When walking is your primary mode of transport, you take the quickest route. You don’t have to worry about traffic lights, rush hour traffic or what lane to be in. You can go down a one-way street in the wrong direction, and if there’s a walkway at the end of a dead-end street, you can ignore that “No Exit” sign.

Here are four situations I’ve been in with non-driving bad directions-giving passengers.

The Impossible Right-Hand Turn

“Ok, now turn right up here.”

But it’s not just any right-hand turn. It’s a right-hand turn into a busy, four-laned road, in the middle of rush hour and the only way I have a chance of making that right turn is if I were to wait there for about two hours until the traffic dies down. So instead I make a left hand turn, with the plan being that I turn into the next street on the right, do a u-turn down that, and turn left back on to the road I was originally supposed to turn right down.

“No, I said turn RIGHT!!!”

The One-Way Street

“Turn down this street here.”

So I stick my indicator on and slow down and prepare to turn, but something’s wrong. There’s a no entry sign. That’s right, it’s a one-way street, and I’m about to drive down it the wrong way.

“I can’t go down here. It’s a one-way street.”
“Oh, um, well I guess you’ll have to take the next one. This is how I go when I walk.”

The Quickest Route

“Hey, where are you going? Shouldn’t you be going that way?”

Yes, but that way has five sets of traffic lights, where as this way has only two. That way also goes past the motorway on-ramp, which usually gets queues, and I don’t want to get stuck behind one of those. That way is quicker if you take a short cut through the big park, but as I’m not driving a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and as I think the city council wouldn’t be too happy about me driving all over the grass, I think I’ll stick to this way.

The Lack of Directions

“Go along here.”

Ok, I’m driving down this street, but the street is coming to and end pretty soon. I have three options; left, right or straight. I need to know which way to go so I can get into the correct lane. The passenger is in the middle of telling me a funny story.

“Then we left the party and…”
“Where do I go now?”
“What?
“Where do I go now? Left, right or straight?”
“Ummm…”
“Shall I just stop here in the middle of the street until you make up your mind?”
“Go left!”

Too late. I missed the left turn lane. Straight ahead it is.

The Lack of Warning

“Turn left, now!”

Suddenly the passenger sees the street I’m supposed to turn down and tells me. However, if I were to attempt to turn down it, I’d have to suddenly slam on the brakes, and jerk the steering wheel hard to the left. I used to trust people’s timing and once ended up driving up on a concrete island at a service station because I thought “turn in here” meant “you have enough stopping distance to safely turn in here now.”

Bath

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Go to your favourite search engine and do a search for the phrase “pamper yourself”. No wait, don’t. It’s a far too terrible thing to inflict upon an innocent net surfer.

If you were to do that search, you’d find an assortment of links, most of which are encouraging the person reading it to, indeed, pamper herself.

From this, it seems that the act of pampering takes many forms. Sometimes it’s a weekend away at a health resort, sometimes it’s curling up on the couch watching an old Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy film, other times it’s drinking a cup of herbal tea.

But it seems that the most common, most mentioned form of pampering, the uber pamper is a long, hot bath, preferably by candlelight. A wet dream if ever there was one.

Like some people use drugs or alcohol to mask their troubles, others use herbal lavender fizzy bath balls with natural botanical extracts.

There are two kinds of baths. There’s a bath taken as a means of cleaning the body. These aren’t so common, as showers make cleaning youself quicker and easier. Then there’s the bath taken as a recreational activity, which has created the cult of bath.

The whole idea is that in this modern world we live in, everything is really fast-paced, hectic and stressful. But all this fast-paced hectic stress can be magically undone by submersing the body in a tub full of warm water. No wait, something is missing. There also needs to be candles (electric light is too stressful, apparently), some incense or essential oils wafting around, some bubble bath (or is it a foaming soak?), and maybe some jazz or other background music to add to the bath experience.

The cult of bath has grown in recent years. Bubble bath, the former domain of little kids (“make bathtime fun time!”) and large bosomed women with bouffant hair-dos and champagne glasses, has become totally mainstream.

Producing bubbles isn’t enough for a modern bubble bath. There has to be something else to give it that extra special touch. Natural ingedients are important. Even if the amount of rose extract is so small that by the time it gets in the water it’s practically non-existant with dilituion, that doesn’t matter. It’s something real and natural in this fast-paced, hectic, stressful world.

Also important is for the bubble bath to have an aromatherapy componant. This basically translates to a really strong smell. The idea being that soothing smells make people feel better. They also make people smell like cheap bubble bath.

Then there’s colourtherapy, which is just an excuse to dye the bubble bath garish shades of orange, and somehow the get-up-and-go of the colour orange will soak through to the bath-taker.

The cult of the bath has started to infiltrate shower culture too. When is hot water not soothing and relaxing? When it’s 7.00am and it’s spraying at you from a shower nozzle. The wonderful world of shower gel is the flipside of bubble bath. The ingredients are mostly the same, the only difference being that while bubble bath relaxes, shower gel invigourates.

I’ve noticed at my local supermarket the flavours of shower gel that always seem to sell the most are the ones that purport to be the shower-gel-equivalent of a cup of coffee. They are usually orange in colour and have a citrus fragrance. Grapefruit is popular, possibly as an alternative to eating one for breakfast. But, just as coffee isn’t a substitute for sleep, neither is shower gel.

My favourite cheap-crap shop has an exceptionally large range of bad bubble bath. For small dollar amounts you can buy really cheap-arse bubble bath. The packaging of some stuff is amazing. Some bottles come on sushi rolling mats and a pseudo feng shui design, others have bits of twine wrapped around to give it an earthy look.

There’s also stuff that gets described with phrases like “soothing muscle soak”. Well, I think it’s really the skin that’s being soaked in it. But it they’re going to include stuff that’s under the skin, it could be “caressing kidney soak” or “luscious lung lather”. Could there be a market for that?

Taking a bath can be really nice, but all the candles, bubble bath and other acoutrements won’t really make it anything other than a tub full of hot water. Like booze or drugs, a hot bath won’t make the troubles of the world go away, but it might make them seem less significant.

And remember: a bath may feel soothing, but it’s only one degree of separation from a spa pool full of fat people.

Footpath

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I walk these city streets, man. I see things. The pavement under my feet, it tells a story. Oh bollocks, the only story the footpath tells is “Hi, I’m really dirty and I have a bunch of chewing gum and cigarette butts on me.”

What this is really about is various amusing anecdotes that have occurred to me as I’ve trod down the many footpaths of this city. And places that the footpaths lead to. (And other non-footpath related things, but it’s nice to pretend there’s a theme).

Tablecloth
I was in Wendys and there was this really fat – obese – family eating at a table near me. There were three huge women, probably two sisters and a mother. Running around and eating was a bunch of overweight children. One kid packed a mental and one fat lady smacked it. Fat gran was wearing a t-shirt and what looked like a table cloth wrapped around her waist, although I doubt it was because surely table cloths aren’t made that large?

Funny Boat Name
I saw a boat down at the wharves with “Scandinavian Reefers” painted on its side. Ja møn.

The Lame Side
You know what there’s too much of? Cartoons in the style of Gary Larson’s “The Far Side” cartoons. One panel, a picture of something kind of wacky, and a caption like “Mildred did not remember leaving a squid in charge.” The difference being that Gary Larson’s cartoons were funny where as the crap copies aren’t. If someone gives you a birthday card with one of those cartoons on it, hate them.

Accidental
There’s that ad for RNZAF recruitment and in it one of the happy Air Force members says “I joined the Air Force by accident, but it’s no accident that I stayed.” I’ve seen that ad many times at the movies and every time there’s always been someone in the audience who says “How do you accidentally join the airforce?!”

Reinvention
Arse to the concept of reinvention. Whenever Madonna gets a haircut and wears new clothes people say, “Oh, she’s reinvented herself again!”. The concept of reinvention seems big with women in their 40s. Once the divorce is final they change their name from Shona or Margaret to Rae or Lene, take up yoga, switch to soya milk lattes and organic foods and join the exciting world of real estate sales.

Comedian
Overheard in Atomic Cafe, Ponsonby Road: “I’ll always remember this woman in Paihia who said, “Oh, you’re a comedian. My son went to school with Michael Havoc!” because he’s a comedian!”

Glitter
Madam, do you approve of your eight-year-old daughter dressing like a fa’afafine?

A Man
There are those women’s magazines like Cosmo and Cleo who have articles about how to get “a man”. Not a boyfriend, partner, husband or lover, just a man. Adult male, that’s all that required. Do you know how to pick the right man? You’ll know ‘cos he’ll have this indescribable quality (i.e. he cried during that movie you saw) that makes him The One. Magazines then set out to describe what you need to do to get you a man (i.e. not be a fat slag who dresses bad). There are also articles about freaky mutant couples (“He’s a 37-year-old street sweeper, she’s a 19-year-old tax accountant. It was love at first site.”) Go away.

Cornwallis
It’s 3.30 pm. It’s so cold my hands are numb. A mere three months ago it was so hot that me and my flatmates jumped in the car and headed to Cornwallis Beach. It was a lovely afternoon. Cards, potato chips and beer. The warm water of the Manukau harbour washing upon the gold and black sand. Cool things, like driving past the water reservoir dam on the way there, and the noise of the aeroplanes taking off at the other side of the harbour. I need something the opposite of that to do on a day like today.

Zero
During the bright pink and hap-hap-happy Hero parade, where everyone kept reciting the “Love who you are” slogan, I thought it would be choice to have a Zero parade (to which no one shows up, of course) with the slogan “Be mildly disgusted with who you are”. So true.

Chamber of Silence
I went to the Auckland University sound lab once when they had an open day a few years ago. We went in two rooms. One was The Chamber of Sound, which had all concrete walls at funny angles, and it was so noisy. It was excellent to sing “The Banana Boat Song” in there. The other place was The Chamber of Silence, which was covered with foam wedges. Above the floor was a metal mesh, so below that there could be wedges. We all sat down on the floor and the guide turned the lights off and it was so black and so very very quiet.

Bi
There was a sign outside a strip club that read:

Sexy men
Hot women

And in little letter above “men” and “women” someone had chalked in “bi” twice. Obviously just being sexy and hot were not enough to get the punters in.

Wicked
Overheard in David’s Emporium (a legendary Hamilton bargain store): “The prices have gone up something wicked! The screws are ten cents each!”

Joules
Two women were sitting near me at the movies. One skinny, one fat. The fat one was eating from a bag of family-sized lollies. The skinny one was sipping on a bottle of flavoured mineral water. That’s how it works.

Drug Bores
You know what’s really lame? People who brag about drugs they’ve taken. “Ya ya, so I dropped a tab of acid and then the ceiling turned into symphony of love.” I was at a party and there was a bunch of people just sitting around talking about how many rad drugs they’d all taken. Then my friend and I started mocking them, like, “Oh yeah, I snorted five grams of marijuana, and I have tractor marks on my arm cos I’m a hard core E user, eh?” In conclusion, shut up about your groovy drug experiences because a) no one cares and b) you sound like a boring hippy.

Critique
Upon leaving the theatre after seeing “Hannibal,” I overheard two girls having this conversation:

“That freaked me out cos it challenges your definition of evil.”
“I thought it sucked.”

One Liner
Also, you know that movie “Chocolat”? Plotwise, it’s just like “Footloose”, but with chocolate instead of Bacon. (Ha ha).

Zoo
You know how people talk about how zoos have improved so much since the bad old animals-in-concrete-cages days, when animals were put on display for the amusement of humans. And how it’s so much better these days, because they are in natural conditions and can partake in breeding programs. Well, um, y’know most domestic cats have more room to move than the lions at the zoo do. And what is natural about transporting animals halfway around the world to a different climate? It’s still the same. It’s just animals put on display for the amusement of humans, only with better conditions. Tee hee! Look at the funny monkeys!

Education
Also, why is it deemed so important that children learn about animals? Why do parents and teachers have this obsession with exposing kids to animals? I grew up on a farm. We had cows and chickens. I hated it and I wanted to live in the city. You know what it taught me about life, etc? That people kills cows and eat them. Yeah, you can say I had a fairly hardcore upbringing.

Arse
Also, this was from the entrance to the Auckland Zoo aquarium:

“Our liquid planet glows like a soft blue sapphire.”

a) Someone wrote that.
b) Someone else approved it.
c) Someone, a human being, wrote that, with no apparent sense of irony or expression of shame or regret.

Culture Jamming
In the “McDonald’s Rainforest” there was an info board with “Who Causes Deforestation?” and under it “We all do!” but between the two lines some crafty culturejammer had written “McDonalds”.

Waitemata Plaza
There’s an area down by Freeman’s Bay/Viaduct Basin and the walkway along it is called “Waitemata Plaza”. I think that sounds like a suburban shopping centre. The sort of one that would have been built in the early seventies with the best intentions, but the neighbourhood went downhill and all the shops have roller doors now. And no one ever calls it “Waitemata Plaza”, it’s just “the shops”.

Small Print
“I bought it without really reading the label. It says it should be used in conjunction with a healthy diet that’s low in saturated fat. But from the ads, I got the impression that you could eat as much of it as you like.”

A fellow sitting near me at a food court discovers the horrible truth about a low cholesterol spread.

Destroy
I was walking down the steps in Myers Park. On a flat, terraced part someone had spray painted “DESTROY CAPITALISM” and the anarchy symbol. Coming up the steps towards me were two bros. One stopped and looked at the graffiti. “Anarchy…. Destroy Capitalism….,” he said to the other. “Well, I know what destroy means, but I still don’t know what capitalism is.” And that, my friends, is why the revolution will not be taking place any time soon