Robyn’s Secret Passage

I woke up on my bathroom floor. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was an ant crawling over an empty toilet roll. The last thing I remembered was taking my fifteenth tab of acid during the elimination section of “Miss Popularity” (Who got kicked out? Was it An-Ya?).

Scribblings in my notebook suggest that at sometime on Monday I briefly visited Gore, but this does not explain the receipt for Shell Pukete in Hamilton showing a purchase of a mince and cheese pie and Mountain Dew at 3.49am on Sunday morning. Nor does it explain the apparent shopping list written in my notebook in someone else’s handwriting - toilet paper, yes; dog food, no.

I consulted my next-door neighbour, Marvin the Psychic. He knows things, so I thought maybe he’d be able to shed some light on what happened to me over the last few days.

“Yo, Marvin,” I flirtatiously purred, “What’s up? What happened to me?”

“Oh, baby,” he said, putting his hookah down. “Ain’t you heard the news? Hunter S Thompson, he be dead.”

Wiping a solitary tear from my mascara-streaked eye, I looked up on the wall behind Marvin and saw a framed piece of embroidery. Marvin took the embroidery down and handed it to me along with a 40oz of malt liquor. The simple cross-stitch read:

“I’ve always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it’s a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don’t do much giggling.” ~ Hunter S Thompson, 1937 - 2005.

I spent last weekend watching the Live Aid DVD. I had been planning on going out and doing stuff (and indeed I did get a bit of stuff done on Sunday), but once I started watching it, I soon realised that I would have to watch all four discs. There was no other way.

I was 10 years old on 13 July, 1985 (which I suppose was 14 July here), when Live Aid happened. I remember watching it, but I don’t specifically remember much about it. The main memory I have of it is a bit from the studio stuff that linked the live performances - an American reporter talked about an Ethiopian woman who had to decide which of her twin babies would die, as there was only enough food to feed one.

Oh yeah, it was all in aid of the terrible famine that ravaged Ethiopia. The DVD has the BBC news item that showed the extent of the famine and lead to Bob Geldof organising Band Aid, and then Live Aid. Now, I don’t know too much about this, but my understanding is that three years of drought had mainly caused the famine, but the political situation in Ethiopia, and then lack of aid from other countries made the famine much worse. Over one million people died. Over US$245 million was raised through Live Aid.

But back to Live Aid. Rockin’ live via satellite around the world from Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, it was massive and the DVD manages to convey the massiveness of it all. Because of its massiveness, I’ve decided to just pick my favourite things from it.

Boomtown Rats - I Don’t Like Mondays
Bob Geldof comes out looking all pale and skinny in tight, worn-out black jeans and a baggy chambray shirt. He sings “I don’t like Mondays” in overwrought rockstar style, but it’s ok because he organised the whole day, so he can do what he likes. After the song he says, “I’ve just realised that today is the best day of my life.” This acknowledges the massiveness of the event, but also the fact that he probably figured he’d never again get to perform in front of an audience that big. I would also like to add that this was one of my favourite songs when I was 5, except I thought it was “I don’t like money.”

Spandau Ballet - True
Like a few bands who played at Live Aid, Spandau Ballet never managed much further success, but here they were at their peak. Martin Kemp wears a long Matrix-style coat and looks much paler than his drama-thug persona on British TV today. The opening chords of “True” start and the audience cheers. Soon everyone’s singing along and has a lovely, blissed-out, summer afternoon good time.

U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday
One thing I like about Live Aid is the pleasant realisation that a lot of the bands playing had not yet written their worst songs. U2’s “Rattle and Hum” era is but a distant twinkle in Bono’s then non-sunglassed eyes. “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is a fantastic political song that stirs my Irish blood. It’s even better when it’s done live and Bono gets the crowd chanting “No more!”

Nik Kershaw - Wouldn’t It Be Good
He’s introduce as “a young British artist who’s never had anything but hits.” I’m sure the DVD editors were having a bit of a laugh when they included this, because as we all know, he didn’t have any more hits. You don’t get pop stars like Nik Kershaw any more - he sang, wrote his own songs, played the guitar and was really cute. I imagine he was also having the best day of his life as he performed “Wouldn’t it be good.”

Madonna - Into The Groove
Introducing Madonna, Bette Midler describes her as “a woman whose name has been on everyone’s lips for the last six months.” This is the only performance that I remember from the first time around, which is probably because back in ‘85 I was a huge Madonna fan. I remember being disappointed because she didn’t sound as good as the music video. And indeed, it’s a really rough performance, so raw and unslick. But even though she didn’t sound great, she had this energy and spunk that soon revealed itself to be a powerful driving force that got her en route to world domination.

The Cars - Just What I Needed
So I was sitting there on my couch and had skipped past Black Sabbath and Judas Priest performances and was almost ready to skip through the Cars when Benjamin Orr started singing the seven-year-old “Just What I Needed” and I had an eargasm. I’d only known the kind of boring chorus, but the rest of the song all fits together perfectly. The Cars are my new favourite band.

Neil Young - The Needle And The Damage Done
In a relatively quiet and sedate moment, Neil Young came out with his guitar and performed this simple yet powerful song. It’s hard to get an entire stadium rocking to a song about the ravages of heroin abuse, but on this day, Neil Young managed it.

Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight
Phil plays with Sting at Wembley, then jumps on Concorde, flies over to Philly and is the only person to perform at both Live Aid venues. Sitting at a Steinway, he plays a stripped-down version of “In the air tonight”. At the part where that big drum part would normally burst in, he turns to the audience who yell out “doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo” in its place.

Fashion
A lot of the British performers have this particular hair style. It’s not a mullet - that description is too tame. It’s long at the back, shorter (but not short-short) at the sides, and long-ish on top. The hair on top is fluffed up high, the hair at the sides is feathered out, and the hair at the back either hangs down straight or a is luxuriant mane of curls. In fact, so common is this hair cut, that the only performer who stands out as not having it is the sleek-bunned Sade.

The sunglasses du jour were Rayban Wayfarers. The very hip had them with mirror lenses. Wayfarers have a certain style to them and have gone in and out of fashion over the years. It’s kind of painful thinking about them at the moment, because now is one of the out-of-fashion phases. I even had a pair of Wayfarers in 1990 I thought they were the shit, which they were five years earlier.

While the British tended to have big hair, many American performers had the big suits. The cornerstone of the big suit were the big, broad shoulders. From the shoulders flowed the suit, usually made of a light-coloured, boldly patterned fabric. Even Madonna was wearing a big suit, albeit with a cropped top under it.

Missing from the line-up were any of the sort of R&B singers that are everywhere today (yay?). There were no rappers as part of the main show, but Run DMC brilliantly performed “The King of Rock” as a warm up for the Philadelphia audience, and that’s included as a special feature on the DVD (yay!).

And yeah, it wasn’t all good music. Patti La Belle is guilty of a screechy performance the losing entrant in a drag queen talent show. But considering what it was in aid of, I’m happy for even Dire Straits to be on the bill. It was massive day for music, and, yeah, the world.

I’d noticed a woman on the bus that I get to work when I’m doing the early morning shift. She’s probably in her late 30s, if not 40, is nicely groomed, wears smart business clothes and has long hair just past her shoulders.

One day she sat in front of me and I spent the bus ride looking at her hair. The colour was nice, but it had a kind of wiry texture to it. I realised that it’s that kind of wiry hair that younger women never really seem to have. I didn’t think too much about it until a few weeks later when I was getting my hair cut.

I complained to my hairdresser that my hair had gone really strange. I’ve always had curly sections and straight sections, but now it seemed that the hair on top of my head was really straight and the hair underneath was really curly. I was expecting a simple answer like that it was colour damage or the humidity, but instead she asked me how old I was.

She explained that around the age of 30, there’s a slight hormonal change in women that, among other things, affects hair, so it was possible that that had started with me, and then she skilfully cut my hair in such a way that the textural contrasts were barely noticeable.

My theory is that your body puts time and effort into making you pretty in your teens and 20s to help snare a mate, but figures that you’ve probably got one by the time you reach your 30s, so it can concentrate on other things.

Suddenly it all made sense. The lady on the bus probably had really lovely silky tresses when she was younger. She probably refused to give up her hair style, even though it was all wiry and pubic-textured.

It’s a little bit sad thinking that maybe I’ll never quite have the same hair that I used to have, but now that I know this little piece of information, I can avoid being an old lady with scraggly long hair.

Here’s an approximate translation of yesterday’s entry:

I speak French (me neither)

It was very hot and humid today. When I left the office at 3.30, it was like leaving an aeroplane in a place like Thailand or Hawaii, but it was Auckland, city of humidity.

I was subtitling a television programme with lots of French in it and I was surprised at how much I understood. I decided to use my French skillz and write an entry in French. (I spelled ’skills’ with a Z, because I’d spell ’skillz’ with a Z in English).

Of course, my French isn’t really this good (if it is good). I use help from my good friend, Mr Babelfish.

On the subject of language, I saw a sign in the female toilets at Britomart in five languages - English, Maori, Samoan, Chinese, and Japanese (but not French).

I was going to go to the gym today, but instead I went to the supermarket. (OMG! Supermarket is my favourite French word! It is very choice. Oh, yes, I remember Mrs Papworth telling my third form French class how to pronounce ‘choice’ the French way.)

Maybe I’ll translate this tomorrow. (Also, any corrections are welcome.)

To celebrate the 165th anniversary of the founding of Auckland, I decided to visit the three attractions at Western Springs.

MOTAT
The last time I visited MOTAT was… probably sometime in the late ’80s, so I was expecting it to be different from then. But strangely enough, it wasn’t.

The place was dirty, dusty and falling apart. Compared to other science museums I’ve visited, like the Powerhouse in Sydney, Scienceworks in Melbourne, or even Exscite in Hamilton, MOTAT is a dull waste of time and money.

For example, there’s a collection of old trams, but that’s all they are. Just a shed full of old trams and buses and a few boards with photos of things like tram enthusiasts from the 1970s. No one is allowed on the get on the trams and buses, there’s little to help people imagine what it was like hooning around Auckland in, say, the 1930s.

All the potentially cool interactive stuff that kids like playing with is getting worn out. Equipment was dusty and dull in the ’80s grey colour scheme. Computer-based exhibits looks like they’re running on a Commodore-64. There was a room full of old electric equipment, but, really, who would find a selection of rusting old stoves to be interesting? I’d rather see something like a replica of a New Zealand house from the early days of electricity, all kitted out with newfangled radios, refrigerators and ovens.

Someone needs to throw $10 million at MOTAT and turn it from something that looks like it’s (and maybe even is) run entirely by volunteers, and into a really cool science museum that will actually be really enjoyable to visit.

Western Springs
Then I walked along to the adjacent Western Springs park. I’ve only previously been there during the Pasifika festival, so it was nice to experience the park without hundreds of people crowding around (though I missed the corned beef).

From my visit to MOTAT I had learned that the lake at Western Springs is kind of manmade. I think it used to be more like a little stream, but part of it was dammed, forming a more lake-like area. But it’s been like that for so long that it seems like it’s always been a lake.

The Zoo
I wasn’t actually planning on visiting the zoo, but I found myself getting close so I thought I’d pay a visit.

Signs around the zoo indicated that Dave Dobbyn played a concert there last weekend. Do the SPCA know about this, etc?

It always seems to change a little bit every time I go there. There’s now a massive new entrance area with a whole lot of ticket windows, and exiting is now no longer done through the gift shop. Does this mean that the zoo will see a decrease in the sales of plastic jelly animals?

I’ve realised now that the appeal of the zoo for me isn’t the animals. I like it better for the different environments that the animals live in. It’s kind of like the different theme gardens at the Hamilton Gardens, but with matching animals (which is a rather extravagant way to look at things).

I was looking at the orang-utan enclosure when I heard a out-of-sight mother scolding a very naughty child. “No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” she yelled. Walking away, I expected to see the mother and child around the corner, but instead a flustered-looking zookeeper came out of the side door of the orang-utan enclosure. Bad boy.