New Title… Again

I’ve decided to change the blog name, to more accurately represent what I’m trying to do, and the way I blog. I think it’s more appropriate, and allows me to be a bit looser about when I blog. Still no proper banner. Don’t worry, it’s coming.

Also, I’ve been rather forgetful when it comes to blogging, so haven’t really had my ear to the ground in terms of finding news to rant about. So, this blog may end up being kind of wishy-washy, and really having no major point to it. We’ll see how it goes.

It seems like all the news in this country at the moment revolves around crime, the Rugby World Cup fiasco, and a dolphin. I mean, what the shit? First off, crime is not only depressing, it’s also fucking boring, and leaves me wanting to turn off the news after 10 minutes, because frankly, I don’t want to be told how scary our country is. Try living in LA or Baghdad for fuck’s sake. Yes, I do feel sorry for those affected, and I don’t mean any personal offence to those involved. The problem lies with the media. The media has decided that crime is what is really interesting and “hard-hitting” news, so it gets run all the fucking time. That’s part of the reason bFM doesn’t really report crime stories, because we want to do something different. I could sit here and rant on and on about the state of news media in New Zealand, but I don’t want to. For one, it’s boring too, and I’m not really in the mood to get angry at something I can’t fix.

Should we talk about the dolphin? Nah, let’s not. And I have to be honest. I feel the same way about the RWC debacle. Just put up some tents, and there’s your party central. Also, just make Moko our new ambassador. Wait…

Overseas there’s some stuff happening. Everyone is jumping for joy that the oil in the Gulf of Mexico has stopped spewing out of the gaping hole. Yes. Finally. After pretty much 3 months of fucking around, BP managed to plug the gap. Granted, it’s progress. You have to be pleased that something has happened. Still, we’re in the danger zone. This plan could still fail. And even if it doesn’t, there’s still fuckloads of oil out in the Gulf. OK, so I’m happy there’s at least been a start, but people should start instantly forgiving BP and act like it’s water under the bridge. Let’s wait before we start celebrating.

Is that enough for a blog? Should I talk about how Patrick Gower looks like a rat crossed with a parrot? Nah, lets leave it at that.

‘Till next week.

2 Weeks in the Life of Kolkata

I promised a blog today, and I’m going to deliver. To be honest, there’s nothing in the news this week that really piqued my interest, and I don’t want to write about some story that bores me. However, I do have something to talk about. Over on my Tumblr I’ve been doing this thing called the 30 Day Challenge. Today’s challenge was “A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you”, so I posted a picture of the volunteer house I worked at in Kolkata. It’s called Daya Dan, and it’s a home for disabled orphans, up to about the age of 13. I looked at the photo, and I started thinking about what I experienced while I worked there. Then I realized that I haven’t really talked about this online before. So here goes.

See, we were working with kids, a lot of whom really had no idea what was really going on. It was a shocking sight to say the least, and working there probably had the single biggest impact on my attitude to life that I’ve ever had. I struggled with it, I really did. The routine there was pretty strict, and there were a whole lot of activities that we had to get through with the kids, but there was always an hour or two of just free time, where we would look after the seriously disabled kids, the ones who couldn’t go to school. I say go to school, but school was just a room upstairs.

Anyway, during this free time, there was one kid who latched on to me. He was mute, deaf, and blind. He didn’t do a whole lot, but during free time, I would just sit there and hold his hand, just so he knew there was someone there. I would even sing to him. I don’t know if he knew that I was singing, but he seemed to like it, so I did it anyway. I began to get a little attached, which was probably a mistake. All I knew is that no matter what he did, how tightly he squeezed and hurt my hand, how much he peed on me, no matter what he did, I just wanted him to know that I was there.

When you go to India, people often talk about a concept of ‘hitting the wall’. For me that happened on Christmas Day. I was sick, and basically stuck in the hotel room until someone got back and took the key from me. I was stuck for hours, and all I wanted to do was go down the street to a phone booth and call my family. By this point I was physically exhausted, and the mental hammering I’d been getting for the past week was taking it’s toll, so I did the only thing I could do – I cried. I bawled for hours. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to fly back home, and just end it all. Eventually someone came back, I called my parents, and I felt so much better for it. Still, that really was the lowest of the low.

One day I’ll go back. There were so many other volunteers there who had been working there for months, or years even. This devastated me too. We were supposed to work for two weeks, have a life changing experience, and then go to Goa and party it up for the rest of the trip. Meanwhile, these people dedicated a huge portion of their lives to helping the poor, sick and dying. That’s fucked up. Still, it gave me hope. Hope that at least some people cared enough. I’ll definitely do the same one day. Go back, disappear for a few years in Kolkata, and do my bit to pay back what life has given me. For now though, all I have is the memory of that little boy’s face. And it is just that, just a memory. We were allowed to take photo’s of the kids on our last day, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt too exploitative. Hell, even just writing about it does.

I’ll leave you with one last thought: the one thing I know for sure about Daya Dan and those kids living there is that almost all of them are either now dead, or left to fend for themselves. That’s just so fucked up, and something I still can’t deal with.

If you want to know more, then drop me a line. I’m always happy to chat about it.

‘Till next week.

The Beautiful Game

Hey, you know how I said I was going to start blogging more regularly, and doing a lot of news blogging? Yeah, didn’t happen. BUT, I was inspired by my friend Jess’ recent revamp and daily blogging to pick up the pieces of this shitty little blog here. SO, new name, new design, lets GO!

I’ll jump into the news shortly, but first, a little housekeeping. As the name implies, I’ll be posting sometime midweek. Sometimes I may stray closer to the beginning, sometimes closer to the end, but I’m going to be blogging every week. If I don’t, feel free to slaughter me in the comments. Also, I realise the current header is rather cliche, and maybe that’s because it’s the default header. Don’t worry. When I have some time, I’ll make a proper header to fit more readily with what this blog is all about.

RIGHT. This week, there’s really only one thing that’s been on my mind, and that is football. With the World Cup on currently in South Africa, the media is inundated with sports coverage, particularly after New Zealand’s heroics in managing to remain unbeaten in the group stage. Earlier this week, I talked to James Coe from Editing the Herald about the game, and you can hear that here. After that little discussion, I felt like I could have added my two cents to the debate.

See, whenever New Zealand does something unexpectedly well, we seem to blow it way out of proportion. The media have loved the All Whites’ success on the world stage, and you could be forgiven for thinking we’d won a game. I’m guilty of this too. I even caught myself tweeting that we’d won the World Cup after drawing (yes that’s right, drawing) with Italy. Sure, New Zealand did really well for a team that was the second-lowest ranked team coming into the competition. In fact, if you told me that we would go unbeaten in the group stage, I would have slapped you and told you to wake up from this crazy fantasy. Still, this surely needs a little perspective.

We went unbeaten, yes, but we didn’t win a game. We drew with first-timers Slovakia, and an old, decrepit, and frankly very average Italy. Everyone says we beat the world champions, and that’s true, but that was four years ago. That doesn’t mean they’re good today. Further, if we had beaten Paraguay (and we had chances to do so), we would have qualified for the last 16, and a juicy encounter with the Netherlands. That would have been an incredible achievement. And, if you think about it, Australia still beat us. They had 4 points, we had 3. So before we starts getting all jingoistic and brag about how awesome our football team is, just remember that there is a hell of a lot of work to do before we can really call ourselves contenders.

Still, I’m a football lover, and love the All Whites with all my heart. I told an old guy outside a pub before the Paraguay game that I thought they were going to dick us. He took great offense, and to be honest, I like that. It’s the kind of blind faith that football fans in the UK and Europe have, and we need more of that here. The true test of how successful this World Cup venture has been is what happens in four years time. If we’ve got fans just as faithful as that old guy, and if we’re drawing our way through the World Cup group stage again, then that’s a success. Better than waiting another 28 years.

See you next week.

Dear John

Dear John,

I’m writing this letter to you, because I just don’t know how to say it in person. You see, I’ve found some one else. His name is Phil. See, he has this bus, and he drives around the country in it, telling people about what he does. It’s so awesome. I love men who have buses.

You see, John, I just don’t think we’re the right fit. I’ve been talking to Phil, and he says he will give me what I need. He’s smart, funny (in an intellectual kind of way), and he offers me more than you ever did. I mean, he doesn’t even hunt whales or anything. He may not give me as much money as you, but he pays for more stuff. Unlike you, who gives me stuff, but then wants some of it back because “the bank is running a little low”. The thing is, I don’t think I ever liked you. Ever since Helen left, I’ve felt a hole inside, and Phil helps me feel like I’m alive again.

Oh John, I wish things had worked out between us. I could live with merging all our accounts into one ‘superaccount’, for ease of use. I mean, I was even willing to put up with the fact that Rodney seemed to tag along to all of our dates. But really, telling me I have to ‘perform’ just for you to pay for my living costs is a bit much, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve been married for nearly one and a half years now.

I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you in person. It was just too hard. Especially since you’re always hanging out with Bill, Gerry and that fucking Rodney all the time, I can only imagine the embarrassment for the both of us if I had to do this in front of them.

I’ll never forget that first year. There was always a glimmer of hope. I can’t say I’ll miss you, but I’ll always remember.

With Love,

Lucas.

Splore Review

OK, so I just got back not more than a few hours ago, and I’m absolutely shattered. However, I’m gonna try and write up a review before I lose the vibe of Splore. Now, I may have been altering my perceptions of reality throughout the weekend, but I’m fairly certain that I remember everything. Lets run through the acts first:

Tahuna Breaks opened up the festival on Friday with a bang. I didn’t really know their music, but I was told they were good, and boy were they right about that. After having a good skank, it was Jamie Liddell, who was a surprise. Never heard much of him, but he was a beatboxer/loop… DJ, I guess? it was different, for sure, but awesome. He even managed to croon for a bit too, which was awesome.  Then it was the act we were all waiting for: Lupe Fiasco. He was good for the most part, but had some weird emo bit in the middle where he started acting all depressed, and saying things like “war is not necessary”. Otherwise, he was really enjoyable, as was his band.

The penultimate act for Friday was the all-powerful Minuit. Holy shit. What a show they put on. Their performance of Menace was possibly the greatest thing I’ve seen on stage. Ever. I had an incredible time watching Minuit and seeing Ruth Carr busting a move on stage. She has such incredible stage presence, and will draw you in every time. Following that performance would be a hard act to follow, and sadly, although they are much experienced at playing live, Basement Jaxx was not up to the task. Now, mind you it was a DJ set, and the singers they brought with them were really good, and really cool, but other than that, they were boring.

Now, Saturday for me was to just be a blow-out. I knew barely any of the acts playing, so decided to go mental. And I did. It kicked of at 12 with Bobby Brazuka, DJing awesome Latin beats. A good groove to start the day. Then it was down to the main stage to catch Six60. Awesome reggae beats, combined with some excellent remixes/covers of Shapeshifter, Dr. Dre and Tupac. Great sounds. Next up for us, after a bit of dinner, was Sola Rosa. Again, awesome. I had a great skank as the sun was going down.

The end of Sola Rosa’s set spelled the entry of perhaps the best act of the weekend: Dub FX. Incredible beat boxing and looping, coupled with the equally awesome Flower Fairy, his partner in crime and grime. They were laying incredible sounds down, and the whole crowd loved it. Again, a hard act to follow, and that task belonged to Spektrum, another band I don’t know. And, well, by this point in the night, I was running around telling friends that “this world is not real, the other one is”. So yeah. The acts kind of became irrelevant, but from what I can remember, Spektrum were awesome. The main stage closers were Pitch Black, and they were alright. The dub stuff they started with was good, but they lost it a bit I felt. I did see a bit of Nickodemus after that but not for long, because I had to crash at 2am.

Sunday was not about a lot of music, but the one act we checked out was Nathan Haines. Certainly not mindblowing, but very cool, and perfect for the comedown.

Now, Splore, while it is a music festival per se, it is not just about the music. The atmosphere is mental. The communal camping is epic. Such a nice feeling to be sharing with your neighbours. Also, the fact that the festival is right by the sea is just perfect. You can wake up in the morning, and wander down to the beach or the fresh-water lagoon, chill and wake up, before preparing for a long, hard day of dancing. Everyone (well, nearly everyone) is so lovely and nice, and we’re all there just to have a good time. Then there’s activities like making prayer flags under the tree of life, tripping balls in the time machine, or joining in the circus workshop. So much fun, so little time. This is one weekend that will not be forgotten. Thanks, Splore. Much love.

Big Day Out Review

So I’ve just been to something quite awesome: The Big Day Out on Friday the 15th of January 2010 at Mt. Smart Stadium in Auckland. Thanks to 95bFM, I was able to go this time, something which I wouldn’t have done otherwise. After doing a bit of news work and roving reporting in the morning, I was given free rein for the day to experience the sights and sounds. So that’s enough of that, let’s do a review! Here’s who I saw, in order, with a little taste of what their live set was like.

Bandicoot

I’m not gonna bother. They were just noise, who were pretending to be The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Which they ain’t. Fuck’em, I don’t care if your young, you should still at least be able to play in time and in tune.

The Temper Trap

Really fucking good. I hadn’t heard much of The Temper Trap, other than the big single “Sweet Disposition”, but I loved them. They were a band who could put on a show, and they were all incredible musicians. The singer has an amazing range on his voice, and I couldn’t get enough their stuff.

Passion Pit

One word: shit. Except for maybe Sleepyhead, I don’t think I enjoyed a single song. It was all just the same as the recorded versions, no improv, no fun involved. It was just really boring. To top it all off, though, they didn’t even play Moth’s Wings, the song I thought most likely to appear in their set list. Crap set.

Dimmer

This is part of the reason I’m so angry at Passion Pit. After them, we saw the last 10 minutes of Dimmer, and they sounded incredible. It was like walking into a wall of sound. It was awesome. Except I missed most of it. All in all, the lesson here is fuck Passion Pit, and never pick and international act over a kiwi one, just because they’re international.

The Horrors

Wow. What a show. It was like Joy Division had been resurrected right before my eyes. It was just incredible. Now, I have to sheepishly point out that before the BDO, I really hadn’t heard much of The Horrors, besides the single (and might I add awesome set closer) Sea Within A Sea. So, I was considering skipping them and going to Kasabian. And boy am I glad I didn’t. The Horrors are probably my new favourite band after today. I’m still in awe. If you don’t know The Horrors, or you were at the BDO and didn’t go to them, then you really missed out.

Girl Talk

I only stuck around for a few tracks, but what I heard was good. However, it kind of just felt like a party, rather than a gig. That’s why I left. Really good mash-ups though.

The Veils

Amazing. Incredible. Awesome. Unbelievable. I’m running out of superlatives to describe them. Finn Andrews was on cracking form, and I loved every minute of the show. It contained the best version of Jesus for the Jugular I’ve ever heard, as well as a set based largely on Nux Vomica, what I feel to be their strongest album. I just wish they wee starting their tour, not ending it. I would have gone to every show I could have. I chose them over Peaches, only because I know more Veils songs. And boy am I glad I made the choice.

Dizzee Rascal

He was pretty fun, but nothing compared to the other times I’ve seen him. BDO two years ago: went off. Powerstation a year ago: went off. This year: crowd loved it, but it wasn’t Dizzee. This was house music with an English bloke talking over the top. Not the same gangster shit that I loved Dizzee for. Sure, there were a few of the classics, but even ‘Flex’ turned into a mash-up with Akon’s ‘Sexy Bitch’. Not cool. Still, I had fun, and the crowd loved, so I guess that’s all that matters.

Calvin Harris

Woah. I only caught the last 20 or 30 minutes, but boy did he go off. It really wasn’t what I expected. Here I was thinking Calvin Harris was a DJ, and he would just be up the top spinning records. How wrong I was. It was a full band, with an awesome sound, and the boiler room was going off! The closer was an awesome rendition of ‘I’m Not Alone’, and Harris just went mental on stage. Glad I went to see the end of it.

The Mars Volta

I’m only listing this because I saw them while I was chilling up in the bFM studio. I don’t really like the Mars Volta, and to be honest, all I heard was noise. Meh.

Muse

Only saw the first few songs, but they sounded pretty good. Having said that, by this point in the day, I was just so tired, having been up at 5am, so I went home. Besides, Muse’s latest stuff is just all the same. I can probably review the first two songs and be close to describing the whole gig.

Act of the day

It’s a tie between The Veils and The Horrors. Can’t choose.

So all in all it was an awesome day. Some great live shows, and lots of fun working with bFM on the day. This was probably a BDO I was going to skip if I hadn’t managed to score a free ticket, so I’m pretty pleased. And because this is already obscenely long, I’ll end it here. ‘Till next time.

FAILFAILFAIL/New Years!

Yup. So I’ve failed. My whole plan for a new, regularly updated news blog was a complete and utter failure. For that, I’m sorry.

However, all is not lost. I plan on at least putting a better effort into this next year. It’s fun to do, I just seem to get caught up in other mundane things, be they on the internet or otherwise. Still, I hope to be done with all that, and I want to try and use my time this new year/new decade more effectively. Call it a resolution if you wish, it’s really just a change in attitude.

Anyway, I do have something to talk about in this blog, and that is New Year’s itself! Or rather, the road trip that surrounded the date. On the 29th of December, after getting up early and making sure my car was warranted and ready for the journey, myself and 2 friends set off on an adventure to visit our friends who were all over the upper North Island. First stop: Omaha. We stayed in a nice bach, about five or ten minutes walk from the beach, and basically just got drunk. Good start to a road trip, we thought.

After a quick pit stop in Matakana for the best pies in the country, it was back down through Auckland to the somewhat subdued Whangamata. Despite being notorious for it’s crazy parties and wild teenagers, Whangamata seemed somewhat quieter than in previous years. The pigs were still crawling all over the streets, though, so the liquour ban was very much enforced. This meant no outside fun, but we still got drunk and danced the night away.

Myself & Kate

After a day of recovery, we came to the decision that our road trip had been too short, and we needed to spend some more time around the Coromandel. Here’s where the fun begins. Using our friends bach in Whanga as our base, we went and visited the local beaches and sights around the east coast of the Coromandel. Onemana and Opoutere, were first up, and we loved them both. Onemana seemed a bit more populated, with a beachside town situated right nearby, but it was still a nice quiet little beach. Opoutere was even more out of the way, and was just glorious. We went diving for Pipi (though we caught lots, we didn’t take any), and enjoyed the sun on a very quiet and uninhabited beach. Also on the cards was Wentworth Valley, a walking track just out of Whangamata, with the most beautiful scenery. I wish I had photos, but none of had cameras, for some stupid reason. Anyway, you get to the end of the 40ish minute-long walk, and there is an awesome waterfall, with a very refreshing fresh-water (get it? ) swimming hole at the bottom. Well worth the effort.

After about a week in Whanga with a pattern of scenery/beach>cooking>drinks/drugs>sleep, we decided to change it up and head up to Hahei. On the way there we stopped off at Hot Water Beach, and failed at making a hot pool to lounge about in. In the end, we just waited till someone left and stole their pool. It was lovely, once we actually got into it. The water was fucking hot, and I mean fucking hot! Unbelievably so for a natural spring. After we did that, we made it into Hahei, got drunk, had a bonfire on the beach, and went to bed.

The next day was something to behold. We made the 40 minute trek to Cathedral Cove, and it was fucking worth it. It has to be one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever been to. If you’re ever on the Coromandel, then Cathedral Cove is a must. Again, no photos, because we are useless, but it’s best if you go and see it yourself. That night was rounded off with a nice bbq dinner, and more drinking, before heading back, via the Tairua Wine and Food festival. If you’re ever in the area when it’s on, I highly recommend it. Awesome food, great boutique beer and wine, and lots of sun.

And that’s about it. I hope you’re not too bored. Until next time, whenever that may be!