Super-Spreadin’ The News…

Sounds Good!

Last week, late on Friday night, I dashed out a new poem. I write a poem most days. Sometimes I write two or three. And I post something every day over on Off The Tracks – occasionally a day goes by when I miss the chance to post or I run out of time in the day. And it irks me. I can’t lie. I don’t need to know if anyone is reading it – it’s just become a habit and at the same time something slightly calming for me in this world.

So on a Friday night, I might park up with a horror film or a karate movie – something I don’t need to pay full attention to, let’s face it we’ve seen these films dozens of times already and even if they appear brand new we know the plot points. And while the film is backgrounding my final hours awake for the week, I’ll draft out a poem or a review or a wee blog post.

Last Friday I decided to turn my attention to the protest at Wellington’s parliament. I couldn’t ignore it any longer. (Though it’s been the best thing to do, trying to ignore it). I work near the Beehive, so the noise and stupidity of the protest is right on my doorstep. I walked through it on day one to get a sense of it. And then ignored it for a week – beyond checking in on the news.

Late last week it got to me, and I decided I had to walk through it again. It’s a nice amount of strolling time to head from my work on The Terrace to the Thorndon New World to buy some sushi or some cherries or – if I’m really lucky – both.

What I couldn’t believe – in a week – was how it had grown from a lot of noise into a city within the city. Infrastructure amid and around the chaos. We laugh (maybe) at the news grabs of herb gardens being planted, shake our heads at the signs announcing movie nights for kids and a “blues lounge” which is both a slap in the face for our musicians side-lined from any but the smallest of gigs and a continual punching down on a musical form that was borne out of actual – legitimate – hardship. But if I had wanted to take my mask off (hey, it’s my freedom to not, right?) I could have scored a pretty good free feed by the looks of things.

Tent-city had sprung up and brought with it hairdressers doing cuts outside one of the many local businesses forced to shut down because of the selfishness and stupidity – seemingly being served up in equal measures and calling itself protest still. Tent-city was sprawling. Growing. Homes invaded; businesses encroached on. And I was maybe most put out by the amounts of graffiti – the chalk slogans inspiring the ‘real’ taggers back to fully lay claim to what they do.

The damage. A cost of alleged freedom. The cost of stupidity.

No argument could tell me this was meaningful protest. No argument could tell me this was how you were meant to go about meaningful change.

So I wrote a wee poem about it. Poems – for me – are observations. They are a form of journalism. They are documentation. It is a way to tell a story.

I shared the poem to Facebook and it got a lot of likes, a lot of comments, a lot of shares. This is rather foreign territory for me – with poems. They’re not for everyone. But maybe something in what I said or the way I said it summed up some of the frustration that some people in the city (and the country) were feeling.

I’ve been glued to the news on this issue – checking in on the Spinoff and Stuff and RNZ, watching the TV news (evening headlines) and listening to the radio in the morning. Social media is aghast, basically. And it’s a water-cooler convo, even though those of us playing by the rules cannot gather around the water cooler – at least not without masks on. (Small price of course).

I’ve also been following a few people here at Substack. David Slack’s ‘More Than A Feilding’ covers and riffs on the news. And so, he is having a field day with this lot of absurdities. I fully recommend you check his work out anyway, but his coverage of the protest’s baffling rage has been sublime.

Daniel Vernon – aka Yeehaw Boys – is someone I don’t know at all. But I love his work. Over on his Substack he writes a bit as well as sharing his amazing cartoons. There are links there to further support his work (buy the comics, merch etc) but at the very least take a look at his sharp commentary.

My friend Emily Writes covers more than the protest and politics but as a writer reacting to what’s going on around her, informing her world, and as a mother of two children with compromised immunity it’s fair to say that she has reasons galore to be weighing in on the current strangeness. And she’s worth reading of course.

There are more. There is so much great commentary. Twitter – so often a cesspool as far as I’m concerned – has been brilliant for this. Sharp lines, great links, strong thoughts.

But it’s all just skimming stones isn’t it.

We, the ones playing by the rules, hoping for the best, as frustrated as anyone about certain privileges being revoked, about the compromises to our life, can’t do anything to change this. And for the most part we want to trust in our Government and not stand in the way of them trying to do their best. The little frustrations we have felt, the changes to our lives, are for the most part so much smaller than so many others have faced. We have been so protected. And so very lucky.

It's the smallest point I’ll make, but I see this as a real slap in the face for protest as a form. Sure, it’s got major media attention. But for all the wrong reasons. People that really, truly believe in protest, that have been part of meaningful, peaceful activism must be shaking their heads at this.

Last week this newsletter turned one and I asked what you wanted to see and hear. Someone asked if I would consider writing about politics and I answered that there was enough of that – and I liked to think that my arts-related coverage was a nice distraction. But I guess sometimes I write about politics. Since it is all around us and it informs who we are and what we do. It even sometimes makes it into my poetry…

Start Super-Spreading The News

You weathered the storm, you dug up
the lawn, you set up tent-city, got drunk
on the fumes of phoney and phoned-in
power; swapped bottled water for canned
entitlement – laughed off the allegations
of intimidation by flashing a peace sign
and dancing badly to shit-reggae.

But you haven’t changed a thing, not
least those itchy undies. The cops have
let you spread like your own virus.
Your right to protest was revoked when
you spoke of Trump and Freemasonry,
When you rode into town on a borrowed

scam of anti-Government sentiment.
Not so anti when it’s benefit day. When
every cent is spent on whatever you
feel like because it’s only about you.
It’s only about you. It’s only about your

definition of freedom. We have freedom
already. It was fought for before you were
born. From people in real trenches, not those
shit-tunnels you dug up on the Parliament’s lawn.