Monthly Archives: December 2014

Tim Walker’s 2015

Tomorrow will mark the commencement of our newest year, 2015…

Are we all pronouncing that correctly – twenty fifteen?

2015 AD is, presumably, two thousand and fifteen years After the Death of the Almighty J Dog. Prior to that, time was measured in BC, so they reckon. Yeah. Couple of issues I take with that.

Firstly, how did a man in 122 BC know that in exactly 122 years a virginal girl was going to get knocked up by a man she’d never met and give birth to a child who 33 years later would supposedly die for our sins? Also, who accounted for those 33 years, and what where they called? For instance, a few days BC Mary and Joseph were preparing for this miraculous birth. 1 day BC they were laid up in some sort of manger. The next day, assuming a speedy labour, was 1 day – what?

It was no longer Before Christ but neither was it After His Death, so, what did they call it? Were those 33 years even recorded, or did time just go from 2 BC to 1 BC, then enter into some sort of limbo period for the next 33 years until His death, where they brought out AD?

I’m just a little perplexed is all, I mean, I think we’ve lost 33 years somewhere. I want to know what happened – where did those years go? We might have busted into the latest millennium back in 1967 and not even known it; alternatively it might still be 18 years away…

I think it’s easier to just be an atheist and believe that death is death.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by A Theo Iztick

Photography by Bliss Feemy

Tim Walker’s 2014

Today’s kids are all about this newfangled 21st century but hold up, who remembers the ‘90s? Sure, they were last century but shit man, what a brilliant decade. Reckon 1992 was my favourite year. Some say 1994 was better but I maintain: “Nineteen ninety-two was the best.”

Now we’re in 2014. Twenty fourteen. That’s how it’s always been said. Twenty fourteen. Two numbers, just like nineteen ninety-two; so why do some people seem to think that with a new century comes a new manner of articulating years? Why are these people compelled to spell out the entire number like over-articulate dick-wads – ‘Two-thou-sand-and-four-teen’?

I understand that in that first decade of the 2000s it was preferable to say, ‘Two thousand and three’, rather than, ‘Twenty zero-three’, but now from the middle of the second decade it just sounds daft – ‘Two thousand and fourteen..?’

The current year, twenty fourteen, is fast coming to a close and will soon be succeeded by a new year, twenty fifteen. However, the first idiot who tries to tell me that the New Year is ‘Two thousand and fifteen’, simply, will receive a slapping.

I do hope I have made myself clear and hope furthermore, that everyone has an enjoyable and prosperous TwentyFifteen.

Merry cliché and a hackneyed New Year to you all.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by P Dant

Photography by Daft Punk

Tim Walker’s All Black

Wow. That New Zealand rugby team sure is something to behold. The way those 15 men use that 100 by 69 metre pitch to such marvellous effect; the way they consistently decimate the competition to maintain their undeniable standing as the world’s best; the way their coach handles himself in front of the camera and manages to easily out-staunch his contemporaries; the way their uniforms accentuate every rippling muscle of their formidable physiques; the way their almighty name sounds in your ears – the All Blacks

Yeah. That could probably use some work.

Back in the early 1900s when a simple mispronunciation lead to NZ’s rugby union side going from the ‘All Backs’, on account of their all-round speed and agility, to the ‘All Blacks’, for some other reason entirely, the fact that only one or two of the team’s players were Black didn’t seem to matter; to now, at a time where the world has become so utterly hung up on political correctness, it is more than a little odd to see just how easily we accept that our national side is called the All Blacks – if it were anything other than our beloved rugby team you can be damn sure we would not stand for it.

What’s interesting though is how quick we are to dismiss the notion that this is a blatant, also mildly offensive, misnomer. Sure, they wear black clothing, but the thing is, in today’s world, if Steve Tew suddenly decided that our national rugby team was to change its name from, for example, the ‘National Brotherhood’, to this new and improved version, the ‘New Zealand All Blacks’, it would cause no end of uproar – “Why would you call them the All Blacks when only a few of them are Black?” some might ask, or “Gee, I don’t know about that, isn’t that a bit, you know, racist?” or perhaps “Nah man, that’s one of those words, you know, you gotta actually be Black to say black.”

In a time where some idiots consider calling a Nigerian ‘Black’ an act of racism, how is NZ still getting away with this?

A little while ago, when the All Blacks were planning to travel to the USA for a one-off match against the Eagles, I watched in delight as a NZ television news reporter interviewed US citizens at random and asked them if they knew what the ‘All Blacks’ were. After receiving a continuous stream of blank, perplexed, or sometimes belligerent, faces, this pasty-skinned reporter approached an African-American woman and said, “Excuse me, Miss, hi, I’m from New Zealand, I was hoping to ask you a question.”

The young lady looked at first shocked, then confused, then glanced at the TV camera and reluctantly replied, “Oh, OK … Go ahead.”

Flashing a quick grin at the camera himself the reporter fired out the question: “Alright, Miss, can you tell me what the All Blacks are?”

This poor little Negro lass’s face dropped; she looked horrified. She glanced again at the camera as if to confirm that this funny-talking person was for real, before turning her gaze back to the reporter, giving a nervous little half smile and replying, “I dunno … My family?”

Never in all my evening news-watching experience have I laughed so hard.

The question remains: how long will it be before someone in NZ realises that we are blinded by our own sense of arrogance and that our national team is flaunting a name that would get a White man killed on the streets of Chicago?

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Platta Cull Crect-Ness

Photography by Ray Chism

Tim Walker’s Cosby Show

It must come as a shame to Bill Cosby’s friends and family that his life now besieged by historic allegations of sexual misconduct.

This 77-year-old African-American devoted his life to making people laugh and now, from the twilight of said life, Mr Cosby is facing multiple accusations of sexual abuse from women who claim to have had past dealings with him. The first serious allegation was made in 2002 with another in 2005, then several more in 2006 until now, in 2014, where the accusations just keep on coming; with all alleged victims demanding similar settlements in the form of…

Who remembers a few years back when the world basically drove its very own King of Pop, Mr Michael Jackson, to suicide? Granted, he didn’t actually kill himself but it was the pills he needed to take in order to deal with his chronic anxiety that did – anxiety brought about largely by accusations of sexual misconduct against children; then years later, after a number of complainants had been paid off in out of court settlements – urging more mothers to come forward with claims that Mr Jackson molested their sons as well – one such mother was heard to confess, but only once her story had come under scrutiny, that her sequence of events was utterly false; in fact her child had greatly enjoyed his time at Mr Jackson’s ranch and all she really wanted from the ordeal was…

Here I was, of the impression that rape or molestation left permanent scars on a soul but apparently all it takes to heal these wounds is…

Forgive my apparent flippancy but as I see it, sexual abuse accusations lose much of their clout when the accusers are manifestly rapacious opportunists.

…Money. That seems to be the theme. All supposed victims, of both cases, believe their solace can be found amid the folds of The Almighty Dollar.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Rudy N Theodore

Photography by Almidi Du Lar

 

Tim Walker’s Good Side

Most people strive to display the most favourable representation of themselves; it’s only later that their other side, or sides, are revealed.

I’m fortunate in that nowadays, I don’t have to waste time conjuring a scintillating guise to impress the masses – I have accepted that even my so called ‘good side’ is pretty poor so as a rule, I just go with it.

As usual though, there is an exception to the rule.

The truth is I am hopelessly compassionate. I always have been. Reckon I get it from my mother, which is never good. Females passing down attributes to developing males will only ever result in the recipient’s hardship. You see, among the greater chauvinistic population compassion is considered a largely effeminate attribute; excesses of such, moreover.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been a 16-year-old male but the pressure to be ‘one of the guys’, is rather intense. Turns out I was able to fit in with this clique well enough and I don’t know quite how it happened, but I seem to have also picked up a great many female friends along the way. Not girlfriends – never girlfriends – these were simply female friends. I now realise this co-ed magnetism was on account of my innate excess of compassion; in fact at the time I left school, I had more female than male friends…

Then shit happened.

In the years immediately following shit happening, this excess of compassion caused me a great deal of anxiety. Never having been one to worry much about image, at that time, nursing severe brain trauma and an incipient post traumatic rubral tremor, compassion took over and suddenly it became of paramount importance to not place any more stress on the minds of those who cared about, and indeed who had spent so many months supporting, me.

As the tremor became increasingly dominant, my task became that much more difficult. I made it my duty to go about my new life and still do whatever had to be done while, for the benefit of onlookers, disguising my inherent issues. If ever I was unable to do this and perhaps let loose a thrashing left arm or frantically jiggling head, the typical onlooker reaction would comprise a reflexive, almost micro-expression, look of horror, followed quickly by confusion giving way to surprise which usually tapered off as they realised that they were making this medley of facial expressions and realised furthermore that for the benefit of the clearly broken lad before them they would do well to be portraying a more lachrymose gaze of sorrow, melancholy or better yet, pity.

It was this look of pity that tore me up inside. It afforded me the knowledge that I had been the cause of somebody else’s discomfort; here it is – I felt bad for them for making them feel bad for me, despite the cause of the discomfort being something over which I had no, or at least limited, control.

Gosh, what a world. What a life.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Cam Posh-Yin

Photography by Lou Goob Brius

 

Tim Walker’s Drunk Driver

Interesting, but do we really think lowering the legal blood-alcohol tolerance will result in a reduction of drunk drivers on New Zealand roads?

It’s a little bit like bringing back the death penalty for murderers and expecting that it will make a difference to the nation’s homicide statistics; just as murder is generally an impetuous crime of passion, neither is there a great deal of logical forethought running through the mind of a prospective drunk driver.

The most likely thing to come from the lowering of this threshold will be the penalising of those typically conscientious social drinkers who never intended to flout the law and who never would have done any harm on the roads either but who have underestimated these new restrictions and although their 320 breath-alcohol reading is still below the old limit it’s above the amended version so…

Then there are those hardened drinkers who make a habit of imbibing over half their bodyweight in booze before driving home – they were over the limit then and you can be damn sure they’ll be over the limit now. The difference is that these wily veterans know how to avoid being caught.

Ultimately, the frequency of drunk driving might come down a little as good folk who might have occasionally slipped up turn abstemious but the recidivist drunks, those guys are going to get behind the wheel no matter the consequences.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Wai Bovver

Photography by Way Starr Thyme

Tim Walker’s Over the Bar

I am all too familiar with the exorbitant price of alcohol at on-licensed as opposed off-licensed liquor outlets.

I accept that although I can enter a bottle store and purchase a 1 Litre bottle of Scotch whisky for $33, from which I can then pour myself approximately 32 standard drinks, averaging a little over $1 a drink, if I choose to go on-licence, at around $4 a nip, that same bottle of liquor would cost me $130. That’s almost a $100 profit they make on every bottle of Scotch.

As previously stated, I accept that. Apparently what you’re really paying for is the social environment, you know, the ambiance; the atmosphere…

In city bars and nightclubs I can go along with this. I understand that when I enter a nightclub and order a glass of lemon lime and bitters – a non-alcoholic beverage – they charge me over $5. I’m paying for the experience. Right. Makes sense. So the following weekend, when I venture out in my little rural ghost town and embark on the local tavern there, with its cramped layout that makes the usual Friday night patronage of seven drunken locals and one or two passers-through appear bustling, along with sub standard facilities, a malodour that has been present ever since the prohibition of indoor smoking, dated décor and threadbare carpet, how the hell do they justify charging similar prices?

The week after the Christchurch show was my hometown’s annual A&P show. This always promises a big night at the local. Typically bound by financial restraints however, I downed a large drink at home then made my way to the pub, calculating how much they would have charged me over the bar for that same beverage – if a pint of Scotch and ginger ale mixed at half/half ratio is equal to 12 standard drinks and they’re charging $4 a drink…

After wrestling my way to the bar I ordered my usual non-alcoholic alternative of lemon lime and bitters. They didn’t have any. I ordered a Coke. I watched with impatience as the dowdy middle-aged woman filled the 12 ounce tumbler with a feeble stream of cola syrup and carbonated water. She then looked up and with an uninterested gaze squawked, “That’ll be four dollars.” I handed over a five, took my drink, also my dollar, and absconded.

Turns out a pint glass filled with a similar liquid was $5.

A pint of beer that night would cost a punter $6.

That made me chuckle.

With such little incentive to abstain from alcohol it’s no wonder that rural roads are overrun with intoxicated drivers; given the recent reduction in the legal blood-alcohol limit rural alcohol distribution establishments must start offering cheaper non-alcoholic alternatives or simply, people are going to drink at home.

Like me.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Moe Szyslak

Photography by Barney Gumble

Tim Walker’s Energy Spit II

Following less than agreeable feedback regarding the original Energy Spit, I am beholden to make the following clarifications.

Firstly, no.

At no time did I encourage people to disregard the environment. I was merely claiming that Jared Turner was full of shit and that the shit he was pushing was largely bullshit for the shitty purpose of bolstering our callous, compassionless and indeed faceless energy companies along with their increasingly gargantuan profit margins. Are we clear? Shit.

Secondly, perhaps.

Admittedly when I sat down to write last week’s latter post I was a little tired, rather strung out and very angry. To be fair I had been choking back the aforementioned outburst for some time but then there are times when it just seems that the world is out to screw you, and by ‘world’ I really mean ‘nation’s utilities’; by ‘screw you’ I mean ‘have their filthy way with you’.

Thirdly, come on..?

I thought I made some pretty good points. The majority of my content was meaningful, I toned back the grandiloquence, I feel that I ought to have been commended on the way I avoided generalisations, I wasn’t overtly offensive nor did I harangue Mr Turner personally; ultimately, I reckon it was some of my best, or at least better, work.

Finally, to anybody else who took offence at my thoughts, you can get knotted.

Honestly, you are a dick-bag for taking this kind of shit seriously. It is an opinion. That’s all. Too many people place too much merit on the written word. If it’s not physical it can’t hurt you. Realistically, words mean nothing. This means nothing. The post before this meant nothing. This kind of crap is meaningless. It will change nothing. It doesn’t matter. It has no business upsetting anybody.

Don’t forget, you have the power to turn away.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Stan Dip

Photography by B Coonted