What gives some the belief that they are better than others? What elevates these people to their seemingly exalted standpoints? What then affords them the arrogance that they so readily exude – because I’m beginning to wonder – are reputations simply handed out these days, or are they still earned?

Come on. Really? Everybody knows that reputations, be they positive or negative, are earned. As for those people who like to act as though they balance on the upper echelons of the ladder of life when realistically they are not much more than moronic, snivelling little piss-ants, they likely suffer some sort of mental affliction such as megalomania or hypomania whereby their ostensible and indeed, their projected level of grandiose is far superior to the rest thereby creating an impenetrable force field of blinding scintillation…

If you would, shift your focus to the music industry. On the one side we have truly venerable pop artists, such as Madonna, Christina Aguilera and perhaps to a lesser extent, Lady Gaga – individual acts who have been around a while, who’ve shown class, flair, uniqueness; have perhaps been the centre of the occasional scandal but nothing overly destructive and most importantly, who have exhibited longevity. Then we have the blow-outs. Britney Spears was among the first of the teen idols to be destroyed, followed later by Miley Cyrus, with Justin Bieber beginning his insalubrious implosion just recently – so who’s next?

I dunno. Ask the media.

There it is. The disgraceful truth. It is our irreverent media network that is responsible for not only celebrities’ rise to status but their subsequent, or given the age at which they are cast into the limelight some might say inevitable, fall from grace.

The media builds them up; the media shoots them down.

Take a look at Kim Kardashian. She was nothing. She didn’t even do anything spectacular. Yet through her appearance on some crappy reality TV show, she rose to the height of fame, brought along for the ride her two nothing sisters, where she then embarked on a series of marriages, gaining through this not a husband but even more publicity, therefore status, until finally settling on another talentless loser but media favourite with a great deal of undeserved status himself, Kanye West.

So what if you aren’t in the media spotlight? Who allocates status to regular folk? Also, why does this great allocator seem to give out chunks of status disproportionately and to what can only be described as an arbitrary cross section of people? Moreover, why so very frequently are we finding that the pond-scum of the world – the shit-buckets, the drop-kicks, the douche-bags – the ones who by right are the least deserving of status, are those same ones who are seen to be breezing through life with their flash cars, nice clothes, cute little girlfriends and apparently living their lives from the precipice of personal and social grandeur?

Hold up. Stop asking questions. Firstly, to that one just there, the answer is illusion. That and a lot of debt.

To elaborate: this is an example of a phenomenon that I have coined, ‘Pretentious Status’. Most commonly found among the incapable, the feckless and the ignorant, Pretentious Status is the mind’s way of coping when the being it’s fronting, just isn’t very good. People who are genuinely good don’t require a surplus of self esteem, it’s there because they’re awesome and they use it accordingly. The hyphenated group mentioned above do require extra helpings of self esteem because, well, what else do they have?

Problem is, in producing an additional quota of bodily goodness sometimes the brain makes an excess; in which case you are left with a delusional douche-bag who thinks the world of himself and will only ever become more of a douche-bag in your eyes because his self assuredness is so very misplaced.

Kanye West isn’t very good – he can’t sing and he can’t dance but he’s really stupid and he does look pretty cool, so the media allocate him status. Remember Taylor Swift? Gorgeous. Yeah, she’s still there but the media stopped her allocation of status because she’s quite clued up and of late she’s been acting far too sensibly.

The World Media have a lot to answer for. They have ruined a great many good, hitherto prosperous lives.

Status is overrated and unimportant anyway. Don’t try, just be.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Richard Pullin

Photography by Owen Carr

I am an atheist. This doesn’t mean I’m an antichrist, it does not mean that I’m a devil worshiper and nor does it suggest in any way that I am a less than wholesome person.

All it means is that I do not believe one person created everything.

Yet when the local team of bible-bashing, God-bothering, devil-dodging proselytes turn up on my doorstep having decided the time is nigh for me to embark upon a life of eternal happiness; when they inquire into my relationship with this all powerful deity by checking up on my God-fearing-ness; when they then have the audacity to query my life choices; when I inform them in no uncertain terms that I am an atheist who doesn’t buy into the hype of all things religion primarily because I’ve never been given reason to; when I casually mention that while I have no problem standing there politely hearing them out I have no intention of joining in their delusion; when they then stare at me, critiquing, assessing, as if my decision to not believe in a fairy tale which honestly, contains no greater aspect of realism than the tale of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny; when they do this, why is it that I feel as though I am doing something wrong?

Don’t misunderstand me, in principal I have nothing against these people; hell, some of my most revered companions are Christians. This is generally because they don’t try to push their beliefs onto me – for that’s all it is: evolution, creationism – these are doctrines, belief systems.

Admittedly one of these doctrines is patently more believable than the other: one is logic, the other fantasy; one is sensible, the other farcical; one is based on actual events while the other is not.

Try this. Regarding the facts surrounding evolution/creationism, ask a devout Christian a few specific questions requiring specific answers, and see how you go. Here’s one I prepared earlier.

Evolution: “Is it a fact that God made the world in just seven days?”

Creationism: “Not just the world, God created the universe.”

Evolution: “Huh. Impressive. How would somebody go about a task like that?”

Creationism: “God works in mysterious ways.”

Evolution: “Sure, but I mean really, because it sounds like magic – was it magic?”

Creationism: “Heavens no, magic is one of the black arts.”

Evolution: “Right, but to make a universe, he must be able to fly or something, yeah?”

Creationism: “I wouldn’t say fly exactly.”

Evolution: “So how’d he do it? I mean, he’s obviously massive…”

Creationism: “He can be both big and small, God is not limited to physical sizes.”

Evolution: “I see, so where’d he sit while he was putting the w – the universe together?”

Creationism: “God is an all powerful being, he is all around us.”

Evolution: “So he levitates?”

Creationism: “God is an almighty being, he’s not up, or down, he just is.”

Evolution: “Ah, right. He’s a being, who is. So where exactly is this being?”

Creationism: “Oh, he’s here, he’s there – he’s everywhere.”

Evolution: “Everywhere, nice one. So does he plan to reveal himself, or what?”

Creationism: “Oh, God has already revealed himself, you just have to believe.”

Evolution: “Seriously? He’s already been? Christ, how’d I miss him? Shit.”

Creationism: “Have faith, and he will return.”

Evolution: “Oh, great. So do you have a time and a place?”

Creationism: “God is already with us, he’s in our souls, all around us, he’s everywhere.”

Evolution: “Ah, Mr Ubiquitous eh? So are you meaning God himself, or is this Jesus?”

Creationism: “Well, Jesus is God, God is Jesus, they’re one glorious being.”

Evolution: “I thought they were father and son..?”

Creationism: “They can be whatever you want them to be, that’s the glory of God.”

Evolution: “Right, God. Then there’s Jesus, son of God. Two separate entities..?”

Creationism: “Yes but it doesn’t matter who you worship, God is everywhere.”

Evolution: “Right, this being who is seemingly everywhere, but apparently, nowhere.”

Creationism: “Not nowhere, he is all around us – you have to believe.”

Evolution: “So you’re saying, if I don’t believe, then he doesn’t exist..?”

Creationism: “He won’t be in your life, no, and gone will be the promise of eternal life.”

Evolution: “Eternal life? Shit man, have you seen my life? Christ, the sooner it’s over the better, I reckon…

Unlike the topic on which it was based, the aforementioned yarn did happen.

What I find so damned unsettling is not so much the bullshit they push, but the force with which these door to door salespeople of the Christian faith try to shove it down your throat.

Here’s my major query: how can a doctrine which causes so much pain and conflict be embraced by so many? All through time religious zealots have believed that by massacring their enemy on the battlefield, they are performing God’s work. I simply do not accept religion as a reason for war and if there is a God, I reckon he’d be dead against it too.

Although I openly confess my detestation for devout God-bothering, I am an ardent supporter of the morals and values that Christianity bring to the game. Who the hell said that in order to be a good person, one must devote their life to some dude they’ve never even met, and likely will never even see?

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Maree N Joseph

Photography by Adam Knight

Asinine as it might sound, we have become a nation of actors.

Most of us wouldn’t consider ourselves professional actors and certainly we aren’t paid for the honour; yet we act.

We act in the face of people we wish to impress, we generally act better than we genuinely are; we act as a way of removing ourselves from undesirable situations and ultimately, we act when it becomes too awkward, too complicated or just too God damned difficult to portray our genuine selves.

In fact for many of us playing a particular role has become such an act of normalcy that if it came to it, we would probably struggle to locate our genuine selves.

The majority of actors will take on a different role for home as opposed to work life; another role for social life and of course one more role to play for the kids and their friends. This variety of role-filling is harmless in that it’s necessary to propagate a functional life – but what about when it’s not necessary?

What about the facades put forward by some people in an effort to gain an undeserved reputation or to leave a deliberately false impression? What about those cloaks of disingenuousness worn primarily to astonish, confuse or bewilder? Why? What is the sense of staging a show that by Act 1 Scene 2 will have fallen flat, thereby revealing the true self of the Muppet on display.

Why do we bother to put forward an image that we know we can never hope to maintain? Are we so impossibly full of ourselves that we can’t stand the idea of portraying anything less than scintillation? Why, and this is directed more at the actresses than the actors, when asked a question must the response be so decidedly positive and agreeable?

When a male speaks to a female for the first time, obviously, if that female is acting as though she’s being won over by him, the male will believe that he is winning her over.

If, during further correspondence the woman tells the man only things that she knows he wants to hear, before too long he will undoubtedly begin to fall for her. If, as the months go on she continues to act in this manner, feeding him only auspicious lines – words that she knows are endearing to him – he will likely fall very hard indeed. If, then it becomes inconvenient for her to maintain this act, of course, she can easily drop it…

The question remains though: how easily could he drop her act?

The point: insincerity, disingenuousness, sycophantism, obsequiousness and to a lesser extent pandering, have the ability to injure. Interesting that the first maxim I can recall learning was, Just Be Yourself.

Incidentally that was the same day I found out what a ‘maxim’ was.

We hear it with such frequency: “Just be yourself”. So why do we find it so very difficult? Why must we constantly try to be someone else, someone better – why must we act?

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Sally Benny

Photography by Trudy Self

 

You know what pisses me off? It’s how easily offended and overly bloody sensitive everybody seems to be these days – are we really so precious?

Are we that fragile, that pathetic and that weak? Is our collective esteem so impossibly low that as individuals, we can actually not handle the occasional piece of shit being slung our way? Really?

Or is it that as such dutiful ambassadors of the 21^st century where unless one is mentally well-adjusted, compassionate and of course willing to accept and exhibit unwavering political correctness, also faultless decorum and at least partial metrosexuality, they are guilty of falling out of vogue? Is it that we as a nation have become such perfect little NCEA-moulded, reality-sheltered piss-ants that we are no longer accustomed to failure, to hardship or in fact anything the least bit negative?

Said it before and by Christ I’ll say it again: people need to learn to distinguish Observational from Judgemental. Example. Pointing out that a Nigerian is black is not racist. It’s fact. Distinction is simple: judgements tend to be untrue, slanderous; observations are unequivocally factual. Therefore, a bikini-clad beach-goer rocking 70% body-fat cannot rightly call ‘judgement’ on somebody asking to share in her spongy muffin-tops.

In a time where it’s fashionable to say STI rather than STD because obviously ‘infection’ is so much less repugnant than ‘disease’; where the equality advocates and Russell Normans of the world are becoming increasingly unrealistic, perceiving it as unfair that women in the workplace are finding it tough to become male strippers, or that the only reason Global Warming is still an issue is because some NZ citizens are still mixing paper with plastic…

Then there’s television and radio. I honestly think that there are people out there who watch and listen to these mediums with the sole intention of locating broadcasts that might possibly under particular circumstances perhaps be potentially offensive to someone. Not to them though. Oh no. They likely don’t give a shit. These people are looking out for the good of the nation.

Ah Christ, then there’s social media. I do wonder how the hell some people can justify being so damned uppity about their own personal privacy, then go ahead and wilfully post practically their entire bloody life on Facebook for all to see…

Did someone say hypocrite?

No no, you misheard me. I said dick-wad.

Who gives a toss if ACC mistakenly send your name, age and address to some random you’ve never met? Think about it. Logically, how the hell can that even matter? This is the modern world. Anybody can source any piece of information on any person. Name, age, address? So what? Mother father, shut the front door. You probably post one helluva lot more than that on that infernal bloody Facebook page. Then what about those so-called private conversations you have on that same bloody forum? Private? Really? Ha. Thick-clod.

Get this. Saw a dwarf the other day. I shit you not, he was wearing a cute little hat and everything. He was strolling mirthfully down the footpath, swinging his arms, whistling a gay tune as he went. Of course I stopped him. “Pardon me sir,” I began.

“What?” he grunted coming to an abrupt halt. I’ll admit, at this point I’m slightly taken aback. I always thought dwarves were a merry people…

“Oh,” I said, “I was just hoping to ask you a question, relating to your … stature.”

“Yeah, and what’s wrong with my stature?” he inquired indignantly, as if he hadn’t noticed that he was somewhat less tall than everybody he was encountering that day.

As that ruddy little face stared up at me with its menacing eyes and hissing breath, suddenly I understood. I had located the fabled Eight Dwarf, Pugnacity.

Irascible temperament notwithstanding, I had a question to ask. “Well there’s nothing wrong with your stature though clearly, you are a little shorter than most, in fact I had wan -“

“So what if I’m shorter than other people, doesn’t make me any less of a person.”

“No,” I said in disbelief, “it doesn’t, I’d just wanted to know, once and for all, what people of your, stature, prefer to be called..?”

“Kevin.”

“Right.” At this point I had no idea why I was persevering with the grumpy little gnome. “Thanks for that Kevin. From this day forth I shall call every dwarf, midget, little person and other vertically challenged entity I ever meet, Kevin. Nice one.”

“What?” this seemed to confuse him, “No, I’m Kevin … whaddaya mean?”

“I was meaning to ask what you guys prefer to be called, given that it used to be midget – which I now hear is offensive – then it was little person – which these days is apparently even worse – and now I hear it’s dwarf – which ten years ago was the worst…”

“Oh. Yeah, think it is dwarf, don’t really know eh…”

“Right, but you’re called Kevin, yeah?”

I think he probably did respond but I had already turned – repaying his show of premeditated irritation with my own display of intentional ignorance.

Fact is, I understand better than most what it is to have ‘regular folk’ give you a hard time but in my experience, one learns to go with it. The worst thing you can do is constantly be on the defensive. It’s offensive and extremely hard work.

On that note, people who take affront to things that really don’t bother them, in my opinion, ought to be shot. Their mild indignation results in my severe irritation. Who actually gives a shit if a television or radio presenter slips up and drops a live F-bomb? Personally, that kind of thing is broadcasting gold.

It doesn’t matter if something somebody said was inappropriate, offensive and not totally PC – they’re words for God’s sake.

Or shall we force an apology do you think? Yeah, that’ll teach them.

My God. Does no one realise that an apology is meaningless, thus utterly pointless unless it’s of one’s own volition?

Finally to all you easily offended douche-bags out there, try this simple formula. If it’s visually offensive, don’t watch it. If it’s aurally offensive, don’t listen to it. If it’s orally offensive, don’t eat it. If it’s nasally offensive, don’t smell it and if it feels offensive, for God’s sake get your bloody hands off it.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by P S Off

Photography by Dick Wad