Years back I went to a past school friends party, and chatted with his mother in law. She was recounting one of the students back in the day that had got ‘all huffed up’, ie way too self important and above station. I became more intrigued when I sussed she was talking about me. The years had passed.

Indeed I’d danced the sugar plum fairy in the schools Nutcracker suite, wavy blonde hair and tights. That and a few other baubles had gone to my head. It was time to sport some off-uniform swag, get a detention, pull wheelies on the 125, price mags for the Cortina.

New Zealand wide, garish displays of outwardness were not encouraged, one was to stay buttoned down to a simmer at best. She was right, my chum’s mother in law. I’d started off under the radar but had taken to dancing like a showpony.

My dad would say that when you score a try, no hero moves, it’s not about you. 30 odd others on that field, coaches, ref, ambo’s on standby … jog back to the halfway like nothing happened. Go minimalist on the chuffed bit.

Being raised to not show off, when I go ‘look at me’, like this blog, there’s a voice saying ‘Baz, maybe not’. My dad used to call people in media and advertising ‘Fly-boys’, cos they’d flit around and stick to anything that smells rich in the moment, gone in an instant the minute something more tasty appears over the way. He considered such types to be a bit light on character. It’s conflicting … right in there, holding back, what to do.

Some of us, moi included, have our fingerprints all over the web like the neighbourhood Tom. Posting on social like we’re feeding pokie machines. What’s that about ?

Media geezer from the 60’s Marshall McLuhan claimed a change in info parameters when he observed ‘the medium is the message’. TV was getting its game on, before we carried the medium in our pockets. You bet pop will eat itself, and it most surely is. We’ve now fallen under the spell of the pocket. The Greeks gave us Narcissus, and seems we are no less than he, in love with our own reflections.

All the more given our Pocketeer’s seek we become info-enmeshed, from mush to intellect and back, so many strangers so little time. The expectation of constant availability, offerings of pleasure and fear, and that gravity defying trickle-up of money, info and soul. Seems the idea is to over-run human capacity then pass the epi pen’s around a surrendered populous. Overstimulated on hi-vibe in a digital lockdown. Uppers and downers, clever pocketeer’s running a dollar each way.

Buy me a coffee

The age of anxiety is certainly earning its keep, and my job description these days ? Sifter. Imagine thousands of midget info assistants running round our heads prioritising and binning the oceans of info. Busy 2026 heads have we.

The medium is absolutely the message or massage, cabal’s of AI gatekeepers with tabs on words published, voices heard, films viewed, data accessed, rabbit holes ventured, realities altered. We’ve new-skool access where everyone’s an influencer, youtube star, follow me, click and share, where the pocketeers can pull or spin any algorithm anytime. You’re someone ? You’re no one.

Going through the gears feeding our online selves is a lot of work. We square off our boasting and humility in a kind of cage fight for one, values in the ring and a few bruises later, some compromise and integrity we can work with. It can be a beat up.

Being on-line fit as a content maker means showing up and showing off regularly. And as consumers we need stamina to stay abreast of our domains. Surveying multiple domains requires the staying power of an ultra marathon runner, mental agility of a chess master. Venn diagrams everywhere, crack out the crayons and sheets of A2.

For me it’s about connecting. Whether that’s with a handful of chums and followers or just myself, it’s important. It might be about vanity and self interest, and it might be more than that. I worry about aloneness, mine as much as others. My life has lotsa peep’s in it, it’s not that. I feel adrift as a privileged westerner swimming in individualism, our neoliberal creed. The great misfire of economic growth.

Adrift from real connection with mother nature and her mycelium nervous system, the insects, animals, birds and tree’s, adrift from big picture collective, community both human and existential. Sure I can swim and sail and bush walk, do some sundown omm’ing on a coastal walking track, cuddle the grandkids. But I’m aching for the wider collective beauty that we have, the love that we miss. Yearning for more shift in fellow consciousness to help us Come Together in the face of our challenges.

For years I had one very close friend that I never met. Not Jesus. Michael Leunig, an Aussie cartoonist, for years ‘of no fixed abode’. His offerings informed me for decades that I wasn’t mad or alone. Double phew. I had another close friend who this weekend a year ago took his own life. He lived in a house but had become ‘of no fixed abode’, a terrible aloneness in his heart that was difficult to reach. Not so much loneliness, but a fortressed aloneness. Kiwi’s can be big on this, it’s not a resilience I admire.

Yes, aloneness. I wish everyone in the world could stay at my place, I’ll go hard on the cheese toasties, there’ll be a sofa somewhere to crash on. I’m even building a tree house out the back, could pop some short chums in there.

I guess when I smash out a bunch of song vids, blogs, interviews, I am doing my best to bridge both a personal and systemic aloneness. I’m ranting my view of the world into space in the hope that it resonates with a handful of people, and is of some value. The process helps me think sideways, broach areas of concern with decent enough intent and sometimes humour. There’s always some self indulgent toss, a few passing showers of self-doubt, but on a good day I feel the fear and do it anyway. When I feel connection, every day is a good day.

In posting stuff I’m asking people for their most valuable thing - time. I have no expectation that anyone will click on the links. I hope that whoever reads or watches stuff I put out, will in turn be excited to share their thoughts too. We all have observations and reflections. One of my biggest buzzes is to turn people onto sharing their stories with others. To be a bit vulnerable. Trust and be trusted. I can’t remember who I should attribute this quote to, but it’s a keeper:

The world has everything we need for a thriving human civilisation, except a communications system that shows us how to build it.

So let’s both suggest and build it while we can, cos in the future we’ll be facing power and internet outages, and online will become even more of a fickle friend, like not show up. Imagine the end of swiping, we’ll be checking our thumbs into rehab. A few km radius of analog reality could become our lives. #1 tip for this blog ? Like most of them, double down on goodwill with actual people, ones you can hold hands with, drape your arm round, hold, cuddle, help dig a garden with - our physical neighbours, they won’t evaporate as easily as our online ones.

I wonder if what I feel, a desire to connect, to receive love and have love received, is playing out in all of us. I am happy to be all huffed up and show pony if that’s what it takes to invite others in. So sorry Dad, sorry my school chum’s mother-in-law, if I’m a bit too rant & spectacle. It’s an attempt at connection in an anxious world.

The rants may or may not resonate. Please, rant back, comments box is there, a soapbox in the online square.

Arohanui all, and I’m leaving you with a selfie with my dear chum Royce, fellow teacher, flatmate, techno bunny motorbike riding beautiful clever and conflicted decent geezer, gone a year ago. I found a pic of us in London, off to a Ken & Barbie party. Barbie’s even wearing her 1987 stockmarket crash Amex card earring. Must’ve been quite some occasion.

Till next time :)

photo: Wendy Ford

Blessings brethren.

I love staying as raw as I can to the ‘mood of the globe/nation’, local hood, vibe of a sports tournament, a reality TV show, whether the budgie’s on edge. Chatting to randoms features big, and I’m full of gratitude for the chance to play music in pubs, connecting with people through tone lyric and beat. Often the choice or execution of the songs is neither here nor there, the music’s just a tool to reach out and include.

It was with this in mind that I ran a gig as the Very irReverend Bazza Caitcheon. All about breaking the shackles of enslavement. Thursday nights I would take the pulpit in Parnell Auckland, and sing about love, deception and redemption. Handed out the hymn books I’m a believer styles, and drank a lot of Guinness.

The Irish music scene still had some steam, pubs were fit outs of churches. There was hands on healing for the sinners, confessions between songs, a pop-up shop of blessings and salvation. The reverend could also do some merciless Highway to Hell, damnation only a pint away. Punters knew to watch for when the reverend turned.

All went south when I did a gig out west on a sunday afternoon - Bar full of bogans, bikers and V8 boys. Went a bit far on the theatrics gaffa taping sinners hands to the bar, and they did Not take well to the reverends hands-on healing. Ungrateful heathens.

Had to put him on gardening leave after that shocker. Jesus back in the wardrobe. I asked him the other night if he fancied a return to the vestry - was a second coming out of the question. It’s a big job, to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Told me he’s visioning a shopping mall celebrity tour with Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed, a couple of norse gods, Justin Bieber impersonator and Bob Geldof. Told him it was a bit bloke heavy, and couldn’t he include at least a hologram of Olivia Newton John. Said he’d talk to his people, no promises.

Support the good Reverend

Most soul influencers sing from the same songbook, elevator pitch being ‘do your best not to be an arsehole’. For those that need the fine print, this can need breaking down into specifics, so we get some general rules. The Inca’s for example had 3 - Don’t steal, be honest and don’t be lazy. No slouching when there’s an irrigation ditch to be dug, potato beds to prepare. Gotta be a hardy jesus, the Andean version.

God knows in our world at the mo, we could do with a flock of saviours.

So where would he/she/they start, this Jesus … The financial sector would cop a right kicking, break some toes on the money-lenders tables, private equity managers on the Rack, some smiting of the political ponzi’s and those greedy lobby lads, hands on for those in the military machine, and maybe if time allows, smoke some weed with the meek, they’ll at least know where to get good ganja.

Would today’s Jesus be all over social ? Maybe she’s already a tiktok star with a burrito stand in Mexico City, or peddling soft drugs on the canal banks in Amsterdam. Maybe he’s retired and volunteering in a Hanoi hospice, ground control to major Tom, or offering fruit at a shinto shrine, a buddhist temple. Doing time in an american prison, or a bouncer at the Taumaranui Cossie Club getting plenty of hands-on.

If you were Jesus what would you do ? Me, I’ve got a ten pointer good to go.

1. coffee first

2. learn the accordion

3. get some superpowers

4. second coffee

5. work the house, talk to strangers

6. dance on the sunny side of the street (make time for this one)

7. use superpowers to smelt military gear into spades

8. create viral tiktok vids, Dances with Spades

9. bugger off to play accordion and smoke more weed with the meek, while the world goes crazy working their SpadeDance™ moves in the brassica’s.

   Job done, capitalism and wars back in the box, a crucifixion free global redemption. Oh yeah and,

10. give the superpowers back.

Imagine that, a world where our military mission is to grow and share food, not reign hell from the skies. Surely every make, model and flavour of saviour would want that. To regenerate soil and celebrate local resilience. Honour the insects, the flora, fauna, critters both land and sea. Imagine giving them voice for checks and balances on commercial interest. That’s what my Jesus would do.

And dudes, we’re all Jesus - those trippers back in the day, Galilee, the Haight-Ashbury of it’s time, populous bonced on mushrooms, and then the power plays of preferred interpretations coming in cold - second, third, fourth hand, I mean really. Do we absolve our responsibilities to some higher friend or foe ? What if We were that friend/foe, the higher power ? I think we are, we all have our third eye, our dream state, that subconscious cardigan missing a button but still a dependable friend.

We’re mostly not wearing white robes and sleeping under bushes, and true, seems there’s sweet fck all we can control given the big stuff. However when we make a move in the right direction however small, the instinct button goes Yes, right move. As it does No, on a wrong move. Anthropologist Margaret Mead stated "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." You’re onto something there Mags.

When we got the covid lockdowns, my Pacific rim Jesus (I’ve got a few), pricked up her ears. A chink in the armour of the machine. Where’s this heading she thought. Change needs a window, are we looking at a peep hole here, or a ranchslider ? We were hardly blinded by the light, but for a short while it did get the rosaries moving, the joss sticks burning.

My jesus has come up with a new phrase, BounceBack. It’s what happens when we venture into new territory, a voluntary move or taken by force, only to scurry back to square one, first chance. Square one might not be fully functional, but it’s familiar. I have to get on my adventure jesus to avoid BounceBack. There should be an adventure jesus Barbie, crampons, ice axe, climbing to the heavens. Adventure is never comfortable or it wouldn’t be called adventure, and jesus Barbie could take the hits, make Mordor by dusk no probs.

It’s so much easier to take the bounce, and sometimes I do. I’ve some quotes sprinkled round the wall of my office shed, my escape pod. Such as ‘courage is not a lack of fear, courage is fear walking’. Am going to conscript some of these whakatauki into a 2027 manual for self.

The manual, working title Book of Bazzarus, is already full of helpful lists like the one earlier in this blog. Kind of like a selection of observations and take-outs for the curious wanderer. All straight up, free tickets to heaven.

The pulpit’s always waiting, tea and scones for afters, apples aplenty in the garden of Eden. Blessing be upon us brethren, we are each of us mind benders, heart givers and truth tellers. Here’s to keeping our kumara dry and a sharp eye out for BounceBack.

Keep the faith brothers and sister 🫶🏼🫶🏼🙏🏽.

Till next time :)

Excuse me Mister, but I’m a Mr too, and you’re giving Mr’s a bad name, Misters like you’, sings Ben Harper. I’m with him. There’s a type of bloke that lowers the tone.

The historical lean towards PowerBloke leadership is understandable. As more of us feel like pawns pushed off the board, we look for a fix, so we’re easily drawn to the entertainer. PowerBlokes always have a court jester. Such an item leads a merry dance and says he’ll fix it. Of course he will. When things don’t pan out and the Blokes sense a pawn swarm, tone on the turn, it’s bunker down/double down. Powerblokes fear pirates and peasants with pitchforks, lanterns in the night. I would too.

Buy me a coffee

They mostly like to accrue stuff and status, despite such a fleeting lease on property and wealth. Gotta be fun to dance your worth around the globalised financial mkts and back before breakfast.

Control is hands down the Bloke’s first move on the board. Nail the narrative and the rest falls into place, sorted. But for that pesky online world, which keeps busting out alternative truths. Serious PB’s know this and buy up the portals, mainstream, fringe, whatever, to champion particular lines of reason, negate others. They’ll clean you out if they have to, actions once taken in the night but now daytime’s all good too.

We’re definitely best-by on capitalism’s over-reach, a knowledge both arresting and motivating. I see it more as human under-reach, ie we tried the World as a Market, splendid for a while here in first world land, but now we’re running out of World. Damn.

We under-reacher’s are excited about the work we can do to help Mother World back to some form of natural rhythm. It’s hardly selfless, there’s no end of self interest when it comes to saving our arses. Good news is there are peep’s doing this, stuff that is within our control. Lets not forget our got-it-right PowerBlokes, there’s some goody’s, using their heft to build community, collab on good stuff. Big up’s you lot.

‘Bloke’ is used loosely here, not gender specific, and it’s a jovial dufferish label mostly one of ageing endearment, a younger version of a geezer maybe. Some of the PB’s we witness in action definitely deserve a terser nametag. Like evil narcissistic fckrs. Or woefully underinformed. The two conditions often pair up. But in keeping the tone of this blog light and forgiving, Bloke it is.

Onto it PowerBlokes know all about the importance of containment. My intermediate school principal was one. I recall the school getup - matching overcast grey shirt, shorts, socks in sandals. Principal mirrored us in his grey suit, sweet of him to notice. Told us to line up, shut up and put-up. No need to shout I thought at the time. In hindsight, poor teachers, battle-weary for sure. Serious seeds of dissent took root that year. My chum and I snuck into the staffroom through the backdoor one night at badminton, nicked their krispies and pissed in their tea urn. Heartless. I can’t believe I just admitted that. Six of the best. By form two I had the school record. Playground respect doesn’t come better than that, sticking it to the man. PowerBloke Jnr right there.

Now that I’m 36, I’m a lot more seasoned with PowerBloke interchanges. I can smell the bait, read the assault and prepare for rear guard action before Blokemoves catch hold. Doesn’t mean I always escape. Those pincer movements get you from the side, just look at the banking and finance industries. How many arms does your krishna have ?

Powerbloke likes the suit when it suits, but undercover casual chic runs pretty hot these days. In fact the suit is more often the tat now of the lowly paid security or hospo worker. Such a clever flip of class struggle in the costuming dept. Ace move. And poor chaps the blokes, they carry a lot, power comes with responsibility whether you’re ready for it or not. It’s not easy being up there, there’s generally a try-hard or two looking to usurp. So the PowerBloke becomes a night watchman. Sleep can require medication when Lady Macbeth’s giving you the side eye.

I’m in there too. I might mock the type, the PowerBloke, but I can be one, where’s my medication. When I put a guitar on and play a gig, I’m the local incarnation of yesterdays rock god, a would have been if I could have been has-been. There’s stars in someone’s eyes I guess, the soul screamer, the vegan folksinger, guitar hero, hurt before but willing to try again country music lonely heart. I am the holder of the torch for those few hours, I am PowerBloke_music, rebooting dreams and memories for the punters. Can’t touch this.

When the kids were younger, me I’m dad in the house, alpha male, issuing commands to the kids, PowerBloke right there. In my defence I did try and be PowerBloke_light, suggestions and rewards rather than commands and threats. Authority can wear slippers and find a sounder outcome.

I spotted a good number of PowerBlokes rallying deals at the recent NZ Rural Fieldays. Sizeable payouts in the dairy industry means a lotta guys talking turkey on big machinery. Most of it diesel dependent but we’re not mentioning that today. Blokes in gumboots and swandri’s upwind of the silage pile.

What if I was one, a moneyed, status’d PowerBloke? Would I rail against my own ilk ? Or be ‘sweeeeet, not gettin off this ride with its baubles of wealth and choice’. I like to think that ship sailed, the baubles of wealth at least. I recall deliberately sabotaging some opportunities cos I wasn’t up for the snakes and ladders of its aspirations. Dunno why, self aggrandisment, whether stuff or status, just hasn’t been my jam. Sure I’ve been selfish, possessive at times, spank me. I’ve also been railing against Reagan/Thatcher’s twist in the tale ever since my freshly minted economics degree. But you know, it’s hard reasoning with people who live alternative truths, when their livelihood and how they feed their families, is dependent on belief, I‘M no different… It’s just not going to land. Working on that.

Goodwill is the big payer. I’ve made some real powerplays in attempted goodwill. I say attempted cos yeah, some bellyflops. It’s when you put the welfare of others/mother nature at least up there with yours, if not before. When you work hard for community, not your own stash pile. My own experience is that rather than lessen yourself in service to others and nature, the inverse happens. There is born a new kind of wealth. A big warm inside capital gain. Given our limited tenure on this planet and our need for collective, that’s really the only power we have to gain - or lose. Goodwill.

Gotta be medication time. Music and dance cross lines. I’m thinking I might offer monday evening music jams to PowerBlokes - the proud/closet/recovering/aspirational, likely a community notice on facebook - I’m visioning a mens circle with harmonicas, some dance moves and we can all suck and blow to our hearts content. Great therapy especially if we lost the footy in the weekend(see below). We’ll work with Wheels on the Bus first and then I’ll break out the accordions, you can chose your colour, who’s in ?

Till next time :)

Screengrab here of Blokes losing the footy, the Chiefs going down to the Hurricanes 60-5 in the Super rugby finals - Hamilton took it hard. I could go to work with the harmonica’s right there.

"Hopes, fears n’ good ideas is me video interviewing you on my phone. A short interview, around 5 minutes of footage. The questions are, ‘tell me one or two things you wish for, something or things that concern you, and a good idea or two. ‘ The vid is not intended to define you, just capture a moment in time.

Once I’ve edited your video I’ll share it with you privately so you can ask me to change anything before I share it. Once you are happy I’ll share it to our community facebook page, and as part of my blog and YouTube channel .
… If you decide eg in the future you don’t want your video available in public, I’ll take it down. It’s your story, you have control over it.

This is a personal project, to share people’s thoughts and ideas, help us reflect and connect, what unites us is bigger than what divides us. I’m seeking a cross-section of people to take part, it generally takes 30-60 mins of your time, I’ll work around your availability and come to you if that’s easiest.

Examples of interviews to date here
If it’s your thing I’d love you to be involved”

Arohanui, Baz (021) 464406 baz@bazzacam.co.nz

Each interview averaged about 500 views on our local community facebook page, a good response for a community of 10,000.

It is a privilige to have people trust you with their stories, and enlightening to hear so many views. 100% there is more that connects us than divides.

The ‘Hopes, fears n’ good ideas’ project is a great template for communities to theme and connect.

When I left Auckland for Phnom Penh in 2023, I had no idea where I was heading or that I’d write about it. I travelled largely solo, with a broad plan to spend 6 mth’s or so getting round a bunch of colourful non-western countries on a budget. I carried bugger all, a day pack and a ukelele. Mostly one star accomodation, dorm’s in cheap hostels, grandad’s on the top bunk - great anthropology.

I wanted to experience difference, leave my comfort zone. I’m mostly curious and on a good day attentive, and the year didn’t disappoint. 2023 was a buffet of encounters, delights and challenges.

Writing the blogs was a way to share the journey with my peep’s, basic observation and reflection. And tell the story using words and photo’s rather than my stock in trade video.

The photo’s were all shot on an iPhone 11pro, the blogs written and posted on the same device. Amazing how much power we have in our pockets.

The journey was humbling, a reminder of my privilege being a westerner with a passport and funds to be able to have such an adventure. I gained much respect and aroha for my global brothers and sisters who often struggle daily for food and shelter.

Hopefully these blogs celebrate their lives - they live as a testament to at least myself, that people everywhere are wonderful, that travelling with an open heart and respectful disposition can find you the richest experiences, the essence of our connection and togetherness.

🫶🏼

Not entirely. Depending on the fcks, I can give a few. But the age thing ? Wotever.

Currently I’d pick my actual age at round 36, tho my birth certificate suggests 67. Someone’s wrong. I’m a decade or two deep, counting back the yrs. From memory it was my 50th birthday party when I let the kids run the bar - a beautiful irresponsible chaos. Yep. was about then the serious unmaturing began.

There’ve been a few turnkey moments … early days Zumba and I’m watching this very zen person dancing and smiling, while I’m grimacing away down the back, both my feet in the blender. Observing my vibe-smiling dance sister happy in her work got me thinking … ‘wouldn’t that be cool, I’d love to do that too’ … the smiling bit at least, the footwork came later, and within no time my disposition shifted. Sometimes it just takes one person. Now I prance like a happy gazelle, catch me if U can. True my short-term’s a bit shot on remembering the patterns, could be some 67 in there, but I’m now relishing the gay abandon of dance and togetherness. I love all my homies in the dance hall. It’s a high.

Then there was 4 yrs ago I put in a couple of summers working on a landscaping team, boss was 25, I loved that. An honour to chisel steps into some rich geezer’s air bnb hillside with a bunch of 20 somethings. Hard work shared, always a bond in that. And the chats we had. Lucky-as Baz.

I never set out to un-mature. 6 formative years in Hamilton are a decent headwind to contend with. Had I paced out another 6, kept my head down, I’d have been in the running for Mayor, or even Nat party member for TronWest holding the line on compliance, conservatism, complacency, Classic Hits and comfort. But no, punk rock and Uni took care of that.

So no fcks given bout the passing years, the whole scene just gets rowdier with the passing of time. Can’t wait till I unmature back to Yr 10 or 11 at school, where my whole world was mischief. A bro and I burnt Mr Widgery’s hedgerow eyebrows when on cue we blew down the gas taps in science causing Widgee’s burner to go monster, that old chestnut … spilt his condy’s crystal’s all over the show as he sprinted for the door, brows still smoking. Locking us down in rooms all day, fancy grown ups thinking they could get away with that. I hear it still goes on, the school thing.

My body sometimes calls me into check as I unpack my newfound youth, but it’s also in there with me, ‘yeah Baz, we’re good, bend me shake me use me.’ Been some system malfunctions but mostly we’re a happy pair, body and I. He/she/they continues to give me consent, and that is a much valued permission.

It’s the heart, mind and soul that I feel really get the spoils as I count back the years.

Full disclosure, I’m high as a fckn kite at the mo. Not on weed or anything, tho it seems half the peep’s I know have a prescription now, I’m just permanently delighted.

Could be I’m still glowing from my tour round some of NZ’s Envirohubs and sustainability centres . I’ve got a bunch of endorsements saying ‘Baz is a gibbon on acid, spectrum 4 sure, but yeah we recommend you do his workshop.’ It’s a bit like collecting a few certificates at prizegiving, must be doing something right.

No it’s not the ego on this occasion, it’s the numerous groups of righteous citizens I’ve come across doing amazing stuff in the community space - many with an environmental/food resilience take. I love it when people do stuff that serves others first, not pursuit of personal coin or property. The truly wealthy.

In each of these communities there are one or two other unmaturing gibbons on acid making cool stuff happen, and loads of others on team, varying less gibbon, still some acid. These peeps are beautiful troublemakers.

A few blogs back I mentioned a book that really rang true… Rutger Bergman’s ‘Humankind’. He’s now begun a substack and this is his first post , angling it at people redirecting their talents into something that he terms a moral seriousness. Maybe mayor of Hamilton could’ve been worth a shot after all. Depends what kind of moral seriousness we’re talking bout.

I think when we’re energised by something bigger than us and we know it to be right in our hearts, we rise beyond the mercantile world of money and pomp. Of institution and title. Moves that involve risk and courage, like leaving a career, making a stand as an unpopular minority, a fringe dweller. Do this when we’re not ‘sorted’ as many in these communities aren’t, and we risk homelessness and poverty. It can be brave work.

The good news I have to report is that there are growing communities around NZ doing very cool stuff with all moral seriousness, mostly unfunded. A sizeably larger demographic than the original peace sign wearing lentil loving greenies. God bless ‘em.

Yes, the tribes are growing, not before time, and this more than anything else is what keeps me so excited about my advancing youth. Community is on a roll. Not that our mainstream media would have you know that. Still a menu of anxiety and bad news on the bleeds/leads front. Hence my mission to help create local community storytellers to celebrate initiatives, bottlenecks and work-arounds.

I have never been more excited about the future, it happens with getting younger. I’m stimulated by the changes approaching, cos fck me this construct we have as humans, how we co-exist with each other and Mother Nature - or not, so needs a rebuild. Lots of our brothers n’ sisters in less privileged parts of the world have been under the hammer for generations. NZ is not all innocence either.

It might take its pretty little time to fully unpack in our picture perfect Hampton’s of the South Pacific, but shared duress is on its way. Half the worlds currently awake at night on scroll feeding the anger bots punching in cortisol codes. Glory be.

So again a call for all hands on deck. Bury ourselves in endless Netflix series if we must but a more sage approach would suggest we do more than just circle the wagons round the bruises. Time to get our hands in the soil, metaphorically and literally. Interesting blog here, nutshell quote being “While the wealthy cling to logistics and illusion, the real defence strategy is soil and local growers who refuse to let their communities starve.”

Here’s the 60 second challenge for my maturing peers. Start getting younger on it. Whatever we have - our time, positive vibes, experience, money, property, compost, stuff, use it to give traction to those who are inheriting this dance, get morally serious on it, get un-old. Join me in becoming less responsive to expectations of decorum and obedience, more aware of the greater us, get scared, try things that seem impossible but we know to be right. Six impossible things before breakfast.

Devise ways to hang with younger generations if they are not naturally part of the domestic furniture and be prepared to change our thoughts on what’s right and wrong, again and again. Refresh the browser. Rock our own boats. Be part of the new visions that are forming for how we conduct ourselves going fwd.

I look at my kids and their kids, all of them free tickets to a younger take on stuff. I’m both passing the baton and jumping into the mosh pit with them. Cannot recommend that last bit enough. Watch out for BoomerDrop though, that’s what happens when you launch yourself off stage and your vibe is all wrong. Rather than catch U, Gen Z will part like Moses doing a runner and you’ll splat on the floor like a full nappy. Still, some points for trying. Tip - padded rompers for the mosh pit.

It’s said that when you hit 60 you’ve done five full zodiac cycles @ 12 yrs apiece and your life begins anew, which would make me 7 yrs old. No chance, I’m well into my 30’s … I hope I make it to 7.

Till next time :)

It’s looking like we might have to ease up a bit … slim chance of going anywhere if the pumps run dry. Penny’s dropping like flies as our kiwi dependence on offshore refined oil for virtually everything is laid bare.

“You’re the second person that’s said that to me this morning” Evan replied when I told him he was now likely to be everyone’s new best friend. Ev is a bike mechanic, an expert, and he was tweaking up my 3 seater. Seems the common bicycle is set to become more a valuable item with each passing day. Even more than my spare accordion I’ve lent him. Thinking we’re gonna need lots of accordions to mop up the tears.

Duplicitous bastard I always am, I’m currently driving around Aotearoa in my petrol burning HiAce, running smartphone video workshops for people involved in Environment Hubs and sustainability centres. Folks primarily into community and local food resilience. I should be biking, instead I’m foot on the gas blasting Classic Hits. Some would say I’ve let myself go.

I’m workshopping folks with dirt under their nails, helping them shoot, edit and publish short video stories on their phones, so they can make noise on social bout what they’re growing/doing and how, bottlenecks and workarounds. I’m lucky to be meeting some pretty cool cats.

Talk about timing, geopolitics and all that. Our culture has always been heading toward a forced localism it’s just When that’s been raffled. How far we can walk, paddle, cycle and sail may well define our worlds. Food, shelter and conflict resolution, the big picture KPI’s now touching down home and personal.

Supermarkets, iterated as they are around diesel supply chains, may be powerless to keep up. Composting, bottling, preserving, pickling, fermenting et al gonna be bigger than the All Blacks. Forget MasterChef, we’re looking at MasterVeg, down in the dirt with wormcam. Batman’s gone, it’s now Bugman. Better still BugGrl - patriarchy in the back seat for while, cool off boys.

I’m on the third leg of my journey, begun in February. Now into March I’m off round the Sth Island. I pitch the sessions as a yr of film school in half a day. The full shebang is 4-5 hrs long, and some just one or two hour quickies. The workshops are free/koha, so yeah another passion project that costs rather than earns, freedom camping my way round in the van, dipping in the surf and streams, bludging a shower here n’ there. Doing it cos I love turning people onto storytelling, and I’m super nosey. I want to see what peep’s are doing for themselves in growing and sharing food. So it’s more research I guess, and that great buzz, talking to strangers.

In Thames, a Coromandel of community gardeners, recycling centre and kiwi care peep’s, wetland planters and activists looking to frustrate the fresh attempts of the mining companies, currently going gangbusters cos ‘there’s money in them there hills’ … gold silver, minerals.

Carterton, New Plymouth, Wellington’s Sustainability Business Network, the Te Aroha marae at Kai Iwi, Nina’s living room in Picton. All memorable sessions, happening because of one or two motivated individuals in each locality are gathering up citizen storytellers and newbies keen to be, and making it happen. Bless these people, community driven gold each one.

Working it out together. In absence of any real global leadership, we need to step up. No one is coming to plant our kumara’s. Angela, kuia at the marae session chuckled “we’ve been doing that all our lives, the māra(vegetable garden) is a big part of the marae, feeding people is # 1 and sure there’s Pak n’ Save, but we’ve got lots going on just out the back here”.

We could do well to elevate indigenous ways, foods and herbal remedies(rongoa), community sharing of task and reward - in step with navigating our imminent local and repair focussed economy.

It means a realtime gear change, re-imagining how we spend our time. The diminishing of institution - education, career, portfolio. We’re all going to be growers of food, enablers of water, clothing, warmth, builders of shelter and keepers of peace and equity. Unemployment unknown, all hands on deck.

Don’t freak. Mother nature needs this, and we’ll work it out if we keep our cool. For me it’s bout finding a personal zen, making peace with how we got in this situation, what lies underneath our feet now, and navigating what will likely present ahead. Google maps won’t help, it’ll be our skillsets, grit, stamina, connection and compassion. Fun times.

A fave whakatauki here: Courage is not a lack of fear, courage is fear walking.

Before I left home on this leg, I took some photo’s of my own māra. We couldn’t live off it, but our wee ¼ acre has supplemented the eftpos food sources we use. Our home on Waiheke has crap soil, all clay and stone, so it’s been several yrs of composting seaweed, horse poo, coffee grinds and other waste foods from fruit n’ vegetable outlets and cafes. I’m a food waste scavenger, a wierdo, happy around the smell of decomposition. This summer at our place there’s been lots for the bees, and a reasonable amount for us in the way of veggies, fruit and herbs. Not expansive volumes, but it’s a start, we’re learning what works and what doesn’t, bottlenecks and workarounds.

These pics remind me of the magic of growing food. Chickens/eggs could also be a go when I get home. Ecuadorians love to spit roast their Hamsters, so maybe some hamsters. Gotta have protein. And can never have enough broad beans and other legumes.

I’m an average gardener - I plant a whole lot of stuff in only half prep’d soil, then get busy on other stuff neglecting to clock the daily needs of small seedlings. Like water, which is a scarce commodity on Waiheke island. It comes off the roof or not all. Does make one highly respectful of weather patterns, living rain cloud to rain cloud.

Parked up above the Patea River mouth a few nights back, I chat to some Filipino builders out on the breakwater, set to fish into the night before heading back to Hawera for work. ‘We are so lucky to be able to do this’ said one with good English, all of them beaming and chirping filipino. With Patea Maori Club’s famous hit ‘Poi ē’ the soundtrack of the day, it’s a joy to hear this different language, this different music, mixing it up with Te Reo. That’s us going fwd I think, this melting pot of cool peep’s. Choice also to see there’s still some bounty in the ocean, fab.

Right now we’re past the halfway mark March 2026, gas prices creeping up. The real issues are soon to be bigger than pricing. They are supply and availability, of lots of stuff. Even if the various seaways like Straits of H open tomorrow and it’s business as usual, it’s still coming, opening act already here.

For generations our financialised industrial growthwashing narrative flew from the top of the pole, unquestionably. ‘There is no other way’ said Thatcher.

One of NZ’s big retailers moving globalised consumer goods, once proudly broadcast they were ‘making the desirable affordable’ … the desirable is set to be barely affordable or available. Let alone desirable, a lot of it’s consumer tat.

For we that haven’t been paying attention, it’s unnerving. Collapse of commodity mkts, financial mkts, mass redundancies, a global depression significantly worse than the 2008 GFC, something more akin to the great depression of the 1930’s only with climate patterns spazzing out and a fck lot more people on the planet competing to be fed.

“You can’t come out and say that, people would panic”, were the words of a friend of mine who works in national security, when I suggested the government of the day missed the opportunity to kick start serious local food resilience around the country. The issue at hand was the first covid lockdown, and we didn’t know whether we were facing the black plague or a simple flu virus, or as some were inclined to think, a load of conspiratorial bollocks.

I wanted to hear the Prime Minister come out and say something like ‘we don’t know where this is heading, what supply chain breaks we’re facing, so we’re encouraging all of us to start a veggie garden, and we’ll incentivise it, here look, I’m already rocking a silver beet in a bucket. Let’s go Y’all’.

Imagine if the corporate welfare then given to businesses, was in part given in incentives to dig, emergency containers of spades shipped in, garden supplies, assistance and tuition. Sometimes shit’s just gotta get real. I’ll own it, I’m a composting hard arse, medium rare on the outside, cooked in the middle.

A few years back our local community board had a sterling initiative - two free fruit tree’s to every suburban resident with a berm. Renting or owning, didn’t matter. Council dumped truckloads of compost and mulch on street corners and it was up to us to dig the holes and keep them mulched and watered through the first summer. I have a fig and guava, both on the berm, public fruit for anyone to help themselves. Next door there’s citrus out front. Awesome initiative.

Meanwhile some collective anxiety - back above the equator, one or more psycho manboys playing with matches could well unleash a nuclear popper.

It’s watch this space. Are we gonna see more military tech people pummelling Gaza styles, or maybe even the crown jewel of our age of anxiety, a stakes high nuclear popper.

They’ve been marketing some shocking new armaments in the Ukraine and Palestine. As it’s always been through history. Thermodynamic, thermonuclear, white phosphorous, dudes lining up to buy these batshit cruel advanced armaments. “Small, contained, strategic” they’ll say … whatever that means. Should that escalate, it’ll be a challenge to habit significant swathes of the northern hemisphere. Challenges for the Sth too.

Lord of the Rings and Jacinda Ardern have helped put New Zealand on the global stage, so billions know where we live. A paradise of relative peace, an escape from military madness, a chance to survive maybe even thrive. We’re not the best economic performers re GDP growth, but these indices will likely lose gravitas. Possibly a good thing. We have soil, water and for now, sunshine, all the ingredients needed to generate food in our local hoods.

I’m thinking we could find hordes of people globally, seeking passage on whatever seagoing vessel they can and heading our way. Container ships, trawlers, anything with diesel that can possibly take on the Pacific and Tasman seas. It will have nothing to do with airports, passports, visa’s, retina scans or customs officers. Follow the money, there’ll likely be multiple refugee runs for some vessels, others likely to just beach themselves, mission complete. Our immigration stance and enforcement abilities at that point won’t be able to keep up.

Similarly for military powers. If warships from the US or China or wherever want to rock into our waters, they just will. What are we gonna do? Fly a peace sign and flick them with a wet T- towel ? Whichever flavour of saviour men-of-war seize the anchorages will be a moot point. Any of these vessels of menace in our harbours make us a target to other manboys who wear a different strip.

Sounds Hunger Games but I don’t see it that way. Said manboys should know we’re entering the age of aquarius, that the old schtick is up. And yes, they’ve missed the memo, n’ bets on they’ll throw their toys every which way on the way out, already are. There’s such good revenue for stakeholders in warfare, and we’re conditioned to coo over a good revenue model. Such a conflicted species aren’t we ? And very late to the party.

Bottom line is this: mother nature needs this modern world, this oil world, to stop. She birthed us, and she’s playing her hand in the great humbling.

So let’s get with the play. Walk, paddle, cycle, sail, and get to know the spade like our lives depend on it. Cos they will.

I’ve landed in a freedom camping area in my pop top Hiace, home sweet home. Parked up just across in a Subaru boyracer ride that’s seen better days, lives a shy man with his cats. “Rent increased, couldn’t pay, same time got laid off and now I can’t get another job cos I don’t have a fixed address. I got 3 days food from WINZ, still got some rice - I can cook it when the barbecue by the toilet is free”.

Mick(I’ve changed his name), I’d pick him 45 at a pinch, seems a nice guy down on his luck. I give him a jump start to charge the battery, but the gas. Plastic over the broken rear side window and a big sticker on the good part of his broken windscreen ‘This Car Must Be Removed’. I got the shortform, but I ponder what Mick’s longform story is … the things he didn’t mention. More broken stuff.

Freedom camping spots are authentic sociology. You can be parked between the $150k motorhome and the homeless, side by side. Cashed up boomers sitting around fold-out kathmandu tables living the good life. And then there’s Mick.

I’m in there, cashed-up light in my $20k job, and yeah it’s not my problem, well not specifically, but it’s our problem. Most of us look right through Mick. Don’t see him, he doesn’t exist. Too feral, too hard basket.

The internal conversation goes something like this … do I focus just on MeMyself, or do I take a wider interest in others wellbeing. I was a teacher for years, it’s in the job description, giving a shit, so my instinct is to go wider interest.

Freedom camping is an intriguing dance. We’re rolling our vehicles into free digs, first and foremost marking out our temp private spaces on public land, establishing the physical boundaries - I’m getting to know the moves the more I’m on the road.

“You can’t park in this space” says Warren from down south, as I nicely suggest he could possibly move his table and various other outdoor accoutrements to free up the spare allocated freedom parking space. Says he, “my campers too big to have someone in the space beside” … he’s right there, his camper’s a monster, an 8 wheeler, but my van is little, skinny, and I’m a nice guy. I’m picking my personal hygiene is no worse than his, better even, and I’d promise not to play the piano accordion, but no.

So I go park over by Mick. No-one has taken the spaces right beside him.

I’ve got a feed on the make for Mick. He says he hasn’t eaten for a while and he looks it. Sausages, egg, greens, tomato’s etc. What he really needs is more than a feed, he could do with my Hiace, pimped up as it is with a bed and cooker and sink. He needs it way more than me.

Those of us on the leisure moves in our campers mostly don’t engage with the Mick’s. Too downbuzz, and just maybe these fellow humans mirror the less sorted parts of our own selves - there’s the mirror again, look away. Mick and I get chatting until he can’t anymore, re-telling his story is hurtful. His face folds now and then, self worth gasping for air.

He scurry’s back to his car cats and 10 mins later I take him over his dinner. He beams and blushes, gratitude and embarrassment, charity wonderful and humiliating all in one.

Mick asks me if he can keep the plate, he’s got a bowl for the cats but not for himself. Yes of course. I give him the cans in the van, beans, tomatoes, tuna, and $50. I want to load him and his cats into the HiAce and say ‘come on bro, we’ll work something out, just jump in, we’ll top n’ tail.’ And I don’t, it’s not that simple. Getting your wheels out of the sand takes more than a meal and $50.

Still, little things help, if enough of us were to pay it fwd as the saying goes, we could help build not just those doing it hard, but ourselves. Yes, lots of us despite keeping up appearances, have some Mick onboard, living life timidly, a touch trauma’dly - you know the bits of us we like to not talk about. Lalalalalalalalala …

Morning, and Micks up early. I’d question a good nights sleep in a small hatchback crammed with cats and stuff so no room to stretch out. In fact any sleep. He’s standing out in the tide in his smalls, taking a salty bath. I just don’t know how he does it, but he does.

What to do.

We are partitioned by socio-economics, by choices, by circumstance, opportunity and luck. There are mental health challenges across demographics as we all try and make sense of our personal and collective worlds. No surprises. I’d be worried if there weren’t, if we were all bang on with with the current creed of civilisation and the twisted duplicities of life. And god parts of us are So bang on with how the world is working out, those of us with food shelter, savings, whanau that love us, modern medicine to afford should our bod’s give us grief blah de blah. Some of us are living materially in what could be called the best of times. For now.

Surely you feel it, I feel it - as the homeless and dispossessed among us become increasingly visible, the narratives of winner/loser, Us and Them become less palatable and ultimately less credible. We can do better than this as humans. It’s time for a re-boot in how we co-habit - there are various triggers already circling the shire, this is happening in real time. Mick is the canary in the coalmine.

What to do ? How should we respond ? What do you guys think ?

Geezer from the past Buckminster Fuller famously said ‘there’s no passengers on spaceship earth’ … Up off ya knee’s everyone, we gonna be busy, lot’s more Mick’s on the way.

I’d stowed the laptop for months, lost in looking after grandchildren, wheezing away on the piano accordion (yes, I know), biking, sailing, zumba, gigs, chums yada.

Just the ticket.

The grandchildren thing I didn’t see coming. One minute I’m doing a jig cos I’ve got my kids through school, next thing they’re procreating. My eldest two are first out of the blocks, a couple apiece. Four grandsons ranging from two to five. I’ve pimped up my mountain bike with a seat on the back and a shotgun job up front. No shortage of passenger requests or fitness opportunities for grandad.

Classiest act last few months was moving in 24/7 while daughter and husband gapped for Europe leaving me their 3 and 5 yr old for a few weeks. Awesome exhausting experience. I got some help and we handed them back alive, even got a certificate, reckon I deserved it n’ all.

Small peoples worlds are magical places. The unhinged excitement optimised in a flash, the flow states, the big feelings, the volume of action … master jugglers of the analog our kids.

It’s said the creative adult is the child that survived, could be something in that. At Uni I popped my head up in the adult world and thought fck that. I’m pretty sure I got into high school teaching to keep the teenage me alive. Would’ve been in my 30’s when I finally left school.

The luxury to be able to go analog, step back from Google docs, has been enabled by becoming a geezer, and its financial baubles the gold card and pension. It’s the bumper boomer bonus pack of free public transport and a few hundy for doing nought. Oh yes and a mortgage-free cottage to reside. Not sure that’s fair on our young ones grinding it out but my snout’s in the trough. I am a VeryLuckyBaz.

I’ve been flirting with organic me for a while now. Back around covid, I took a dive downhill in front of the screen, working on an umpteenth draft for a client. It was my mirror mirror on the wall moment, I was done, my soul a puddle of mud. Cancelled my adobe subscription at sunrise, vowing to never edit another video again.

Yes, well, here I am in the ones and zero’s again, your average citizen tapping this blog on a phone, luddite light. AI would prefer I went full cookies and cream on it, triple chocolate on sundays, and some days I do. But booting the thing down, like completely off, is also I’ve discovered, a joyous freedom, if a little selfish in the spirit of progress. AI wants to know me better, I’m hesitant to suggest it’s the new friend I need.

Lately I’ve been more consumer than producer, call it research. Substack and ilk have exploded. So many thinkers, so little time.

Another act of rebellion, handwriting and doodling, paper lists, shortlists for lists, and pleased to say I’m rocking a print diary - not sharing calendar info with the cloud. Who knows who’s really flying that magic carpet. Musk? Metaman with his move fast and break things spiel? If I lose the thing (diary that is) then I form another plan, a bit like being on the run, making it up, reinventing.

My gratitude for technology is running a bit skint at the mo, I do need to work on my attitude. For all the brilliance of app-land, the pace of booking travel, accom, transferring money - assuming you have any, google maps, tai chi tutorials (watched but seldom attempted), there’s the opportunity cost of in-person human relationships. Digital both connects and quarterises.

As a kiwi in the provincial pre-digital era, hands up we were often compliant holders of nutritionally limiting truths. When the dial-up modem hit town, it offered investigation into wider threads. But in the same way that rock n’ roll’s rebel pelvis became swiftly commercialised, freedom of the web has doubled back on itself in a rainbow of algorithms, virtual pots of gold, water water everywhere but not a drop to drink. The mirage of intelligent precursive convenience, with a shadow side of subjugation and serfdom. Of course awesome times for those of us that have leveraged technology to our advantage… but for a limited time only, watch this space.

I think we yearn for our analog. Other day I was gigging at a local bar, one minute before I’m due to start, the house system’s playing Hotel California, of course it was … the ‘you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave’, a fitting metaphor for our digital world. EntertainerBaz has barely said hi on the mic before a punter yells out a request … Hotel California. I reached for the meds. Maybe it was they needed a real person to play their anthem. Like playing chicken with a jukebox to assure we comfortably numb Peep’s that there is still a human representative reminding them of their organic selves, a smiling singing meat puppet. They call it live music, as opposed to dead I guess.

Disengagement #42 has seen me hoovering some actual books, ones with paper pages. Two recent winners worthy of mention, ‘Humankind - A Hopeful History’ by Dutch author Rutger Bregman, and ‘The Lot’, words by Melbourne cartoonist Michael Leunig.

Historian Bregman reveals that the human species is hard wired to collaborate, not compete, and that our hunter gather ancestors were in no way adversarial dog eat dog. Quite the contrary. He posits our problems began when the first quantity surveyor decided to mark out a choice spot and call it private property. Says he, sharing, kindness and working together have always been the core of our DNA. Vying for dominion over resource was always an unnatural construct, engineered by civilisations early self anointed puff daddy’s, evolving into the competitive ladder pulling sociopathic shitshow we today call society. Steady Baz, there’s been some good stuff too. But taking the long view and the meth fuelled acceleration of the last 50 yrs WinnerTakeAll, nah, we’ve fooled ourselves.

Leunig, whose cartoons graced the Melbourne Age for decades, suggests that our only chance to make the shitshow tenable is to take every opportunity to talk to strangers, that our connection with the unfamiliar is mostly revelatory. The ultimate analog.

Two authors, same conclusions. One a researched and referenced academic, the other a gifted creative musing on personal observation. Throw in american author Mark Twain’s claim that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness”, and it seems we’ve got some roaming to do. Hunting and gathering for new relationships.

I’m no author of repute like these geezers, but my own research globetrotting a couple of years back came up with the same. I don’t think I met a single arsehole. People are awesome, more often open and generous. Extend a smile, a hand of friendship, speak in their language (or attempt to), and souls meet. The deeper the immersion, the trust, the greater the connection. And if people rip you off, spare a thought for the children they have to feed, the elderly they need to care for. Put yourself in their shoes, maybe value connection over possession. Ooh that’s such a difficult western concept, and I acknowledge my white privilege here where billions globally struggle for food and shelter. Message here is trust yourself off the tourist trail if you go wandering … adventure is not comfortable, or it wouldn’t be called adventure.

Technology has given the developing world a leg up in a globalised economy, also given them a kick in the crutch, presenting the developed world the chance to fck over developing countries with even greater efficiency. Cue the world bank, IMF, a grab bag of other predators with their fingers deep in the resource buckets of the global south. There’s decades worth of The Economist magazine and their FreeMarketFreddies in the witness box there.

Getting out in nature is the ultimate analog. If it doesn’t work for you, you haven’t found your magic place yet. Keep the faith, you’ll find it. If you’re familiar with mother nature - she’s hard to miss, then you likely have a bunch of magic places. That’s called falling in love. It’s not just Shrek that makes it to home base on that one, it’s there for all of us. ‘Mother’ nature is the ultimate corporate hermaphrodite, chair of the board, CEO and the entire labour force. Not sure where middle management fit in here, or anywhere for that matter.

For my part, 2026 is looking like Go Time. The Hopes, fears n’ good ideas project is keeping me excited in a perfect marriage of analog and digital. There’s going to be more grandad time for sure, maybe some more blogs and pisstake songlets like I did back in covid days … and spreading the gospel with smartphone storytelling workshops

And if all that fails there’s always the piano accordion. One of the four instruments of the apocalypse, in there with the banjo, bagpipes and a hippy on a djembe drum.

I’ll leave you with a thought from the considered western hippy of eastern philosophy Alan Watt’s, who scribed these thoughts back in the 1960’s:

“The problem is that we are now wielding the incredible surgical instrument of technology with trembling hands, and what concerned Huxley was that such power cannot be handled constructively by anxious and alienated men with as fundamentally hostile attitude to nature”.

Till next time :)

Obedience is the enemy. I had plans to cover the sails of my little keelboat with this message a few years back.

The occasion was a maritime defence exercise hosted out of Auckland’s Devonport naval base combining allied warships, and I planned to spend a couple of days sailing to and fro in front of them. I started prepping the banners then got hit with a nasty flu - it never happened.

War is futile, we could probably all agree on that, but still our leaders find reasons. My advice for anyone dependent on the military - national or mercenary - for their families food and shelter, is find another way to pay the bills. In this gig economy we now inhabit, most of us have to keep re-inventing. Now’s as good time a time as any to move on from the uniform.

If we hand on heart believe we’re doing the right thing, ridding the world of terrorists, defending our patch, whatever, then best we keep peeling the onion.

There’s some good stuff of course, our navy involve themselves with cyclone relief in the Pacific, fisheries patrol in coastal waters, praise all round. But if we’re called upon to service the twisted narratives of an allies’ geopolitical interests, the old Us and Them thing, sit that one out, obedience is the enemy.

The silent bloodshed lies in the shell games of the financial world. Military interest pivots around leverage of resource and money, a marriage made in hell - shop soiled bedpals those two, grubby to the touch.

Without giving you the full 101 macroeconomics tirade, tossing aside the gold standard and the Glass-Steagle act were two of the sketchiest moves american presidents ever made. Despite their electioneering rhetoric, these ‘leaders’ then as now, toe the line, or, as JFK found out, you’re gone by lunchtime. And now with BRICS and the global awareness that the USA has gone rogue, time’s shortly to be up for the hollywood of hegemony and their economic dominance. Some say it already is, and not before time. The global financial system, hundreds of yrs in the making, the last 50 on meth, is pure and simple ponzi. Gambling, where the house always wins. The house in our case is Mother Nature, and he/she/they cares not for quarterly financials, the sugary donut on the boardroom table. Contrary to popular belief, economic growth is a dark horizon to be setting sail for. Don’t fall for the growthwashing.

I’ve taken a keen interest over the last few decades in the United States, haven’t we all. They have reprehensible foreign policy, Team America World Police. Shady at the best of times, it’s that old chestnut of insecurity and greed, and the inevitable grab for power and control.

Sadly their domestic policy is little better. Which is unfortunate because the folk that inhabit the States, like anywhere in the world, are awesome humans that just want the best for their children, elders and communities. The States have given rise to some formidable intellect, the best of creative minds.

But the twisted narratives that generations have built around the american dream ? Smoke and mirrors. And here we sit in NZ, the USA as allies, the Five Eyes intelligence sharing complicity we suck up. Dubious.

Longtime analysts like Noam Chomsky have always followed the money as they say, to peel back the layers of oval office and pentagon endeavour. And the real power, financial gravy trains and fat controllers that sit behind them. Many great observers - Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Orwell, Huxley, Margaret Atwood, William Burroughs, George Carlin, musicians like Frank Zappa … have for some time been calling bullshit on the backline of self-interest and greed.

Currently I find sounder narrative coming out of Chinese leaders mouths, more considered thought, a country playing the long game. State controlled capitalism seems to be the current flavour of their saviour. And biding their time. They don’t tend to drop munitions on countries willy nilly like some we know. They could, but they don’t.

The USA is new, a youngster, still emotionally finding it’s way, hormonally erratic. Their current leadership is a fine reflection of this … spoilt manboys in their playground bully years.

White Empire (an affectionate term for the States, coined by the global south), carry recent enough shame in genociding american indians, profiting from the slave trade, and now propping up any regime (eg NATO/Zionism/Taliban/al-Qaeda/Iran/Iraq the list is endless) that will divide and conquer; buy/sell arms, spin a buck, and steal resource that’s not theirs, under the guise of protecting their interests. I’d suggest that the US’s interests lie within their own borders, and they have no business bullying other nations, whether Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Palestine/Middle East, Latin America, Africa, just about every corner of the globe - a stakeout of multiple military bases, standover tactics every which way. No business at all.

American foreign policy is global terrorism incarnate. They’ve invested multiple billions in PR via every channel imaginable to convince us in the West that they are here for us, the flagbearers of freedom and enterprise. Rubbish, always has been and now the emperor has no clothes. Here’s looking at you USA, you have lost your way. China stretches back thousands of years. I would not want to live in China with a dissident spirit, I’d likely get disappeared if I challenged their narrative, same now in the States, ICE etc. But I can see why kiwi Rewi Alley took a shine to China. The all for one and one for all attitude, a collaborative rather than competitive culture, well it makes sense to me. The mountains of consumerist junk that they spew and we eagerly lap up, not so much. But I get their gameplan, with most of the world now playing Chinese checkers, the host holding the board.

No, I don’t think Xi, Modi or Putin are the answer to our current challenges as a species, but it’s clear to see that american leadership and the course they’re setting is delusional and ultimately defeatist.

Stateside the Dem’s, Republicans, red/blue, tweedledum/tweedledee, whatever, are a bunch of owned Wall St bitches, complicit the lot of them. The system is a rort and even the misinformed mainstream media consumer can sense the rat under the floorboards. As a consequence we’re turning our backs on the buy-in, aware that a lot of our past truths have been sifted and shuffled, served up as brainfog.

Money, power and war… the shit going down in Palestine, that’s been decades of US backed land theft, displacement and extermination. I visited Israel in the 90’s, it resembled California, an american outpost all modern with glass and steel high rise, a desert land pimped up with wealth, paved roads, modern infrastructure, the USA’s 51st State for sure. And so it has recently become glaringly obvious. Zionism is not Judaism, and it’s now getting a lot of airplay on the world stage as a crushing ideology of othering, of cruelty and genocide. They’re not alone in dirty deeds, but that doesn’t make it alright to pass trauma down the line. 2 years ago in Peru, just before the Hamas uprising, I spent a week in a hostel dorm with some young Israeli’s fresh out of their compulsory training with the IDF. Got talking, and I couldn’t find one of them keen to go into Gaza. One said to me ‘Baz we’ve been asked to inherit the vengeances of our elders’ … how cool, after all the trauma’d othering they’d grown up with, they didn’t see Us and Them. Ran into a few of them in Bolivia post-Oct 7th and they were sad, not angry, cos they knew what was about to come. With recent reports that the IDF have a lot of young reservists like these refusing to turn up for duty, I’m thinking they’re working it out, that obedience is the enemy.

Men in suits and military fatigues. Has there ever been a weaker more cowardly strain of reptilian human than those prepared to use aviation to drop munitions on populations. Dresden, London’s Blitz, Hiroshima, Kissinger’s Cambodian B52 lolly scramble, Gaza. Ad infinitum. We have a long way to go, obedience is the enemy.

Back here on the home front, New Zealand’s ‘leaders’, men in suits, women with shoulder pads … in all my voting years, and I’m a grandad now, I’ve never seen such a vague bunch more out of their depth than our current finger pointing government. Bless them but they are ideological beginners with little economic or emotional literacy. Even my second cousin (yes we’re related) ShowPony Winnie™ could do with a moral compass re-swinging. For Winston, magnetic north has always been a television camera. Sorry bro, hurts to say that. But not much.

So what to do.

Hitherto handles like capitalism/socialism, left/right are no longer fit for purpose. I am a believer in hard work, but simply for self-aggrandisement ? That wont get you an invite to my barbie. Ownership is an illusion, mother nature owns the lot, and ‘profit’ whatever that means to you, needs to be returned to the communities from whence it’s generated. Including ecological communities - the ladybirds need a voice. Call me yesterday’s leftie and you’d be wrong. I question everything. I’m looking for a new structure within which we can conduct ourselves, and it likely won’t take hold with any real intent till our current one has a few more 2008 GFC seizures.

Wealth for me is having people around me that give a shit, feeling like I belong somewhere, that I’m not an island. And valued, of some purpose to a greater good than just me.

And yes I need some form of food, shelter and clothing. Tho this doesn’t need to be opulent, I already am. Mere fact I’m a white boomer with a NZ passport and right to reside makes me priviliged beyond the wildest dreams of those struggling in developing nations. I have the luxury of time to tap this out on laptop, the luxury of a laptop, access to electricity and wifi. I am the 1%.

In todays economic climes, globally and here at home, our kids struggle to find jobs, cos the concept of having one especially white collar, is on the wane. High schools have not so much lost their way as never found it. Putting teenagers in rooms behind desks for much of the day … what the actual fck is that about. Most media we consume is mindless distraction. I was a schill in both those service industries. What they could be, and what they largely are … don’t get me started.

Our kids will likely never own their own shelter, they can barely afford to rent it, unless they are lucky enough to have a mum and dad with a trust account like NZ’s current “I’m sorted’ Prime Minister. Boy is that ladder puller in the wrong job.

Our petrol and diesel comes from far away. We currently need it to prop up our material oil dependent lives, at the least to get food to supermarkets given our relationship with food has largely become an eftpos card. Mother Nature doesn’t need it, he/she/they would prefer we left the fossil fuels in the ground, scientists mostly concur.

So again, what to do ?

I was recently priviliged to interview a bunch of locals in my community about their hopes, fears n’ good ideas. Not a paid job, a passion project. I did this because I think that we’ve become insular, scared, a bit alone, and we’ve no reason to be. My thoughts are that as humans, what unites us is bigger than what divides us. I hosted these on this blog, shared on community social media, now up to about 25,000 views over 50 interviews. That’s big for a small community. Seems like we’re interested in what our neighbours think. Who knows, such sharing could grow connection and empathy.

As the new realities bite, I’m thinking our worlds are going to indeed become local. As far as we can walk/run cycle paddle sail. Now that will be very interesting. No skiving off to the Gold Coast on a JetStar members deal for the weekend. Getting to Hamilton from Auckland might take a few days, a sleepover at Huntly on the way. Could be the leg up Huntly needs. Akld - Dunedin would be like a month or so on the Te Araroa trail. A sailboat across the Cook Strait, fancy that.

One blog recently suggested we won’t be teaching our kids to code (AI has that down), but to compost. Growing food within walking distance will be the new black, everyone gainfully employed in food, shelter and conflict resolution. Or go hungry with the real possibility of becoming food/compost ourselves.

Of all the people in my life at the moment, two of my favourites are women in their mid 80’s. There’s Betty, fit as a fiddle, knits, grows veggies and pickles/bottles and preserves like there’s no tomorrow. Always at the saturday market on Waiheke Island, each week she makes several hundred dollars for one of a number of charities. Then there’s Pauline, a piano accordion teacher. Plenty of core strength this one, her 10kg+ of breathing chest furniture swinging off her shoulders. She teaches and regularly gigs the thing, on the bill at a bar I played not long ago.

These women are inspirational, they are my leaders. They’re not only physically and intellectually together, but emotionally fit for purpose. Way more so than the calculating duplicitous FartSuits we see at the helm of the likes of the USA, UK and NZ.

One could argue that women have a higher emotional intelligence than men, a stereotype far from watertight, but there might be some truth in there. My thoughts are robust leadership first and foremost requires the individual or entity to have their emotional shit together. When I witness world ‘leaders’ coming together for this or that summit, it’s invariably men in suits. There’s sometimes a sprinkling of oestrogen but largely it’s an ageing boys brigade. The suit is intended to convey a just-add-water respectability. I find the more suits on stage, the handshakes for the camera, the less credible the oratory when their mouths move.

These people are not my leaders, these men in suits.

We are slaves to a globalised neoliberal structure that no longer serves most of us, we serve it, stressed and anxious hunger games proles. Minimum wage slaves tethered by subscription serfdom, held to ransom by guns and butter. Before too long, overheated financial markets will bomb and take our developed privilige with it. We’re not going to like it.

It’s really down to what the likely triggers will be - there’s a few contenders, and when, and how the downstream impacts will present. This is bad news but also good news. The current game is simply not sustainable. Indigenous cultures may have seemed primitive to my thieving european colonising ancestors, but we badly need those indigenous smarts in order to live within nature’s parameters, or what’s left of them, in order to survive as a species.

So yeah, obedience is the enemy. Try practicing selective disobedience, we all have a moral compass, let’s use it.

Arohanui all xx

These days she’s got 4 children, 4 grandchildren, and does good work in her community as a counsellor. Meg’s a penultimate advocate for children. It’s her default position, DNA stuff. We adults gotta get with the play.

She got up one morning recently and said ‘alright then, get your phone, I’m happy to be interviewed’. Cheers Meg 🫶🏼.

More interviews to be found here: Hopes, fears n' good ideas

She’s lived an interesting life with her fabrics and designs, profiling on catwalks around the world. For Jeanine the personal is political, and her work sits in the moving feast of Tino rangatiratanga and white colonialism. Once she made me a suit out of a tartan blanket. A hefty item, it comes into it’s own on a cold south island day.

She’s an absolute Waiheke icon, I know her as a warm hearted generous and caring local. Junk to Funk, Wearable Art type community projects and she’ll be there. You can track her on facebook and on insta, Jeanine Clarkin #ahokura_indigenousartanddesign

Thanks for sharing your thoughts’ Jeanine, awesome work Sister 👆🏼

More interviews to be found here: Hopes, fears n' good ideas

Not so many years after that she got her own takeaway bar, Ao’ Place, in Surfdale. It was devastating for her when it burnt down. I’ll never forget her help trying to tame that class - which if they achieved one thing that year, it was getting good on unicycles, Shazza’s son Liam being one. (That’s him second from left in photo’s)

He’s now got his own auto business in the community he grew up in, and a couple of years back the two of us got new unicycles together (bottom pic). Awesome seeing our kids grow up. Cheers Shazza, cheers Liam 🫶🏼

(A big shoutout to DoP Simon Ellis who shot those Kiwi Voices interviews with me, and Graham Elliott at Picture Talk Productions in Auckland for gfx and post work, a pilot for SkyTV and early YouTube … years ago)

It’s interesting when you’ve been in each others lives so long you clock each other ageing. The hair might go (in my case, scuttling off down my back) the face get’s creased, skin sags, but what I love about curious and clever people, is that the years get put on hold when you look into their eyes and see the flames of a younger person. Gerry’s been skinning up the doobies and saddling up the horse for years, still playing gigs, still excited to ride the range, these days as Appaloosa Willie. Keep an eye out for this Waiheke cowboy.

More interviews collated on YouTube to be found here: Hopes, fears n' good ideas

A big shoutout to Simon Ellis who shot these with me, and Graham at Picture Talk Productions for gfx, years ago now, and some younger iterations of Waiheke homies some of you may know. Peace Up Y’all.

He’s been mates with my daughter for eons; when she moved out last time, he moved in. Stayed a weekend or two, next thing it’s a few months. Got him out sailing not long ago. A global adventurer with a Waiheke heart. Choice bro 😎

More interviews to be found here: Hopes, fears n' good ideas

Now she’s the singer in another of Waiheke Island’s institutions, Radio Rebelde, a high energy band with never less than 10 players on stage. Mervy is not short on having an opinion, and I’m super happy she’s agreed to share some of her thoughts with her local community in this forum. Cheers Mervina, sing up a storm sister.

More interviews to be found here: Hopes, fears n' good ideas

Alas we’ve lost him to the East Coast. Dr Sharp, knife restorer, the man with the edge, he’s flipped his shingle out elsewhere. I really admire Dru’s care and curation of connection, is that a thing ? … poster boy for personal work, our better selves. We all have it, thanks for putting an honest face on it bro. Keep the visits back home to Waiheke, see you on the dance floor👆🏼🤗

More interviews to be found here: Hopes, fears n' good ideas

When I first saw Aaron play live, it was with another fine Waiheke musician Neal Goshal, Aaron laying down a fierce energy, one man blues trance-maker. Neal’s fluid guitar lines skating over this steam train of energy and beat, well it was a winner, everyone up dancing. One new years eve at Charlie Farleys down on the waterfront, he and his mate Dave Alley, another passionate bluesman, collapsed the dance floor, split the joists, on account of the dancing frenzy they’d whipped up. Now that’s class. I’d put that on my CV.

Then there was the story of ‘that’ wedding Aaron and his mates played for down the bottom end. Rock n’ Roll brother. As for living in his bus, well, what a bus. Fully living the life of a troubadour.

Carpenter by name and by trade, he’s been responsible for some creative builds, at one point capitalising on wine barrel availability and making garden furniture. Every musician needs a plan B.

If you want music and people up dancing for your party, he’s your man - but give him some warning, come summer he’s a hard man to book, Aaron gets the gigs.

Thanks for sharing bro 😎

More interviews to be found here: Hopes, fears n' good ideas

I try and catch her once a week at the moment. I have my own big beast of an accordion now - thanks to her, and I’m trying to get some acceptable sounds out of this huge breathing piece of chest furniture that has more buttons than I have brain cells. Pauline’s my music teacher.

Once she sailed across the ocean on a small yacht with littlies, shipwrecked and survived. Playcentre mentor, community stalwart, awesome musician and teacher, other stuff too. You’re the best sister 🤗🫶🏼

More interviews to be found here: Hopes, fears n' good ideas