Bernard Madoff made me squeal like a pig

Viking Woman and I live from payday to payday. Well, OK, her payday — these days I seem to be putting the free in freelance journalist.

Our situation is not exactly unique; everyone we know is struggling.

Another way in which we are similar to billions of others is how little we care about Steven Spielberg’s current financial woes. Or those of the likes of Eric Roth, Jeffrey Katzenberg or Alexandra Penney. Or anyone else, for that matter, with more money than brains and who just lost their pocket change to Bernard Madoff and his Ponzi scheme.

Let me get this straight:  It will now take Spielberg only 30 days to count his gold instead of the usual 31. My heart weeps. No, really.

The thing is, Stevie my son, those of us way down here below the bottom rungs of the economic ladder just do not give a crap about you rich rat bastards in your rich-rat-bastard palaces, living your rich-rat-bastard lifestyles. God gives money to stupid people. And then He takes it away. You learned a lesson today, Stevie and Eric and Jeffrey and the rest of you. You might want to write it down.

Oh, and Stevie? You could always make a movie based on this experience and recoup your losses on the opening weekend. Yeah, I know, that might actually involve doing some work for once in your magical, charmed existence, but life really is a bitch. Ask anyone down here.

Those of us stuck here in the muck tend to pass our time smirking and shaking our heads at the asinine antics of Madoff and the Wall Street pricks and those dickweeds who handed out subprime mortgages to people who should not have been allowed within pissing distance of a bank, let alone a house.

But we really shouldn’t be laughing because the world is constructed of dominoes and, once those wobbly pieces started to fall in America, the effect was eventually felt everywhere. Even way down here in New Zealand, even way out here in the East Coast community where we live.

That’s why, thanks to the assorted jerkoffs listed above, I am currently unemployed. I gave up a decent freelance gig with the local newspaper to take on a full-time job — one that, unfortunately, depended on the spending of discretionary funds.

When people decided to be greedy and feed their children instead of removing a few extra body hairs or wrinkles, I was made redundant. Five weeks and gone. By that time, the newspaper had tightened its purse strings and raised the drawbridge, and there was no going back, not for a freelancer.

So when Bernard Madoff decided to take his friends and several worthwhile charities up the butt, he violated me as well. When moneylenders took advantage of under-financed borrowers, they also took advantage of me.

How do these people sleep at night, knowing the damage they’ve caused? How do they look at themselves in the mirror? How do they dare show their faces in public? And when they do, why can’t we shoot them?

In the meantime, Viking Woman and I survive by being careful and frugal. We’d count our pennies, except New Zealand no longer mints such a thing.

Personally, I get through each day by imagining a special Hell for those people who are at the root of these swindles of  mass destruction. In that imagined fire pit, those of us who have suffered grievous financial harm queue up to kick Bernard Madoff and all the other equally damned crooks square in the crotch.

And in this imagined place, I am at the front of that line.

Naturally, the punishment would last for all eternity. And I would take great pleasure in it for an equal amount of time.

It’s small consolation, I know, but sometimes it’s the small things that get us through each day.

Bury my meal at wounded gonad

While the Great White North was living up to its name in late December, and the country-wide blanket of snow was forcing our Canadian family and friends to cancel planned gatherings (including my parents’ annual Christmas Eve celebration, which has, in anyone’s memory, never been interrupted by the weather in five decades), Viking Woman and I were experiencing another summer Christmas here in New Zealand.

I’m not going to gloat (OK, just a quick one: neener-neener-neener), because I actually prefer winter Yules. I like a bit of a nip in the air, enough so I can see my breath but not cold enough to freeze my brass balls. I like a bit of snow about, enough to dust the fields and trees while leaving the roads clear and passable.

Viking Woman, on the other hand, dislikes the cold enough to make one question the legitimacy of her birth certificate. But it’s written on birch bark using a porcupine quill dipped in maple syrup, so I guess she is a Canuck of the True North Strong and Free variety.

That said, she likes her Dec. 25 to be more about sunscreen than frostbite, thank you very much.

A good friend from Gisborne lured us north from our Napier lair with the promise of a traditional Maori meal. Yes, there would be several children underfoot, but the alternative — sitting in our house, staring at each other over empty stockings we could not afford to fill this year — soon had us on the road for the three-hour drive.

The food was as advertised: unique, savory and plentiful.

Unique: All Polynesian cultures have their version of the underground oven. In Hawaii, it’s an imu. In the Cook Islands, an umu. In New Zealand, the Maori called them a hangi. Without going into too much detail (that is, after all, why God invented Wikipedia), the process involves a pit, a fire, hot stones, a large wire basket, several varieties of raw meat, and assorted vegetables enclosed in cotton bags.

Savory: Our particular meal featured chicken, lamb, pork and wild pork. The bags contained stuffing, kumara, potatoes and pumpkin. The act of heating stones with a wood fire imparted a wondrous smoky flavour to everything.

Plentiful: There was food for Africa (as we like to say here), as about 30 people ate themselves full and there were still plenty of leftovers. And that’s not counting dessert, highlighted by two large bowls of trifle and a pavlova, a traditional Kiwi dessert built around meringue and one of Viking Woman’s all-time favourites. 

Probably because something as light and insubstantial as meringue can’t possibly be fattening, right?. But don’t they say the same thing about beer? Just asking.

Our friend’s family was large and welcoming, which is a good thing because Viking Woman and I were two of only five Pakeha (white folk) in the yard. I shook plenty of hands and kissed plenty of cheeks and patted children of assorted sizes and ages on the head as they made beelines for the bowls of lollies.

A lot of faces, a lot of names, and a lot of exchanges of “Merry Christmas” which, I’m sorry, just sounded somehow unreal when we were eating outside in 22-degree C sunshine.

The kids were cute, as all kids tend to be until about, oh, 12. Most of them ate me under the table, which is not an easy thing to do. Well after the meal was finished, I happened upon one girl happily using a large wooden spoon to finish off a bowl of chip dip. Ah, to be young again and unconcerned with one’s calorie intake.

To keep some of the children occupied, several soccer balls were produced. In the course of taking photos, I was somehow drafted onto one of the teams. I mostly hung back to mind the “net” but did make the odd offensive foray. There is, I believe, photographic evidence of my goal-scoring prowess. Or at least someone wearing my clothes — with their shirt pulled over their head — is shown in the process of “airplaning” around the yard after blasting the ball past a cluster of 10-year-olds.

I know what you’re saying: “No one likes a poor winner, John.” To which my reply is: “Hey, a goal is a goal.” And, “Bite me.”

I was finally forced out of the game by what is euphemistically described as a “lower body” injury. This occurred during one particularly heated battle for the ball. The young man I was marking decided he’d had enough of my stifling checking style and retaliated with a short, yet powerful, rabbit punch to my gonads.

He may have actually scored after that — I have no idea. I was too busy rolling on the grass, grimacing and moaning and attempting to be brave through the waves of pain and the tears. And, yes, that did leave a bruise.

And so, in several ways actually, it was a Christmas to remember. A Christmas filled with typical Kiwi images — a man wearing flip-flops and socks; children blowing bubbles made from dish detergent; people smoking roll-your-owns and drinking cans of Woodstock Bourbon and Cola — and one more reason why we’ve so willingly embraced living in New Zealand.

Yet another reason was made evident the next morning when the farmer who lived across the road from the place we were house-sitting dropped by with his adult son and their combined herd of 15 dogs. That is a lot of hounds, let me tell you, but Viking Woman was in her glory, kneeling amidst all those slobbering beasts, each looking for a personal bum scratch.

Viking Woman told me later all she wanted for Christmas now was a puppy. Crap! I sure hope I kept the receipt for that Billy Ray Cyrus cassette.

Howe too lurn reel gud.

Call to extend the school day

–Headline on Page 1 of New Zealand newspaper The Dominion Post, dated December 23, 2008

I second that call but would like to add a new one: extend the number of school days as well.

It’s summer holidays here in New Zealand and, with Christmas looming, it’s no surprise the streets are filled with lost boys and girls. Wandering listlessly in the way teens have since God invented the filthy beasts, bemoaning their lives like they had a bloody mortgages to pay. Hate to break it to you, my fine young cannibals, but it only gets worse.

But I’ve seen these same kids wandering these same streets during what I assumed were school days. Although it’s difficult to tell in New Zealand, where term breaks seem to occur every other week.

When we managed a B&B in Gisborne six years ago, the deal included a car and the owners’ son. I swear Young Sam spent more time surfing than sitting in a classroom. And it wasn’t because he was flagging school or anything. But it seemed he would just be finished with holidays and along would come some kind of Professional Day for the teachers to shorten the week.

These days, Young Sam is apprenticing to be a tradesman, when he isn’t working as a snowboard instructor, so all that readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmatic (known as maths in NZ) was probably a waste of his surfing time anyway.

(Sam was a good kid but he did try us on one day by walking around the house wearing a beanie — what we Canadians call a toque — and trying to look all gangsta. Viking Woman didn’t blink — after all, we’re both Children of the Sixties, an era during which they invented both rock’n'roll and sex, and so have seen it all, sometimes twice — and simply asked Sam if he was cold. We never saw the beanie again.)

In my day — and you can stop rolling your eyes right now — we had to walk to school uphill both ways. In the snow. No, wait, that’s my Dad’s story.

We went to school every single day, from dawn to dusk, 365 days a year. No term breaks, no extended holidays, no field trips. OK, maybe it just felt like that way at the time, but my point is the education system didn’t dick around. Between the ages of six and 18 you had one mission in your miserable life and that was to learn. We had to wait until after graduation to have fun. (The fact that I’m still waiting is probably my own damn fault.)

No teachers’ Professional Days. Or Development Days, or whatever the hell they call something that is basically Teachers Sitting Around Drinking Coffee Days  (known to parents as Now What the Hell Do I Do With These Little Shits? Days).

Normally, I could care less about teenagers. They’ve got spotty faces and their music blows. Plus, I know what awaits them in adulthood and it’s going to wipe away those smug little smirks awful darn fast.

But I hate their ignorance. And by that I mean their lack of spelling skills. Now, I admit I’ve made some doozy mistakes all on my own — forgetting the “l” in public being only the most embarrassing gaffe I can recall at this moment — but those were due to sloppy editing and fat typing fingers and not because I was clueless to begin with.

I know the difference between too, to and two. Between it’s and its. Between your and you’re. Between grisly and grizzly. (That last one causes me to scream every single time).

From what I’m seeing out there (and even in here with my fellow WordPress bloggers), a lot of people have no idea.

I long ago came to the conclusion that the entire world needs an editor, and that thought is only reinforced when I see “lightning” spelled “lightening.” As if those jagged streaks were somehow caused by Mother Nature lessening her load.

Typos? Lack of a spell check program? I believe it’s more a lack of basic English skills. And I do mean basic.

And that scares the hell out of me, especially when I see newspaper editors hiring kids off the street simply because it means they can avoid paying the top union-mandated wage for a veteran journalist like myself. “You get what you pay for” has never been more true.

So, yeah, have the little shits stay in school longer. Maybe an extra hour surrounded by books will elevate their education, if only by osmosis.

It’s either that or we make them walk uphill both ways. That’ll learn ‘em.

Women aiming for equality on Planet Man? Yeah right.

I worry about all these celebrities giving their offspring weird and strange names with weird and strange spellings — double vowels, silent consonants, apostrophes, hyphens, glottal stops — and my concern is this: How the heck are they going to write their names in the snow?

There’ve been wintry days when I barely managed to finish my own name, and it’s only four letters long. Although I’ll admit the big flourish at the end might have been needlessly extravagant. 

Of course, the ability to conduct such flagrant penmanship was always one of the main advantages of being a permanent resident of Planet Man. Well that and the innate ability to time a cuddle so it lasts  just long enough to raise the possibility of second helpings but without anyone getting all clingy and needy. Which would explain why there’s a stop watch beside the bed.

But now someone has gone and invented a device called the Shewee (shewee.co.nz),  a plastic funnel sorta thingy designed to allow women to not only invade a man’s territory but to also mark it as her own, in whatever design catches her, uh, fancy.

A story I found in a newspaper Travel section explained how a woman need only place the Shewee “against your body,” angle the spout in any direction they bloody well want, and Bob’s your uncle. No more squatting in bushes or balancing over grotty toilet bowls or dancing from foot to foot in a frantic quest for absolute and complete privacy while men simply ducked around the nearest tree and killed the weeds.

I showed Viking Woman the story. The next day we’re standing in an outdoors store in Napier and I’m swiping my bank card. Merry Christmas, sweetie.

Actually, it is the perfect gift.

Viking Woman spends nearly three weeks a month on the road. And roads in New Zealand, unlike, say, North America, tend not to be overpopulated with rest stops equipped with facilities. Oh, sure, there might be a picnic table in a clearing, and several arboreal options for guys to tend to a full and screaming bladder. But women with even a teensy bit of modesty are stuffed.

But no more. And it’s all thanks to the Shewee.

“I think it’s brilliant,” says Viking Woman. “It works awesome. I wish I’d had one years ago. It would have saved me sticking my arse in thistles or peeing on my ankles. Now I don’t have to worry about going into a toilet and trying to sit down, because some of those places are really gross. I’m planning to keep the Shewee in my purse so it’s always handy. Now, if it could only cuddle . . . “

OK, yes, I made up that last part, but Viking Woman, who could be heard giggling madly from behind the closed bathroom door, did add it takes a bit of practice to get that whole aiming thing down pat,  ”to avoid getting those little driddles on my pants, like the guys get.” Nice.

So, yeah, the Shewee could very well be the greatest invention since the penis, but just because you can, doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

I’m not convinced women understand the element of danger involved in being able to relieve one’s self at the drop of a zipper. I worry they will be so excited at the prospect of having control over their waste material (including, of course, the abovementioned opportunity to practise their penmanship skills), that they will fail to fully comprehend that, as with all freedoms, there comes risk.

I offer a personal anecdote as an illustration:

Viking Woman and I are driving from Napier to Taupo. There is but one public toilet enroute and it’s at the 35-minute mark of a two-hour trek. In other words, way too early.

Eventually, Nature calls and we answer by pulling off the road. Viking Woman disappears into a small stand of trees. I move further away to venture over a small bank, lest passing motorists be distracted by  what would surely appear to be a grown man wrestling an anaconda.

The ground, as it descends down the far slope, is thick with blackberry bushes. I step onto the vines. Except there is no ground there. The dropoff is steeper than I’d anticipated, meaning I step into little more than blackberry-covered air.

With nothing solid underfoot, I pitch facedown into the prickles. I’m now lying at nearly a 90-degree angle, my head well below my feet.

After a few minutes, Viking Woman wanders over, if only to growl me for taking so damn long. By this time, I’ve gritted my teeth, grabbed onto the vines and managed to twist around so I’m facing uphill. I am just cresting the bank —  bloodied, stained and torn — when she arrives on the scene.

Fortunately for my manhood, I hadn’t yet unzipped when I fell. Big Jim and the Twins, like all members of Planet Man, may always be up for a new adventure, but somehow I don’t think that includes being impaled on thorns.

The moral of the story is this: Being able to control your own flow is not always as much fun as it looks. It takes many long years of practice before you feel confident enough to perform in public. On Planet Man, we’re all trained professionals.

Maybe it’s just me, but women mastering the ability to pee from a standing position just feels wrong, like it’s somehow against a law of nature, or maybe even a commandment or two. Next, they’ll be wanting to operate the remote and after that it just gets ugly.

The scariest thing is how this little piece of moulded plastic is helping erode the difference between the genders. I know this for a fact because, after she used the Shewee, Viking Woman forgot to put the toilet seat down and then didn’t flush.

Welcome to Planet Man, ladies. Just don’t touch anything.

Screw MTV — I want my Shortland Street

Dear Shortland Street Producers:

My name is John and I absolutely love your show. Yes, I know I’m Canadian and I was raised on the best TV programs U.S. network money can buy (and then cancel in midseason, the heartless bastards). But, truth be told, neither the likes of Friends nor Jerry Seinfeld ever turned my crank the way Shortland Street does.

I first became addicted to the show when Viking Woman and I lived in the Cook Islands. You didn’t need a clock to know it was 8 p.m. on a weekday. You could tell by the lack of traffic on the road or, in Viking Woman’s case, the fact that patients and fellow nurses were all huddled together in the TV room. You just knew Shorty Street was on.

I fed that hunger during the three years we lived in Gisborne, following each character, each plot arc, each nuance, immersing myself in the Prime Directive: No one is allowed to be happy.

Which was fine with me. If your viewing public is leading a crap life on this double-decker speck in the South Pacific, then why wouldn’t a nighttime soap reflect that same misery?

When my tenure at the Calgary Herald ended and Viking Woman and I were casting about for a new home that was maybe not -30 C and required that your car be plugged in overnight lest it freeze into an ice cube with wheels, one thing proved pivotable to our decision to return to New Zealand.

Shortland Street? Good guess. Nicely done, you.

(Well, Shortland Street and feijoas, plus the fact O’Ryans potato chips, having been eaten into extinction in North America, still thrive in the Land of the Long White Cloud. And, yes, I do thank Jesus every single night.)

Funny thing is, despite the high ratings I read about in the newspapers, I haven’t encountered a single Kiwi who will admit to watching Shorty Street. Coronation Street? Oh by God yes! Just like my mother and her mother before that. Rugby? It’s a freakin’ religion, mate!

But SS? Stink to that!

But I know they’re out there, my fellow Shorty Street lovers. Well, maybe not exactly out, but certainly in a closet somewhere, faces lit by glowing plasma, secretly revelling in the adventures of all those naughty, naughty nurses and doctors.

It’s become a way of life at our house. A routine. A sacrament. A holy calling. A pilgrimmage, if you will.

You do not want to be pimping Jehovah at our door between 7-7:30 p.m., Monday to Friday. You do not want to be ringing to say we won the lottery. You do not want to be running down the street, hair on fire, screaming that the world is ending.

We will ignore you. Until 7:31 that is, and then we’ll see what all that Apocalypse bother is about.

But this is all a bit of a round-about, long-winded route to get to the heart of the matter, to arrive at the point this letter is supposed to be making.

You see, I realize it’s summer and all, and vast numbers of Kiwis are in the back yard or at the bach or the beach, singeing their eyebrows whilst barbecuing mutton sausages and kumara.

They’re sitting on the grass, swatting mossies and drinking Tui and Lion Red and shit like that, laughing and swapping lies and making plans for the weekend.

They are not inside, not in the lounge, not in front of the TV. So that affords you, Most Glorious and Wonderful Producers, a chance to take the show off the air for a month. To give the cast and crew a well-deserved break. To use the time to work on new and wonderful story lines. To get away and enjoy the fine weather with the rest of your countrymen.

But I have one, teensy, little question for you: WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?

You see, I don’t own a barbecue. I don’t drink beer. I don’t have friends. And I have no plans for the holidays because as an unemployed, er, freelance journalist, every freakin’ day is a holiday. The hard part about doing nothing is you don’t know when to take a break.

I understand you shut down production every year at this time but that doesn’t make going cold turkey any easier. I start to twitch; I don’t sleep very well; I weep at inopportune moments. I tend to assume the fetal position, which is not a good look when you’re driving.

So, yeah, with tomorrow being the final episode of 2008, I’m pretty much begging you to stop torturing me like this. Please make this the final time you take such an extended break. Otherwise, I can’t be held responsible for my actions. Otherwise I may have to resort to drastic measures.

Like watching Coronation Street, for instance. And we all know they play that show’s theme music in Hell. Every day. For all time. 

Begging you to save me from eternal damnation, I remain 

Sincerely yours

John

P.S.: I know it’s been seven years since the character of Minnie Crozier left the show, but she was the reason I became hooked on SS in the first place. What with her short skirts and bunny tops and all. So if you could somehow see the way to bring Minnie back, I’d be the happiest viewer in the known universe. Well, at least the Napier part of it anyway.

Let me guess — you’re going to love me long time

hello
My name is ket, i saw your profile today and became intrested in you,i will also like to know you more,and if you can send an email to my email address,i will give you my pictures here is my email address (********@yahoo.com i believe we can move from here! Awaiting for your mail to my email address above ket.

Dear Ket:

Thanks so much for taking advantage of our mutual membership in survivor@wetpaint.com to write to me. I don’t receive many e-mails from people interested in being my friend, miserable prick that I am, so you can well imagine how thrilled I was to read your message.

And, yes, you will be pleased to know that they do actually screen Survivor all the way down here in New Zealand, although I believe we are a bit behind the North American schedule. No matter, I still have this gut feeling Richard Hatch is going to win.

As for your request, you’ve definitely piqued my interest.

For instance, I’d like to know where you learned English. Judging by the way you write, and your complete disregard for punctuation and upper-case letters, I’m guessing you live in a non-English-speaking country. Either that or you’re a typical teen. Either way, I’m suddenly feeling very afraid for the future of the language. R u 2?

As for my profile, well, you see, I don’t actually remember filing one out. And, if I did, I sincerely doubt it was that interesting — I’m old. I live in New Zealand. I’m an unemployed, uh, freelance journalist. I tend to shave at irregular intervals and have been known to bop around the house while listening to Tom Petty, wearing little more than Krispy Kreme boxers and white sport socks. Risky business, I know, but someone has to entertain the neighbourhood dogs.

Actually, now that I think about it, I am damn interesting after all. Thank you, Ket, for bringing that to my attention. 

As for moving from here, well, here’s the catch — I’m pretty much stuck. You see, I have this rather large pile of newspapers breeding in my room each night and that means, to take all my precious possessions with me,  I’d have a heck of a time meeting Air New Zealand’s luggage weight restrictions.

 Oh, you mean moving on from here. Again with the English language thing. But I understand now.

And, yes, I suppose a good first step would be for you to send me photos of yourself. Unless of course, five seconds after I click on them, there is a banging on the door and a squad of grim-faced men is lined up outside my house. They would march in and start filling large plastic bags with all the household electronics, including the toaster and Viking Woman’s iPod deck. And while they are doing that, another chap would be pulling on latex gloves and eying my ass.

I’ve had my prostate gland examined recently and, if it’s all the same to you Ket, I’d like to wait a few more years before the next digital insertion.

So maybe we should hold off on that whole photo exchange thing, at least until we get to know each other a little better.

We could maybe start with identifying whether you are a he or a she.

You see, my good and kind friend Ket, I have no way of knowing your gender. Your name is ambiguous. It’s as confusing as, say, Apple or Bronx or Sunday or Dipshit.

I’m afraid this could be the make-or-break point in our fledgling friendship. Because, you see, if you do happen to be a male, then I won’t be needing any photos after all. 

I’m a man. I own a digital camera. I have more than enough pictures of penises, thank you very much.

Have a good day.

Sincerely

John

No, that is not a dead fish on my head

“Linda” has stopped cutting my hair and now stands silently beside the chair, mouth and scissors both temporarily paused in the open position.

Using my vast reservoir of journalistic skills, I cleverly deduce she is confused. Well, that and the fact she just said, “I’m confused.”

The cause of this sudden cessation of snipping is this conversation:

Linda: How do you want your hair cut?

Me: I don’t give a shit.

Linda: I’m confused.

I explain to Linda how it has been 30 years since I cared what my hair looked like. Hell, it’s probably been that long since I actually had hair in certain locations to care about.

“I’m 110 years old,” I say. “I’ve been married for what sometimes feels like 3,000 years. Who in their right mind is giving me a second look these days? There is no one out there in possession of two brain cells to rub together who is actually thinking, ‘oh look at that hunky man — too bad about his haircut.’ “

Linda blinks. Very slowly. The scissors waver slightly in mid-air, as if they’ve grown impatient with being stilled and are eager to resume clipping.

“So,” Linda says, “what should I do?”

“Salvage what’s left of my dignity,” I say. “Summon forth a miracle. Christmas is nigh and I need to look presentable should the neighbours invite us over for a cuppa of holiday cheer. I figure if my hair looks tidy, no one will notice I’m not wearing pants.”

Kempt would be a good start (or, more correctly, a good end), I tell Linda.

A thinning is probably called for as well. And here I’m using the verb — as in reducing those great bushy bits poised above my ears — as opposed to the noun, which some heartless relative might use to describe that vast expanse of skin being inexorably exposed on a back section of my skull like some new island rising from a hirsute ocean.

“All I want to do in the morning,” I explain to Linda, “is to step out of the shower, towel-dry my hair, and brush it straight back. And then move on to more important chores, starting with drinking the entire world’s supply of Starbucks coffee.”

I do not, I add, want to use a hair dryer, a styling comb or product. These days, it’s all about keeping things simple and fast. Which, now that I think about it, also happens to describe my sex life.

I wasn’t always this cavalier about my hair. There was a time when it was very important to me. There was a time when I was young and stupid and had money for frivolous grooming expenses. It was also a time when I was single and on the prowl.

That was in the ’70s, of course, a glorious time of personal freedom. An era of wildness and experimentation and expression. An era of what I like to call “the best haircut in the world.”

Officially, it was known as a shag. It was only later — long after I’d subjected my hair to the scissors before a trip to Europe lest I be subjected to a full body cavity search at each and every border crossing — that less enlightened members of society dubbed this style “hockey hair” or, even worse, a “mullet.”

What a creature also known as the goatfish or white sucker has to do with hair styles, I’ve never understood, but it just goes to show how petty and ignorant some people can be. Petty, ignorant AND jealous.

It now does my heart good to gaze upon the footpaths of Napier and see that, along with retro clothes, the shag, Mohawk and rattail are making a comeback. On the other hand, considering this is New Zealand, they probably never left.

In the end, I simply told Linda to do whatever the hell she wanted with my hair. The fact that she was kind enough to apply her clippers to the shrubbery growing out of my ears was a bonus.

I am now available for any and all Christmas functions. I’ll be the one under the mistletoe, the one with perfect hair and a distant glint of nostalgia in my eye.

Look, I’m sorry, I really hate to bother you, but your elbow is in my ear

There are certain inhabitants of Planet Earth that, for want of a better word, I shall refer to as Martians. They have earned an unfortunate reputation for being pushy and rude and complaining to the authorities of racisim if someone — say, a blogger, for instance — dares to poke a bit of fun at them.

Rotorua, tourist magnet that it is, was crawling with Martians when Sis and I visited a month ago. That’s fine — Lord knows New Zealand needs each and every tourism dollar during these lean times.

The bus arrives, the Martians descend like locusts, overwhelming those of us travelling as singles or doubles, then it’s back on the bus and on to the next attraction. Repeat pretty much ad nauseam.

But sometimes that invasion can get personal, as Sis and I discovered after riding the luge track at the Skyline Skyrides.

There is an overhead camera attached to the luge track to snap action photos, the idea being you can later purchase a permanent record of the exact moment you wet your pants in terror.

Sis and I were at the counter, squinting at the monitor, attempting to pick out the colour of our jackets amidst a screenful of thumbnail-size images, when we were literally elbowed aside by a trio of teenage female Martians. Granted, one of them did mutter a quick apology over her shoulder — something about a bus to catch — but this butting-in maneuver still resulted in Sis and I being displaced from our position at the front of the line.

Good, polite Canadians that we are, we assured the ladies behind the counter we were OK with standing aside, if only to avoid the possibility of further jostling.

This experience was still fresh in my mind when Viking Woman and I visited “Big Box Electronics Store” in Napier. We were looking for an iPod dock so we could finally have some music in the house.

We asked a salesman named “Bob” if the Teac unit we were eyeing might go on sale before Christmas. Bob didn’t think that was going to happen, but did note we could probably save 20 per cent off the sticker price if we returned on Dec. 26 for the annual running of the bulls. Also known as the Boxing Day Sale.

“Of course,” he said, “if you do that, you’ll have to fight your way through the Martians.”

Which led all of us to relate our experiences with this alien race, including my close encounter in Rotorua.

Bob had the better stories, of course, considering his job, by definition, involves dealing with people all day, every day. He related how Martians are always trying to price gouge, based solely on the fact they will pay in cash, meaning  bills in hand, as opposed to a bank card.

The supposed logic behind seeking a cash-based discount is based on the fact stores pay a percentage of any charged purchase back to the credit card company. A cash sale means stores don’t have to share any profits with the likes of Visa or MasterCard.

But cash in hand is not always an incentive to cut a deal, especially if customers are uncouth and demanding. And sometimes, when a sale means the original price has already been drastically slashed, there is just no more leeway for downward movement.

Bob told of us one Martian who wanted to buy a fridge that had been dropped in price by $400.

Martian: Can I get a better price if I pay cash?

Bob: No.

Martian: How about free delivery if I pay cash?

Bob: No.

The Martian returned to the store every day for four straight days, targeting a different salesperson each time. Bob anticipated that move, however, and spread the word about the Martian’s price-gouging mission.

On the fifth day, a salesperson agreed to waive the $60 delivery charge. The Martian was elated, practically gloating. Right up to the point where they noticed the sale had ended and the $400 saving was no longer in effect.

On the other end of the buying scale, Bob explained, were the local gang members.

“They pay in cash as well, but they don’t try to haggle,” he told us. “They come in and pay full price.”

The fact that the cash is all twenties is, I’m nearly positive, merely the result of withdrawing it from an ATM.

And so we stood in the store and listened to Bob’s stories and tsk-tsked and shook our heads in sympathy and nodded in agreement and offered our own anecdotes.

Price gougers, eh? Cheeky buggers, Martians, the lot of them.

And then, at the end of it all, once all the tales of woe had been exhausted, Viking Woman had one final comment:

“So, Bob, what kind of deal can you give us on this iPod dock?”

“How about forty bucks off?”

We paid in cash.

Cheeky buggers, Canadians, the lot of them.

A grouch reflects on his youth. And grumbles the entire time.

There is a grouchy old man living in our house who looks exactly like me.

A  close friend once noted that, once you turn 50, you’re allowed to say whatever you want, because younger generations will just ignore you anyway. That verbal freedom explains why my father, who seemed so quiet when I was growing up, now stops strangers in malls to chat. And don’t even get him started on Las Vegas.

The symptoms of early onslaught of terminal grouchiness have been evident for some time now, no matter how much I’ve tried to ignore them. There was that one incident in the Mitre 10 Mega store, for instance, where, after one intense discussion, every security officer in the building suddenly decided they needed to be in the same aisle as me. 

But  that wasn’t my fault. No, really.

I simply had an acute desire to comprehend why one kitchen faucet cost $40 and another one — which looked exactly the same to my non-plumber eyes — cost closer to $100. The clerk had no immediate  answer for me, which I assumed was due to a lack of hearing on her part, and so had no choice but to repeat the question in a much louder voice.

And, yes, maybe I did ask one too many times, but I put that down to simple case of curiosity.

So yesterday I’m talking to a neighbour, a young fellow in his 20s who has been slaving away in his back yard in an effort to one day produce a lawn. It was hot work and he’d doffed his shirt, as you do. In the middle of a conversation about how we would all soon be enjoying a barbecue on his new grass, I suddenly veered off topic.

Me: Is that a nipple ring?

Him: Yes.

Me: You know you’re setting a bad example for your infant daughter, don’t you?

And that’s when it hit me: Oh, Christ, I’ve gotten old.

I suddenly flashed back to the early ’70s. A family gathering. One of my brothers, then in his late teens, had just had his ear pierced. A relative — a grouchy old man, in fact — reached over, gave the ring a good tug, much to my brother’s distress, and demanded, “What the hell is this?”

At that exact moment, I vowed to never pull that kind of shit when I grew older. I also vowed to never hate another generation’s music — a vow that was severely taxed during the disco craze — or hair styles or clothes.

I’d never had one of my ears nearly mangled, but had certainly endured my share of suspicious stares back in the day when I wore my hair long and shampoo was for pussies. Adults regarded me with furrowed brows and sour expressions, as if I had just smoked my body weight in mary-jane and was preparing to violate their daughters and rip off their Perry Como eight-tracks and they weren’t sure where the shotgun was and if it would be loaded when they found it.

I wouldn’t show that ugly face to a teenager, I vowed, no matter what I thought of their faux-hawks or neck tattoos or skateboards or shit-box cars racing up and down the quiet residential street in front of my house at 10 p.m. on a Friday night, goddamnit.

Of course, back then (OK, way back then), youth had a good reason for rebellion and it wasn’t just because our parents were tight-ass bastards who hated Elvis and The Stones. Back then, there was a war to protest against and civil rights to initiate and times to a-change. (Granted, growing up in Canada kept me off the front lines of all the unrest happening south of me, but revolution was in the air, man, and we all breathed it.)

What are kids protesting against now? Oh, right, Lil Wayne is still looking for his first Grammy. Absolutely shocking!

So, yeah, I guess you kind of grow into grouchiness, much like you grow out of your hair. That’s no excuse, of course. So, if my neighbour is reading this blog, I apologize. The nipple ring looks just fine. I especially like how it glints when the late-afternoon sun catches it.

Now bugger off and leave me alone.

A virgin writes about sex. Or something similar.

Old journalists don’t die. They just get downsized. And kicked to the curb. And left to rot in the sun, their bodies bloated with words never to be published.

That’s how I’m feeling today. Twenty years in newsrooms across four countries, a million bylines,  and I’m reduced to this — cold-calling via the Internet, begging for freelance assignments.

The good news is Viking Woman is still working. The bad news is I haven’t quite convinced her to let me marry three or four other employed people of the female persuasion, no matter how many times I point out to her the benefits of shared mortgage payments.

I could return to writing novels, I suppose, but I’d have a better chance of striking it rich by buying a lottery ticket. If we could afford to buy a lottery ticket, that is.

Which just leaves blogging for a living.

It can be done, folks. I know because I read Heather B. Armstrong (dooce.com) and she is quite blatant about the fact the ads on her blog site generate enough cash to enable both her and hubby to abandon their full-time jobs.

Ms. Armstrong has somehow convinced eight million people to click on her site’s Google ads roughly every five seconds. And, oh yeah, you can read her blog if your clicking finger starts to cramp up. She writes about her daughter and her dogs. Yeah, I know, bores the ever-living crap out of me too.

I’d tackle the same topics but my babies are now, respectively, 31 and 26 and, even if they were still doing cutesy things, the fact that they live in Canada and I live in New Zealand means I’m not privy to them.

As for pets as blog ammo, we did have a stray cat move in for awhile. But after deciding the kitchen sink was its own personal kitty litter box, Sparky wisely moved on. Just before I snapped its neck.

Now I see Heather is pregnant again. When I was a government employee, that’s what we called a Make-Work Project. One afternoon quickie later, and now she’s about to pop out a lifetime worth of blog material. Frickin’ brilliant! Some people know all the marketing angles.

When I suggested the same tactic to Viking Woman, she was kind enough to remind me she keeps my testicles under the sink in the kitchen, stored in an old mayonnaise jar that still smells faintly of potato salad. So more children is probably out of the question. On a related note, I now have this strange urge to boil eggs and dig out the paprika.

Plan B is to transform bitemymoko into a blog dedicated to travel. I’m in New Zealand and the rest of the world (minus four million or so  Kiwis) isn’t. That’s a lot of potential readers (and, by association, ad clickers). The recent visit by my sister triggered the thought of starting the blog with stories about the bazillion vineyards located up and down the East Coast.

I know what you’re thinking: “But, John, you don’t drink. So isn’t you writing about wine similar to a virgin writing about sex?”

To which my speedy and extremely witty reply is: “Uh, yeah, you’re right.”

Which is where Viking Woman comes in. When not dusting off her collection of gonads (I am, after all, her fourth husband), she’s been known to appreciate the odd glass of sparkling whatever.

My brilliant plan would involve her doing the actual tasting while I make notes and take photos.

It’s not like we haven’t done this before.

Take, for instance, this conversation from our past:

VK: You want me to do what?

Me: Ride all the rollercoasters in Las Vegas and rate them on a scream factor between one and five.

VK: And what will you be doing while I’m soiling my pants?

Me: Making notes and taking photos. On the ground. Where it’s safe.

VK: I’m going to kill you and then I’m going to divorce you.

Me: Fair enough, but could you do it after I finish the story?

Oh, and just for the record, The Roller Coaster at New York New York earned the top rating. Viking Woman rode it with my brother and they both thought they were going to die.

I’m going to guess wine tasting will be a wee bit less hazardous. If not to Viking Woman’s health, then certainly to mine.