I Put A Spell On You

Brian Tamaki curses the NZ Herald.

You know I can't stand it
You're running around
You know better, daddy
I can't stand it 'cause you put me down
Oh, no

I put a spell on you
Because you're mine

Songwriter: Jay Hawkins.

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Transcript begins… Please note this is not satire; this was a real speech…

“I'm going to be honest with you. This is honest and there's no, no pressure on anybody, nothing at all, but I want to share with you and um with your heart.”

What would you do if you were listening to someone begin a speech like that? Maybe back away quietly and edge towards the door? Or would you draw your credit or debit card and resign to your pending “no pressure” donation?

Personally, I thought the claim that the message was directed at the hearts of the audience rather than their wallets was a nice touch. Plus, it’s always a good idea right up front to be clear that what you’re about to say is honest. Twice even - I guess that makes it doubly honest. The speech continued…

”I've got legal. I got legal bills requirements we're paying them we're up there, but it's a lot of money, and I would wouldn't mind if there's um some help if you can give some help.”

Jeez, that didn’t take long. One minute, you’re saying this is all about honesty, and there is no pressure, and the next, it’s all “I got bills”, although, unlike Christopher Luxon, the answer to your liquidity issue is not to “work”, per se, but to ask others to pay your bills. You know, you haven’t even told us what you want the money for?

While I think of it, that Christopher Luxon clip with him singing about all the bills he has to pay, he must look back on that nostalgically. The good old days when all he had to worry about was finding $60 to pay for his weekly groceries and now Shane Reti comes to him and says, “This is the bill for health”, to which he replies, “How much?”

Anyway, back to the speech at hand, it’s Brian Tamaki addressing his flock, pre-fleecing, if you didn’t notice the title above… Or as you might know him, the Eftpostle, the Pay-wave Pope, or Cardinal Cash.

To be fair to the man, there is no law against selling snake oil in this country - even though we don’t have any snakes.

He continues, “I'm not sure how to do this”, an unusual tactic when asking people to fund something. Perhaps his practitioners are used to receiving little in return for their investments - maybe the upfront anticipation is the thrill they seek for their money, not actual results - in which case they’ve come to the right place.

Tamaki continued, “I want to sue the New Zealand Herald. I've got to sue them. I want to sue the Herald - twenty million, and I want to sue Lane Nichols, who is the New Zealand uh, he's the puppet for the globalist, the far-left liberal trans who's attacking me and you.”

That’s quite a specific number, Brian. One minute, you’re all - “I don’t know how to do this”, and the next, it’s all - “That’ll be $20m thanks”. Surely you don’t go around just faking it and then asking people to give you lots of money, do you? Maybe don’t answer that - you might have to sue yourself.

Oh, and Lane Nichols is attacking you AND me? Really, I don’t even know who he is. Do you mean the guy who wrote this story?

I can see how that might be bad for business. The way Lane describes things, folks might think your operation is not something young people should be exposed to.

A Destiny Church predator who preyed on vulnerable boys he met through his leadership role at the church’s Boys2Men youth group sexually abused his victims hundreds of times at a South Auckland house he shared with his mother.

It’s not a great look, is it? Be awful if it dampened David Seymour’s support for you to run your own charter school. I’m kidding; he’s more interested in dollars than sense.

However, some might suggest that instead of worrying about who was reading children's story books in libraries, you might mind your own shepherds. The kids being read books are just fine.