Sorrow and Joy.
A long Thursday In Tamaki Makaurau.
Time: Just after midnight. Location: My bed.
Fi (my wife): “Eww stop it, stop it gross, you absolutely stink, stop it”.
I’m a little surprised by this as I’m lying on the other side of the bed, falling asleep reading a book. Fi has just returned from a rescue mission. Our elder dog, Fraggle (yes Fraggle Rockel), is at an age where she can get a bit lost finding her way back into the house, from the deck.
Which is to say she prefers, unless she is feeling very motivated by something that sounds like food, to be let in rather than use the cat door that’s become a tad snug of late on account of a fondness for sausages.
Fraggle is on the bed and trying to lick my wife on the face in gratitude at being rescued. Apparently she has been investigating something very foul smelling in the garden. I creep further under the blanket and pretend to be asleep, trying not to giggle audibly. Fi fetches a cloth and proceeds to clean the dog’s face, all pretence of being asleep now gone I am laughing loudly. Fi is not laughing. Fraggle is very happy.
Time: 3:45am Location: The lounge.
I often get up around 4am to write. Everyone else is asleep so there are no distractions. The only downside is there is also little in the way of news, the interviews on radio or TV are hours away yet, even RNZ has the sports guy. Fortunately I know what I’m writing about this day, there have been days when I’ve gone round in circles for hours before giving up and going back to bed.
On Wednesday I’d been thinking of writing about the FIFA World Cup, being one of the largest sporting events ever held in this country. For some context the last Women’s World Cup was watched by 1.12b people, making it the 6th largest global event. For comparison the total for the last Men’s Rugby World Cup was 12.8m.
But the sporting newsletters I’ve written haven’t been that popular and there’s little to suggest than an article on Women’s Football was going to be any different. People did like the one after the Women’s Rugby World Cup. Realistically though, I’m thinking, there isn’t going to be a Ruby Tui moment at this one. The team are going to lose all their games, and I’m guessing they’ll be defeated by at least three goals in the opener.
Besides, I’d just written a non-political one on name changes, it seemed a bit much writing two in a row. So there I am at four in the morning doing what I guess you’d call translating. Listening to an interview between Corin Dann and Christopher Luxon and writing down the translations as we go. It’s a bit time consuming, rewinding again and again to get the words right, or listen for the tone.
Still, I don’t mind listening to Corin. I’ve done this in the past with Mike Hosking interviews and that is grim, although not as bad as listening to his wife for the same process - they really do deserve each other.
Aside from finishing the translation I need to pick a cover photo. I’ve got two that I was mucking around with the previous evening. One is grotesque and makes Luxon look like he’s demonic, the second has a filter applied but otherwise is just a photo I found in the media. I opt for the second one, the non-grotesque one - although it is still pretty horrible. It occurs that a few people won’t like the photo but I decide to go with it as I think it captures what I’m trying to say. A thousand words, and all that.
Time: 7:30am
After one last review I send the Naked Narcissism newsletter out. I think it’s one people will enjoy reading but you never can tell. A couple I’ve really liked have just died a death, not connected with people for some reason. Then there are others where I’m surprised by how much they connect.
You can usually gauge in the first half hour from how many people are liking, sharing, or commenting, how well one will go. I went and made coffee, told the youngest to get out of bed for school, then checked progress - looked like it was connecting.
Time: just before 8am
I’m about to go and make a second coffee and check that Matty is getting ready for school when social media blows up. Alerts are coming think and fast, the first one I click shows an armed policeman at the bottom of town, something is very very wrong.
A memory of another day looms in my mind and I’m surprised to find myself tearing up. That other day I was sitting in the same place watching updates about a student march demanding climate action when the reports started to come through of police rushing to the scene and something awful happening in Christchurch.
Twitter is full of updates, this one from Bomber, Martyn Bradbury, catches my eye.
The news people don’t seem to know what’s going on, there is such confusion. Reports of police bringing someone out. Initially we’re told it’s the gunman but that soon changes to being possibly a Police Officer, because they “had a badge”.
I check Matty is up. Fi is waking, I tell her the dog is feeling better. She says what? I say the dog is feeling better, you know after being shitfaced last night. Any amusement present is mine alone. I also tell her there is an active shooter in the CBD.
Listening to the radio while making my second cup I hear Wayne Brown. He is awful. He lets slip that he thinks the gunman is dead, which throws the interviewer as it is information no one else is saying, and you can hear in their voice that they can’t quite believe what he has said. Later in the morning the mayor is interviewed again and someone has obviously had a word with him. He is no longer saying that anyone has died, but he repeatedly refers to the police investigation as being a homicide.
It’s not a good interview. At this point I’m actually rooting for Wayne, I want him to say sensible things - his city needs him to be saying the right things. But he doesn’t have it in him. The interviewer pitches him up a juicy free hit so he can have the sound bite that will live in memories, but he strikes out - badly.
I had thought to write a newsletter about the events. Or perhaps the response of some in the media and the opposition who shamefully linked the tragic events of yesterday with the Labour government. Or maybe about gun control. But I couldn’t think of an angle I was comfortable with at this early stage, or that I felt would add to the conversation in a way I would want to.
If you do want to read more about the events of yesterday I really recommend Bomber’s article, which you can find here.
Matu is just another depressing male whose violence he could not control, there are tens of thousands like him and until we start focusing on building young men who have the emotional tools to facilitate their anger beyond violence, he won’t be the last.
He has shamed himself.
He has shamed his family.
He has shamed us all.
Today isn’t a day for politics, it is far too sad for that, the politics will come and everyone will be screaming their sweaty truth, but at its heart this is about broken men incapable of keeping their violence to themselves.
What a sorrowful day for my beautiful city.
Time: 10am
Another piece of news came through, it was slightly better than I was expecting but it was certainly not good. Some of you will have known Yahn Darkwood as a friend on Facebook and followed the health updates from himself and more recently his partner Wendy. I enjoyed my chats with Yahn, he was a very gentle and good natured man, with a great love of Science Fiction.
Over the last year as medical options ran out Yahn’s prognosis had gone from months, to days, and this week to hours. With the message that if you needed to be there to get there - now. Yesterday morning, longer than expected, Yahn was still fighting. But it was impossible and he passed away at 2:30pm yesterday afternoon.
Fuck cancer!
This is at risk of becoming rather long, given we’re only up to 10am. So I’m going to wrap it up with some positive things from yesterday, because there were some alongside the shock and sadness.
I was very proud of our Prime Minister for the way he handled things, I'm glad he showed his emotions - it was an emotional day.
I’m grateful for our Police who were outstanding, as they always are in an emergency. It makes me sick, and angry, thinking about the constant attacks on them in the media and from the opposition, they do a bloody hard job incredibly well.
Then the game. In the stand Chippy understandably looked like he’d had a long day. It was such a great result for the Ferns, I don’t think many people were expecting a win, and boy was it tense waiting for the final whistle! It was great to watch it with Fi and the boys, maybe there was a little of that magic we had from the Black Ferns after all.
There was certainly something magical, to me, about seeing Jacinda, Grant, and Chippy celebrating with the team after the game. A good way to end an awful day.
Yesterday's shooter was on home detention for brutal violence against his partner. He had an exemption which allowed him to go to work. All the media apart from The Spinoff had headlines which didn't mention the exemption. Which gave the impression that he had escaped from home detention and wasn't monitored. Was he a suitable case for an exemption? The investigation will cover that. But meanwhile once again dishonest headlines tell NZers that the government is soft on crime. Feck.
Thank you Nick. Yes it was a day of mixed emotions. I kept listening for any sympathy for the families of the shot. Not a word. Some on RNZ are so intent on blaming the current Government they weight their questions and add comments where they don't have facts. Just awful. Our PM was sincere in his sorrow, and the poke about" emotion" from MS was revealing, as was his reply "That all people should be upset at such deaths and bravery of our Police" # not an exact quote but the meaning is clear. "You are not moved by these events Mikey?" Chippy is very direct yet considered, and very human.
The shot of him wrapped in a rug, coping with the day and the adrenalin was telling. The sweet release offered by the Ferns win showing in that great picture.. That moment so deserved in a hard 6 months. From the opening show for the games the first results for NZ and Aus, the great support from the crowd, and finally, that photo is wonderful at capturing the joy of hard won victory. Thanks Nick another thoughtful insightful post.