Cracker by Damian Christie

It's Inorganic collection time in Sando-upon-Ham. Or at least I hope it is, because like the sheep we are at number 15, we've piled together a smorgasbord of suburban flotsam and jetsam on the kerb. From assorted bric-a-brac to old Kambrook; all, sundry and then some has been unceremoniously strewn on the grass outside, and left for nature to take its course.

'Nature' in this case is human nature. For an accumulation of plastic, rubber and metal, what has happened to our street's collection over the past few weeks must be one of the most organic decompositions I have ever witnessed. Viewed in stop-motion over the last fortnight, it would be difficult to pick the vast difference in forces acting upon the dead mouse the cat had left at the back porch (currently the subject of a flat stand-off), and the old reclining chair we'd left at the front.

On the first morning after the old chair was dragged to the kerb, there is little visible difference. The rain overnight has left the pilled orange fabric – waterproofed through longevity and stain saturation than any silicon-based miracle product – covered in a fine mist that refuses to soak in. A few hours later, I look out from my study, and the seat cushion has gone, whisked away by passersby unknown.

It takes a week before someone comes along with a Stanley knife and surgically removes the brown vinyl from the back and sides of the lounger. The 'leatherette' was always in fairly good nick, sure, but you've got to ask what twisted use it is being put to elsewhere in the 'ham.

Just yesterday, when I thought all the meat had been picked from those particular bones, an elderly woman pushing a trolley load o' wonders barely stopped as she reached out, and ripped the back cushion from its staple fastening.

Like an Inorganic tease, I hold back some of our treasures. In much the same way as trying to ensure the little ducks get some of the bread, I feed it out gradually, so that everyone gets a fair shot. Knowing that the chances of any of our refuse actually reaching its ostensible destination – the dump – means that you can't help but feel you're doing your bit for the less fortunate. I waited until morning to throw out a perfectly working Mac, monitor, keyboard, mouse, modem et al, so it wouldn't get ruined by the moisture overnight. I'd meant to give it away through the T&E, but the Inorganic seemed ideal for my lazy-arse purposes (although it still took me a week or more to haul it from the front door to the front gate).

The story in my head had this aging computer making all the difference in the life of one, or possibly a family of youngsters, inspiring them in their learning, starting them on the path to university and eventually a prestigious – yet altruistic – medical career. Beneath all this was the lingering concern that I mightn't have wiped all the porn from the hard disk…

I needn't have worried. Within fifteen minutes of it hitting the footpath, as though sensing a change in the Inorganic Matrix, a man came along armed with a spanner, and ripped the entire machine apart, my philanthropic dream shattering as easily as a motherboard on concrete. It was too late, but I had to ask. "What are you doing?!" I called out the window. "Getting the wire – you can sell it," came the reply. I was left hoping against hope that he might spend the proceeds on some books for his children.

Presumably the Inorganic truck is on its way, although the council's website is sufficiently vague as to leave a lot of doubt. It's an offence to have your refuse out for more than two weeks prior to collection, although the longer it stays out, the less there is, so you'd think this would work in the council's favour. Also barred is taking something from someone else's rubbish, even if just to make your own pile bigger than your neighbours' (it's apparently a sign of prestige in Sando if your refuse is so prolific that it spills onto the street).

But rules and regulations don't seem to have much to do with the Inorganic though: like an instinctive mass migration of old TVs and faulty microwaves, it takes but one house to start the Great Purge, and the others follow within hours. For two or three weeks every couple of years, the suburbs are alive with scurrying and scavenging. Then, one overcast July morning, as quickly as it began, the parasitic trash orgy comes to an end.

De La Soul played last night, and boy, was there a party in the house at the Saint James! I always have a few issues at hip-hop gigs, not so much because I'm skinny, white and bespectacled, but because I'm forever confusing my "heys" with my "ho's", waving my arm to the right when everyone else is going left, singing during the wrong bits…

De La made it abundantly clear however that this was MY party. The music stopped as often as they started, with Dave, Pos and Mase holding up proceedings as often as they pleased until the response from those thousands assembled on a Tuesday night was sufficient to bring the beats back. I think after numerous attempts we might have also finally cracked that perennial concert-goers' own chicken-and-the-egg riddle: the left or the right side of the audience – where is the party really at?

A couple of small concerns, however. First, if this was MY party, why did the boys wait until I took a much needed toilet break to play a Reader's Digest rendition of 'A Rollerskating Jam Named Saturdays'? So abridged was it that in the 50 seconds it takes me (I work in radio, knowing these things is important, honestly), plus travelling time, I'd missed the entire thing. MY party, MY arse.

Second concern; at one point De La were vocally illustrating just how inclusive hip-hop is, or at least should be. Apparently hip-hop is for everyone, black or white, man or woman – "it doesn't matter whether you're an accountant, a lawyer…" – what are they saying? I'm a lawyer, at least some of the time. Should I have assumed until that point hip-hop was NOT for me? Why did I need De La's reassurances? Are we really in the same group as accountants? I don't know if it was the osmotic effects of the pounds and pounds of burning reefer around me, but I was starting to feel distinctly paranoid…

(to be continued)

A few weeks back I did an interview with Dave Jolicouer (Trugoy) of legendary hip-hop group De La Soul. A heavily truncated version of the interview is in the latest issue of Remix magazine, and a slightly edited interview will be heard on bFM sometime on Tuesday breakfast, but for those interested, I thought I'd let you have the fullllll interview (especially since I spent hours transcribing the damn thing!)

Apologies if some of it doesn't read too straight, but it's a pretty much verbatim transcript. There's some good stuff in there about Dave's views on "controversial" new stars like Eminem & 50 cent. Worth a look...

It’s been over fifteen years since De La Soul first formed, you still feelin' it?

I love it! I wouldn't change what I do for anything, I love creating music, I love the group of guys that I'm part of, you know, being able to perform for people who appreciate what we do, for the culture that it's great to know that I'm a part of it, we do great things, we do positive things, it's not always depicted in the best of lights but at the same time there is a side that is great for the kids, great for the listening audience, you can't beat it. We travel, we have fun: I couldn't see myself doing anything but music.

De La Soul's first album, Three Feet High & Rising, marked a radical departure from all that had come before, how do you feel it influenced the evolution of hip-hop?

I feel that we definitely, we're a part of hip-hop that made it continue, made it take a turning point to experiment and go further and dig deeper and become more creative. We got into this game for the same reason why artists get into this game now, you got a chance, you grew up on people who you loved and you felt like 'damn, I could do something more than this, let me try something different', and it's good to see that everyone's just passing the baton and just making this race go long as possible. It's like you never wanna win, you never wanna end because keeping it running IS winning the race.

There's an ongoing argument about hip-hop and its influence on kids, whereas De La Soul are known for their positive message – where do you stand in the debate?

I hear rappers say that all the time, 'hip hop never made anyone kill someone' or 'hip-hop never made someone act out of character', but I think that's untrue. I think the more negative it is, the more you find kids who look up to these artists and even aspire to be like them: 'and if I can't be a rapper I'd rather be a thug, if I can't be like so-and-so rapper but he's talking about guns and drugs then I'm going to act like so-and-so rapper and hustle drugs and carry guns'…

I think there are artists who definitely model these people, at the same time you have people who are my age, you know, people who are older, who know better, who will appreciate 50cent just for the music, who will say 'okay, this is entertainment, this is just good music', but there is a listening audience who can't separate the two.

Do you have any children of your own?

I do, I have a daughter, she's 14.

Would you have let her listen to the likes of Eminem and 50 cent when she was 10?

I don't think I would; I think it's too graphic, I think there's too much profanity and I think just to try to make sense of it and really try to separate it from entertainment and reality would be difficult for a 10 year old – I think it'd be difficult enough for a 14-15 year old! You know, and I don't think that that's cool, I don't think that you buy your child a 50 cent album, because it's not for him or her, and at the same time – I'll be honest – I don't think a Christina Aguilera is for a 10 year old either, someone who can talk about love, sex and then show her body off in every video she has, I don't think that's for a 10 year old either.

You're sounding like a father there…

Well you know, it's a responsibility that I'm hoping that every father whether young or old takes, with these younger minds it isn't just music, it's an impression.

When De La started out there was a lot of gansta hiphop, then it kind of went in the background, now it's back again, the dominant style seems to change all the time…

It absolutely changes, I think you know, you had Public Enemy back then, and nowadays you got somebody like a Talib Kweli, who isn't maybe that radical but obviously he definitely touches on political issues and social issues, and hip-hop will continue to have its newest styles and its different voices as long as it keeps going.

What happens is that with hip-hop when something becomes bored and you want something refreshing, there's somebody, there's a group, there's a guy, there's a girl who is in their basement, who is tired of what they're hearing and develops a new style and gets recognised, so as long as hip-hop goes and starts hitting its stale moment, someone is formulating something new.

De La Soul was one of the first groups to have to face legal issue of sampling, with a big case based on a sample of the Turtles. What was it like to be involved in something that big at that early stage of your career?

We were brand new to the game, we didn't understand what sampling clearance was: I had to pay for something? I saw it as, you know, I love that record and I want to use it, but when you sit down and think of it, business-wise, it's like, okay, I am using someone's hard-earned art to make mine, a new art, and if I'm going to put that out commercially, and make money off of it, rightfully they should get something from it. It makes sense, but when you don’t know, you don't know, and at that point in time we were fresh into sampling, we sampled heavily, and we caught some repercussions like some lawsuits, and we dealt with it, we settled with them, and we'll still sample to this day, we'll just definitely follow the order of operations and make sure our samples are clear.

Have people sampled De La Soul illegally over the years?

Absolutely not, I think the laws are so great that people wouldn't even dare to sample De La or anyone else without permission, and I know that we've been approached for the permission on several occasions.

I read an interview with Posdynous (the other MC in DLS) saying he likes using big words in his rap, regardless of their meaning. This seems to happen a bit over here too, people using words like "metaphorical, metaphysical, prolifically" without possibly knowing what they're talking about. Have you ever done this and been snapped?

Using a word, or even talking about something that I don't know would never come from me. I think that that would probably be a great set up to get caught out, I wouldn't set myself up like that.

Can you sing?

I can hit some notes here and there, I like singing choruses but I'm far from a singer.

Do you think that the art of singing been marginalised through hip-hop? Most of the decent singers these days seem consigned to releasing treacle pop hits…

I don't think so, I think hip-hop definitely has a spotlight on it and it’s the biggest thing out right now but I think there are a lot of artists out there who sing, I mean it’s not the same, you don't often hear a beautiful songstress like Anita Baker or somebody who can hold a note from high or low like a Luther Vandross, I think those artists are maybe, unfortunately, and I hate to say this, but dinosaurs of a dying age. I think the singing thing is here, it’s just now days singing is intertwined with hip-hop, but you don’t have too many artists out there that are the next Luther’s and Anita Bakers, but those that are around are just coupled up with a Fabulous or a Jayzee.

It seems that for a while every bloody answer machine you'd call up would have your sample "Hey how ya doin'…"

I’ve had a couple of people that I’ve called who are friends of mine, and they had it on their answering machine, I’m like ‘get that off your answering machine!’ I mean, it was a great promotional idea, we actually sat in the studio two days when that album was out and we did answering machine services for like maybe 2,000 people in the industry and sent them out to all of them.

You've got a Best Of out through Warner Bros at the moment, was that your idea?

We've actually got a new record we want to drop this year, and many more as long as our listening audience permits us, but [Warner Bros] did come to us and they asked if we wanted to put some new songs on there, be a part of the sequencing, or even be a part of the artwork and everything, but we wasn’t with it. Bbut you know, at the end of the day they will do what they do because they have the rights and they are putting out the greatest hits. I hope people will enjoy it, but it wouldn’t be something that De La Soul would do right now. It sounds like a great idea but I don’t think it’s the time for it right now.

Your last album Bionix didn’t go down so well.

I think the real reason why Bionix didn’t do well at all – I think it was a great record – I think the only reason why it didn’t go down is because there was no financial backing or support. A lot of people don’t even know that record was out, and touring within the last two years people didn’t even know we had a new album out. [De La Soul's previous record label] Tommy Boy at the time was folding, we put out the album in November but the label folded in January, so as opposed to spending all this money on a record when the company was about to go under – and on top of that Warner Bros was about to take all the publishing from all the albums and the album coming out – they wouldn’t have no ownership of anything, so why spend more money on a record that wasn’t going to do anything for the company.

Your new album coming out later in the year will the third in the Art Official Intelligence series?

It’s the third of the AOI series but fortunately, thank God, we have the right to do anything on our own from this point on and we’ll be releasing that record on our own.

So no Warners.

No Warners.

Does this mean you’re starting up your own label?

We are starting our own label.

What’s it called?

At this point in time, it’s funny you should say that, Pos called me today and he was like ‘yo, we starting this label, but ah, what are we calling it’? I was like, ‘that’ll come in time, like everything else, any titles usually come when we’re about to release or launch, so I’ll wait for that title to come in coming time.

Are you guys still pretty tight with Tribe, and Jungle Brothers and all the older hip-hop crew?

Yeah, Absolutely, I was on the phone with Phife a couple of days ago, I just hung out with Mr Long of Black Sheep, had a long conversation with Q-tip about the reunion of Tribe Called Quest about a month ago. We all talk, we’re all friends, we’re all definitely keeping in touch with each other.

You still living in New York?

I am in New York.

You’re coming down here in June, to NZ, been down here before?

I have been to NZ but that was a long time ago.

Going to spend any time down here or are you on a mad schedule?

I think we’re going to be in and out of NZ and not have the opportunity to see anything.

That’s a shame…

Unfortuantely… it is a shame because I think even the last time we was there I believe we might have been there for like two, three days, and we didn’t get the opportunity to see much then either, but I’m hoping with the release of this record and things turning again and good things happening with De La, we will be back there in full, being able to really hang out and really see what, see especially what the hip hop scene is like out there, that’s what I would like to see.

You're doing a live show. What can we expect these days – how does it work?

A live show is fun you know, there are no lights, whistles and explosions, it’s nothing like that with De La, we are hip hop students and we only do what we’ve learned, and I think when we get on the stage just the three of us, it’s like magic, you can’t, I don’t think there are too many groups that have it like that, we don’t need to do all of our hits per se, I mean you have to do 'Me Myself I', you have to do 'Say No Go', we have to do these songs, we go out there and we make people have a good time, it’s a show that involves the audience, you know, we don’t like to do a show where people are just watching, seeing what’s next, we have you as part of the show, it’s people being a part of the show, and that only, that only gives us the energy and the vibe and the feeling to really give a great show, so it’s going to be a show where we’re just intertwined with the audience and having a good time.

De La Soul play this Tuesday night at the St James in Auckland

I'm quite excited to say that this week New Zealand has entered a new era. An era, where after years of bureaucracy, finally the Government has decided that Little Pieces of Paper don't matter.

In case you missed it, last week there was a furore over a Tuvaluan man who was receiving dialysis treatment at Auckland Hospital. The man was an overstayer, and under Ministry of Health guidelines, hospitals aren't allowed to provide such services for people who are in the country illegally.

You could say fair enough, after all there are scarce enough resources to go around those people in the country legally, and why should my gran miss out in favour of this guy.

You could say on the other hand that as human beings we have a moral and ethnical obligation to look after one another, regardless of their immigration status, and in fact New Zealand should open the doors to what is known as 'medical tourism', i.e. sick people coming in to the country knowing they'll be looked after by our philanthropic health system. What a dilemma for the Government: Pull the plug, let the man die, or risk the wrath of New Zealand First supporters everywhere.

Fortunately for the Government, Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel found a way around it. By Ministerial edict she changed the man's immigration status by granting him a two-year work permit so his treatment could continue. Dalziel stated that just because the man hadn't filled in a piece of paper, to regularise his immigration status, she wasn't going to let that stand in the way of him receiving health care.

So, a precedent has been set. Pieces of paper, filled in or not, just don't matter anymore. Already cases of this newfound liberation are filing in from around the country.

There's been the case of a man in Kaitaia performing backyard hip-replacement surgery. The Medical Association have declined to bring a complaint against him, with the Association's President stating "Just because this man hasn't sat a few exams, I'm not going to let that prevent him from practicing medicine."

Yesterday, at the High Court in Wellington, Raymond James Pound had his case of possession of 300 tabs of LSD thrown out, with Justice Hammond ruling "Just because you had all these little bits of paper on you, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it."

After a fatal accident in Ohakune, police declined to press charges against a 30 year old unemployed man who was found to be driving while disqualified. Det Snr Sgt John Hamilton mused "Just because you don't got a driver's licence, I don't see why that should stand in your way."

All over this proud nation of ours people are burning certificates, diplomas, licences, passports and records with joy. Finally, New Zealand is free.

______________________

NB: Since I wrote this piece the newspapers have had a field day with the fact that the Tuvaluan man, formerly described as a dedicated father and husband, now appears to be on charges for assaulting his wife. Should he stay or should he go? I'm not going near this one with a bargepole...

I've been quietly fuming for the past few days, muttering, swearing, enacting voodoo curses, mumbling in tongues and occasionally bursting into a fully-fledged rant to whoever's in my immediate vicinity at the time. If you've been in that vicinity, apologies. Part of this uncharacteristically irrational behaviour can be attributed to the fact that I've given up smoking. I'm not sure why I've given up, it just sort of happened, which means I'm destined to fail sometime soon. Paradoxically, knowing that I'm going to start again soon makes it easier to stop myself lighting up.

So this might explain where all this anger has come from, but it doesn't quite explain why I'm getting so damn wound up over the fact that the Government is planning to give thirty-four million dollars to fund Team NZ's 2007 America's Cup challenge. $34,000,000.00. That's a lot of zeros.

While to me this is an issue of principle, like most people I'm also a pragmatist, and my ire is raised in direct proportion to how much money is thrown at something I consider ill-advised. The initial four million or so I could forgive; it's still a waste of money, but the Government wastes four mil so often that I'm immune to it. Four mil is the Government saying; "look here's a bone, now go off to Switzerland, lose, and don't bother us again."

Looking closer though, this money was ostensibly given to secure the team so we don't face the same sort of nautical brain drain that led to our defeat last time. But isn't this missing the point? This is the team that lost five-zip, there's hardly going to be a queue of people outside the syndicate door with lucrative offers, is there? If anything we should have beaten them down, financially speaking: "Okay Dean, I'm prepared to go up to twenty-five dollars, but you'll have to wash your own uniforms."

But this latest thirty-odd million is a significant figure, not as easily dismissed. Importantly, it's more than a lot of other non-yachting things costs, which means that for the next however-long we're going to be hearing: "Perhaps the Government should take some of the money they gave to the yachting and spend it on dialysis machines/Transmission Gully/Embassy Theatre/wind farms…"

The biggest question that needs answering is WHY? It certainly doesn't appear to be a populist move, because nearly everyone I've heard, read or spoken to seems to be against it. It's hard to justify as "the Government getting in behind sports", when the entire SPARC funding for the year ended June 2002 was only $13 million. No, the Government's line seems based on two extraordinarily flimsy lines of reasoning; first, that having the black boat sailing in some European waters represents a great marketing opportunity for Brand New Zealand; second, that when we bring the Cup back home, the economic returns are enormous.

Okay sports fans, name the nine competitors in the Louis Vuitton and their country of origin. Now cross out those whose country you DIDN'T visit as a direct result of seeing them in the LVC. Alternately, circle those countries that you DID visit. Ex-actly. Thirty million buys a lot of advertising. Thirty million buys a fair bit of property too. In fact, for only $12.5m you can buy a huge building in San Francisco (for example), paint it with the letters "NZ" as big as you please and project pictures of our scenic paradise all over it. It'll be more of a talking point than a black boat sailing somewhere in Europe, and will say a lot more about Godzone than the letters "NZL" stenciled on a sail.

If we're just talking about sports, why the America's Cup? NZ driver Scott Dixon has just qualified fourth fastest for the upcoming Indianapolis 500, why not give him $30m to paint his car black with a silver fern? At least he's got a chance of winning. An estimated four billion people will watch the Rugby World Cup this year, why not give the All Blacks some money to wear black with a silver fern… oh hang on. Well why not give them some money anyway?

As for all this talk of the returns that will be generated by bringing the Auld Mug back home, it ain't going to happen. I'd love to say it will, or it might, but it ain't. We're lacking the money and the talent. It was obvious before we lost 5-0, and it's certainly obvious now. If anything, the Government should be asking what return they got on the money they contributed to the last campaign? We could have turned up in a dragon boat full of kindergarten teachers, a waka of amputees, and we wouldn't have lost any worse than 5-0. At least last time we were guaranteed a place in the final. This time around, the Government might as well take their $34m up to Sky City and place it all on 19 red. The odds are about the same.

New Zealanders know this too, which is why the move is so unpopular. That and the fact that we are an extraordinarily fickle bunch, and don't really like backing a losing team. We're also pretty embarrassed on the whole that we drove around for a few weeks with 'Loyal' flags flying from the aerials of our 4x4s.

So what does the Government know that we don't? Why is Trevor Mallard setting himself up over this issue? And why do you never see Donna Awatere and Donna Hall in the same room at the same time? Could it be? Tune in next week…