Posts by Stuart Coats
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Last week, Sarah Palin capably read a speech largely crafted (by Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully) before she was even chosen as a candidate -- it was and is a party speech. Clearly, it went down quite well, but it would seem extremely unwise to credit her personally for much of its content.
This paragraph got me wondering who Obama's speechwriter was. Here's a nice article about him that might be of interest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/fashion/20speechwriter.html
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While it is a bit late....
I watched Wellington play Manawatu last night, which on the whole was a pretty good game. I am a Wellington supporter though, so maybe my memory is tainted by the final result. But while watching I did think that one of the problems with rugby at the moment is that the refereeing seems arbitary at best. I could blame Steve Walsh (and a large part of me wants to) but I think any game you watch with any referee will seem the same. It is never clear when a ruck is formed, when the tackeld player is holding on etc. So any time the whistle goes it seems like the ref has just picked a number out of the hat.
If there was some way of making this clearer to everyone things may improve. I quite like the idea of the refs being miked, NFL-style, so that when they do blow the whistle they can then explain to the crowd what has happened. Even then the decision will still be random, but at least we'll all know.
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If they can coincide it with a V8 race then they will be sweet
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"I can't watch ESPN at all, eh, their insane promos for fishing or poker that interrupt the action every five seconds - it does my head in. The promos are all on a fairly high repeat rate too. It's like the Mexted channel."
Not ot mention Tommy Smyth. With a y -
First game the fielders can't take their hands out of their pockets, you can start the rugby season.
You've obviously never played cricket in Karori in December....
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another gem of her highnesses was witnessed at the "Bowl of Brooklands" in New Plymouth when, at sound check, she requested that the resident ducks in the pond in front of the stage were to be shot as they were interferring with her performance!!!!!....
Almost as good as when I was part of the Enzso performance there, and people kept swimming across the lake to get to the stage to hug Dave Dobbyn, Neil Finn etc. They got pretty concerned as they were standing next to live electrical equipment being assailed by dripping wet drunks. They probably would have welcomed the ducks.
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From the lofty heights of the opera world -- where doors are opened for you and diva behaviour (rudeness, self-obsession, demanding self-entitlement) is not only tolerated and accepted but actually admired -- it must be easy to look down on everyone else.
I have to say something here, as someone who works for the NBR NZ Opera company, about the above statement. In my job I have the privilege of meeting and working with opera singers from New Zealand and around the world. The vast majority are wonderful people; down-to-earth professionals who get on with doing their job. They look down on no-one and do not not tolerate diva behaviour within their ranks. Yes, there is occassionally someone who acts childishly with ideas above their station, but I've also met doctors, lawyers, plumbers and journalists about who you could say the same.
I would also take issue with the implication that classical musicians and those who love opera are not interested in any other type of music. That is simply not true. Classical musicians often have a wider range of music listening than pop musicians, many of whom I am sure know nothing about classical music.
As to the "Kiri vs Hayley" debate; what are we debating here. Both of these women do what they do extremely well and because of that have managed to rise towards the tops of their chosen trees. If one doesn't like the music or the voice of the other why should we care? I love listening to Tom Waits, my girlfriend hates it. She didn't like Blackwatch at the Festival, her best friend loved it. Taste is objective and there's room for everything in Graham's broad church. Even opera.
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It's my first year at Vic Uni, and I am rooming with a short Maori bloke from Gisborne called Rez. He's into The Cure and I'm studying to be an opera singer. It shouldn't have worked, but it did and one of the main reasons was a gig we went to at that year's Orientation.
Ostensibly we went to see The Able Tasmans but we got to the bar early to, well, get pissed. That's how we blundered onto the support act - The Inhalers. Their lead singer was short and scrawny. They had two girl backing singers, just like the B-52's but they didn't do "Loveshack." The bass player looked a little like Slash. Oh, and they were all dressed like cavemen. Rez and I loved them - they were funny and crazy and on that February evening they were the perfect thing. We bonded over them, how there wasn't any band like them where we came from (I grew up in Waipawa where there weren't any bands at all so admittedly they didn't have a lot of competition from my experience). We were amped up to see the Able Tasmans, who then proceeded to play their unique brand of drone rock. We were disappointed, and left the gig early to catch Otis Mace in the bar downstairs.
A couple of days later I went to Slow Boat records and sought out a cassette copy of The Inhaler's album, Holy Family Three Pack. It had to be a cassette because the only music player we had in out hostel room was my ancient tape deck. We played the tape to death, particularly "Nudist on the Beach of Love" and "This Is Not An Encore." Later on my own band would cover the latter song to general bemusement, but we did always enjoy shouting "Life! Fluff!" at the top of our lungs.
The scrawny lead singer was Henry Nigel Beckford. He wrote most of the songs too, and also wrote a book. I sought it out, "Weet-Bix Emperor", and it still has a proud place on my bookshelf. I drunkenly ran into Henry-Boy when I was out on the piss in Wellington. I ranted to him about how much I loved the band, and the album and the book. He took it as well as could be expected, with magnanimous patience.
Now he is a "media commentator" on breakfast television and I have updated my cassette copy of Holy Family Three Pack to a CD and transferred that CD onto my ipod and I still enjoy shouting "Life! Fluff!" when This Is Not An Encore comes on. And every time I hear the songs it makes me recall those early university days when me and Rez from Gisborne stumbled onto the time of our lives.
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So I'm guessing that you're a teacher now, Reece. Glad to see a slightly more enlightened attitude to punishment there. But generally the people who caused everyone to have to stay after school were the bullies anyway. Which was the problem with the system - the teachers wanted us to dob in the culprits but no-one ever would for fear of getting the shit kicked out of them.
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I would get someone to recite the lyrics to "The Gambler":
The gambler he broke even but in his final words I found an ace that I could keep
And then the entire congregation would recite the chorus back.
Then I'd get Peter Sledmere to recite the whole of 2 Out of Three Ain't Bad, and then the choir comes in with Libera Me from Faure's Requiem. Go from the ridiculous to the sublime, I say