Stray 22March04 - Part two of four.

Kill em all and let god sort em out.



The sun in southeastern Australasia is vicious. In Scotland we would

spend

the whole day in the park without sunscreen and I wouldn’t burn, but

the

second you let the southern sun touch your skin you can feel it eating

at

you. We simply don’t have the ozone. This year was the worst on record

in

New Zealand for u.v. (I’ve already commented on how everywhere I go

it’s

the worst something ever) and now you’re supposed to be wearing

sunscreen

_under your clothing._

Its not the end of the world, there’s a lengthy lag on these things as

the

various gases make their way up to the stratosphere, so what we’re

getting

now is the effects of a decade or more ago, and it will probably start

improving again, but its still pretty fucked.

Lets just hope this Pentagon report stating climate change is a bigger

threat to American national security and the economy than terrorism

gets

something moving.



So that was the first thing I noticed in New Zealand, the sun.

It was weird going back to NZ. I had been unsure how it would be

returning

after a very long two point five years, if it would still feel like

home.

It didn’t feel like anything. I had a complete lack of emotional

reaction,

which since I was expecting the opposite made me feel like either I

wasn’t

actually there or had never left in the first place.

This was obviously a little confusing.

A mate I ran into summed it up though; it’s an airport. Transit space.

If

I had been there to stay it would’ve been something else, but since I

was

just passing through it was all one great big departure lounge.

Somewhere

you go to wait for your flight to leave. I’ve had this with many other

countries that were little else than in my way, but never really

noticed

because I wasn’t expecting anything more.

I don’t know what to think the word ‘home’ means anymore.

New Zealand is exactly the same, New Zealand has changed completely.

There are a couple of big issues at the moment, and they all seem based

around those damned Lord of the Rings movies. (The doilies on the

plane’s

headrests said ‘Air New Zealand, official carrier to Middle Earth.’

Grow

up. You’re not cool, you’re an airline. You’re not elves, you don’t

fight

the forces of darkness; you’re a marketing executive in some office

somewhere and apparently a complete escapist. Which is not to say I

didn’t

enjoy the films, of course.)

Everyone is suddenly flocking to NZ, which, especially in the south,

has

always been rather lacking in cultural diversity. Well, they’ve got it

now.

I think it’s a good thing. The way of this century is going to be the

entire world spreading itself thin. Everyone will go everywhere, and

for

once NZ is experiencing global trends at pretty much the same time as

the

rest of the planet.

But I see a time of ugliness coming for New Zealand, as people adjust

to

this. People who aren’t used to seeing a bit of colour around aren’t

going

to like it much and there’s already mutterings about how we should be

more

like Australia. (Concentration camps, sinking boat people and deporting

anyone who comes from a country that’s likely to shoot them when

they’re

sent back.)

It won’t last. Just growing pains. It won’t be much fun, but it’s

necessary and we’ll come out the other side better off. New Zealand has

never had much of a taste for prolonged bigotry.



The other big thing is land prices, and again this is global. A mate of

my

father bought a block of land and house back in the day for eight

thousand

dollars. Last year it was worth eighty thousand. Now it’s worth a

hundred

and fifty thousand. Actually by the time I left I think it had gone up

to

a hundred and eighty. A run-down batch and a little patch of land by

the

beach near Nelson just went to an American investor for one point two

million. It’s out of control. The price of anywhere by the sea or a

lake

is literally doubling every year, though it does seem to be leveling

off

now.

This isn’t going to destroy New Zealand. We’re used to a huge tourist

industry and no one’s going to build their house in the middle of

nowhere,

so towns will just get bigger and cities more crowded. What it does

mean

though is that New Zealander’s are no longer able to own land in New

Zealand. And even if you didn’t want to buy land your rent will go up

so

much if you live somewhere nice that you won’t be able to afford that

either and you’ll have to move somewhere that isn’t nice.

You can’t fault people’s taste for wanting to live somewhere beautiful,

but all you’ll end up with is massive suburbs of gated communities for

the

very rich and the rest of us forced into all the bits that suck.



I made the most of my time in NZ, met up with everyone I know who’s

still

there, which is everybody, and went hitchhiking to all my favorite bits

in

the South Island. Went to my beloved Fjordland, got molested by

sandflies,

had an interesting hitch getting in. Young American guy, owned a semi

auto

assault rifle and two handguns, was a biological engineer for Monsanto.

He

was actually really nice. Way into the ideological uses of genetic

modification, I told him about some of the stuff Monsanto was doing in

India and all the deaths it was causing but he hadn’t heard anything

about

it. Even he thought New Zealand lifting the GE moratorium was a

terrible

idea.

I asked him about his guns, he used to take them hiking. For the bears?

No, people. You ever had to pull one? No. Know anybody who’s had to

pull

one? No.

He was telling me about an expo for non-lethal weaponry he’d been to in

the states. Pepper spray paint ball guns and devices that knock you

unconscious by disrupting your brain with an electromagnetic pulse.

Great.

In Milford sound the weather was nice and I spent the night in my tent

out

on a sandbar, where you’re not supposed to camp but all the department

of

conservation officers go home at night. After dark the sandlfies

wandered

home too and I was able to unzip my little tent and sit out amongst the

dark looming walls of the fjord, the dull thunder of a waterfall

gleaming

like milk across the still, leaden water that surrounded me.

Nice little mental photograph.

Hitched up to Nelson to meet with my father.

I got an email from him recently saying he was looking forward to this

mailer to see all the things we got up to.

I don’t know, usual stuff. Lounging with old hippies in the sun, rock

climbing, ranting about the immateriality of imperceptible timespace

and

how the universe is really just too damn strange to even pretend to

know

what’s going on anymore.



The universe is really just too damn strange for me to even pretend I

know

what’s going on anymore. Some university did an experiment recently. A

machine generated random numbers, these were sealed in an envelope. A

few

days later they sat down and tried to influence the numbers, when they

opened the envelopes they found the numbers were skewed in the way

they’d

been trying for _after they had been generated._

But that’s nothing. Another university wanted to have a séance with

someone who had never existed. They made up a whole life for a

fictitious

character and had historians researching to make sure no one like him

ever

actually lived. Then they had the séance and of course made contact

with

the ghost they had created. That’s kid’s stuff, the bit that makes my

brain hurt is that afterwards records of this guy’s life actually

started

showing up in exactly the way they’d made him up.



Something a bit like this happened to me. When I was hitching to

Fjordland

and back there were a few points when I had spent long enough in a

certain

place and thought, ok, this is all very scenic and everything but I

really

do need to get moving now. Bang, picked up within five minutes. This

happened about five times in a row. Other times I tried predicting how

long it would take for a car to stop, but the results weren’t anything

worth mentioning.

This all comes under manifestation and I really don’t think it’s that

strange anymore.

However, the reason I was hanging around in NZ was for my Canadian work

permit to come through. This was supposed to take two to six weeks and

around week four I was starting to get a little twitchy. Eventually I

just

thought, look, that’s it, enough. This is no way to live, shuffling

round

between friends sofas and not even knowing if this thing’s going to

arrive

at all.

Bang. The next morning the thing arrives.

Getting cars to pull over is one thing, I’d made the decision they were

going to beforehand. But that permit would’ve had to’ve been dropped in

the mail at least a day or two _before_ I decided it was going to do

so.

These things are very hard to get one’s head around and frankly I’ve

given

up trying. The situation is now pushing up against my intellectual

capacity to comprehend it and it’s going to take a smarter person than

me

to make sense of it all. I can live with that. You don’t have to know

how

something works to know how to work it. If I can pull a few tricks

that’s

good enough for me.



much love



Daniel.