We did so
many dumb things
when we were
young.
We’re lucky to be
here.
Lucky to be anywhere.
Lucky not to be anywhere
else.
Some of us weren’t so lucky.
We don’t know how lucky
we are.
Some died or took
their own lives. And yes,
on one level we all are
dying. But Some of
us couldn’t find the luck
for trying.
I saw a guy eating
an ice-cream. It was 9.40am.
And he was an adult.
He was stomping through
Manners Mall, in army-kit
and he looked like he was
really enjoying it.
His eyes were covered by
dark sunglasses. But the rest of his face was
wearing the bits of the ice-cream that
wouldn’t drop down the central-hole
quick enough.
A few years back my
mum decided to buy
my son an ice-cream at
half-past-nine in the morning.
And I told her off.
I said “fucking hell, mum…”
or something like that.
And she said “I’m allowed to
do what I like. I’m his grandmother”.
And I said “no one eats ice-cream
at nine-thirty-in-the-fucking-morning…”
We argued about it a while.
And now I know I was wrong.
Welcome to episode 182 of Sweetman Podcast with support from our sponsors – T Leaf T, Yeastie Boys and La Petite Chocolat.
Now – as you probably know, as well as the usual platforms (this site, soundcloud, iTunes/Apple) you can now get to Sweetman Podcast on Spotify – follow it there and have it saved in your Spotify library.
Ginette McDonald is a legend of stage and screen in New Zealand. Her comic creation, “Lyn of Tawa” has recently been rightly celebrated – once again – in the TV documentary series and accompanying book, Funny As. She has worked on stage and screen extensively, and either side of the creation of the Lyn of Tawa character. Read More
It felt like I had been waiting my whole life for a Suzanne Vega gig – then I saw her twice in two weeks. First in Australia (I couldn’t take the chance that there wouldn’t be NZ shows) and then I saw her in Wellington also. Was worth the travel. And the two shows. They were different – first one was with the full band and a set of Anniversary album run-throughs, the Wgtn show was her and long-serving bassist playing more a hits set, with plenty of great songs we didn’t get to hear at the first gig.
It was wonderful. Read More
even when
i was a U2
fan – and i had
the defense of being
a kid – it always
bugged me at the
start of Rattle
and Hum when
Bono would say:
“this is a song Charles
Manson stole from The
Beatles…we’re stealing
it back”.
and then they’d
play their rinky-dink
cover of Helter Skelter.
stealing their own place
amongst the rock and
blues and jazz gods
they referenced on the
album.
(when they weren’t
chin-stroking they
were tickling
each other’s balls).
Charles Manson
wrote better songs
than U2.
which is not a defense
of Charles Manson.
just an attack on U2.
fortunately there have been
many more.
I’ve spent 20 years of my life – or thereabouts – writing about music. Some days I’ll wear the vague job description of “Critic” like a badge; more often it’s a target on my back. But when I read things like:
[This Album] received negative reviews from the majority of critics
all I can say is, I want to go to there. I want to hear that album. I need to. Read More
our new favourite
game is seeing
if we can make it
through the month.
the usual bills, and
thrills and spills,
the mortgage, some
food and just
the one random
purchase that breaks
the banks and fucks
things up, pack
of ciggies on a
whim or a
book or record.
we’ve made it
a game so
we laugh and
don’t cry.
we’ve called
it a game
so we try.
Ray Henwood has died. One of Circa Theatre’s stalwarts, one of Wellington’s acting legends.
I met Ray Henwood only once. But it was huge for me. By then I’d grown up seeing him as part of the cast of Gliding On and he was there in several TV shows and movies. I’d seen him in several plays on the Circa Stage.
And at some point, I guess it was around 2007 or 2008, I sat in the foyer of Circa Theatre and spoke to him for two hours. It was an interview for a publication called The Wellington Guide. All that survives of it, as far as I know, is the cover image (below right). I wrote the piece up and was very proud of it – it was easy to be with such incredible source-material. Ray was absolutely a scholar and a gent.
We talked through his life in Wales before he moved to New Zealand. He was a science teacher. And a forensic toxicologist. He took some acting roles – it was a hobby. He didn’t 
look back. He was The Moro Man – a famous TV ad.
He was involved in local theatre and a foundation player of Circa Theatre.
And my conversation with him spread across several pages of this magazine – and it was, in some sense, the start of my podcasting style. I would have to wait a few years to get to the medium….and when I got there I always wished I revisited my conversation with Ray Henwood and captured his voice for the podcast. But that was not to be.
I have instead talked to many of the people connected with Circa Theatre over the last couple of years. And I will get to many more I hope.
But I’ll never forget that chance to meet Ray Henwood. I don’t have a copy of the magazine and my word-doc would have gone walkabouts as part of a home theft or the planned obsolescence built in to the ghosts of hard-drives past.
I have a memory not only of his kindness and generosity in that interview encounter. Several memories in fact. Watching him on stage and screen (dramatic, comedic) throughout my life.
He was one of our great talents. And a lovely man.
My thoughts today and in the days ahead to his family, friends and the close group of Circa stalwarts.
R.I.P. Ray Henwood
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in the old days,
I’d sit and shit
out words in
a bar or café,
scrawling down and
through the paper,
my beer or coffee
in the corner just
waiting for Instagram
to be invented.
my smoke lingering but
no fire, just spleen being
vented. I’d struggle
to read back
my own handwriting,
and type up just
what I could
decipher.
This is a tribute
to those old
days. A new poem:
Still not very good.
I was going to write about Candy Dulfler’s debut album, Saxuality which had long felt like a guilty-pleasure. On a very recent re-listen I decided maybe it was actually really good…and really good all along, but it definitely links, in my mind at least, with this record by Sheila E. There are some similarities – both are talented instrumentalists reduced to making cheesy “sex” puns, no doubt by filthy fat-suited fuckers in corporate. Both albums were recorded in 1990. And of course both of them are proteges of Prince. Read More
i haven’t got the
energy to be
totally embarrassed
which is why
you are reading
this now
or at some
stage.
(whenever)
Fleetwood Mac, Behind The Mask, 1990
People either do not know this album – or they’ll tell you they wished that it never existed. But I reckon it’s, maybe ironically, the closest Fleetwood Mac came to ever sounding like an updated Rumours – ironic because, for a start, Lindsey Buckingham had left the band at this point. And in a move that possibly went on to become a legal precedent the band chose not one but two guitarists to try to replace him.
Behind The Mask features, I think, several gems. Maybe the only song you do know from this is Save Me – which is yet another tremendous Christine McVie song. Read More
