The greenies are the protagonists of Shipwrecked on Islands. I designed the opening idea many months before the Parliament protest, which had absolutely nothing to do with the environment. Stop comparing my script to those events: people on the left seem to really like my EP, so it’s one of those classic ‘fans of NZ music are a really small group, so I can’t deliberately exclude fans’ situations. - that’s paraphrasing Don McGlashan on Finlay Macdonald’s show. 👍
I’m not giving up my script because people are angry. Nobody likes my ideas to start with, but usually they come around to my way of thinking. It’s a great idea, I don’t need money to produce a radio play, and, if I’m being honest: it’s set in the future. That’s the thing that matters - people will forget/swallow the anti-mandate protests as part of political history, but the environmental protestors need to get their arse into gear. I can’t really remember a major climate change protest other than Restore Passenger Rail in the last year or two, and that’s pathetic. I think everyone thought that the big march in 2019 was enough, but clearly it wasn’t: that’s my little wero to the IRL environmental activists. - Forest and Bird’s Ads were classic, though. I was really chuffed to see those when walking around Wellington: I wish I had the money to buy time on those electronic billboards. 😎 As far as I can tell, the Ugly Tourists opera doesn’t touch on these themes (too tame because it’s funded by the rich), so I’m not doing it because I have what I think is a much better idea, and I have a sound that is fresh and exciting. I’m the one who makes musicals appealing to the unbelievers, and that’s why I choose mediums other than stage - it’s off-putting, and I’m saying that as an acknowledged expert in musicals. - Podcast musicals are a growth industry - they took off like wildfire during Covid, and lots of the pro NY writers have dabbled in that medium. Movie musicals are also a growth industry - lots of originals are being made, like that Afro-futurist one I linked to recently.
Any parallels between my script and real life are allusive, not direct. It’s not a comment on the anti-mandate protests, and the continued belief that I supported them is wrong. That was never true, and is yet another case of people mistaking me for my brother. - I never attended the protest. I never went anywhere near that part of Wellington until afterwards - I didn’t feel like it was a safe place for me to be. That’s my brother as interviewer, and I’m genuinely pissed that people (still) cannot tell the difference. - 3a. I haven’t had a beard since 2019. And you’ll note that when I interview people, I’m barely audible, and that was by design. Fresh Culture was, for real, designed partly as an aesthetic critique of how the mainstream media was telling stories. We all used to watch the 6pm news fairly regularly and rant about the media at the Wallace Street flat. 🦄 That’s why there was no incidental music, and the interviewer wasn’t part of the program: the idea was to let people tell their own stories, and that’s what Fresh Culture was successful at doing. -
Here’s my question for the GCSB and SIS: can you prove that anyone other than Emanuel who was involved in organising the protest knew of me or my music? I’d never even heard of most of those people until I watched the Stuff documentary, and I’ve certainly never met any of them or talked to them. I chatted with some wackos, including run-of-the-mill National voters, on my Cannabis Ad, but none of the famous names. * Emanuel has been my friend for years, and he knew I didn’t believe in conspiracy theories. We’ve never discussed the protests or his views on vaccination, but I still consider him a friend regardless of what he did. I also thought the 40,000-person climate protest was a massive waste of time and resources - and wrote a memorable rant about that - so I hold unique opinions about political protest which come from lived experience as a successful political activist.
If you’re looking for an apology about the documentary, then ask Stephen about that. I'm guessing that Ingrid's boofhead music video was a commentary about that. Stephen showed me that btws .. I dunno if he thought it was meant for him.
I thought the documentary was fairly even-handed, but I wasn’t involved in producing it. Of course, I wasn’t involved in producing Bad Man either, but had to step up and defend that.
My two cents on Fresh Culture and the protest: I think Stephen was in a unique position to get that perspective from inside the tent via Megan, and it provided a unique angle on the protest.
I bet plenty of mainstream media watched that documentary. While his Jericho song was probably more inflammatory, that wasn’t a documentary, and was labelled as a song: everyone has the right to their opinion, and songs are a great, non-violent way to express that.
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