forget destiny, what about those zombie-worshiping flesh-eating catholics in your very street?

Brian Tamaki has been getting a lot of flack. He is a figure that the media love to pillory and has become a by-word for homophobia and greedy hypocrisy.

I wonder if he doesn’t get an unfairly hard time.

There are other prosperity focused churches that feather their bosses’ nests but don’t get the same scrutiny over their motives – -like City Impact or Life Church who are profiled in those links by the excellent Tony Wall.

I think that those other Churches do work with much less damaged and difficult people. Many of the men that Tamaki helps are Maori fathers that have had patchy relationships with employment, society and women in the past. Many had been violent or in trouble before getting involved in the Church. This is how the Tamaki supporters tell it anyway. Tamaki preaches that men should not drink, they should work hard and they should make their families the center or their efforts. If he is turning Maori men who weren’t good fathers into good fathers then he is doing good work. This can not be stated clearly enough. One of the saddest things in this country is the number of children who grow up without fathers. And unfortunately you will find that it is Maori who are most likely to miss a stable father figure in their lives growing up. There are many reasons it is a good thing to have fathers involved in kids’ lives. For example kids who grow up without fathers grow up to be disproportionately more likely to be criminal or neglectful themselves.

This is a view that isn’t represented enough while the media scoff at Tamaki’s cars and highlights.

The fancy churches like Life and City Impact also ask for money off their middle class congregations yet they do not do such important work and don’t get such a hard time. Why does everyone know about Tamaki’s tacky tastes and most could not even say who leads the Life Church – which is bigger, takes more money off its congregation and has 20million of assets – including even having a boss, by the name of Paul De Jong if you didn’t know, who also rides a flashy trashy Harley Davidson.

In terms of the Homophobia there are plenty of other churches that are homophobic. The Catholics for example won’t give communion to open homosexuals and believe they are off to hell. Most Christian groups are homophobic but are just a bit more slimy about how they categorise their prejudices. I would love to see the same liberal outrage applied to other Churches that the Destiny Church receive.

There are also plenty of religions that have kooky beliefs and leaders that are deified. If you were to give the same style of coverage to the Catholic Church that the media do to Destiny Church you could run stories about this crazy group who gather on Sundays to ritualistically drink the blood and eat the flesh of their founder, a zombie from 2000 years ago that rose from the dead and had magical wounds that bled from his hands. They believe he was born because God implanted him in his virgin mother and have made a fetish out of this immaculate conception. These people worship a cult leader they call the Pope, who was a member of the Hitler Youth and is said to be infallible, the very word of God on earth. This group have land holding worth billions. They pay no tax. They get money off their congregations to build enormous Cathedrals while people starve in the world. Etc Etc

(That stuff about flesh eating is true. Catholics believe that through transubstantiation the bread wafers and wine actually turn into the blood and flesh of Jesus Christ. Once this happens they then eat and drink of it. I’m not trying to be stink to Catholics here, just showing that you can frame things in negative ways very easily with any religion. I’m looking at you Mormon magic underpants.)

All these facts are true and could be leveled at the Catholic church – but are not in the media night after night. They aren’t on the front of the Herald. And this is strange because there are a lot more Catholics in NZ than Destiny Church members. Surely this is bigger news? But it isn’t as we are used to the Catholics and don’t hold them to the same standards we are holding Destiny Church.

I don’t like Brian Tamaki. I don’t like religion that tells people what to think and takes money off the weak and vulnerable with the threat of eternal hell for those that don’t play by the rules. I don’t like homophobia and bigotry that Destiny practice in the exact way I detest Catholic or any religious intolerance. I don’t like the thought control that they preach. But what I would love to see is the same standards applied to other religions that are applied to Destiny. And I would like to see what exactly the people who rail against Tamaki are reckoning should be done with the thousands of families that he is helping and that no other movement is keeping sober, nonviolent and productive.

And as a final thought I wonder if there a racist tinge or a class tinge to the way he is hounded and Paul de Jong is anonymous. I’d love to hear what you think?

ten years left for the apostrophe*

I reckon it’s bold prediction time.

From looking around the informal use of language I reckon that the apostrophe is doomed – -within ten years I think it is going to be gone from informal language.
What do I mean? Well, more people are writing to each other more often and less formally than ever before thanks to all this Facebook-ing, Twittering, emailing, blogging etc.

This is going to affect the language. And the first effect is going to be that the tricky points are going to be ironed out through the constant weight of misuse.

Eventually misuse becomes proper use. If you look around on Facebook or Twitter or comments on blogs or, for the very worst examples, in YouTube comments, you will find that misuse is so rife as to be the standard.

Your and you’re stands out as the most obvious common mistake. Its/It’s next. And the use of the possessive apostrophe as in Dickens’/Dicken’s/Dickens’s has all but the most careful stymied.

Rather than have insecurity over use and potential embarrassment over getting it wrong  the standard will be to get rid of the apostrophe entirely in informal discourse – much like honorifics melted away and contractions crept in to language use.

It is quicker, simpler and safer than getting it wrong. It also unfortunately removes specificity from the language and makes discourse poorer – but for two reasons this isn’t going to stop it happening.

One – it has already happened – and in a way it is the actual written expression of spoken English. Much like slang and relaxed vernacular differ from formal English so does this writing differ from formal writing. It is quite a natural progression.

And secondly we are happy to denude the language of meaning when it suits us – look at how political correctness took the beautiful and economical specificity of the words actress, waiter and spokesman away from us. By removing the use of gender specific nouns we lost the ability to know whether you refer to a man or woman when you say waiter or actor or spokesperson. So this language change, heading towards Orwellian levels of losing meaning happens already and there is no reason to think it is stopping.

It isn’t just apostrophes that are going to go either, words like effect/affect will also merge in this bold prediction reckoning (may as well while we’re at it). So too will to/too. And They’re/their/there are likely to have to meld into one multi-purpose word.
My theory is that rather than have so many people getting it wrong all the time new conventions will emerge around the problematic  words and the apostrophe usage that replace the varied versions that trip people up with a safe single alternative.
And you don’t have a say in it. Quite simply these examples are misused more than accurately used in these spaces and so a new standard is emerging. It isn’t the end of the world – English is littered with words that mean many things all at once depending on context – so another bunch won’t hurt. And, be honest with yourself,  you always know what people mean even if they’re wrong – you just enjoy the smug sting of knowing they’re wrong. It doesn’t often or maybe even ever really matter.
I can back this up with about a kazillion examples of misuse on Facebook by otherwise very aware and savvy people. But I wouldn’t want to as that is all just a bit wankerish. In fact that is what led me to this prediction – -if even bright people are unaware then what hope have these language quirks got?

And this way rather than think ill of these people you can think that maybe they are simply the vanguard of the new movement and usage. If you are particularly generous you can, anyway.
P.S. My favourite misuse is when people comment on a friend’s post to inform them that the person is incorrect by saying – -’ your wrong’. It happens too often to be a joke though.

P.P.S Apparently Don Watson has written on this (I am told). I haven’t read it but I’m sure I’m not the first person to think this. What do you think? Is ten years too long, too short or is it already too late? As one commenter on my Facebook said this could be moot anyhow – he reckoned most kids are functionally illiterate anyway thanks to textspeak so this concern is really quite laughably irrelevant…

P.P.P.S I hope to God/god I don’t have too many grammar/spelling errors of my own in here. As soon as you get pedantic/picky about these matters I find you are bound to drop yourself in it, much like YOUR WRONG…..

P.P.P.P.S Here is a link to me talking about this on National Radio with Jim Mora. About five minutes in.

*in informal language use – but that makes for less exciting headline..

The King is Coming

I had a very enjoyable chat the other morning with Wammo about the new The King is Coming Campaign.

It uses the King character that Crispin Porter + Bogusky devised and have had running since 2004…. They basically updated an old unironic Mascot type figure of BK from the 70s and made this modern amazing, slightly creepy figure who didn’t understand personal space -- -a merry prankster and odd sausage.

Colenso are the agency and they are bringing the King to NZ. We are working on getting them on The Ad Show this week to talk about bringing this unique advertising presence to NZ.

I love the King character -- -it is such an interesting way to reposition a Burger barn -- -how exactly they got such a cool unusual idea past any client in the world is past me. Imagine the pitch: We are going to take the old mascot and make him really creepy and weird customers out and stuff and this will, um, be funny…

But it worked -- the masks have entered the popular culture and the King is massive.

Colenso seem to be keeping the brave ballsy form -- -they end their first big spot (beautifully produced and all-out job it is) with a fat joke. They have overweight Airport security who are unable to jump a barrier to pursue the sprightly King. How awesome is that -- a burger barn flying in the face of all the obesity heat by making a fat joke. Gold.

Check out some of the American spots here.

A Wiki on the King here

A history of the King….

In other BK news how cool is this campaign that plays on the possibilities that shortening Fucking to ‘King open up. It is ‘King clever.

Superbowl Ads

I had a very fun chat with Mr. Wammo this morning. In this clip we went through a bunch of ads from the Superbowl.

I found these links very helpful for research: NYTIMES where they live blogged some of the ads, compendium of ads that shows how simple-mindedly blokey many are.

This is probably my favourite of all:

Jens Lekman

Last Night Jens Lekman played. I love Jens Lekman.

Here is a video showing a little of the kind of charisma and musical style he has, it is similar to the performance last night in that it was pretty much just him. Although last night he had a friend accompanying him on the bongos and he had an electric guitar. But you’ll get the idea…

Below is a story I was trying to write for Rip it Up, but for reasons that will become apparent it never quite got finished. So it is rather at the draft stage -- but I share it here to try to spread the Jens message!

Whenever the sun comes out I reach for my favourite summer album.
It is called Night Falls over Kortedala and is by a man named Jens Lekman.

Not everyone seems to know about Jens. But they should.

He is a Swedish native. He started out recording his own tunes and distributing them on CDRs. A few of these tunes got going on Swedish radio and next thing you know he was a hit.

His music is unlike any other music. It is a little like Morrissey and a little like what I Imagine the Love Boat would sound like if it were a song.

What he does is he tells the most intriguing stories involving wordplay, humour, prosaic everyday occurrences or seemingly nonsensical off-hand comments and threads behind them a level of epic production – strings, horns damn near choruses of angels. He has used samples in place of a band – and once he got the chance he has used what feels like an old Radio City orchestra for Night Falls Over Kortedala.

One of the favourite stories/songs of his for me is the song A Postcard To Nina. In it he tells of a trip to Berlin. It was meant to be a social trip but his friend Nina takes him to dinner at her fathers’ apartment. Nina is lesbian and wants Jens to pretend to be her boyfriend to deflect attention. They devise a system whereby if he is asked a question he doesn’t know he looks to her to see how her eyebrow is raised as to what the answer is:

(Here it is with the full album production -- so you can see what I mean about the kitchen sink approach)

Oh God, Jesus Christ
I try to focus on your eyes
we’re having dinner with your family now
keep a steady look at your left eyebrow

If it’s raised, it means yes,
If it’s not it means take a guess
Hey! You! Stop kicking my legs
I’m doing my best
can you pass the eggs
(A Postcard to Nina)

It is everything I love about Jens – ridiculous, optimistic, playful, funny, over-produced to all hell, upliftingly nonsensical, the out-there followed by the down here (can you pass the eggs) thought provoking and beautifully sung and scored.

I had read he was living in Melbourne. I was actually considering heading over there to try to see him play. But he doesn’t play an awful lot and some of the news you read can be somewhat mischievous -- you see Jens likes to weave unusual stories that may be fictional or may be truer than we know through his songs. He also does this in his life. He announced at one stage that he was quitting music to work at a bingo parlour. Officially, he lasted two days before hading back to music. He also contracted Swine Flu. I think that one is true, but how would you know?

Another of his songs that I love is called Maple Leaves. In it he tells the story of mishearing the words Make Believe as Maple Leaves. It is this poignant funny song, one of his more melancholic – that I always think talks about the way people sometimes just don’t match up, even though they’d want to. Like I say, I like this guy’s music.

I think you’re beautiful
but it’s impossible
to make you understand
that if you don’t take my hand
I’ll lose my mind completely
Madness will finally defeat me

She said it was all make-belief
but I thought you said maple leaves
and when she talked about a fall
I thought she talked about a season
I never understood at all
(Maple Leaves)

So it was with great excitement I learnt he was heading to New Zealand to play in shows in support of Joanna Newsom – and even a solo show in Auckland!

I quickly dashed off an email to try to score an interview for this piece.

I asked for a phone interview, saying I was a big fan and wanted to spread the message ahead of the show. They were polite but said that seeing as we were dealing with the Holiday season it’d have to be written questions.

No problem. I fired off these questions with more than two weeks before the Jan 4 deadline.

I was pretty excited to get the chance to ask Jens about some of these things:

Jens! So cool you are coming over to New Zealand -- tell me -- -are you living in Melbourne and is that a wee way from home originally?

What led you there?

In New Zealand we have a habit of always asking people from overseas if they like New Zealand and if they have been to Piha (a West Coast beach with black sand and brooding hills). So -- do you like NZ and have you been to Piha!

What have you been up to since the excellent Night Falls over Kortedala?

Can I ask you a few questions about your songwriting? I love the way the lyrics sometimes on first approach sound understatedly prosaic almost kind of afterthoughts or thoughts on the fly but the composition and production are so orchestrated -- -is that contrast something you work at?

Tell me about how you write the songs -- do the words come first -- do you think of a story to tell, do you remember a conversation or scenario or do you hear the tune?

I really enjoy the stories you tell -- -like in Maple Leaves or Nina, do these stories relate to real happenings -- did you really have diner with a Lesbian friend to be her beard in Berlin and did you really mishear Maple Leaves?

Who are you listening to -- -where do you draw the more dare I say schmaltzy love boat style sounds that are in NFOK from?

What are you working on at the moment, when will we have more music from you?

What can we expect from your New Zealand shows -- are you going to invite local musicians to join you as you have in the past or are you bringing anyone?

Is there anything you would like to talk about or that you think we should know?

Please tell me about the backyard shows you have been doing -- what a cool idea! And also about the newsletter you have to stay in contact.

That last question related to this cool newsletter Jens has. You sign up to it through his personal website. A site that he maintains and updates himself. On it he has a blog: smalltalk that he posts photos, news and the rest of the things people blog about up on. It was through this I saw he had done some backyard concerts in Australia. Now that would be cool – Jens, at a backyard party! I’d like to know how that came about and how they went.

Weeks went by. No reply. I harassed the label people a bit:

Hello!

Any word?

Cheers!
Simon

Little passive aggressive apostrophes litter the emails.

Still no word. They hoped he was getting back, maybe tomorrow, so sorry. Another couple of weeks go by. We push the deadline out. The dates are fast approaching. The editor is losing his patience.

The questions weren’t too annoying I hope. It is always a problem for artists like Jens – they get asked the same broad questions for every mainstream publication -- - and then obsessively detailed questions on fan forums. I went on to these and found answers for a bunch of mine. Maybe he was just bored of answering them.

One last shot – sent on the 18th of Jan. But it is a no-go. He hasn’t answered the questions or sent anything back. Looks like we’ll just have to maintain the sense of mystery and the half-explained that he creates in his songs.

Although he hasn’t talked to us this time he does talk a wee bit on his blog: and he has that newsletter. Sign up to those maybe. And on his website he also has a page called Presents For You, which is a whole bunch of free downloads. Go check him out and maybe  next time he comes I’ll see you at his show.

—--

So that was the story as far as I got it. Obviously it would be a bit better if he had replied -- and because he didn’t the story never ran so I miss out on the work, but I’m not mad. The show last night was smashing -- -and maybe the fact that he is a bit secret and little-known means that it was a smaller more intimate affair and the better for it.

The Ad Show new promo

This was a lot of fun to shoot. Here is a pretty representative still from the day:

Tourism NZ, Pretty onto-it alright

This is a video from Radio Wammo breakfast. Glenn has an amazing video production set-up that makes his radio sing on non-radio mediums. I did a story on that here a while back, but since then his set-up has improved again. Behold ye the future.

I will post up a story on what I’m yabbering on about in this clip as soon as I can persuade TVNZ to post the clip for me -- but the short version is that Toursim NZ do some innovative and very clever engagement activities with international TV productions to help spread the NZ message. America’s Next Top Model -- who were recently here -- were in part persauded by their cunning plans…..

When Cougars Attack

There has been quite the bruhaha over the Air New Zealand Cougar campaign.

It was an internet-only promotion for trips to the sold-out Sevens competition in Wellington.

The promotion consisted of a video that in a mock nature documentary tone described the habits of the Cougar -- an older sexually predatory woman.

180,000 views and that is just on the YouTube version.

It was tied to a competition where women who chose to self identify as a cougar could send in pictures of them and their cougar packs out on the town hunting and whatnot.

If these woman chose to do so they might win tickets to the Sevens.

Once there 10 young Fresh meat men supplied by a separate but linked radio promotion would be thrown to them. They also would have costumes provided. One rule was that the women had to be over 35. Which seems youngish but I don’t think they were saying everyone over 35 is a cougar, more that entries to the competition was open to everyone over 35. Although sure enough people have seen it in the negative, rather than the positive.

The promotion and the video drew a lot of flak from some women, some women’s rights groups and some rape prevention and rape education advocates.

It also drew plaudits from some supporters in online forums.

But most importantly of all it drew a veritable truckload of coverage.

There were stories in the Herald, Stuff, Herald on Sunday, on TVNZ’s Close Up, it got to Fark.com, the SMH (as if Oz needed the material) and on and on. It is already being highlighted by influential Advertising blogs.  In the HuffPo and on Digg... The Daily Telegraph, The Economist etc etc

So -- -what was the fuss, was it justified, is the ad ok, is the campaign reasonable, and most importantly, was it successful?

First -- the fuss:

I think a bit of context has to be applied here.

This was never intended to be a wide audience campaign, it was for an internet audience, it was a clip that people could choose to watch and choose to stop watching, they didn’t have to send it on.

It was linked to a light-hearted promotion for a prize that involved attending a festival sporting event known for outrageous costume wearing and activity. It was also aimed at women who would choose to self-identify as a cougar.

It is a bit rich for people to take an enormous amount of offence at something they have had to seek out. This reminds me of the pretty sad situation last year where about a million times more people complained about the Russell Brand/Jonathon Ross answerphone Andrew ‘Manuel’ Sachs drama than actually heard it or ever would have.

A media-whipped sense of outrage is a pretty weak starting point for an emotional response to a joke.

I’m not saying everyone who objected had no grounds, just that the level of exposure of the ’sin’ was met with disproportionate attention taking the communication places it was never meant to go.

Unless of course it was. The makers of this could only have dreamed of receiving this attention.UPDATE:  And to be frank -- it is not their best work. .99 the agency responsible also did the excellent worldwide smash hit Nothing to Hide work. Those videos received millions of hits on YouTube. This safety video has over five million views. 5 million views. Holy wow. Cumulatively the clips have had over ten million views worldwide.

These worked because the tone, idea, execution were magic..99 are evidently a tremendous agency.

UPDATE -- Having gone and done some primary research I have found a lot more. While the struck through parts are correct in part, as in 99 did the excellent Nothing to Hide campaign -- -they did not do this campaign. My source for this information was wrong -- as I found out by calling a very helpful member of the Grabaseat team Sunil Unka. The agency responsible was Projector Media. They are the agency that Grabaseat use.

The distinction between Grabaseat and Air NZ is an important one. The Grabaseat brand is there for the very reason that they can do things that Air NZ can not. They are competing in the online space for a different traveller than the Air NZ brand proposition. They are there to mix things up, take risks and deliver a different result. They do many small promotions for low budgets that are highly targeted. The cougar campaign is a perfect example of one of these.

It was fast turn-around -- less than a week from script to filming. It was low budget -- less than 20 grand to produce. It was highly targeted: it was giving away only 60 tickets to an event -- not even airfares down. It was aimed to exist only on the online Grabaseat portal. Or as shared video. It was aimed to exist for Grabaseat, not Air NZ -- if you see the difference.

It was of course meant to be funny -- and it was funny if you hold it to the standard of a late night sketch show -- which would be an appropriate comparison on turnaround and budget then it was. If you held it up as the best viral ever then it wouldn’t quite hit that mark.

The cougar campaign did not quite hit the mark like that. There were flashes of brilliance -- -the Cougar Expert that flashed up, the line about cougars working extra hours in HR and marketing consulting and a few other moments did it for me. But it didn’t quite gel and isn’t quite magic. But it is a very good version of what it is trying to be -- a socially observant, humorous clip worth watching and sharing and talking about. It also is a social catalyst -- look at all it caused to happen. But it isn’t unalloyed gold. The pretend to be gay line doesn’t quite pay off, the P addict is a bit of a clanker for me, the accent isn’t quite Attenborough -- -just little things but I see where they were going and overall they have done well.

I said to Penny Ashton on facebook that if it was funny then the rest of the complaints it has generated wouldn’t matter, although I didn’t mean it wasn’t funny at all, more that if it was classic gold-plated magic then no problem.

Penny was not stoked with the ads -she was quoted as being incensed. I kind of feel that if this was the major new brand position for Air NZ with TV spots, billboards etc then it would be fair to see it as dismissive or derogatory to women -- but as a single grabaseat promotion to a festival….I don’t see it as a big sin. But then again, I’m not anywhere near the targets of the ads and I don’t really get offended -- so what do I know?

It is interesting that people overlooked the obvious points on context, intended audience, medium (the internet viral) and genre (spoof, parody, comedy) and were still offended.

Do the aggrieved have a point though all the same?

Rape prevention advocates reckoned that it trivialised and made male rape victims relive their ordeals.

In terms of the rape concern. If the ad showed stupification, the slipping of a Mikey Finn then that would be a concern. Or if she knocked him over the head. Or if she was so much physically more intimidating and was aggressive and stand-overy, or if he was legless then maybe or if he was in real distress instead of a weak sweaty-pitted  act gay thing -- maybe then -- he looked into it and totally able to escape if he wanted -- during the Enya =could have been a good time -- but as the ad ran -- what a nonsense.It is an obvious joke and is not advocating, endorsing or glamourising rape. If they had showed him tied down and screaming, well, that is another story.

In terms of being Misogynist well -- if women are offended on behalf of women then I don’t really have a say in that.But I think with the elements of choice involved it actually puts the agency into female hands. If women want to engage they do, therefore having agency, power and position. If they don’t engage or say they dislike it that is agency also. It is not anti-women at essence. If it was a competition asking young men to send in examples of desperate old women trying it on in bars then that would be different.

You don’t have to think it is great, you don’t have to like it, but saying it is misogynistic when you might really mean tacky or low-class makes things more intense than they need be. But again, if women or anyone else truly feels it demeans women I haven’t a say, but I would also probably prefer not to have a dinner party full of people who see evil where lame would do.

Was it successful?

Wildly. Whether they nailed the video tone or not it generated tremendous coverage outsize to its worth. It really connected with many people even if not with me personally (just look at all the comments in favour on the forums etc) and it kept in with the overall irreverant cheeky go-for-it grabaseat tone.

Apparently over 100 cougar packs of up to four women entered. So that is somewhere north of 300 women bothering to identify with this, take the photos and submit them. Not a bad result.

And also of note:

Perhaps the most terrifying thing for me was the profucion of terrible puns that it brought about:

Claws out over Cougar Ad

Of water and Beer

I found this on Lance Wiggs’ site. I regularly read the site and enjoy his mixture of experience and opinion.

When it comes to bottled water I like Antipodes, as the bottles are artifacts in their own right, but dislike most bottled waters. I used to work as a waiter at a place that served Antipodes and customers were always asking to take the empties home.

I find myself buying Mizones or Vitamin Waters over straight bottled water because I find the concept of paying for what is freely available so weird. I wonder why the option of having refilling stations for the Pump and H2Go and all the rest isn’t more widely offered. Even at 50c for a cool topup it would be better value than buying yet another bottle…

It is these things that mark out our random (and obviously unsustainable) consumer culture as much as building ever taller buildings on sand.

Sometimes I look at a recycling bin full of beautifully produced, shipped, stored and presented Heineken bottles and wonder how we can put so much care into something that is used once and destoyed.

These empty Heineken bottle visit my thoughts more than they probably ought to….

Rattle Ya Dags

Director -- Simon Pound, DOP -- Clayton Carpinter, Editor -- Sacha Childers, Producer -- Phil Wallington, host -- Russell Brown, Media 7 on TVNZ7