Hello!
Dateline; the fricken desert or something. The weather is fricken oppressive and good god we're all dying.
In other news as the weather heats up; upon which miscommunication will this government fail? Don Brash has a go of it. Do petty local government concerns warrant comparisons with Naziism (that's an easy one). But mostly this is a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fan show now, so we talk a lot about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Bumper music;
Jess Mills - Vultures (Photek's Dub Remix)
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Cast - I'm Just A Girl In Love
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Cast - Greg's Drinking Song
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Cast - Ping Pong Girl
Hello,
Modern Australia is a bizarre mix of cosmopolitan western liberalism and hellhole deathcamp paranoid racist wasp fundamentalism. They're weird and we're sick of them. The Manus Island situation is criminal and the fact our new PM appears to agree, well, that apparently doesn't go down well in some circles.
In domestic news, procedural whoopsies sort of mar the incoming government, I guess, if you're a nerd. The TPPA morphs. And Bill English, unable to become an irresistible force, commits to being an immovable object.
Also the United States had some elections, proving two things; they haven't cancelled having elections yet, and the organised left can do things.
Bumper music;
DJ Shadow feat. Nas - Systematic
Wolf Alice - Planet Hunter
Ty Segall - Alta
Nadia Rose - Big Woman
Hey, how's it going?
For a parcel of rogues, lashed together by fate and circumstance, this new government sure makes it look easy. But not all are so happy. We run down this Spinoff article on why National's message is needed now more than ever. It's not.
In other news, National lost the copyright case brought against them by Eminem's publishing company. Ha ha. Max Key to the rescue. Also fast food, personal failings, terror, woe, gardening.
Bumper music;
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; "Even The Losers"
Ian Van Dahl; "Castles In The Sky"
Weird Al Yankovic; "Couch Potato"
Hell yeah.
It finally happened. We go over how wrong we were, how worthless our analysis has been, and why we're now totally right.
Electoral victory is only half the battle, if that, and the Doing Of Politics is far from over if anything's gonna be done. But that's not to say there isn't room for a little celebration right now.
In related news; the NZ commentariat and it's relationship to culture, the NZ commentariat and it's relationship to social media, the NZ commentariat and it's relationship to reality. Can a few choice tweets really reduce our great minds to quivering wrecks weeping for the civilising influence of europeanness?
Bumper music;
Big Freedia - Excuse
The Afghan Whigs - Toy Automatic
Peter Gabriel - It Is Accomplished (from Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ)
Ey,
So Duncan Garner wrote a thing. Nominally about immigration and infrastructure, it's been widely decried for being racist and he's roundly enjoyed the ensuing martyrdom a couple dozen naysayers have delivered him. Theories abound - lazy writing, dim thinking, or something more sinister?
Don't read it - read Stephanie Rodgers instead. Or the NZ Human Rights Commission tweeting a concerned face emoji about it.
In other news! We had an election and now we know who won? Winston Peters still sucks. We try to talk classic film (?) and Hugh Hefner died - here's You Must Remember This' episode on Dorothy Stratten which is required listening for an insight into his destructive mission.
Bumper Music;
Danger Mouse - Chase Me (feat. Run the Jewels and Big Boi)
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Yo Soy La Destrucción
Alistair Hullet & Dave Swarbrick - Don't Sign Up For War
Hello!
We had an election and that's the last we'll have to say about who governs us for a while. We name the blights against our democracy, from Winston Peters to the media Winston Peters makes his bread and butter denouncing.
Also, Trump vs the NFL, Clinton's new book fittingly reviewed by proxy, Snoop Dog, the politicisation of humanitarian crises, the hell we call Earth.
Bumper Music!
Camp Lo - Luchini (This Is It)
The Datsuns - MF From Hell
Carly Rae Jepsen - First Time
The Mutton Birds - As Close As This
Hello!
The mobilisation of (some) farmers to protest illustrates a deep divide in NZ, just not the one being protested. Farmers are thought of as National's original rock, but with the last week acting as a highlights reel of decades of politicisation, misinformation, scaremongering and shortchanging, is this relationship healthy at all?
Meanwhile, Auckland airport goes kaput due to fossicking. Oh what a to do.
And there's an election going on, so we need to talk for perhaps the last time about TOP's silliness. What have the polls got us thinking? Will the final week of the campaign be a carnival of horrors? Who knows. The die will be cast when we all meet again.
Gordon Campbell; Ten Reasons for Not Voting National
Simon Wilson; New Zealand doesn't have an urban-rural divide – but National's trying its hardest to create one
Duncan Grieve; Screaming Into The Void With Gareth Morgan and TOP
Bumper music;
Kelis - Milkshake
Ry Cooder - Taxes on the Farmer Feed Us All
Angus and Julia Stone - Chateau
Hello!
With all the to do this election campaign we try and keep this short and snappy. One out of two ain't bad.
National's hits on Labour appear to come from all directions but is anything sticking? The finance test was passed easily, the moral equivalence test was reported as a stuff-up right away. Is this working - is it supposed to?
Recent elections have been about the unthinkable - NZ 2017's unthinkable result is the Green party leave parliament. What now that that may happen?
Is celebration of Ardern's ascension premature? Well, literally, yes, but even so? What do we want out of government anyway?
Bumper music!
Kah-Lo - Fasta
Ted Leo - You're Like Me
Shapeshifter - Electric Dream (State of Mind VIP Remix)
Hey!
Since we last yakked, Labour topped the polls, there was a debate we watched and one we didn't, scandal aplenty and the world went to hell.
Jacinda Ardern is on the warpath and English kind of looks like a div. Can a man and a woman just have a discussion about the economy or is our political language to ripe a minefield for subtle gendered snipes?
Meanwhile, Antifa are smeared, Winston Peters gets down, and nobody has the right amount of money - not the poor, not the rich, and not Steven Joyce.
Bumper Music!
Living Colour - Program
Vera Blue - Lady Powers
Woody Guthrie - Tear The Fascists Down
Melvins - Euthanasia
Hello!
Charlottesville is the unvarnished truth of America. Has the idea that sectarian clashes only happen to other people been one long PR job? The experience of seeing the world for what it is and not what its statues, stories and structures suggest is jarring.
Peter Dunne runs away. Are the dead rats swallowed in his ejection now to be regurgitated? That's an unpleasant sentence. The questionarification of New Zealand elections is a thing. Gareth Morgan is still a mondo plonker.
Bill English appears to be no better at this than last time, and Jacinda Ardern is very good. But what becomes of us, my darling, if we win? Are we destined to become monsters ourselves?
Bumper music;
The Dandy Warhols - Thick Girls Knock Me Out (Richard Skarkey)
Filthy Friends - Windmill
David Rawlings - Cumberland Gap
Jasiri X - What If The Tea Party Was Black?
Hey!
Here are the links to Stephanie Rodgers and Leilani Momoisea on Metiria Turei, whose story is hard to see as anything other than an indictment of so many of this country's attitudes.
Also, hey, nuclear war.
In other news, a dude from Google puts the man in manifesto. Te TOP launch their bad campaign which is bad and they are bad for doing it. And in this time of uncertain leadership, can Mike Hosking reunite the nation?
This was recorded Saturday 12th NZ time so prior to the murder in Charlottesville - yet another event against which have a few political laffs feel so inadequate.
Bumper music:
Ace of Base - All That She Wants
Speedy Ortiz - Everything's Bigger
Mobb Deep - Shook Ones, Pt. II
Motörhead - Eat The Rich
Hello
In a bit of a week, the unthinkable happens for the fourth or fifth time as Labour suddenly loses its leader. But has it gained a saviour?
Turei is still a goddamned hero, end of. We discuss the recent Black Hands podcast sensation.
And what of our masculine culture is upstream of our abstract economics? Dan got cat piss on him. TOP are bad. And you can die in this country if you have the wrong address.
Bumper Music!
Dead Cross - Idiopathic
Björk - Thunderbolt
SWIDT - Player of the Day
Alanis Morissette - Ironic
Hey!
It's a politics bonanza with the Greens' conference managing to outshine New Zealand First's one to the point we forgot to even mention it here. Metiria Turei's shock admission that she found it necessary to lie to Work and Income in order to avoid depriving her child came as a surprise to literally zero people familiar with our welfare system. National, unable to really criticise people not working for a living or claiming housing expenses, left it to proxy rules-hardout David Seymour to attack.
Also other policies recently announced by Labour and the Greens would slowly begin to un-munt the nation, and find support in unusual corners.
The odd politics of race and empire held by cardigan centrists gets a road-test, with darling Macron dropping some clangers. Radiohead shrug off the BDS movement's call to stand up, in one of the more shrugsome episodes in the band's history. Here's that story about Little Steven.
Hot n Spicy is back, baby. And here's that skateboard...
bumper music!
Dizzee Rascal - Wot U Gonna Do?
John Farnham - You're The Voice
Speedy Ortiz - Screen Gem
Feist - The Wind
Hello,
The bloody rugby! Am I right? Dan and Dave talk sport. Here's a link to a look at the future of football. Does rugby really influence domestic NZ politics?
The impalpable moral landscape of Bill English gets a feeling out from the media as drug decrim/legalisation appears on the horizon. Brands and conservatives talk the talk at Pride events but do they walk the walk?
Gareth Morgan appears on every visible surface like that scene in Malkovich while his political party advocates raising the drinking age. Is "I Told You So" synonymous with "evidence based policy"? Shane Jones gets a hat. And the left's quest for the centre cuts a swathe of disillusionment, but what on earth else can their voters do?
Bumper music;
Haim - Something To Tell You
Agent Fresco - See Hell
Sugababes - Round Round (nb; would this be 'kunekune' in te reo? write in pls)
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Ballad of the Sin Eater (ps, read this amazing heartbreaking profile of Leo here, he's a hero)
Hi team!
It has not been Bill English's day, week, month, or even year. When gunning for leadership Bill told caucus he'd be much better at it this time as his parenting days are mostly behind him, so how did the actions of his 20-something greasy protege suddenly lead to calls for his resignation?
Grenfell Tower is a crime scene. We try our best here at ATDT but we goofed the audio on this section. Not wanting to re-do a segment on such horrors we've left it as is. It is, technically, listenable. I'm seeing if Barclay has a backup...
Corbyn goes from strength to strength - how do we cope with a politician who actually says what we're actually thinking?
And the other stuff - Labour, labour, immigration, Peters, Harawira, the glistening vision of a new dawn for humankind, that sort of thing.
Bumper music!
The Magpie Salute - Omission
Section Boyz - Who Needs a Hook?
Marianne Faithful - That's How Every Empire Falls
Run The Jewels - Thieves! (Screamed The Ghost)
and because I forgot last episode;
JME - No You Ain't
Lars Frederiksen & The Bastards - To Have and to Have Not
Aimee Mann - You Never Loved Me
Sting - Fields of Gold
Hahahahaha
Did you see the UK elections? Did you see the result coming? Did you see the state of the bloody thing!
In other, lesser news; terrorism and civil liberties, why aren't the Greens the Nats (for the 50th time), neighbours at war, Katy Perry vs Taylor Swift, immigration policies, and Gareth Morgan's glib charity posturing.
Hey!
Trump's World Tour. The tragic Manchester attack. KFC. UK's election. Wonder Woman? Can't type more, gotta sleep.
Bumper Music:
Millionaire - Body Experience Revue
Nadia Rose - Tight Up
Happy Mondays - W.F.L. (Think About The Future mix)
Carly Rae Jepsen - Cut To The Feeling
Hey!
Chris Cornell's tragic passing and what it might mean for our culture's attitudes to mental health, big pharma, ageing, art and the catharsis believed to be at the heart of alternative music. Also Dan hurt his foot again which touches on a lot of the same stuff.
Corbyn is actually putting up a fight in old blighty just as the tories push for the violent killing of red dogs - coincidence much?
And Trump in Saudi Arabia - same as it ever was. Assange is slimy. Russia is a thing.
Bumper music;
Fazerdaze - Lucky Girl
Chris Cornell - Follow My Way
Jimi Hendrix - Foxex Lady
Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
Hey!
We struggle, really, to make sense of the breaking news that Trump has fired the guy investigating him. Does fascism require a certain deftness of efficient political control or is it all just grifting mobsters in sharp uniforms? France has an election, which is more than can be said about some people, South Korea excepted.
Dan heroically watches Shipley and Clark's 9th Floor episodes. We celebrate Tax Freedom Day, which is a dumb day for idiots.
And the Government does everything it can to make the Pike River story feel as odious and dark as it possibly can.
Bumper music;
Charly Bliss - Ruby
At The Drive In - Hostage Stamps
Skating Polly - Hail Mary
Puff Daddy - Come With Me
Hello!
RNZ have a new interview series with past NZ Prime Ministers. Dan's checked it out, Dave hasn't. This is his story of their story.
The Labour Party announced something to do with immigration, and then it was all just shouting.
Unions flexing like they're on the pull; the aged care equal pay settlement, and the spinning of the Government's reluctant part in it, are sights to behold. And not even the backbone industry of our nation - fast food - is immune to industrial strife.
And the UK is having extra politics.
bumper music;
Lana Del Ray - Love
DJ Food - Mr Quicke Cuts The Cheese
Honeyblood - Babes Never Die
Jane's Addiction - Been Caught Stealing
Hello again,
This is part 2 of episode 12, which we spun off as it got quite long and also, while we don't go into much detail, hearing any discussion of chemical attacks on civilians isn't something that I've found very easy to deal with when the topic lurches into the fore in everyday conversations about current affairs. So I want to signpost this as much as possible here.
The world's response, the Trump admin's response and social media's response to the attack are each uniquely terrifying things. With no quick fix or clear moral path, what is to be made of us idle witnesses of atrocities?
Bumper music:
Wagner - Die Walkure Act 1 Ochestervorspiel
Vaughn Williams - The Lark Ascending
Hello,
All of a sudden, multiple stress points appear in the NZ government. Corruption charges, PR misfires and economic bullets fired squarely into our own ecological feet. Does the left hand know what the right wing is doing? Did Key take the only good EA with him? Bloody shambles, mate.
Also a snake does hard drugs, Sonny Bill Williamson becomes the altar for a nation's reckons, and could you withstand a vigorous deplaning?
This is part 1 of 2. In part 2 we talk a great deal about Syria, the recent chemical attach and the USA's strike in response. Because of the length and the fact some people may want to skip any conversation about such attacks we've split these episodes up.
Bumper music:
Jesus Chris Superstar film OST: Overture
Mark Lanegan: St Louis Elegy
The Dandy Warhols: Hard On For Jesus
Hello!
First in the news is Bill English's very own #pizzagate. Food is culture - just what does this circular monstrosity tell us about New Zealand's soul?
This week it's all about peninsulas. Korean tensions abound against an uncertain international stage. And Britain may not be in the Barksdale clan, but it will go to war over that rock.
Finally, the revelations in Hit and Run may be shocking, but it's the flimsy denials which really shake your belief in the NZDF.
Bumper Music:
Pile - Hairshirt
Massive Attack - Babel
The Feelers - Right Here Right Now
The Afghan Whigs - Demon in Profile
Hey!
This was recorded last weekend, before all the news happened.
Dave's finished the book, and there's a lot to unpack. The fog-of-war as applied to journalism, with Syria Opinions and Dave calling Michael Weiss "David" throughout. Also Max Key.
Dan answers some moral quandaries. The government - this or the next - must take a pro-choice position on abortion. We must all just stay engaged, man. And intergenerational warfare reigns for another week.
Bumper music:
Nolay - Gotta Love It
Chainsmokers & Coldplay - Something Just Like This
Aimee Mann - Patient Zero
Silversun Pickups - The Pit
Hi!
It's time for a quiz - let's find out how Tory Dave is. Dan poses some ethical dilemmas. The new Labour Party leadership take a stand on pizza topping. And The Daniel Blakification of New Zealand's social services. We break down more doors than that kid on the BBC. Plus, more from that book...
Links:
David Slack on the state of housing
Laura McQuillan on gender/generation stereotypes
Stephanie Rogers, Morgan Godfrey & Eric Crampton on RNZ re raising the super age
Drew Fairweather on This Week In Atrocity
Bumper music:
Mark Lanegan Band - Beehive
The Jam - Eton Rifles
Crystal Fairy - Crystal Fairy
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
Tom Waits - Lie to Me
And because I forgot to list last week's episode's bumper music, it was;
Anderson .Paak - Come Down
The Clean - Tally Ho
Shaggy - It Wasn't Me
Supergroove - Can't Get Enough