We got back to Auckland in a jiffy and, as we fear change, stayed in the nice Indian lady's hostel again. Opening the door to us, instead of a 'hello' or a welcome back, I was greeted with 'Good God you have a red face.'
My constant struggle with this sort of racist abuse has not improved in South America.
The next morning we were up bright and early to fly to Christchurch, the one in the south island, rather than the one in Dorset where I had the pleasure of sitting next to the late great Buster Merrifield in a cafe. He dribbled on me when he said hello. It was glorious.
In Christchurch we stayed at a hostel that has been converted from an old jail and that still tries to hang on to this dubious claim to fame. It was pleasant enough apart from a German girl laughed in my face as I first walked into our room. I can only surmise that this was due to how red it was. (On an actual Finnegan Red-Face Scale it was probably only a twelve out of 20, but this seemed enough to warrant mirth from this stupid fat lesbian bastard bitch.) That evening, probably unrelated, I had the biggest portion of chips I have ever eaten.
The next day we went out on a small explore of Christchurch, and dropped into the dubiously-named 'Wicked' camper van depot to collect our vehicle, home and lover for the next few weeks. We arrived at the prearranged time of nine in the morning. Five hours and nine different contracts later, we were able to drive our van away.
Now, Wicked vans, as you may or may not know, have the gimmick of spray-painting 'crazy' designs over what are essentially conventional people carriers with the back seats ripped out and a bed smashed in.
At some point, a bright spark thought it would be a good idea to get rid of the, albeit slightly shoddy, at least tame graffiti on the boot of the car and replace it with a 'witty' phrase such as 'BEER: THE REASON WE GET UP EVERY AFTERNOON'.
This would be fine if all of the vans had a similar level of 'quality' in their humorous taglines. Unfortunately, they don't.
After a very long time indeed spent gawping in bewilderment at the almost incomprehensible stupidity of the depot staff, and also at a strange almost-albino American girl who had turned up to the depot naked to get one day's rental for free, we were told that we would need a credit card to place down the $500 bond.
Once again, the fact that we had saved up for this trip rather than put it on credit cards had bitten us on the arse, like a rabid credit monkey with sharpened 50 pence pieces for teeth.
We thus had to go to the local supermarket and use all three of our cards, two of which charge us like cheap two-bit whores on the make, to get out enough cash to pay for the rental time and the bond. The bond, still to this day, is short $100. Wicked have blamed this on 'bank fees'. They are wankers.
Anyway.
There were three vans left. We were getting increasingly fed up as we were meant to have left to meet our mate Dan (of Hoi An beating-evading fame) in Lake Tekapo by ten in the morning.
I surveyed the artwork on the vans. One had 'Metallica' written on the back and a caricature of the band. One had something sexist about men not being able to perform sexually, and the other, well the other one was a different kettle of fish entirely.
It soon became apparent that we were to receive, 'the other one'.
'IT IS BETTER TO BE BLACK THAN GAY, COZ YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL YOUR PARENTS'
Apparently this is neither racist nor homophobic, it is the 'Kiwi sense of humour' and the company own vans with 'much worse than that' written on them.
What exactly that might be can only be guessed at. 'ALL OF YOU BLACKS CAN FUCK OFF AND BUM EACH OTHER AND THEN YOU WON'T BE SYSTEMATICALLY OSTRACISED FROM OUR SOCIETY, YOU BUMMERS' or something.
Either way, we were stuck with the Homophobic Racist Van for the next 19 days. As we awkwardly reversed out of the depot and got to our first set of traffic lights, I turned to Helen and asked what seemed like a very pertinent question. 'Do Maori people count themselves as black?' I had visions of the All Black's pulling up behind us and not seeing the 'wit' evident on our van.
We had to go to a petrol station to fill up, and took the chance to try and make a 'COOK PASS BABTRIDGE' style 'quick fixey' on it.
We changed the word GAY to MUTE, and the word BLACK to DEAF.
This was perhaps no better, but I'd rather have a fight with fifteen angry mutes than the First XV. At least they wouldn't call me red. Bloody racist mutes. Idiots. Can´t even speak.
My constant struggle with this sort of racist abuse has not improved in South America.
The next morning we were up bright and early to fly to Christchurch, the one in the south island, rather than the one in Dorset where I had the pleasure of sitting next to the late great Buster Merrifield in a cafe. He dribbled on me when he said hello. It was glorious.
In Christchurch we stayed at a hostel that has been converted from an old jail and that still tries to hang on to this dubious claim to fame. It was pleasant enough apart from a German girl laughed in my face as I first walked into our room. I can only surmise that this was due to how red it was. (On an actual Finnegan Red-Face Scale it was probably only a twelve out of 20, but this seemed enough to warrant mirth from this stupid fat lesbian bastard bitch.) That evening, probably unrelated, I had the biggest portion of chips I have ever eaten.
The next day we went out on a small explore of Christchurch, and dropped into the dubiously-named 'Wicked' camper van depot to collect our vehicle, home and lover for the next few weeks. We arrived at the prearranged time of nine in the morning. Five hours and nine different contracts later, we were able to drive our van away.
Now, Wicked vans, as you may or may not know, have the gimmick of spray-painting 'crazy' designs over what are essentially conventional people carriers with the back seats ripped out and a bed smashed in.
At some point, a bright spark thought it would be a good idea to get rid of the, albeit slightly shoddy, at least tame graffiti on the boot of the car and replace it with a 'witty' phrase such as 'BEER: THE REASON WE GET UP EVERY AFTERNOON'.
This would be fine if all of the vans had a similar level of 'quality' in their humorous taglines. Unfortunately, they don't.
After a very long time indeed spent gawping in bewilderment at the almost incomprehensible stupidity of the depot staff, and also at a strange almost-albino American girl who had turned up to the depot naked to get one day's rental for free, we were told that we would need a credit card to place down the $500 bond.
Once again, the fact that we had saved up for this trip rather than put it on credit cards had bitten us on the arse, like a rabid credit monkey with sharpened 50 pence pieces for teeth.
We thus had to go to the local supermarket and use all three of our cards, two of which charge us like cheap two-bit whores on the make, to get out enough cash to pay for the rental time and the bond. The bond, still to this day, is short $100. Wicked have blamed this on 'bank fees'. They are wankers.
Anyway.
There were three vans left. We were getting increasingly fed up as we were meant to have left to meet our mate Dan (of Hoi An beating-evading fame) in Lake Tekapo by ten in the morning.
I surveyed the artwork on the vans. One had 'Metallica' written on the back and a caricature of the band. One had something sexist about men not being able to perform sexually, and the other, well the other one was a different kettle of fish entirely.
It soon became apparent that we were to receive, 'the other one'.
'IT IS BETTER TO BE BLACK THAN GAY, COZ YOU DON'T HAVE TO TELL YOUR PARENTS'
Apparently this is neither racist nor homophobic, it is the 'Kiwi sense of humour' and the company own vans with 'much worse than that' written on them.
What exactly that might be can only be guessed at. 'ALL OF YOU BLACKS CAN FUCK OFF AND BUM EACH OTHER AND THEN YOU WON'T BE SYSTEMATICALLY OSTRACISED FROM OUR SOCIETY, YOU BUMMERS' or something.
Either way, we were stuck with the Homophobic Racist Van for the next 19 days. As we awkwardly reversed out of the depot and got to our first set of traffic lights, I turned to Helen and asked what seemed like a very pertinent question. 'Do Maori people count themselves as black?' I had visions of the All Black's pulling up behind us and not seeing the 'wit' evident on our van.
We had to go to a petrol station to fill up, and took the chance to try and make a 'COOK PASS BABTRIDGE' style 'quick fixey' on it.
We changed the word GAY to MUTE, and the word BLACK to DEAF.
This was perhaps no better, but I'd rather have a fight with fifteen angry mutes than the First XV. At least they wouldn't call me red. Bloody racist mutes. Idiots. Can´t even speak.
3 comments:
loving your work finners. x
Crikey x
LOLRACISM.
Those wacky Australians. No, wait...what? Auckland?
Ah, that's New Zealand. I remember cos it sounds like "Orc Land", which the tourist board has been thinking of renaming it since Peter Jackson made it famous.
Your efforts of amending the slogan are rather ingenious and nearly work as a very clever joke in their own right. Nearly.
However, beware. The racism of the past is not to merely "painted over", lest you wish to erase it from our collective memories. Do you want to deny that it ever happened? It's a dangerous path you choose. One minute it's the revision of an offensive van decal, the next it's suggesting that "6 million does seem rather far-fetched".
In the words of a much wiser man than I, "Careful, mate!"
Why didn't you ever tell me that you shared a cafe with Uncle Albert, let alone that he spilt bodily fluid on you?
I would quite literally have lapped it up.
News from here - me and the Mrs recently went to Portugal. It was nice and I got my first ever tan! Well, nearly. I think I just looked slightly less ill than usual.
Did I tell you that I have a new nephew? I'm almost sure I did. His name is Joel, or as I call him "JOR-EL!!! KNEEL BEFORE ME JOR-EL, FATHER OF KAL-EL!!!"
At the moment this just makes him look confused and a bit scared, but I'm sure he'll get the joke when he starts to understand words.
He looks like this:
http://i44.tinypic.com/2yooit5.jpg
You're back soon, isn't it? June? Marvellous.
Lots of love.
xxxxxx
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