tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26166241823785827262024-02-19T03:33:24.954-08:00James KeatingLoss LeaderJames Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-66396767954945225212021-11-05T10:31:00.060-07:002021-11-12T15:29:36.637-08:0048 SK8Recently I read that dropping in is to ramp skateboarding what ollie-ing is to
flat-ground skateboarding.<br><br>I learnt to do the former 32 years after the latter.<br><br>I bought my first wide skateboard in 1986 for AU$110.<br><br>Aussie
surf culture ruled, and one day at the mall my parents rocked my world when
they bought me a florescent yellow, pink, and blue sweatshirt front-printed with
a brand name which escapes me. I put it with my white “Beau Geste” mudflap cap
and pink Lightning Bolt tee on my wardrobe shelf reserved for “surf” clothing
that I wore around landlocked Canberra.<br><br>I’d been saving for a Tamiya
remote-control car that cost $150, but was seduced one day in the surf shop by a
matt white skateboard splashed with another forgettable, fluro brand name –
“Reflex” – that I could afford to buy straightaway. Had I carried on saving and
bought the Tamiya instead, would I now be as taken with RC cars as I am with
skateboarding, and a better goal setter and achiever?<br><br>Parallel universe stuff.<br><br>A
few months later Reflex was loaded into a shipping container, and we returned to
New Zealand. I sold Reflex to my brother, who spray-painted it florescent yellow
and, underneath, painted black stickmen chasing an animal with spears. He also
blew my mind one day in the garage when he popped an ollie.
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<br>By 1989 the skateboard craze was cranking, and I worked my two-week school holiday in a
chicken hatchery to save for a new board. Obviously I’d forgotten about RC cars,
because on payday I walked into Cheapskates Henderson and dropped $340 on a
Santa Cruz Jeff Grosso deck, Independent trucks, wheels, bearings, tail guard,
nose guard, and rails. That’s more than double what I paid for a new Santa Cruz
complete in 2021! Maybe because it weighed double (then add to that the weight
of my crepe-soled Nomad school shoes that I often skated in, and I’m surprised I
got airborne!).<br><br>But ollie I did, up the curb on our dead-end street. Then we
moved house to the countryside, miles from anywhere skateable. Fortunately
though, every morning my dad drove my brother and me with our skateboards to
asphalted Waitakere train station, where we boarded a virtually empty train to
Avondale College; we skated the aisle, altering our speed relative to the
ground. We learnt physics while other kids were still rubbing sleep from their
eyes.<br><br>The lunchtime skaters congregated around a plywood quarter-pipe that
someone had brought to school, and among the Knievels launching off it was Scott
Lyons, a pimply, stocky, mulleted king of the jungle. He pioneered bike
inner-tube footstraps. I was just trying to ollie or no-comply up a nearby curb
in my Nomads.<br><br>No train station, train, or concrete at our next house, but at
least our street was paved, and on it was a primary school where we stashed a
long, solid piece of wood to ollie up onto and railslide (boardslide) on.<br><br>Then I was desperate for Doc Martins, so sold my board (to my brother?) and bought some brown low-cuts. Decades passed, over which I noticed the old whale-tail deck shape morph into the current, straight-side “popsicle”, and last year I got back in the game with a second-hand Shifty for $40. Last Christmas my wife and I bought our two young boys 22-inch cruiser boards, but then our eldest started using my board for Young Guns skate school. So on payday I went to Boardertown and bought myself a new complete (I can play with my son’s RC car anytime).<br><br>New Lynn bowl is where I first dropped in (fell off the second time), and from there progressed to the waist-high ramp at Valonia skatepark, then the Waterview nipple-high.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-5733103978573388092020-05-04T15:02:00.000-07:002020-05-17T15:35:37.255-07:00LinesEver since I could stand I've had the world at my feet.<br />
<br />
Chinese junk now refers to what's inside the ship.<br />
<br />
Every room in a rest home is a restroom.<br />
<br />
Confucius say: bear loose in chemistry class creates pandammonium.<br />
<br />
Confucius say: toilet seat unnecessary if making stool.<br />
<br />
Confucius say: racing mind not fast asleep.<br />
<br />
Why did the chicken cross the road?<br />
It saw the jay walking.<br />
<br />
Which came first, chicken or egg?<br />
Eggplant.<br />
<br />
<br />
One's lot in life is a lot.<br />
<br />
Parenting will age you - you choose what age.<br />
<br />
Even better than an unputdownable book is one that sleep makes you drop.<br />
<br />
Dazzle dazzle giant sun<br />
wondering is now not fun<br />
you're a close star in my eye<br />
stare too long and I might die<br />
<br />
<br />
Saturday<br />
<br />
Clear afternoon sky,<br />
ice cream wind<br />
hot caramel sundae<br />
James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-90177812389960987642020-04-01T12:41:00.002-07:002020-04-16T21:49:11.092-07:00Pain in the rearAs usual my militant body clock rang at 4.46am, and I tried in vain to hit snooze. After delaying the inevitable for 14 minutes I turned on the light and resumed looking for my beige travel money belt, a search I’d quit on last thing the night before. I quickly found it under my bed, which meant I’d be able to carry my phone with me on my bicycle, to upload my ride to the Strava app. Before zipping away my phone I used its flashlight to illuminate the barn door combination lock, before wheeling out my bike.<br />
<br />
As is so often the case when I run or ride in the morning, it is still technically nighttime, and I feel slightly unnatural walking, scantily clad, down darkened driveway past my neighbor’s bedroom window where they are exercising their gift of being able to sleep past stupid o’clock. But I do love mornings, and mostly I find it a treat to step outside and expose my pasty thighs to moon or starlight.<br />
<br />
I hoisted myself onto my blue Bauer Momentum and rolled out onto the smooth, black asphalt of my quiet, suburban street. The main road was extra quiet for early Saturday morning due to the covid-19 lockdown, and I turned and began pedaling up Great North Road to where it starts gently descending towards the start of Ash Street.<br />
<br />
I’d forgotten to take a good look at the stars from my driveway, and now couldn’t because of the bright streetlights, and I couldn’t be bothered stopping. I did momentarily look up, but the thought of how stupid I’d feel if I crashed my bike on an empty, four-lane road caused me to quickly revert to conventional means of navigation.<br />
<br />
On the other side of the road a police car drove by, and I did a quick mental checklist of how I might be breaking the law. I say “might” because I still don’t know if it’s illegal to cycle in the dark without a front light. But, hey, at least I have a vigorously flashing rear light, which the police would have seen when they looked back to check if I at least had a vigorously flashing rear light, making me not worth imprisoning.<br />
<br />
Unbeknownst to me, there lay on the other side of the road something of greater concern.<br />
<br />
On through the giant, ghost intersection that marked the beginning of Titirangi Road, and the hill climb into the Waitakere Ranges – my languid, lockdown legs and lungs keenly anticipating the resistance.<br />
<br />
Keen to keep my ride under 40 minutes, I turned around about one kilometer shy of the summit, and began screaming downhill. The roadside electronic speed display awoke to show 45km/hr.<br />
<br />
Ash Street traffic is normally heavy, and out of habit I rode quite close to the curb. Suddenly I felt a mild bump and realized I’d run over something that had attached itself to my rear tyre. Then I heard a flapping sound and felt both a lack of air cushioning ... and deflated.<br />
<br />
Crap. My second puncture in three days. I pulled over and began running my fingertips round the tyre to find the offending article. These things can sometimes be hard to find ... and sometimes they are a ruddy great 2.5-inch nail! I pulled it out, uploaded my ride (12.6km, 30 minutes), and began the two-kilometer walk home, both wondering how a lame nail had so accurately and effectively found its target (had it been a trap laid by a schoolboy?.. I know <i>I</i> used to dream up such schemes), and mildly berating myself for not riding 3cm wider of the curb. “Oh well, I’d enjoyed a long period of inflation," I figured, "so I guess was now due a couple of flatties.” Yes, plural. The other one had been on my other bike, a newer road bike that, after he'd stored for eons in my folks’ garage, my Christchurch-based bro-in-law had recently given me.<br />
<br />
The nail pierced the tyre side wall and both sides of the inner tube, so I took the punctured tube off my other bike, repaired it, and paired it with the holy tyre - which had more tread - on my Bauer. A nice wee activity to do with the kids of a lockdown Sunday morning.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-4535860910832280352020-03-01T19:48:00.001-08:002021-09-11T21:20:23.365-07:00Lying under treesThe city screams at me to race,<br />
Buses snarl<br />
Signs grip me, draining their venom right down<br />
to the logo<br />
I walk with a scowl, and judge other scowls<br />
I breathe in greed and shut out need<br />
I carry it on my shoulders;<br />
shallow breaths<br />
<br />
Tilt my brain<br />
Blue sky flood<br />
Exchanged with an old woman ahead of me on the bus<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The time to write will come<br />
<br />
I give you my latest poem<br />
as good as any I’ve read<br />
<br />
always the last I’ll write<br />
<br />
poetry is the bird on the windowsill<br />
<br />
that appears<br />
<br />
when nothing could be further from your mind,<br />
when you least feel like a poet<br />
<br />
by grace the bird appears when finally<br />
<br />
I put pen down and start living.<br />
<br />
if you’re moving in step with life,<br />
giving as you should<br />
taking as you should,<br />
<br />
leaving behind as you should<br />
remembering as you should<br />
<br />
..then your eyes will be open to the soft landing<br />
of sparrows' feet at your window<br />
James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-31706395018415625632019-04-21T21:01:00.000-07:002019-10-15T17:08:24.948-07:00Cycle DiaryToday I saw the sunrise from the Waitakere Ranges, and the sunset at Piha Beach. And I set off this morning under a full moon.<br />
<br />
8.30am:<br />
After stopping at The Piha Store for a coffee and to sit down and eat my breakfast and start writing this, I felt the nudge to put pen and paper back in the pannier bag and continue cycling the further one kilometre to the beach.<br />
<br />
I now sit in the dunes and grass, the clear morning sun at my right shoulder spotlighting an endless blue stage. A pod of surfers sits, watching a horizon that swells with small, clean breaks. The prize peak arrives and three or four surfers leap to their feet, walking like disco Jesus; then the wave obeys them and they get back in the boat.<br />
<br />
The west coast is benign today, tempering my image of it as wild, frightening, and deadly.<br />
<br />
With only four kilometres left to ride I'd seen my shadow for the first time on the road before me, stretched and sharp - a silhouette mirror. I'd woken early and set out in the dark at 6am, an hour before I'd planned to, but the moon was perfectly full and the roads empty, being Good Friday, so I set my rear light pulsing, and rolled. My bike hummed on a new front tyre, and my vintage pannier bags enjoyed their first airing for 20 years, reunited with their purple aluminum <i>Bor Yueh</i> bike rack. Despite being 25 years old, my blue <i>Bauer</i> road bike still has plenty of life left in it. One careful mother-in-law owner, it sat in the garage at the family home for who knows how long, and five years ago Lynn gave it to me.<br />
<br />
It's been a sweet ride, but its low gear isn't low enough for me not to have to push it like a pack mule up some of the gnarly hills in the ranges. I'd planned to stop for breakfast at the top of the hill, but I felt good, so I pressed on, completing the 30km ride in 98 minutes.<br />
<br />
After a breakfast of sago pudding, boiled eggs, two feijoas, half an apple, and some pie crust, I made for the beach where I'm generally just sitting around soaking in the remoteness and sea-renity. And reading my book <i>Emotionally Healthy Spirituality</i>, and writing. And eating my peanut butter sandwich.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiG4aG5NzWPU4VoOvTjs1mKd-z1g5Ag2D5P8PqR5GsD6cz2sfH5X1lfHHQGVgt6TrgphDUllftRCEbR2lyjUb3A8cA33awBewNiK_5lQbf039HQK8QeuTkypT5RbsfBEJSMlbKZyi2108/s1600/IMG_0206.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiG4aG5NzWPU4VoOvTjs1mKd-z1g5Ag2D5P8PqR5GsD6cz2sfH5X1lfHHQGVgt6TrgphDUllftRCEbR2lyjUb3A8cA33awBewNiK_5lQbf039HQK8QeuTkypT5RbsfBEJSMlbKZyi2108/s400/IMG_0206.JPG" width="400" height="300" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>For lunch I hoisted my vagrant ass up the stairs at the Piha Surf Life Saving Club restaurant where I sat on the verandah overlooking the lifesavers over the road, and hammered a beef burger and fries. I'd hoped to also have a beer, but the restaurant isn't serving alcohol today, because this Friday is Good enough already ...<br />
<br />
Saturday:<br />
Fortunately I had a can of beer in one of my pannier bags, which meant I was still able to have a beer with lunch, but just not while I was eating it, and not in the restaurant. I saddled up and headed back around past The Piha Store and on along the road to North Piha Beach, where I would be staying the night. To my surprise the carparks at the north end were just as full as the two at the other more iconic and "glamorous" (some very snazzy holiday homes there) end.<br />
<br />
The first public toilet I came to seemed like the perfect place to drink my beer, so I tied up my steed, drained my bladder, filled up my water bottle, and went outside and drained my can. Dinner was a fall from grace: rice and a few potato crisps mixed together in the bottom of the chip bag - something I'd prepared earlier; I was pleasantly surprised to find that the chips were still crisp.<br />
To be continued ...James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-54038891115413128062018-10-16T11:34:00.000-07:002018-10-21T20:16:29.767-07:00The theCandles<br />
<br />
The future is the buried wick<br />
the past the crumbled soot but<br />
the flame burns up, bright and tall<br />
moving imperceptibly to those whose<br />
way it lights<br />
<br />
<br />
Pigeons<br />
<br />
The pigeons downtown must<br />
think it strange to see<br />
people pigeonholed<br />
in their towers<br />
working late<br />
to be able to<br />
afford<br />
to buy<br />
free<br />
range<br />
chickenJames Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-36118078049119641912018-04-29T17:04:00.000-07:002018-05-04T10:44:39.912-07:00Dream teamLast night I felt what it's like to intercept a pass in a rugby game when, in my dream, I was caught up in a match that broke out in the stand at a NZ Warriors rugby league game. This is the latest episode in my recurring dream that I am facing my fear of playing rugby, and my intercept is, thus far, my greatest rugby moment. I was eventually tackled, which wasn't as bone-crunching as I expected it to be - in fact it was almost as though I was put down gently on the concrete bleacher. Perhaps there is something in my Kiwi psyche that knows I should play, or at least have played, rugby and it's found an outlet in my dreamland. Perhaps it's not too late to return to high school as an adult student and sign up for the 2nd XV, or at least try to start an impromptu match on the sideline.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-80050490707489903042017-12-08T09:26:00.000-08:002017-12-11T17:26:58.435-08:00SummerClose grey ice sky<br />
bare wood branches<br />
fissure network<br />
from frosted earth<br />
The expanse separating the water above from the water below<br />
<br />
Bright new green leaves leak blue light through gaps<br />
from overlap<br />
by crepe paper shapes that scrape and separate;<br />
A thousand dazzling lights<br />
pierce the thick black skyJames Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-59669988527307118792017-08-06T19:30:00.000-07:002017-09-12T00:21:09.520-07:00Stay-home OEHe's like the guy I worked with at Mico Plumbing Supplies who returned to Thailand to visit every year or two. But this guy comes out here to New Zealand twice a year he told me today, every summer and winter. Why in winter? He’s from Japan, which is far enough away from New Zealand to be the opposite season, isn’t it? I see him in town occasionally from a distance, his distinctive gait and spindly frame, cargo shorts and ageless face, unkempt hair and glasses, a real loner. God knows what sort of cracks he’s fallen through in Japan. He’d stay at the backpackers where I lived and worked 13 years ago. Maybe he still stays there - we didn’t discuss that today. He’d come here and watch TV endlessly in a shitty room off the kitchen at Conor’s Topfloor Hostel. The wide open spaces. <br />
<br />
He’s an accountant, and he’d done his math because Conor’s was the cheapest room in town at only $16 or $22, depending on whether you wanted to share a room with others, or just hear them through the walls. A British relationship breakdown; the operatic sounds of a Latino woman being pleasured. Little surprise that I should bump into him at the language school where I now work, our orbits colliding on the fourth floor - he sitting serenely in the window waiting for a free English class to start, me in the corridor fast lane, head turned deciphering his side profile. He couldn't get his head around that I now work as a teacher, a far cry from my days cleaning toilets five floors up, yet still traveling through Auckland.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-7798532277107929712016-12-09T14:41:00.000-08:002017-03-04T20:27:56.323-08:00The Importance Of Not Being ErnestIt’s believed that Ernest Hemingway once wrote a six-word novel: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." This guy really knew how to trim the fat, which is partly what made me want to write like him. His deceptively simple writing style had a childlike quality, and my attempts to emulate him read more like creepy children’s stories, so I went with that and wrote kid’s stories instead. I didn’t send them to a publisher because I didn’t need reminding that I was a failed Hemingway who couldn’t even write something decent about worms.<br />
<br />
But then I had to put aside my insights on life as a worm and write a best man speech for my brother’s wedding. And that’s when I started writing some crisp one-liner jokes. That was way back in the year 2000, when the future started. I first set foot on the comedy stage in March 2001, and since then I have looked back. I have looked back trying to understand how I went from serious ad school student to market research telephone interviewer and worm author, to standup comedian. Maybe as a telephone interviewer I was practising talking into a tiny microphone to a stranger laughing at me, and perhaps as a worm author I learned to lighten up and become a kid again. This is partly the theme of my new standup comedy show: https://www.comedyfestival.co.nz/find-a-show/my-way-or-the-hemingway/James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-71983748645813987762016-09-12T20:54:00.002-07:002016-12-16T15:23:07.893-08:00Waiheke for a dayYesterday on Waiheke island I rode my scooter down to tranquil Rocky Bay. I spied a good parking space, but was aware of a guy sitting nearby at a picnic table smoking a cigarette and gazing at the bay. I parked there anyway, and as I turned off the ignition he said, “good to have a scooter to look around the island.” I replied, "yeah, you can have your tranquility back now." He didn’t seem too fussed. I sat down at the table and started devouring my supermarket pizza, and as we talked he pointed to schools of baitfish close to shore. His kayak with fishing rod inserted lay at the water’s edge less than 10 metres from where we sat, and he said that at high tide he can pop open the sunroof and catch a snapper from his car, which I thought was a bit dismissive of the beautiful surroundings. “Drive-thru fishing”, I joked.<br />
I asked him if he knew Sam McLean, an old Scottish guy who lived in Rocky Bay and owned a 50-foot yacht that I crewed aboard to Fiji in 1993. He didn’t know. That was a long time ago now.<br />
“What do you do on the mainland?”, he asked me. “All sorts of things”, I replied, “cheese gives me really weird dreams.” At first I thought he was joking when he told me his job, but as he went on I knew he was for real. For a sea captain I thought his glasses looked too trendy, and he looked too young and homeless, but maybe that’s just the dress code in Rocky Bay. He explained that oil companies pay $500,000 a day for offshore seismic surveying, and that, with its eight-mile-long lines trailing from the stern of the ship, pilot boat out front and rear-guard boat, his get-up is the largest moving object on earth. “Oil companies think nothing of the cost - for every dollar spent they get 20 dollars back”, he added, relighting his exotic cigarette. He pointed to his recreational craft, a 23-foot yacht moored out in the bay, which he’d bought for $1800 in the Bay of Islands and taken a week to sail home due to a lack of wind. He'd had to motor the whole way. I had more island to see, so with a full tank of vegetarian pizza I hopped on my scooter and buzzed off.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHBIqxUnS5jDgsyjW5kJ6DMSmhqMDS0Acl3FbsmAkG19A324IFbHInzEbiilXi9Yo18sUy22-c_FB7F9C8tdBC9M8zuKBLGJUDEaOojjwzt9H_iWRtoVXkVW7VRmHTabKWBqOniPNDA-Q/s1600/index.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHBIqxUnS5jDgsyjW5kJ6DMSmhqMDS0Acl3FbsmAkG19A324IFbHInzEbiilXi9Yo18sUy22-c_FB7F9C8tdBC9M8zuKBLGJUDEaOojjwzt9H_iWRtoVXkVW7VRmHTabKWBqOniPNDA-Q/s320/index.jpg" width="320" height="240" /></a></div>James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-80532503395042762282016-04-17T15:14:00.002-07:002016-04-17T15:14:53.738-07:00Morning delight (1983)One morning I went down to my mini deserted, very mini bush. I checked the hut in case any wreckers had come. There is a little stream that treakles down. It glistened in the sun,... everything glistened. It was morning delight. Even the thrushes thought that. Every thing glistened in that sun.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDjmU8NLTe7tu75BEm8RiOTtSdrlJV3_6G7mo1jnUEd5L1T3XGal3rfhNkk-wRp8taUAgTDwqPgfDWZ6HgC3p5hEqb1guYOMDRv8ze-VdUi-vej549yjx1BIYAsPOkx3WE_pumm14ENnE/s1600/IMG_1436.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDjmU8NLTe7tu75BEm8RiOTtSdrlJV3_6G7mo1jnUEd5L1T3XGal3rfhNkk-wRp8taUAgTDwqPgfDWZ6HgC3p5hEqb1guYOMDRv8ze-VdUi-vej549yjx1BIYAsPOkx3WE_pumm14ENnE/s320/IMG_1436.JPG" /></a>James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-32036191965713576962016-04-17T15:13:00.001-07:002016-04-26T12:15:59.937-07:00MoonsSuburban beach<br />
<br />
Standing on the beach where the<br />
strong wind blew in the full moon<br />
at one end, and the high rise ship<br />
on brim tide at the other<br />
<br />
The wind blows diagonally across my face<br />
and the silver dollar moon beckons the lover in me.<br />
I can’t tell if the ship is coming or going<br />
<br />
<br />
Morning Moon<br />
<br />
Low slung full moon<br />
Soft orange, cloud shroud<br />
Easy on the eye<br />
Unlike his sun brotherJames Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-25035559488176933102015-11-23T17:54:00.000-08:002015-11-26T11:39:13.764-08:00Tower BakersTower Bakers proves that limited space is no obstacle to creating a distinct, original feel. Interesting curiosities and books - including a few withdrawn library books - start drawing you in the second you step off the footpath outside this quiet, suburban row of shops, through the door of possibly the smallest baker shop you’ve been in. Upon entering you immediately find yourself standing, ready to pay (and even tip some stray coins into the piggy bank), at the business end of the counter. The wise man standing behind says hi and gives you space to peruse the simple yet original cabinet selection of toasted sandwiches and slices for sale, and keepsakes that are not. With the clock struck 12 o’clock-National-Radio-news playing softly on the wireless behind the counter, I order a rissole & gherkin toasted sandwich, and a Coffee Supreme coffee. Plopping down in a cute, blue wooden seat at the end of the sole communal table (through the large front window I also spy a small outdoor table and stools on the pavement), I reach for a library book. A cheerful British woman standing at the counter has struck up conversation with my wife about our baby boy’s toothy smile, and, with our lunch up, assumes the role of popup waitress, passing a plate the few feet from counter to customer: “who’s having the rissole sandwich?”, she asks. “We both are”, I answer rye-ly. Just because there is no room on the small plate for anything other than the sandwich (space is at a premium), doesn’t mean that presentation can’t still be everything - pressed into the top of the sandwich, like your nana’s pressed flowers, is the ornamental garnish from the counter. As you’d expect, the bread is good - they’ve been perfecting it here for 20 years, and the rissole, cheese, gherkin and tomato makes for a balanced meal all round. The wise man, sensing our wish to just sit and read our book & newspaper for a few moments before chowing down, had previously been out back brewing us a fine cup of jo.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-72952901297611822412015-10-14T16:29:00.000-07:002015-10-16T22:44:56.049-07:00OldsmobileBoth my grandmas drove pretty cool cars, but for different reasons. One drove a brand-new red Ford Laser hatchback, and the other drove a mint condition black Volkswagon Beetle. My cool gran was the one who drove the laser, because she took more of an interest in us kids, or at least showed it more. She took us out to things. I don’t remember nana ever doing that, however, I do remember climbing into the back seat of her black beetle, the smell and texture of the grey vinyl upholstery, and the interesting purr of the boxer engine behind me. So maybe nana did take us out in her car, but I don’t remember ever going anywhere with her. Gran took us out in the Laser. She took us to the Mercury Theatre to see ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, and told my brother and me off for clowning around in the foyer (the only time I can remember her telling me off). She took us to work with her at the haberdashery shop and bought us orange stanley knives and meat pies from the shops next door. She drove us to the port to board the cruise ship for Sydney when we moved to Australia.<br />
My nana lived across town in the posh suburbs. She was hard to get to. She served tomato goulash and toast for lunch from her tiny kitchen that smelt of cigarette smoke. At her place there were only boring pictures of birds on the walls, and nothing on TV, but in the garage lay this black beauty. Probably not a major head turner back then, other than the fact that it was pristine black, but definitely a novelty to me. Years later when it was sold I vaguely remember it being snapped up with some artful enthusiasm by someone. The Laser was pre-loved and sold. Gran hung on to for a long time tho, proud of the fact that she provided the power steering.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBcPmmDqdPbVHDuUsTBsD8P3WhnkFOt3GG0GR3bjAXtjcn6MBl2Rz8L0TYDA2VbDhC-38lYR6MOOWopPG-2q7uL6zEMTWsqKOS1H7bFmZXhDEqwNBgPD5Ukl680kWuGE5hTNSkrLoQHo/s1600/Volkswagen_Beetle_.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBcPmmDqdPbVHDuUsTBsD8P3WhnkFOt3GG0GR3bjAXtjcn6MBl2Rz8L0TYDA2VbDhC-38lYR6MOOWopPG-2q7uL6zEMTWsqKOS1H7bFmZXhDEqwNBgPD5Ukl680kWuGE5hTNSkrLoQHo/s320/Volkswagen_Beetle_.jpg" /></a>James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-61027198193217214032015-08-18T02:25:00.002-07:002015-08-19T00:02:19.908-07:004 poemsA movie theatre foyer is a peculiar place to sit down for a coffee. There is a vibe and a hubbub in the room but everyone is standing - no one can chat for long because they are all coming or going.<br />
Sentences are very short - just the headlines please - and people skip gaily from one topic to the next until the stone can skip no more and drowns, then they turn to the person to their right.<br />
Everyone has a person to their right.<br />
Conversations are nimble on their feet - everyone knows that to sit down is social suicide, to get bogged down in unnecessary detail and stall.<br />
That is why the chairs, while neatly laid out, remain bare.<br />
This person has their arse to me<br />
<br />
Mission Bay has had the life frozen out of it to the point where it emits a faint glow onto the cold, dank air.<br />
It has taste when no one is there - not even the famed Movenpick ice-cream shop can boast a crowd.<br />
<br />
<br />
View at Langs Beach<br />
<br />
Floor to ceiling window pane<br />
Framed in A4<br />
Acres of blue sky, inky white clouds cast giant seaweed shadows on turquoise seas,<br />
Moving quickly underwater like rays<br />
Solitary island sits atop vertical ripple sea<br />
That fills up lower third of frame<br />
Like they taught me to do at art school<br />
<br />
<br />
Rain<br />
<br />
Why can't a beautiful day include rain?<br />
Rain is beautiful<br />
It makes a noise to let you know it's here to help<br />
Why do we despise the rain, and<br />
devise so many ways to shun it -<br />
The umbrella, the window wiper, the parker, the house -<br />
That we forget to embrace it?<br />
To feel it<br />
To have it straight from the source<br />
Before it winds up in the gutter<br />
<br />
Go outside for a showerJames Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-77454576704583064492015-02-14T20:50:00.002-08:002016-07-03T19:00:43.442-07:00AfloatOn Saturday I went sailing on my dad’s 30-foot yacht. I made the boat sink, but I can’t remember why. The half-submerged sails continued powering the boat forward, and as the last of the rig slipped beneath the surface, I somehow remained standing on something solid, yet I knew I eventually had to jump off. Before I leapt, the water seeping through my trouser pocket to my iPhone, I dunked my head and looked through my expensive sunglasses for sharks. Sure enough, one was waiting below near the hull. This morning, drifting back into consciousness, I felt disappointed that my iPhone was ruined.<br />
<br />
I do everything in my dreams except see a shrink to get my reality interpreted.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-50364039061162115422014-03-03T19:25:00.001-08:002014-03-21T14:04:24.354-07:00The new 40I remember being so excited about getting a new digital watch for my 10th birthday that during school class that day I skipped out to the toilet just to adore and polish my snazzy new piece of technology. 30 years on and I'm feeling a bit the same way about the new analogue watch my brother and his wife gave me last week for my 40th birthday - except I can polish it whenever I like. It feels good to wear a watch again, especially one that I was given as a birthday gift. In some ways I don't feel much different at 40 to how I did when I was 10 - I'm the same person now as I was then; it's all been in there since day dot. I'm able to feel things just as much, I've hung on to my childlike sense of humour, and I haven't deadened my sensitivity.
<br/>
<br/>
I considered not having a 40th party - I'm not usually the party-throwing type - but I'm glad I stepped up and threw one, and that my wife did such a good job of making it happen. Turning 40 is an achievement, and should be marked with a celebration. Having survived your tumultuous twenties and thirties you've well and truly made it to middle age. Victor Hugo said that "forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age", which would suggest that between 40 and 50 is a sort of no-man's-land (it's most definitely a no-adolescent's-land!), in which I think I'll enjoy being stuck for a decade. Who wants to fit in anyway?James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-35508857686291988612013-06-29T18:59:00.001-07:002013-07-12T19:51:24.825-07:00HooligansStanding on Queen Street today I heard behind me a loud, cheerful commotion. Turning to look I was surprised to see an army of about 200 school children in navy blue uniform marching up behind me. Mildly relieved, I received the all clear to cross the road, and as I began to do so the children broke into song, momentarily transforming the pavement outside Smith & Caugheys into a Wembley football stadium stand. I continued diagonally across the road, safely out of the way of this giant busking ensemble, glancing back over my shoulder to take in the whole experience. Overtaken with the excitement of a buzzer command, and abandoning their orderly chant for lively yelps and squeals, the children began running across the road, breaking ahead of the pack like water spilling over rapids. Predictably, from across the road a bystander was busy reducing it onto his one-inch movie screen.
James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-15659347721228835582013-04-28T13:46:00.002-07:002013-06-05T01:54:31.920-07:00Poems<b>Mornings</b>
<p>
I love mornings, everything is fresh and brand new
<br>
The cool air is latent and filled with possibility
<br>
Sunlight pierces the shivering particles
<br>
It’s the same old sun that’s been going around for ever
<br>
But a brand new sunrise for today
<br>
Not like reheated leftovers – although they have a magic all their own
<br>
But like an old pair of jeans that have shrunk in the wash and have to be broken in all over again
<p>
<p>
<br>
<b>Fire</b>
<p>
I made a fire
<br>
In the house
<br>
In the fireplace
<br>
The place of fire
<p>
I built a fire
<br>
Out of building wood
<br>
Wasn’t sure if I built the fire
<br>
Before or after I lit the match
<p>
I made a fire
<br>
In the fireplace
<br>
Out of wood
<br>
My house is made of wood so I call it my tree hut
<br>
And I call my tree hut my large bird box
<br>
It's where I keep my moa.
<p>
<br>
<b>Printing</b>
<p>
I have seen the printing press come and go
<br>
All the while I’ve been writing in pen
<br>
The pen and the printing press both use ink
<br>
I am a printer
<br>
At school I was taught printing
<br>
Then running writing
<br>
Reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic
<br>
Alliterate Always
<br>
- Two different sounding A's
<br>
Followed by a different number of l’s
<br>
All as in ‘always’, not as in ‘alliterate’
<br>
I never stopped learning English.
James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-12177132286418524392012-11-12T21:10:00.002-08:002013-06-13T00:06:27.111-07:00UntamedIt may as well have been a family holiday to outer space. The winding metal road definitely seemed galactic in length – signaling the increasing distance from civilisation as we knew it. But arriving at the final frontier was worth it. Just beyond the diminutive kaikoura grass carpark, a wild scrub and scorching black sand path led out to a lunar landscape: to the left, a short walk to the small, coarse-sand beach, dirt cliffs sinking to jagged rock pools; to the right, the long, distant, shimmering beach meeting the charcoal horizon. Base camp had its own unchanging vista: the timeless, brown painted fence and chipped walls standing constant against the changing seasons and fashions.
<p>
Despite the grandeur of the landscape, two memories from our holiday at Whatipu beach really stand out for me. The first was a frog hiding at the tube-like base of a flax bush in the garden just outside one of the cabins. One of the other kids must have heard the frog and we all gathered around to try and find it. Was it really there? Did frogs actually exist outside of Beatrice Potter books? Shunning the common garden path, it maintained an air of intrigue, (so as to segue smoothly out of our picture-book imaginations and into reality) by choosing the flax-tube portal to another world. We peered into the tube, into a timeless place so accessible to boys and girls short on years but rich in imagination.
<p>
The second was an older boy – tall, gangly, with fair hair and skin, wearing a horizontal red-and-white-striped T shirt – who broke his arm. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Older boys were tough and invincible. He was what they called a teenager, but to me he was as good as a grown man – sure, slightly younger than my father – but certainly as commanding, perhaps with an added mystery due to the extraterrestrial setting. With his older-boy broken voice he let out the most heart-wrenching older-boy screams. I’d never seen someone in so much pain before. He appeared to me, at once, both brave and broken, and I felt for him a strange, raw mix of pity and admiration.
<p>
Whenever I go back to Whatipu I scan the brown camp to see if it is as I left it, and imagine the frog still hiding in the flax portal, intriguing a new generation of space travelers. I wonder where the boy with the broken arm is now; what he looks like as an older man, whether he still remembers Whatipu, or if he shut it out to make his home in another galaxy. On one of our early dates I took my now wife to Whatipu, where we climbed the not very galactic dirt cliff and sat shivering and exposed, politely enjoying ourselves.
<p>
My entry for the 2012 North & South magazine essay writing comp.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-24841955496320715612012-10-03T20:10:00.000-07:002013-04-28T13:16:54.323-07:00Boarding schoolOn Saturday I went snowboarding for the first time in about 15 years. I was expecting to see some revolutionary new shape of snowboard, or at least a throwback to a retro design – a bit like how the latest skateboards look like the long, thin, downhill boards of old. But unlike skateboarding, snowboarding doesn’t really have much of a history to throw back to. On hearing that I virtually hadn’t snowboarded since the invention of (the) sport, my helpful bro-in-law John brought me up to speed on a few skiing essentials, including that you are now in the minority if you don't wear a helmet. My first thought was, “what, even including snowboarders?”, because, you see, I’d always thought that snowboarding was the cool thing to do on the mountain, while skiing was just for conformists. But that all changed when I asked John, “are your skis wider than normal skis”, to which he replied, “it depends how you define normal skis – anything goes these days.” …Okay, I’ll just be over here twirling my 90s dreadlocks. After hiring my boots, board and helmet, and figuring out how to do up my boots, put on my complimentary wristguards (they go on the <i>outside</i> of the gloves) and lock my front foot into the bindings, it was time to join John, my twin five-year-old nieces and eight-year-old nephew in plopping backwards into the chairlift for the tranquil, scenic ascent to the point of uncertainty. As soon as the top of the chairlift came into view I got some slight jitters about the all important slide with your chairlift chums down to where you are well clear of the turning chair. Adding to the pressure was the fact that I only had one foot in the bindings, but I found some spare plank on which to put my back foot and made it down ok. It was such a beautiful day (it felt more like a day at the beach than on icy snow), I was determined not to ruin it on my first run with a stinging face plant or dislocated shoulder, so, after making the whole party wait while I clumsily secured my back foot, I gently began my descent, stopping every metre or two to look in awe at my already tiny relatives disappearing ahead of me. I was happy to find that after such a long hiatus, snowboarding is like riding a bicycle, except you face sideways, and you don't hold onto anything... so maybe skiing is more like riding a bicycle than snowboarding. I digest. Next day my nephew and I went skateboarding and I discovered I can still ollie - there is now probably some cooler word for it - so I must say I'm tempted to get back into skateboarding... I'm just not that excited by having to get my old job back at the chicken hatchery to pay for it.
James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-626377625139442712012-09-07T19:28:00.001-07:002012-09-10T16:20:27.915-07:00BreakneckOllie back to 1989, when I was saving for a new skateboard. I already owned a Santa Cruz Tom Grosso(?) mini that I bought off a guy at school with one blue and one green eye who loved to talk about skateboarding, and who once instructed me to find out for myself a bit more about one particular aspect of skateboarding, to which I replied, "I'll do that for homework." His nickname for me was "runner boy", because I was doing a lot of distance running at the time. I needed $340 to buy a new deck, trucks, wheels, bearings and accessories from Cheapskates in Henderson, and the obvious pathway to my dreams lay in sacrificing my two-week school holiday for a job breaking necks at the Waitakere Chicken Hatchery, where my sister had worked before me. She had the unenviable task of sorting the reject chicks from the good ones, then breaking their necks using a special thumb technique. I wasn't given that job, and instead ended up on forgettable tasks like cleaning and stacking plastic trays and hosing out tanks etc. I saved my $340 and proceeded to Henderson to get me some wheels etc. The skateboard deck I picked had graphics depicting death, eg skulls and/or demons, which didn't impress my dad, a church pastor, so he gave me the choice of either returning the deck to the shop or scraping off the graphics using a brick. I took the deck back and swapped it for a Santa Cruz Jeff Grosso 'toybox', featuring a picture of a toybox.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-75185045304752052452012-08-21T14:59:00.003-07:002012-09-06T20:06:47.738-07:00National labourWe took 17 days to sail from Fiji to New Zealand, landing in Opua in the beautiful Bay of Islands. From Opua we sailed overnight to Crusader’s final resting place in Auckland Harbour. Despite it being winter, I had a strange desire to continue traveling south, so I went and lived in Christchurch with my sister for a while. I had decided that I wanted to be a yacht designer, so I went around the boat yards looking for labouring work, and wound up working for an old guy who made Olympic row boats. I can’t recall exactly what purpose I served, but I remember one day drilling bolt holes in seats, and making a mistake, which caused the old man to exclaim, “stuff in Christ!” – obviously the dyslexic version of “Christ ‘n stuff”. Pushbiking to work in sub-zero temperatures wasn’t for me, so after two weeks I quit my job and headed back to West Auckland, where I got a job in a large fiberglass yacht factory. I was helping an old man called Martin to assemble a large fleet of small inflatable/fiberglass, see-through-bottom fizzboats, ready for shipping offshore. Martin liked to call people nerds, and complained that over his lifetime he'd paid over a million dollars in tax. One of the other boatbuilders, a mate of mine, was helping to churn out a new yacht design called a Farr Platu, or as he called it, “plaadu”. Sometime in January I either quit or was laid off the job, and with my yacht design ambitions behind me, I asked a builder friend of mine for a labouring job.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2616624182378582726.post-43860146762742984412012-08-03T17:43:00.001-07:002012-08-03T17:43:37.710-07:00Three months in a leaky boatWe never made it to Kiribati. A week after setting off from Fiji our boat sprung a leak and almost sank, so we turned back for Fiji. We approached Suva Harbour at night, and decided to negotiate the channel to the anchorage in the dark instead of heaving to and waiting til morning. We didn't read the channel lights properly and our boat came to a grinding halt on top of a reef. Skipper Sam was in conniptions, so Mike sprung to and radioed the coastguard, who told us he'd knocked off for the day and couldn't help - laid back Island styles to the extreme! Fortunately some other yachties in the harbour were listening in on their radios, and on hearing our plight, donned wetsuits, jumped in their rubber duckies and selflessly came to our aid. Using two anchors they cleverly lifted us off the reef. During our three week layover in Fiji we hitch-hiked around the island of Viti Levu, went to the movies and saw Schindler's List, did some token missionary work and took a token dive over the side of the boat to check for damage in preparation for our return sail to New Zealand. We set sail once more for the last leg of the voyage. As we were nearing New Zealand we saw an air force Orion fly low over us a few times so we turned on our radio and received instruction from them to change course and head toward a stricken yacht in the area. (Mum and dad later told me that they had an anxious wait between the first phone call from the coastguard telling them that a yacht in our area had activated its emergency position-indicating radio beacon, and the second to say it wasn't our boat!) About four hours later we found the tiny yacht bobbing helplessly and with its two crew looking quite relieved to see us. We threw them a line and started towing them back to New Zealand, which, given the headwind and our unreliable motor, turned out to be a bit of a hopeless task. A charter fishing launch came out from New Zealand and took over the tow, costing the two guys $5000 including bait.James Keatinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05389127157775374909noreply@blogger.com0