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