Get Down, Get Out

Hi everybody,
This one was written and sent on January 10th 2005 and read by a small group of my friends as a favour to me. None of them have talked to me since, so I have added a few adjustments and ‘funnied-up’ some of the descriptions. Please read on and leave a comment if you like. Although I have the internet equivalent of a bin with a tiny basket ball hoop over it, I promise to read and consider all your comments.
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Hi everybody.
It turns out that Christmas and New Years were just what I needed to settle me into life in Auckland. One or two celebratory pub crawls have taught me which places serve the lager that gives you liver damage (that’s why it’s so deliciously cheap). Bargain hunting for presents has acquainted me with much of the city’s retail district. Handy because that’s where I now work. No I don’t sell perfume or over sized jeans or toasters that play DVD’s. I work in a Belgian Beer Cafe (BBC) called The Occidental. Those of you who ate in Temple Bar’s ill-fated Belgo restaurant can use that as a reference. The Occi doesn’t have a hundred beers though. The 20 odd beers we have are the real thing – as Belgian as Van Damme – and as tasty. Hoegaarden White is my favourite, though Jean Claude prefers something with more of a kick (yellow card for that one). The food I serve is pretty authentic too – or so the Belgian customers tell me. I have reason to believe them as they will often arrive drooling and wide-eyed chanting “Moule et Frites” or “Whitloef Gratin”. It’s as close to the real thing as you’re likely to get here at the end of the world (without using shrink wrap and a Concorde) and may even taste better.
Not the cleverest career move, however – I decided to be a waiter again in a country where tipping is as popular as Christian rock is in Saudi Arabia (or most countries for that matter). With near religious conviction tipping is not only ignored but actively discouraged. I have witnessed one friend reprimand another for leaving extra money with the bill. To be honest, it’s me who isn’t considering the facts. I’m expecting tips from them after they’ve paid anything up to $25 for a bottle of beer. I should have caught on when the customs official said ” no flora or fauna and don’t tip anybody”. So I depend mostly on foreign tourists for my trinkgeld (German for tips –literally “drink money”).
Thankfully a whole ship full of them arrived the other day. It was aboard the Sapphire Princess. She is the world’s 7th largest cruise ship and carries a nice mixture of retired couples and families whose parents thought it a clever idea to pile all their kids into a tiny room for six weeks. At a colossal 18 storeys, she dwarfed the apartments and hotels next to her on the wharf. Even my old bosses at the Hilton had to send a reminder to all their guests to put on clothes before opening the curtains. I wonder how many Life of Brian moments there were before they decided to send the note (this was later the subject of a local ad for the Yellow Pages, the tagline being “Need Curtains?”). Luckily for me a good few of the jolly old coffin dodgers and swash buckling families came to the BBC and my jar was singing all day long. That’s not the only piece of good fortune I had recently. MTV’s Zane Loe paid me a visit and after a few beers with his mates did the old handshake-with-money-in-it-thing. Clearly his time in Europe has affected him very deeply. The next day I served a nice guy from Rathfarnam. A quick glance at his credit card revealed he was none other than Charles Dickens. I debated with myself whether or not to say “Please sir, I want some more” when he paid. Best not to push one’s luck, I decided.

More laughs followed when a few days later a bunch of us went paint balling for Ger’s birthday. Auckland’s buses are so shit that it was strangely easier to take a ferry over to an island and shoot each other there than it would have been to take the two buses out to some other place on the mainland. It turned out well though. Waiheke Island has beautiful landscape and the weather is always slightly better than that of Auckland. It is home to several wineries and for decades artists have found inspiration in its rolling hills and the relative solitude they offer. This is all rather hard to appreciate when you’re pinned down by enemy fire paint-fighting for your paint-life. We decided to make it a battle of the sexes and pit the boys against the girls. I hate getting philosophical about it but paint-war is paint -hell. And just to dispel any
rumors you may have heard about it, getting shot hurts. The only thing that eases the pain is to inflict it on others – and what a release that is. As a birthday present to Ger I let her team win. Yes it takes a real man or group of men to lose to a team of girls. I think that one’s in The Art of War. I’ll have to check it and get back to you.
I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Years wherever you are and I hope you manage to stay off the fags or the chocos or whatever it was that gave your life meaning. You’ll be hearing from me soon. It’s time for me to break into the music scene here and see what’s worth swiping.
Fred.