by Dom Harvey
The Sprite job brief was simple—knock on people’s doors and tell them about this new soft drink on the market, then offer them a free can. If the householder was out, they lucked out on the free drink and got a postcard instead.
The team of door-knockers were driven to the different neighbourhoods in a mini-van by our supervisor, another student who was slightly older and slightly less pimply than the rest of us. His supervising skills were non-existent; I’m pretty sure his only qualification for the job was his driver’s licence. He would park up and sit in the van listening to his cassette walkman and play Donkey Kong on his Nintendo Game & Watch while the younger boys went door-knocking.
By the start of week two I devised my scam. Whenever I went to a property where the householder was out, I would just mark on the sheet that they were in and tick my list to indicate they’d received their complimentary can. I bought my not very bossy boss in on my scam and, for a cut, he gladly drove by my house each afternoon, allowing me to drop off the stock gained through my devious plan.
By the time the job finished I had $500 in the bank and enough Sprite to give a man type 2 diabetes. The product is still on the market and is one of New Zealand’s bestselling soft drinks. That success has absolutely nothing to do with my role in the launch. If it is any consolation, karma came and got me the following term when I discovered that if you drink four to five cans of Sprite every day for a month you will end up with excruciatingly painful constipation. (Or at least that’s what happened to me.)
It’s amazing how good an apology can make you feel. That felt quite cathartic, righting all those wrongs. Although, in the process of saying sorry to Keisha Castle-Hughes I have probably now offended my old producer Geoff Stagg. If this is the case, I am very sorry for upsetting you, Geoff . . . but you should have checked those messages before you had the book bound.
Now to the big apology. This one was going to take more than a bunch of words to repair. In order to bury the hatchet I would need to bury an actual hatchet. And the celebrity at the centre of all of this? Rove McManus, the adorable little Aussie. The human equivalent of one of those clip koalas you buy at the airports in Australia. Each week he would end his hugely popular TV show by saying, ‘Say hi to your mum for me,’ and each week, Mum would appreciate the shout-out. Everybody loves Rove and Rove loves everybody, right? WRONG! I managed to piss him off.
But to be fair, in hindsight, I do wonder if he was bothered at all or if it was just his people being offended on his behalf. I’ll tell you what happened and you can make your own mind up.
TV3 had brought Rove over to New Zealand for a promotional visit. So Rove came in to our studio with his manager and a couple of people from the TV3 publicity department. We had a twenty- or thirty-minute chat with him, broken up with a couple of songs. I can’t recall specifics of the interview but I’m pretty sure it would have been fun. Rove is a pro and a naturally funny bloke. The interview wrapped up and we all stepped outside the studio and posed for a photo for the radio station website. Rove then left and we carried on with the show, unaware that anything was wrong.
Less than an hour after that, I got a phone call from my good friend Jana Rangooni, who was the group program director of our company. She was the boss of my boss. She was the boss that you only ever get to see if the news is really good (pay rise) or really bad (you’re fired). So in radio it is usually the latter.
‘What on earth did you do to Rove this morning?’ she asked.
Her choice of words and tone of voice told me we had done something real bad—like held him down and shaved his eyebrow off bad—but I didn’t have a clue what she was on about.
Jana continued. ‘I’ve just got off the phone from TV3 publicity and they said he is really upset. He left your building and said he never wants to go back there again.’
I was bewildered. I still had no idea what Jana was going on about. I assumed she must have her wires crossed and one of Rove’s other interviews that morning must have gone pear-shaped.
Unfortunately, there were no crossed wires at all. An interview had gone pear-shaped . . . and it was definitely our one. This was late in 2007, and at the time there were magazines out in the shops with paparazzi photos of Rove and the Australian actress Tasma Walton. This was almost a year after the death of his first wife, Belinda Emmett, to cancer. So to ignore these fresh rumours of a friendship or relationship would, I think, have been short-changing the audience. What everyone wanted to know was whether or not he was seeing anyone.
Me: Have you been out on any dates? Are you seeing anyone?
Rove (laughing): Yes—I’m going out with John Campbell. That’s why I’m here, to hopefully hook up with him.
Mike: So . . . you’re not seeing anybody?
Rove: No.
Mike: No? Okay.
And that was it. We asked the question. Rove deflected it with a funny answer. Then we moved on. Was it insensitive? I don’t know. I don’t think it was. That definitely wasn’t the intention anyway. I wasn’t trying to be edgy or provocative or anything.
And another thing, it was bloody Mike Puru who re-asked the question . . . why wasn’t he the one getting any of the blame for this?
The phone call from Jana Rangooni was the first inkling I had that anything was out of order. Jana did that thing where someone suggests you should do something but really they are telling you to do it. She ‘suggested’ I should write an apology letter on radio station letterhead and drop it off at the reception of the SkyCity Grand Hotel, where Rove was staying. The whole thing felt a little bit over the top, and I really hate saying sorry when I don’t actually mean it, but I went along with it anyway.
I sheepishly walked into the foyer of the hotel and hoped like hell I would not happen to bump into Rove. I made it to reception, handed over the envelope and scurried off.
Then . . . nothing!
No word from Rove’s camp. No call from TV3 thanking me for doing some damage control. NOTHING. I was left hanging.
I am not up to speed with all the ins and outs of etiquette but I thought the whole point of one of these forced apologies was so the person who had been wronged got the chance to be all smug and say ‘apology accepted’.
Over the years Rove kept coming back to New Zealand for these promo visits. The TV3 publicity department would put together his schedule for each visit and we were always blacklisted. Our producer would put in an interview request and TV3 would decline it. We are in a building with a cluster of other radio stations so we would see Rove and his entourage walk past our window. It was all a bit odd—nobody had even given us a date that our Rove-ban would be lifted. As far as we knew we were on the interview circuit equivalent of preventative detention. Maybe there was no chance of a Rove-vival. Sorry. Terrible wordplay joke, punishable by death in some countries. But I couldn’t resist.
Then one day out of the blue our opportunity came to put things right with Rove McManus.
Rove was coming to New Zealand to do some standup comedy shows. Since this trip was nothing to do with his TV show, his interview schedule was being put together by an independent publicist. This publicist was obviously unaware of our ban because our producer put a request in and it was accepted. It would potentially be awkward but we were okay with that—folks like Ricky Gervais have worked hard to make awkwardness a legitimate form of humour and entertainment. The audience had been filled in on the whole back story and were prepared for whatever might happen next.
Rove: I just looked across the table and there is an axe on the desk!
Dom: Actually if I may correct you, it is a hatchet.
Rove: Sorry. Yes. That is true. It is the axe equivalent of me. It’s very small.
Dom: Now the reason we have got the hatchet—we haven’t had you in our studio for a number of years now. And the last time we had you in, things were a little weird.
Rove: Really? Things got a little awkward? Did we touch? Did we embrace?
Dom: No, it wasn’t awkward. B
ut then it got awkward after you left. And there were publicists and people running around and I had to write you an apology letter. And since then you haven’t been in to see us.
Rove: Oh, now I get it. This hatchet here . . . WE CAN BURY IT! We can bury the hatchet! Wow. How long did that take? I was thinking, where is he going with this—is he going to kill me?
Dom: No, we don’t have murder on the mind. But it has hurt us—every time you’ve come back to New Zealand we switch on the telly and we see you on Campbell Live but you never come to see us anymore.
Rove: Well, you have to remember, that doesn’t always come to me, that sort of stuff. There are people that go, ‘We’ll go here or we’ll go there,’ and I get taken there.
Dom: So everything’s good? There’s no bad blood between us?
Rove: No! I hope not.
Dom: Well, down on the street below there are some road works going on. And there’s a big giant hole down there. Could we go outside and bury the hatchet?
Rove: I would love to!
And we did. So now, beneath the asphalt on the corner of St Mary’s Road and Jervois Road in Auckland, is a hatchet buried there by Rove McManus and me.
During that interview Rove was either playing dumb or he actually had no recollection of what happened. I suspect it is probably a bit of both. He probably read my apology letter then screwed it up and thought nothing more of it.
Clearing the air felt good. Real good. So did having an actual hatchet-burying ceremony. People often throw round the saying ‘Let’s bury the hatchet’ but I think it has far more impact when you literally go to the effort of burying one. Then again, maybe it’s a case-by-case sort of thing. Tiger Woods allegedly cheated on his ex-wife Elin with more than 100 other women. If I was Tiger, and Elin turned up to the gates of my mansion with a shiny new miniature axe in her hand, I don’t think my first instinct would be to let her in, assuming that she wanted to forgive me and have a fresh start. In extreme cases, maybe a better idea would be to turn up with a broom and offer to sweep things under the carpet.
The options were to kiss and make up or bury the hatchet. Wisely, Rove went for option 2.
KISS A CELEBRITY’S ARSE
(LITERALLY)
There are four very common expressions that all have pretty much the same meaning:
• brown noser
• arse-kisser
• to piss in one’s pocket
• to blow smoke up someone’s arse.
I’d love to know where these terms came from in the first place. Because, let’s be honest, none of them actually sound all that pleasant, even for the recipient.
If someone really liked you and wanted to let you know, urinating into the pocket of the trousers you had on would definitely be the wrong way to go about it. Likewise, having someone blow a cloud of smoke into your rectum would probably just seem weird rather than flattering.
Maybe these were all things that people used to do to show their appreciation for one another centuries ago. Thankfully, Hallmark has come along since then and put out a card for just about any occasion, so you can let someone you admire know how you feel without ending up with faecal matter on the tip of your nose. Much cleaner and far less awkward.
There are two groups of people who come into contact with more arse-kissers than anybody else—employers and celebrities. Employers only get it from staff members who have an ulterior motive—they are greasing for a promotion or a raise—whereas the arse-kissing that celebrities get is usually genuine respect from fans. The modern-day arse-kiss from a fan to a celebrity involves a photo on a phone or an autograph on some sort of merchandise.
I was going to change that. I was going to show my appreciation of someone who I admire and respect by kissing his arse . . . literally. The idea was suggested by my work colleagues, Jay-Jay Feeney and Mike Puru, who had accused me on numerous occasions of being more generous with my praise of celebrity guests than they perhaps deserved.
That lucky recipient? New Zealand cricketer Martin Guptill.
It was on Monday 12 December 2011 that the New Zealand cricket team had a historic test match win against Australia in Australia. It was the first time in twenty-six years the Black Caps had managed to do this, so these guys became legends overnight.
Martin ‘Guppy’ Guptill was part of that team.
We arranged for Martin to come into the studio after he got back to New Zealand. We told him the truth, too.
This is the text I sent to arrange the interview:
Hey mate, any chance you could come in at 8 am on Wednesday? We just want to talk cricket and kiss your arse a little.
When he got to the studio for his interview I had decided to back out of it. It had seemed like a good idea when Martin Guptill was not right in front of me. But now we were face to face, the whole idea just seemed too bizarre.
Then, towards the end of the interview, Jay-Jay brought it up.
Jay-Jay: Dom, didn’t you have something you wanted to ask Martin?
Me: Yeah, I did. But I think I’m going to have to change my mind. I had this idea in a taxi when I was a bit drunk and it seemed like a good idea then. But I don’t really want to do it anymore.
Mike: Nah, you can’t wuss out. You have to ask him.
Martin: Now I’m nervous. What the hell is it?
Me: I had this item on my bucket list which requires the assistance of a famous person. I was going to ask you, but I don’t think I can. Now that I’m sober it’s just far too embarrassing!
Jay-Jay: Come on, Dom, you have to ask him.
Me: All right, all right. One thing that I wanted to do as one of the items on my bucket list was to LITERALLY kiss a famous person’s arse.
Martin nervously laughed, for a long time—around ten seconds, I reckon.
I think he was using his laugh to stall for time while he thought about how to answer this very odd request. Then, his response came:
Martin: Yeah, why not!
Jay-Jay: See, there ya go, Dom! You don’t know until you ask. So all you have to do, Martin, is drop your pants and stick your butt cheek out. This is going to be awesome.
Me: Oh god, I’m so embarrassed.
Mike: Yeah, so am I!
Martin: Why are you guys embarrassed?
I’m the one who’s about to drop my shorts!
I think all four of us in the studio felt embarrassed. This seems to be a recurring theme with our show. We constantly have these ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’ moments. The ideas come to us when we’re off the air or in planning meetings or while we’re out drinking, and they seem hilarious. It’s not until we’re in the studio and about to broadcast it that we start to get a sense of just how messed up the idea actually is.
One of the best (or worst) examples of this is something that got us a slap on the wrist from the Broadcasting Standards Authority. It was an idea that came to us somewhere between 2 and 3 am at a staff party.
Pop star Pink was coming to the country to do some shows and we had tickets to give away. After a good session on the 42Belows we all agreed that ‘Pee Your Pants for Pink’ was pretty much the funniest idea for a segment ever since the invention of the very first radio.
It wasn’t until the following Monday at 8.30 am, when our Wellington reporter was live on the air with us while a woman in her late twenties intentionally soiled herself in order to win these tickets, that we realised just how wrong this was. Hindsight and sobriety are both wonderful things.
Martin Guptill loosened the belt of his cargo shorts and pulled his undies and shorts down to the middle of his thighs and bent over. Much like a home owner apologises to unexpected visitors for the mess, Martin warned us that it could be ‘pretty hairy back there’.
For the record, a lack of a tan was probably more of an issue than an abundance of hair—his bum was whiter than his cricket trousers on the first day of a test match.
I took Martin Guptill’s advice and stayed reasonably close to the crease.
I would like to tell you that it tasted like a combination of ingredients that only the rear end of a champion could possess. Things like sweat, determination, raw talent, tenacity and victory. But the truth is it just tasted like . . . well, skin, I suppose. Much like kissing your own wrist only far more humiliating.
After that we shook hands and exchanged a bit of small talk as I walked Martin out of our offices to the car park. It had all the awkwardness of the morning after a one-night stand.
As Martin drove off, he shouted out his window that he would call me sometime . . . but I knew he never would. I’m not sure who felt more violated by the arse-kiss; we may have to call that one a draw. But I was on Twitter later that morning and saw this tweet from Martin and I find it hard to disagree with him:
@Martyguptill Having @DomHarvey kissing my ass is possibly the weirdest thing I have been involved in.
EAT AT A BUFFET UNTIL I THROW UP
I have always been intrigued by the idea of the buffet-style restaurant.
Like most people, I suppose I am wired to enjoy the feeling of getting a good deal. If you go to restaurant and spend $30 but eat a quantity of food worth a greater amount, it is a win! Scorecard: you 1, restaurant 0. You have legally robbed the restaurant.
I remember when Valentines Family Restaurant first opened for business in Palmerston North in the early 1990s. This was when they used to have those impressive statues made from margarine. I was in my late teens when Valentines came to town—finally controlling my own life, away from the nagging of my parents. Back then, I used to go out of my way in search of buffets. The Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat Tuesdays in Palmerston North were definitely a highlight of the week for me and my equally famished and frugal friends.
