by Dom Harvey
Alison Mau had not complained—I doubt she or her smoking-hot new lady friend had even heard about it. It was Leon who was pissed off—as well as being a radio programmer he is also a parent. And as bad luck would have it he was in his car with his kids at the time doing the school drop-off and was fuming at my poor judgement. ‘Fuck, mate! You can’t be talking about that sort of shit at 8 am. What were you thinking?’
His argument was the same as the handful of complaints we got from irate parents. ‘Come on, mate,’ I said, trying to calm him down, ‘the lyrics would have gone over the heads of any kids listening. And you must admit the song was a little bit funny!’ But the only thing he was prepared to admit was that I was suspended. The Broadcasting Standards Authority agreed with Leon too and fined the company $2000. That’s a pretty hefty punishment for singing one terrible song—imagine how much a dreadful band like Nickelback would have to pay if they were stung with a two grand fine every time they sang a bad song?
Some newspapers picked up on my suspension and ran a story about it. They didn’t give a rat’s arse about some clown on a top 40 radio station being stood down— that wasn’t newsworthy. It was just another angle and another excuse for them to write another titillating piece about Alison Mau. And these follow-up newspaper stories are how Alison Mau heard about the song and that is why she will never invite me around to her house to watch her and her equally hot partner have a pillow-fight in their silk shorty pyjamas while the Cyndi Lauper hit ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ blasts on the stereo. That’s what attractive women do when they get together, isn’t it?
Complaint under section 8(1B)(b)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1989
The Edge Morning Madhouse—host sang jingle about a public figure being ‘into ladies’—included phrases, ‘when they make love do they have to put a strap on it’, she ‘wanted to go rug-munching’ and she ‘got sick of dicks’—broadcaster upheld complaint under good taste and decency—action taken allegedly insufficient
Findings
Standard 1 (good taste and decency)—song lyrics were unacceptable for broadcast at 8.20 am—serious breach of good taste and decency—action taken by broadcaster was insufficient—upheld
Orders
Section 16(4)—costs to the Crown $2000
BURY THE HATCHET (THE BIG APOLOGY)
It sucks to have people hate you. Essentially, we all want to be liked, don’t we? So for the next item on my bucket list I was going to set out to bury the hatchet with an Australian celebrity I had got on the wrong side of. And I’m not just using that as a figure of speech, either. I wanted to bury the hatchet literally. But before we get into that, there are a few other apologies I need to make first that are long overdue.
Jason and Sam West
Jason and Sam are the two sons of Mike West, my old co-host from my first radio job at 2XS FM in Palmerston North. Mike West and I started working together when Jase was about two or three and Sam was yet to be born.
I owe both these boys an apology. I spent a considerable amount of time around them in the first ten years of their lives, so it is only due to exceptional parenting that these two kids ended up growing up into decent adults.
When Jason started at kindergarten he was overheard by a teacher calling another little boy a name. I would imagine name-calling is a daily occurrence at kindies but this incident was offensive enough for the teacher to call Jase’s parents, Mike and Amanda, and ask them to come in for a meeting about their son’s behaviour, which they dutifully did.
‘I don’t quite know how to put this,’ the kindy teacher started, ‘but earlier today Jason was painting when another boy came and snatched his brush.’ So far so good, sounds like poor young Jase is the victim of bullying at this point.
‘But . . .’ she continued, ‘instead of asking one of the staff for help, Jason screamed at the boy to give his brush back and repeatedly called him “penis breath”! He was saying, “Give it back, penis breath! Give it back, penis breath!” It was very loud and everyone could hear.’
Jason’s parents were mortified. By now hours had passed since the incident took place, so Jason was just sitting on the floor playing with some toys, blissfully unaware of the trouble he was in and the embarrassment he had caused his parents.
They called him over.
‘Jason, did you call another boy a nasty name today?’
Jason shrugged his shoulders and said he couldn’t remember, so they tried a different tack.
‘Did you call one of your friends . . . penis breath?’
Without a hint of remorse, Jason admitted that he had indeed done so. His mum continued her line of questioning as the teacher watched on with those judgemental teacher eyes. You know the look. The one that suggests everything the kid does wrong is due to what a shit job the parents are doing.
‘Do you know what “penis breath” means, Jason?’ Amanda asked.
Of course he had absolutely no idea. He was only three.
‘Where did you learn to say that, Jason?’
Jason’s innocent eyes lit up. ‘Dom told me!’
It was true. I had taught him. But only because a three-year-old saying something so outrageous is actually quite hilarious.
Yes, I was in a world of shit and the next morning the atmosphere in the studio could best be described as icy. I tried to get Mike West to admit it was pretty damn funny. And he agreed with me, eventually . . . about ten years later.
I owe Jason’s younger brother, Sam, an apology for the same sort of offence really—low-level child exploitation. I was in my mid twenties and was pursuing a girl called Leanne. Well, I say pursuing, she might say stalking. It’s all a bit of a grey area.
On one of our early dates Leanne mentioned that she loved kids and wanted a baby as soon as she met the right guy. Eager to make a good impression, I lied and indicated that I too wanted a baby ASAP. I got the feeling she could see through my lie, though, and I felt the need to do something drastic to back up my words with actions.
We had arranged to meet at her place for lunch the next day, so prior to heading around there I called in at Mike West’s house and ‘borrowed’ Sam, his two-year-old, essentially for the purpose of trying to get Leanne to sleep with me. Mike gave me a crash course in how to operate the car seat and a bag with some other bits and pieces, and little Sam and I were on our way.
The poor little guy must have been wondering what the hell was going on. I spent a lot of time with him and his family but never really paid him too much attention. Now here I was, alone with him at this strange girl’s house, smothering him in kisses and cuddles and telling him how cute he was.
This strategic lunch date for three was cut short after about twenty minutes when little Sam diverted from the script. Suddenly I had a very strong smelling ‘code brown’ on my hands. It wasn’t actually on my hands, thank god! But this toddler I was in possession of had soiled himself and I fully freaked out. There was a fresh nappy in the baby bag Mike West had given me but there was no way I wanted this job. I’m pretty certain my reaction was a dead giveaway that kids were not something I had the slightest interest in. Sam and I left Leanne’s place without delay. I carried him out to the car with my arms outstretched to keep the stench as far away from my nose as possible, then drove him home with all four windows down.
Before you say something like ‘Awww, that poor kid!’ I want to assure you he was fine. I am the one who deserves your sympathy! After that failed experiment I never asked to borrow my mate’s toddler as a chick magnet ever again. And because Leanne had an inkling that we weren’t on the same page when it came to babies, she was as reluctant to let me take her pants off as I was reluctant to take little Sam’s pants off.
My ex-girlfriend, Kim, and our old flatmate, Mark
Kim was my first true love, my first proper girlfriend. On and off, we lasted for the best part of five years (which during your late teens and early twenties seems like a lifetime). For a while we lived together with a flatmate, Mar
k, and I owe both of them an apology for what became known as ‘the lino incident’.
Kim was dead against pornography, hated it with a passion. Unfortunately, I loved pornography with the same level of enthusiasm. Knowing just how much she despised it I limited my collection to just one magazine at any given time. And, knowing how much trouble I would be in if she ever discovered this one magazine, I had come up with the ultimate hiding place. A hiding place so good that even a full and thorough police search of the property may have failed to find it.
This one fateful day Kim had the vacuum cleaner out and decided to do the bathroom and toilet. Her plan was to suck up the surface dust and dirt, then mop the floors. When she reached the far left corner of the room, the vacuum cleaner nozzle lifted the lino right up off the floor. Kim pulled the nozzle away but the lino was stuck to the end of it. And then she saw it. Right there on the floor, where it had been concealed by the lino—the November 1994 issue of Playboy, with Pamela Anderson on the cover.
What I thought was the world’s greatest hiding place had been discovered.
Fortunately, I was at work at the time, which gave poor Kim an opportunity to calm down a tad. When I got home later my prized magazine was sitting on the kitchen bench, meaning that I saw it before I saw Kim. This gave me approximately six seconds to think of an excuse. In that limited time, ‘It’s not mine!’ was the very best I could come up with! If I was telling the truth, it meant the magazine must have belonged to our flatmate, Mark.
Finally, after twenty minutes of crying and shouting by Kim and strenuous denials by myself, Mark got home. Instead of giving me the chance to brief Mark about the dilemma and ask him to catch this grenade for me, Kim raced out the front door with my prized Playboy in hand and met Mark on the front porch.
‘Mark. Is this your magazine?’ she demanded.
Mark looked confused. ‘Eh? What?’
‘Is this your magazine?’ Kim repeated. ‘I found it under the lino in the toilet.’
I stood next to Kim, looking like a dead man walking.
Going by Kim’s tone of voice and the look of fear in my eyes, Mark managed to figure out what was happening and did the honourable thing.
‘Ah, yep, that’s mine. I put it there ages ago and forgot about it. Sorry.’
What a top bastard. He possibly saved my life. Sure, Kim thought he was a perverted deviant but at least I was off the hook.
Keisha Castle-Hughes
At the age of thirteen Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for an Academy Award for her incredible performance in Whale Rider.
She was eleven when this film was shot. This was her first acting job and the entire country was moved by just how endearing and natural her performance was.
It was widely accepted that Keisha would be bloody lucky to win. She was in the ‘Best Actress’ category, up against Naomi Watts, Samantha Morton, Diane Keaton and the very attractive Charlize Theron, who had made herself very unattractive for the movie Monster. The Academy has a thing for good-looking people who make themselves ugly for their craft.
To let Keisha know she had the support of New Zealand behind her we encouraged listeners to write Keisha a good luck message and send it to us. Our show producer at the time, my old mate Geoff Stagg, was put in charge of hand-picking the best 500 messages and getting them bound together as a book, a little something for Keisha to read on the plane.
The night before Keisha left we met up with her and her mum Desrae Hughes, to hand over this book on behalf of Edge listeners.
Desrae seemed overwhelmed by the generous words from total strangers for her daughter. Keisha seemed grateful but not really fussed by the big book of compliments. I suppose when you’re thirteen and you manage to score an Oscar nomination the first time you have a crack at acting you learn to take things in your stride. But since the Academy had judged her to be one of the five best actresses in the world, you’d think she could have at least ACTED as though she was impressed by the gesture.
As Keisha sat with us and randomly flicked through the book, it fell open on a page that made her laugh raucously.
‘This is my favourite one!’ she said.
We couldn’t see the book from where we sat so we asked her to read it out, which she did:
Hey Keisha,
Diane Keaton is way better than you.
You are fucking shit and I hope your plane crashes on the way to the awards. And if somehow your plane doesn’t crash I hope you lose when you get there.
Keisha was still in hysterics, demonstrating a maturity and thick skin that most people don’t develop until much later in life. We were mortified. And because we hadn’t bothered to double-check our producer’s work, we had no idea if there were any other inappropriate messages in that book. As soon as Keisha and her mum left we all said the same thing at the same time: ‘FUCKING GEOFF!’
The anonymous author of that email had three wishes:
1. Dianne Keaton to win.
2. Keisha’s plane to crash.
3. Keisha to lose.
Fortunately, only one of their three wishes came true and it was not a midair aviation tragedy!
Misty, the family pet
Misty was the Harvey family cat, a beautiful black and white Persian who was well loved. Not that you would know it from looking at her. She had some incurable eye condition from birth which meant her eyes were always gunky and weeping. Come to think of it, I hope it was an eye condition. Maybe she was always sad but was unable to wipe away her own tears since she lacked opposable thumbs.
I owe Misty an apology for using her much the same way I used Mark, my old flatmate. She took the rap for me over something I did. Gutlessly, I blamed her because she couldn’t defend herself.
I was sixteen and got drunk at a party drinking from a fifty-litre keg of Rheineck. In the late eighties Rheineck was the popular beer to drink. It’s probably worth mentioning that this was also about the same time that black slip-on kung-fu shoes and T-shirts with Fido Dido on them were also massively popular. You can still buy Rheineck now, which means some people must still like it. Probably people who want to drink beer but want to spend as little as possible on it!
I was on a super-strict curfew of midnight, so I made sure I drank as much of this delicious quality brew as I could. I even filled up an empty Coke bottle with Rheineck for the walk home.
I got home with eight minutes to spare and made the appropriate amount of noise—enough to wake Mum and Dad so they knew I got home in time, but not so much noise that they would get out of bed and discover I was trashed.
I hopped into bed and shut my eyes. And that is when the room started spinning. It all happened so quick I didn’t have much time to think, all I knew was that I was going to be sick. I sat up and ripped the pillowcase from my pillow and threw up in that two, three, maybe four times in quick succession. I had to do this as quietly and discreetly as possible so Mum and Dad would not be disturbed.
When I was sure it was all out I got the surprisingly heavy sack of spew and put it in the corner of my wardrobe, then chucked some clothes and shoes on top of it, with the intention of disposing of it the following day.
It was probably about a month later when Mum was in my room looking for something (maybe a bad smell?) that she discovered the pillowcase with a foul stench and an unidentifiable hard substance caked to the fabric.
She brought it downstairs to where I was watching the telly.
‘Dominic, what the hell is this?’
‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ I remember thinking to myself as I inspected the pillowcase with a dumb look on my face. Up until now I had forgotten all about it. How I had lived in that room with that sack of sick is beyond me. It must have smelt like a rotting corpse but I hadn’t even noticed it. Now I had to think fast, which has never been one of my strengths. Had I been good at thinking fast I probably wouldn’t have vomited into a bloody pillowcase in the first place!
‘I dunno,’ I said to Mum. Genius, pure genius.
Mum offered her own theory as she put her nose a couple of inches away from the hard mess and sniffed. ‘I wonder if Misty has been sick.’
Suddenly, I had a light-bulb moment. Mum had planted the seed and I was going to run with it.
‘Oh, yeah. Misty has been sleeping in my wardrobe a bit lately. That’s what it will be.’
Logistically, it was impossible. There was no way a cat could have got into my wardrobe, climbed under a pile of clothes and shoes, wriggled into the bottom of a pillowcase and vomited such a large amount of fluid. But Mum seemed comfortable with the story and I was spared being grounded.
For the next few weeks Misty was banned from inside the house. I felt bad about it—not bad enough to own up, though. Owning up would mean being grounded, and being grounded would potentially mean missing out on more keg parties with Rheineck.
Sprite NZ
Sprite was launched in New Zealand in 1987, when I was fourteen and had a face full of angry red pimples. The sort of pimples that look, and actually were, sore to touch.
Before that there was a similar drink called ‘Leed’ which you may or may not remember. You probably don’t. They tend not to phase out a product on account of it being too popular with customers.
So Leed was taken off the shelves and replaced with Sprite, which tasted the same but was better branded. I remember the year that Sprite came to New Zealand because I was employed by Coca-Cola to help with the launch of the product. Coincidentally, this was the first time I dipped my toes into the pristine waters of white-collar crime.
That’s right. I became a small-time fraudster.
I landed the dream job for a fourteen-year-old boy. A team of about ten of us were employed for the two weeks of the school holidays and paid bloody well—$250 a week each! To put that in perspective I had a paper round at that time which paid $16 a week.