Outraged Read online

  Ever since the outrageous (although entirely predicted by me) success of my first book, my publisher has been on my fuck’n back to write another. In dealing with me, she has become an expert in juggling snakes. Rather than tell her the truth — ‘I don’t want to do another book. NO!’ — I said, ‘Great idea! Let’s look at that.’ Then I left the country.

  Eventually she ground me down to dates and contracts. I ground her up to a bigger percentage, and more up-front than any dyslexic author has ever seen.

  What follows is testament to both her snake-juggling prowess and my inability to say, ‘I don’t want to do another book. NO!’

  Since being kicked off TV in New Zealand, among many other things, I have written a bestseller, been kicked off TV in Australia, filmed a movie in Hollywood about myself, been offered what could have been the best show on TV and turned it down, turned down a political advance that would have certainly seen me enter politics, and spent a small fortune on boats and cars. Luckily I have never been in such demand, so obviously I hunted down a network that had just gone into receivership and immediately signed with them …

  OH, I’VE ALSO WRITTEN THE BOOK YOU’RE HOLDING …

  GO ON … BUY IT!

  THIS IS A WONDERFUL LIFE!

  PAUL HENRY.

  This book is about outrageous thoughts, mine.

  It’s about outrageous deeds and traits I see displayed in others.

  It’s about the things that piss me off and may well piss you off. Although I don’t care if they piss you off or not, I just need to chronicle my outrage.

  This book in itself is at times outrageous … so just allow yourself the satisfaction of outrage.

  ILLUSTRATOR

  I have been very fortunate to be able to secure the services once again of one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent illustrators.

  Olive Mary Christine Hopes has a comparatively short but illustrious history as a literary illustrator. In fact all the projects she has worked on to date have become bestsellers.

  As she ages (and she is now very old indeed), her masterpieces, far from deteriorating in technique, have taken on more of a Daliesque quality. This is largely due to failing eyesight, a crumbling mind, arthritis and a potpourri of medication.

  Perhaps the most important quality Olive displays is that of a loving mother. She is my mother; I am very proud of her. And I love her dearly.

  COVER ARTIST

  Performance artist Pricasso has stunned audiences all over the world with his creations. Pricasso is thought to be the only professional artist to exclusively paint with his penis. Both flaccid and erect, Pricasso can fashion a likeness in a very short time. Artists around the globe have expressed their amazement at his ability to capture the essence of a face with only a few strokes of his tool. Audiences have just expressed their amazement!

  NOTE:

  Backgrounds are often painted with Pricasso’s bare butt cheeks in order to reduce over-use of his penis.

  DEDICATION

  To a significantly sized group of people of whom I am blissfully aware: those who are outraged by me. I dedicate this book to you in the hope that:

  1. You have paid full retail price for it, and

  2. I continue to outrage, offend and appal you.

  The only shame is that you are unaware of the extent to which you are undeserving of my talents. May your numbers grow.

  DISCLAIMER

  Over the years, on numerous occasions people have expressed their surprise that I seem to have an opinion on everything. When people say to me, ‘What do you think about this?’, I am never short of an opinion, regardless of whether or not I care particularly about what it is the person is referring to. This is because I am both intelligent and broad of vision. I would, for example, never respond with ‘I don’t care’, ‘I’m not sure’, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I haven’t thought about it enough to have made up my mind’. There are many things about which I care little or nothing, but I still have an opinion on them. For instance, should homosexuals be allowed to marry? I actually don’t care, but my opinion is ‘No, they shouldn’t’. There will be more on this later, in the chapter covering why I am outraged by homosexuals.

  The purpose of this disclaimer is to point out that everything contained in the pages of this book represents my personal opinion on a range of subjects, at this particular point in time. There is no point of contention. These are my views. End of story.

  Luckily, I am easily outraged. While the world is essentially paradise, and in New Zealand we are particularly lucky to experience paradise acutely, nonetheless it is full of shits, arseholes, mindless bureaucracy and petty prejudices. This is grist to my mill, because unlike so many people I am not shy of expressing my opinions and calling things for what they are. This is because I actually don’t care what people think of me. And I am not at all sure why that is. My mother, whose mind is increasingly letting her down, is a delightful woman whom I love dearly. But like many, particularly of her generation, she feels inferior, not worthy and frightened of authority, and has a desire and concern to be liked and accepted. Why none of that is important to me is quite frankly beyond me. It must just be that I am so confident I am both right and good.

  I recall once sitting in a bombed-out café in a destroyed village, somewhere in Croatia, with a beautiful girl in her early twenties. This was her home, the only home she had ever known; and this was her war, hers through birth. Most of her family, her friends and all of her freedoms were gone. Her past destroyed, her future hopes and dreams shattered, or at the very least changed forever.

  You might well be wondering where I am going with this — the book is an emotional rollercoaster.

  The thing is, I was talking to this girl about her extraordinary situation. ‘What,’ I said to her, ‘is the very worst thing about your circumstances?’ And in the midst of this desolation she told me that by far the worst thing in her life was her inability to openly say how she felt. To speak her mind. To tell her truth. She told me that the sickest societies must surely be those where people are condemned or killed for saying how they feel.

  HOUSEKEEPING

  Since everything in life — thanks largely to OSH or its equivalent — seems to start with someone pointing out the location of the toilets, the exits and giving some half-arsed direction with regard to procedures in the unlikely event that an alarm sounds, I have decided to start this book with a little housekeeping.

  As the very existence of OSH or its equivalent is one of the many things that outrage me, I won’t do them the service of pointing out the obvious. Such as what to do in the event of a paper cut, sore or tired eyes as the result of lengthy reading in poor light, or the dangers of becoming engrossed in my book while operating heavy machinery. Let’s face it, like the locations of the exits, if you can’t work this out for yourself then you are wasting both your time and mine, in that you are unlikely to comprehend anything that follows.

  However, in the unlikely event that you drop this book in the dark, lighting will appear to guide you to its whereabouts. Please follow the instructions of the voice inside your head, which I accept has led you astray on many occasions over the years.

  So, while this book contains many pages that are consecutively numbered, it is not essential that the following chapters be read in any particular order. You can, for instance, read the book from the back to the front, more or less, (particularly if you are of Asian extraction) and the end result will be about the same.

  While what’s in this book is damned entertaining, you should be prepared to be frustrated and even at times outraged yourself by some of my opinions. Now that’s value for money!

  While I find the sporadic changing of font sizes and styles and the odd placement of blank sections damned frustrating, you will notic
e I have utilised these techniques at times. Partly to pad it out, partly to give you the satisfaction of thinking you read faster than you really do, but mostly because it is my book and I have chosen to.

  Finally, I am not a particularly litigious person and I will not tolerate legal advances from those who are. If there is something in this book that offends you to the point that you choose to take it further, good luck to you; I will have no part of it.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Illustrator

  Cover Artist

  Dedication

  Disclaimer

  Housekeeping

  Queuing for the carry-on luggage x-ray machine at airports

  Paul Henry

  SkyCity

  Celebrity endorsements

  Music on New Zealand public radio

  Plastic shopping bags

  Taking snaps

  Bad TV

  Cleanliness in fast-food outlets

  Cookbooks

  Cosmetic surgery

  Flying

  Generalisations

  Homosexuals

  Immigration

  iPads

  Louis Vuitton

  Maori activists

  Marineland Napier

  Muslims

  Nudity

  Boating

  America’s Cup

  The New Zealand Herald

  Olive

  Scientology

  Seven Sharp

  The Great Gatsby by Baz

  Winston Peters and democracy

  Top nine groups of people who outrage me

  Designated parking

  Public holiday surcharges

  Coca-Cola

  Cultural sensitivity v health and safety

  Dieting

  Driving

  Feminism

  Gay marriage

  Invincible cyclists and gym-goers

  Las Vegas / New York

  Politics

  Money

  Smokers

  Obesity

  Parenting

  Patriotism

  Queuing

  Religious tolerance

  Writing

  Tertiary time-wasters

  Unfinished business

  Tipping

  Tweeting

  Vanguards for outrage

  The elderly

  Vagrants

  Philanthropy

  Accountants

  Alcoholism

  Attractive pricing

  Beneficiaries

  Child abuse

  Childbirth

  Service stations

  Tax

  It’s like you’re in my head, Mr Henry

  The origin of …

  Lesbianism

  Affairs

  The New Zealand Labour Party

  Very rich people

  Further business

  Cars

  More further business

  Bureaucracy

  Dog owners

  People who just stop

  Kim Dotcom

  Further, further business

  Extended warranties

  Rolf Harris

  Manners

  Libraries

  Final further business

  Rugby and other sport

  Call centres

  Cold-calling

  Pronunciation

  Political zealots of all persuasion

  Faux compassion

  Shit that doesn’t do what it purports to do

  Parking fees

  Faux mystique

  Climate dooms-dayers

  Greenpeace and other pious interferers

  Anti-whaling brigade

  Taxis

  Wine served too cold

  Lying

  Grandeur

  Personality

  Knowing I am right

  Conclusion

  Last page

  Companion book

  Copyright

  QUEUING FOR THE CARRY-ON LUGGAGE X-RAY MACHINE AT AIRPORTS

  I am regarded by many as arrogant, and while this is a wholly incomplete description of my persona, it is not wholly inaccurate. I am a very complex individual. And, yes, arrogance is a trait I rightfully display at times. There is, though, a form of arrogance I never display. It is an arrogance I condemn completely. It manifests in individuals who are so self-obsessed that they are blind to others. These people feature heavily in many chapters in this book. Irrespective of how deserving or otherwise, rich or poor, wholesome or corrupt you are, the queue for the luggage scanner at airports is the great leveller. The élite passengers such as myself, who up to this point have been segregated by one of the last wonderful remnants of a legal class system, now mix uncomfortably with the riff-raff just before, together, we embark on the indignity of having our prized possessions irradiated.

  It is here that these supremely arrogant morons are at their most harmful. Why, while they have waited in the queue, did they not remove their laptops from their rucksacks? Why did they not sip the last of their water from their stupid sipping bottles? And what made them think that they were so special that they could get a litre bottle of breast milk onto a plane to so-say ‘feed a child’? They cluster at the entrance to the x-ray machine pulling Christ only knows what out of their pockets, rifling through their belongings and saying things like, ‘Well, where am I going to get a little plastic bag now?’ Back and forth they go, to the annoying tune of the electronic warning as yet another metal object is found about their person. All the while holding me up. Suited businesspeople travelling together are often completely oblivious to the queue they are in, let alone the people they are queuing with. They are engaged in life-changing conversations about some bloody computer thing or stupid damn product, when, ALL OF A SUDDEN, ‘Ooh, we’re at the x-ray machine! It’s time to toy with the idea of removing from our luggage the myriad electronic devices we have and decanting our Old Spice!’

  I am within sniffing distance of the Air New Zealand lounge. I can almost taste the wine and the gluten-free treats they have prepared for me. I can’t access any of this, though, until these people, for whom air travel seems to come as something of a last-minute shock, get out of my way. Like voting, there should be some kind of simply administered test to ascertain whether or not someone is too stupid to fly. That would surely cull the dead wood from the queue for the carry-on luggage x-ray machine.

  There are many jobs I couldn’t possibly imagine being able to tolerate; working on one of these x-ray machines would be one of them. How these people avoid the urge to stab to death these mindless individuals, I have no idea.

  QUESTION: Why can’t I take this large bottle of water on this plane? It’s only a bottle of water …

  ANSWER: Six abrupt, forceful lunges at the chest with confiscated nail scissors.

  QUESTION: Do I need to take my laptop out of my rucksack?

  ANSWER: Six abrupt face blows with the back of a Compaq Presario.

  Now this kind of theatre would be worth waiting in line for.

  NOTE:

  If you recognise yourself by the behaviour described, you could be thinking: ‘Who the hell does Henry think he is? He can just wait in line for me to bugger around as much as I like.’ Do you see how arrogant you are?

  Fix yourself. Or don’t travel.

  PAUL HENRY

  Despite being aware of a small selection of less-than-optimal personal traits, coupled with an almost insignificant number of partial inadequacies, I consider myself to be perfect. If, though, I were pinned to muddy ground next to a rising freshwater tide occupied by piranhas and forced to acknowledge something about myself that should outrage me, it would be this: my life has been compromised by my inability to apply myself to any task for any significant length of time. In short, I can’t knuckle down.

  That’s why I have no career. It has just been a series of jobs. I have witnessed colleagues crawl over upturned bottle-tops to attend the opening of another tedious show or go to another dreadful c
elebrity party only because it might be good for their career. Might. I would rather not have a job at all than spend any time talking to dull people who are only there themselves to advance their positions.

  On numerous occasions I have placed significant obstacles in the way of people trying to offer me, or persuade me to do, things that others would die for the opportunity to do.

  Writing this book alone requires all my concentration and a bevy of souls to wrestle me to a computer or iPad. It’s not that I don’t want to do it. Well, it sort of is. It’s mostly, though, that I am quite happy to put things off and risk never doing them. I have just done so much already. My enthusiasm for ticking boxes has waned to an imperceptible trickle. I can only imagine how successful I might have been had I been different. That’s if I could be bothered to imagine it. So, as the piranhas lacerated my private parts I would reluctantly confess to outrage at my comparative apathy to my own advancement.

  FOOTNOTE:

  A special thank you to all those who turned up to my last book launch, of What Was I Thinking, in 2011. To be honest, it was a bit of fun. I am sure no careers were advanced, although I did catch at least two people pitching book ideas to my publisher … Opportunistic bastards.

  SKYCITY

  The debate surrounding the Auckland Convention Centre and SkyCity’s ‘deal with the government’ highlights the huge void between what Helen Clark would refer to as the ‘wreckers and haters’ and the reasonable people who want to advance New Zealand as a great place to live, work and visit.

  Now, I have an association with SkyCity. It is an association I am proud of. Why? Because SkyCity is an enterprise that represents quality, exceptional business practice, and continual advancement for our country. One of the biggest employers, ratepayers and taxpayers in the country, they are also progressive. Building and running the best restaurants, function centres, hotels and — yes — gambling facilities.