Conditions and possibilities, young lover and plaudits

I’ve been a long-time proponent of the book On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as Her Young Lover, and I’ve just had the slightly unusual yet highly amusing experience of watching my friend, a TV news anchor, introduce a story about a play about the book staged and directed by another friend, who just happens to be said news anchor’s boyfriend. Oh, and it was a friend who wrote the book in the first place. Not that I can reveal his top secret identity (as speculated on, with woeful inaccuracy, here).

Wellington’s daily newspaper, the Dominion Post, called the play “brilliant“, and another reviewer has said “it is exactly the sort of social and political satire we need to alleviate the inevitable earnestness and nastiness of the looming election campaign”. That’s a job well done, Arthur.

Arthur is also the main brains trust behind the Lonesome Buckwhips, a garage-country band of which I was a founding member (though the others now try to write me off as a mere session musician). Despite being debilitated by my departure, the Buckwhips have gone on to great success, winning best comedy act at the Wellington Fringe Festival, and now being named as a finalist in New Zealand’s most prestigious comedy awards: the Billy T Awards.

Starting to feel like an under-achiever. I mean, where’s my book and play?

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