My Chemical Romance Vector Arena

BY SRIWHANA SPONG

The 6th of December is predictably dark and miserable. It rains and my feet get wet, which is not a good start. But on the corner of K rd and Pitt street Niki gives me three picture discs: Teenagers, Famous Last Words, and I Don’t Love You, and when I see Stevie dressed in a red and black tuxedo jacket I know it’s going to be the only night in the 07 calendar. I then spend a long but rewarding time drying my shoes and inner soles under the hand dryer in the Carlton Hotel/Club/Arms……who can remember? Its name is as innocuous as its décor.

Downtown the merchandise caravan looks like it has been invaded by a thousand teenagers with their mothers’ eftpos card. There is nothing left, but as Justin points out, ‘that logo makes everything look shit’. Which is true. It is pretty desolate outside the arena, but I am beginning to realise that I might be a late twenties minority. Justin buys beer, and gets ID’ed. The guy even checks the back of his drivers license??? I always love entering the Vector Arena, emerging into that warm blackness latent with expectation. Our seats are entry D, door 2, row P, seats 16 and 17. In front of me is a mini black parade of 12 year olds in tour t-shirts. The stand out, and my envy, wears a black and gold marching jacket. Someone I met for the first time earlier that night at Gambia Castle has ended up in the seat next to me. I can only conclude that some strange magic is crackling in the air tonight. We are to the side of the stage, and very close. Through my monocular we can read the set list, and Justin and I pass the time by texting my siblings downstairs that Gerard is whispering the song order in my ear backstage.

The lights get cut, and darkness prepares to crawl onto the stage. When the band finally begins its ascent Gerard waits at the bottom of the stairs, his long white fingers clutching the balustrade, head bent. Waiting. The new king of rock theatrics takes his sweet time before ascending to face a dark landscape full of screaming girls. And then a stream of profanities, flames bursting from the stage with a searing heat, fireworks so loud that every time they explode I jump. For a Guy Fawkes baby this feels like the day I was born.

Mama we all go to hell, but tonight it feels like the doors of heaven have split wide apart. Thousands of outstretched palms appear like daisies opening to the sun, and Gerard Way master of the dark and theatrical, snarls, spits and swears on all. High points are everywhere, the graph flatlines against the roof of heaven. Ray Toro gives a guitar solo, and Justin and I are blinded by a shard of light that explodes from his axe. A moment full of so many clichés, it somehow feels like genius. The night is one big anthem. When I don’t Love You grips the Vector Arena in its bitter embrace, thousands of cameras spontaneously puncture the darkness, and Gerard leads his underage parade to the stars, with the mother of all melodies. Cancer, which is surprisingly good live, envelops the arena in a hush so soft you could almost hear the grim reaper drop his scythe. The Black Parade, ‘the Bohemian Rhapsody of our generation’ (Justin), storms to an end with a fall of blistering auburn fireworks that rain down like tears.

MCR weave an hysterical gothic tale, unafraid in the face of a blinding melody, and as consciously over the top as Lisa Minellis’ false eyelashes in Cabaret. For all their blackness, these orchestraters of lyrical doom, are still good catholic boys, and what they inspire is more ethical hedonism than Rimbaudian tabletop antics. Like true showmen they save the best till last. Famous Last Words is a storming, scornful ode to the end of something you hoped might just last forever.



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The Green Crocodile Sandwich Bar, Darby St, Auckland City

BY SALLY CONOR

Working in the city sometimes feels a bit like an episode of Survivor; every lunch-break is like an immunity challenge and the race is on to find sustenance lest you perish or get voted off. Locating a simple sandwich can be as difficult as canoeing all the way around the island with a dead boar tied to your oar and sometimes you will end up eating something that resembles fermented yak’s testicles anyway. If, like me, you work in the city, you have probably scouted out most of the sweet lunch spots in town, and stick to your favourite haunts day after day, partly out of laziness and partly out of a fear that if you deviate from the tried-and-true, you might accidentally find yourself at McDonald’s eating pureed chicken gizzards cut with asbestos (otherwise known as Chicken McNuggets).

The discovery of a new lunch place is akin to finding fifty bucks in your old jeans pocket. The possibility! All of a sudden, one’s options are blown wide open. I recently received a tip-off about a sandwich place in town, down that sidestreet by The Body Shop and opposite The Recycle Boutique. I could hardly believe my ears! A place that makes ordinary sandwiches? In TOWN?? And what was more it had a cool name, dripping with exotic associations: The Green Crocodile.

I promptly went in search of this fabled food oasis. Now, I know of other places in town where you can get a regular sandwich made: there’s one in the SkyCity cinema complex and one in the Downtown foodcourt. However. These sandwich joints are in horrible neon MALLS. The very experience of visiting them is so unpleasant as to cancel out any pleasure, financial or gastronomic, incurred from getting a sandwich made to your tastes (NB Subway definitely doesn’t count because going in there is like visiting a mall anyway in its revolting same-ness, and all its branches smell of old meat and empty promises of ‘freshly baked’ bread… freshly defrosted blobs of stodge more like). The Green Crocodile is a regular shop on an actual street that catches real daylight and is staffed by real business-owners, not mall drones.

My first impression of The Green Crocodile was that half the title does not lie. It’s painted completely green on the inside! Cool! However, there was no evidence of a crocodile anywhere which was a little disappointing. I was at least hoping to be served by a person in a crocodile suit. Or maybe someone dressed like Steve Irwin. But in this case, reality was better than my imagination because I was served by possibly the nicest lady in the whole world. She called me ‘love’. She listened to my sandwich order like she really cared about me and my nutrition. And she wore beautiful shiny lavender eye shadow. A glance at the health certificate told me that this was Lesley. Lesley is my new favourite Auckland Personality. I am intrigued by her perennially cheery manner and dangly earrings. Her middle name is Pearl!

The sandwich itself was really yum: vogels with nice ordinary cheese, tomato and lettuce. I have simple tastes and am mostly a vegetarian but for everyone else there is a dizzying array of sandwich options for your eating pleasure. Lots of different breads, meats, salads, cheese, pineapple, pickle, condiments, cottage cheese… it was almost enough to make me order a double meat French roll with everything including two types of mustard. AND they do toasted sandwiches and burgers and milkshakes too! You can even buy yummy baked goods for one dollar. Just one dollar! NOTHING costs one dollar anymore. If this is the last bastion of the one dollar sweet in the whole of Auckland I wouldn’t be surprised. If only there was a booth and a jukebox I would make The Green Crocodile my new hang out à la The Peach Pit.

It seems like The Green Crocodile is one of a dying breed. I just heard last week about the imminent closure of another of my favourite lunch joints: Ima on Shortland St. Yael who owns and runs and cooks at Ima has been driven out by the exorbitant rent in central Auckland. She and Lesley operate at opposite ends of the lunch spectrum in terms of cost and ingredients (I like a delicious $8 Moroccan Tuna pie from Ima just as much as a $4.50 cheese sarnie) but they have one thing in common: they make their food with love and understand that lunch is a time to feed more than the coffers of the fast-food chain conglomerates. It’s about eating something that was made just for you with real food value and actually enjoying it. It’s about being able to zone out and drop fresh lettuce and chutney on your lap while you check your facebook page. It’s about somebody calling you ‘love’ even though they don’t know you.

Finding The Green Crocodile is another one of those Auckland moments for me – when you discover a new gem sparkling in amongst the dusty old scoria. A gem staffed by genuine people unaffected by both overpriced High St wankery and the mass-market sterilisation of the city. I intend to make Lesley my friend and enjoy many a chocolate milkshake whilst reading New Idea at the little table in The Green Crocodile. Ronald McDonald can go fuck himself.



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Shoes Sprts Shoes Style Wires for Casual Smart Casual Plus

BY TAHI MOORE

I SEE PEOPLE WEARING VANS
After I noticed people in photos in magazines and ads for jeans wearing Vans, I looked at some in a shop and they still looked the same. Then I saw three people wearing them. They were good. The soles are thick, which is tricky, except when they get it right.

THE INTRACACIES OF SPORTS SHOE DESIGN
I mean when anything gets a bit indistintive in the design it it gets a bit indistinctive. When design gets perfect it tends to get boring unless it's doing something really good. Casual shoes are good when they're plain, but usually they're sports shoes. Vans tend to have thick soles and a wavy logo that can go either way. that thick sole thing really stands out and they really need to be funny in another way to really work, and basic. And basic. aand basic. Sometimes you can do 3 colours, but usually it's 2 colours too much. There's no such thing as smart casual in sprts shoe land there's no such thing as dressed up. It won't work. The sprts shoes you put on today are the shoes you got because they looked really good with your jeans. That's it. You can't save the wavy line. You can't wear them and insist comfort. You can't hope they'll work when you're not looking or when someone else sees the something you don't right now. That happens sure but not usually. Usually it's all hope and a dream follwed by the comfort zone of memory loss oblivion. If they don't work now and you still buy them they'll know they won't have to work later on and you'll still wear them ha ha sucker.

CHEAP SHOES
Went to No1 shoe warehouse to try some Vans turned out to be lookalike nradn I liked the white chuck type shoes 20 dollars but then a voice from the jeans in depth research said don't by me I was made with below subsistence wages, probably. I tried to do research into that but nothing. What does that mean? I don't know.



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