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| On the internet all the world's a stage: Dunedin Town Hall PHOTO http://architecturenow.co.nz |
no trains directly involved in this transport
just the magic box turned on
to since-teens friendships of 35 years spreading news
that the silver scroll music awards were live on internet-radionewzealandnational-tv
tuning in to see
our silvering hair doing us justice
our generation becoming the establishment
and the dunedin sound we rolled out for
weekend after weekend over three decades ago
having its 15 minutes of 2200-seater town hall nationwide broadcast musical fame
one of our guitar bending heroes
curated the show, happening for once, in his own home town auditorium
where he's gotten paid to platform his diverse musical performer picks
and not only that, he's chosen
a good poet friend and mentor of mine
known for putting poetry books on the streets nation-wide
to return to otepoti, edinburgh of the south, to present a gilded gong
to his long-time friends The Clean,
who were generally ignored in the 80s by the local private radio station
we worked for, and which barely wanted to sniff at the music scene happening right under its own nose,
in line with national cultural censorship cringe,
the band's two-minute hit-single video was clipped short on saturday-evenings' top-twenty tv-countdown then
anyway, these guys are world-legendary now
in my space-time microcosm
it's a sudden warm pleasure blast surprise to see our peers' people's poet taking that stage
- trod in memories past by the wombles, cilla black, split enz, sharon o'neill, straitjacket fits, and even me (aged 11 and 12 in the intermediate schools' massed choir extravaganzas) -
and it's clear that something momentous has happened for the proud, far-flung town
where, to spite the geography, all that consistent southern ground-breaking kept
pricking a reach to the more-populous-north's rafters
yes, we always knew our voice belonged up there,
and how fitting that from this night's all-women finalists showcase
the ironic catch-cry resonates in my morning,
"Stick it to the man!"
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