Dirty Politics

Read the first 6 chapters; it's quite interesting, but some of the detail makes my eyes glaze over. My main thought is that the left does this too -- though it's mostly keyboard warriors on social media these days, rather than the old-school political blogs. In the preface, Nicky Hager mentions that his main source for the book was an 8GB flash drive someone sent him with leaked emails etc., and the book sometimes feels like a counter-smear campaign to combat Cameron Slater. - It's funny how many of the MP's are still around today, which probably says more about National's complacency than the relative infamy of Whale Oil. - As for myself: I'm more of a single-issue activist than someone who cares about the minutiae of politics itself; if I wasn't friends with Gary, all that stuff would fly over my head. My campaigns have mostly just been about weed, though I ramble about whatever pops into my head. I think I'm slightly savvier due to attending Question Time, but honestly my dream is legalised drugs and making movies rather than becoming a politician. - More rambles about my soap opera of a life: As for whether the Government spies on me... well, I'm fairly sure that they do, though I'm a paranoid bipolar person prone to delusions of grandeur. I definitely think the Government isn't keen on Shipwrecked on Islands, but I respectfully disagree with their attempts to censor me. I think they're picturing a different kind of movie to the one that I'm picturing*, and the so-called silver linings deal re: my Tina show isn't my cup of tea. 👎✍ That show has driven me insane (several times), while Shipwrecked has mostly been a release valve for all the crazy shit that's happened in Aotearoa over the last two terms. I think the powers-that-be should wait to see how I handle the floods before crying foul: I haven't come up with an approach yet, but watching Wayne Brown on Q+A tickled my brain slightly ... though, yeah, that was obviously a little in-joke re: the sunset from the Q+A producers. 👽 Tbh I'm thinking it should have a cynical ending where everyone dies. It's that sort of a movie, and I re-watched The World's End recently, which had a bleak-but-hilarious ending. ... Got permission to use Chloe's alcohol speech for the Dakumentary -- I'll clarify for her team that the footage is unedited: I just added music and VFX. I'm keeping the Q+A one and Dakta's Nobody's Puppet film too, as it's ultimately just a YouTube playlist rather than a *movie*, and the Q+A one is pretty key to the message of the film. I'm thinking of cutting Season 2 from the premiere -- it depends on how long it's running. I might add music to Dak Headroom, but dunno what .. it's essentially aural wallpaper to cover for the lack of sound design, which isn't all that inspiring re: composing. Plus I don't have Sibelius or NotePerformer atm. - *ie I think they're picturing a Marvel movie, while my touchstones are B-pictures and experimental art movies. Also, yes, it's struck me on a few occasions that Nate could be Indian. I haven't changed that in the script yet, but it makes sense. Changed it now. While doing that, I saw all the draft/research/development pages and realised I've put in a lot more work on that script than the Weeded Out scripts, which were mostly written over a week or so. The pilot took longer, but I wasn't working on that all the time, while I've been thinking of Shipwrecked and drafting ideas since late-2019 (ie well before modelling Jo off Chloe). That's why I'm so loathe to let go of it -- it's been 4 years of work, and it took ages to find the opening segment, which I devised well before the Parliament riots. 👍