Dons and dickheads

I was hoping to write about something other than someone from Wellington saying something stupid or ignorant. Alas, there’s no rest for those hoping for such a reprieve.

- Aaron Smale

The latest example was at an event where a middle-aged Pākehā man heard another middle-aged Pākehā man behaving like an obnoxious dickhead, turned to him and said, “Shut up, you dickhead.”

The first middle-aged Pākehā man was Don McGlashan, songwriting rangatira with a side hustle in recognising obnoxious dickheads.

What drew McGlashan's ire was the obnoxious commentary coming from the seats behind him.

McGlashan, who's a renowned chill dude, recognised a dickhead when the evidence was clear but didn’t recognise the identity of this particular one. It wasn't until after he'd told the dickhead to shut up that he realised it was Chris Bishop, cabinet minister and leader of the House.

What kicked off the exchange was a performance by muso Stan Walker at the Aotearoa Music Awards, sung in te reo and accompanied by a kapa haka group and a few flags and banners.

Dickhead couldn't cope with this overt display of Māori identity and pride, which led to him declaiming loudly that it was all a “load of crap” and political branding. Which provoked McGlashan to rather brashly tell the dickhead to shut up.

Bishop looked even more of a dickhead by wearing a Fur Patrol T-shirt to try to appear hip. The band’s lead singer, Julia Deans, thought he was a dickhead, too.