The five colours blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear. The five flavours cloy the palate. Racing and hunting madden the mind (Lao Tzu)

Photo by Arno Smit on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

There isn't much that you would call 'exciting' happening in Wozza's World right now. That's a good thing.

As Lao Tzu says, 'Racing and hunting madden the mind'.

Two weeks left of the school year, Nu Zild is in a holding pattern with containment efforts for the spread of covid-19 actually working so far (we're moving away from lockdowns and into a traffic light system that no one seems to understand), and spring is holding on - sharp coolish mornings in Central Hawke's Bay that eventually go sunny and warm.

It all feels like a kind of a lull and that's welcome - life can't be full bore, pedal to the meddle, 24-7.  

These are the crucial times of tranquil restoration that Wordsworth talks of in Tintern Abbey:

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration.

In my case, rather than think of the area around Tintern Abbey, it's a daily recollection of my friendship with two chums and how our lives, our friendship and love of music are intertwined.  

Love and peace - Wozza

There ain't nothing like a friend who can tell you you're just pissing in the wind (Neil Young)

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

Wie geht's?

Friends. No not the artificial ones on the TV sitcom. Real friends.

We all have them - companions to travel through life with.  

One school of thought is that there are four types of friend:

• Friends like flowers
• Friends like weighing scales
• Friends like mountains
• Friends like the earth.

The first two types are negative influences. A flower like friend is a fair weather friend. A weighing scale friend only is one when you are in a position of power. They drop you like a stone once you are no longer of use.

The other two types are the true friends - they go the distance, they support you no matter what.

It takes a while to figure out who they are - the mountain friends. Like the men in that old Mainland cheese advertisement - these things take time.

My friends who are still friends after 30 plus years are true friends. I've learned to appreciate them more and more as the years go by and I value their sincerity, honesty, helpfulness, and acceptance. 

Love and peace - Wozza

Remember when you were a little kid, what were the qualifications? If someone's in front of my house NOW, That's my friend (Jerry Seinfeld)

Patrick, Randy, Jacky and Wozza hit Taupo

Wie geht's?

Jerry Seinfeld's bit about your real friends came to mind during the weekend as Jacky and I spent quality time with some old friends at Maple Grove and then Taupo (where that selfie was taken).

When you're in your thirties it's very hard to make a new friend. Whatever the group is that you've got now that's who you're going with. you're not interviewing, you're not looking at any new people, you're not interested in seeing any applications. They don't know the places. They don't know the food. They don't know the activities. If I meet a guy in a club or the gym or someplace I'm sure you're a very nice person you seem to have a lot of potential, but we're just not hiring right now.

To paraphrase writer Alex Williams - up to your 50s and 60s, plenty of new people enter your life, through work, your wife's friends, your children's friends/partners and their families and, of course, Facebook. But actual close friends — the kind you make at school, university and in your twenties, the kind you call in a crisis — those are in shorter supply. 

That's very true. Patrick and Randy - thanks for a great spontaneous weekend!

Love and peace - Wozza

Sounds like a lot of supernatural baloney to me.

In Stand By Me, the writer at the end types: 'I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?'

True, but as I enter my 7th decade I can re frame that as: 'I never had any friends earlier on like the ones I had when I was sixty. Jesus, does anyone?'

The ones that have lasted are true gold. They are the ones who know you and are still friends.

All the shorthand of a lifetime of friendship is there and it's so easy with each other.

There's no pretense and there's always implicit forgiveness. We know each other.

Like most people in the post Facebook world we live in, I have over 100 'friends' (119 actually, I just checked. The median number is 200 so I have room for growth I guess) - many of whom I never hear from (and they don't hear from me).

Facebook has redefined 'friendship' by mingling the layers from periphery to inner sanctum. 

One of my oldest friends gave me some vinyl recently. It included an album we both know inside and out - The Monkees' Head. 

Probably, an album only 5 other people know as well as we do. In fact, most people on planet Earth have no idea it even exists.

I have become the keeper of the flame of that particular memory: a true honour!

Only a friend of long standing knows what that means.

Love and peace and dandruff, dandruff - Wozza

Old friends, memory brushes the same years (Simon and Garfunkel)

Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

Pals, buddies, mates, chums. 

Friendship. That's what this post is about. 

Hooked? Well - lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries 'hold!'

I love Jerry Seinfeld's riff on friendship: 

When you're in your thirties it's very hard to make a new friend. Whatever the group is that you've got now that's who you're going with, you're not interviewing, you're not looking at any new people, you're not interested in seeing any applications.  

As for someone like me in my late fifties (for a few more days people, for a few more days), I largely stopped hiring decades ago.

My whanau list below has a number of people on it who I love but many I never hear from anymore. Yet, I know, for a large number of them, as soon as we reestablish contact...bam. Instant connection.

A connection forged from shared history.

My oldest chums that I pal around with via Facebook and email are few in number but incredibly important to me. Frinstance, GK (a.k.a. Billy Wallace) and I have been mates since 1974.

Recently, he reminded me of a time we collapsed into hilarity over a story in Craccum - Auckland University's student newspaper. 

Collapsing into laughter (with Kevin Simms usually on board as well) was an occupational hazard in those days.

Recently, I was in Real Groovy wading through the vinyl sale bins when three young male hipsters walked in loudly. For the next half hour they laughed their private jokes, kidded each other about certain albums, and engaged in a wide variety of banter. All pretty loud and obnoxious.

I was immediately presented with a picture of how Greg, Kevy and I must have looked as we visited Real Groovy back in the day.

Good times, Billy. Good times.

Love and peace - Wozza