Aah Wellington

I really love living in Wellington at the moment. The thing I love the most is the amazing community of inspired visionary creative people around. Example A: The Cake Shop The Cake Shop is the new reincarnation of the Freedom Shop and resides where the old antique shop used to be on Cuba St. Following on the success of Oblong, it has been set up by a bunch of local activists who wanted to have a place to work, organise, socialise and just exist on their own terms. Not only have they created that for themselves but a hell of a lot of other people are using, enjoying and being inspired by the project as well. From what I can see it is the best example of true anarchist organisation in action. Well done to all involved. I can't name names cause I'll miss someone, but I must acknowledge Simon, u r a star buddy! What The Cake Shop does need is help. So if you think you have something to offer an internet cafe, tea shop, community centre in the way of volunteer labour (or even money would be appreciated!), I recommend The Cake Shop as an excellent venture to invest some time in. It gives back for sure! Example B: Street Art I love the fact that everytime I go anywhere in Wellington, I am confronted by opinion, and usually creative opinion. People think stuff and share it with the rest of the city. Now in most cities it is deemed innappropriate to treat public space as something to engage with. The best recent example would be whatever south island town it was where the local politician/businessman/wanker who got 'terribly offended' when Young Labour came to town and put stickers up. I mean for fucks sake... I digress. In Wellington, I am free, in fact encouraged and inspired to turn my thoughts into a witty sticker or stencil or even just a scrawl on the wall. If I get inspired to organise a community event there are literally thousands of walls, cafes and other places I can put posters and flyers. Nice. So big ups to whoever put in the work behind Why Are You Reading This. Now we can show off our street art to the rest of the world and hopefully inspire similar work in other towns. Example C: Never Giving Up So the bastards are dumping $40m worth of gravel through the middle of the Te Aro community and what are we doing about it? Ignoring it. Fuck The Bypass has never rung so true. It's not just fuck the idea it's fuck the fact it's happening. We will continue to resist the destruction of our community and continue to maintain a vibrancy in Te Aro. In fact, it's growing big time. The Council may think they have won some great battle but the battle against all the things the bypass has symbolised for so many people is a far bigger one. The pollution of our air, the destruction of community spirit, the blind stumbling along with a neocolonialist agenda, the abuse of women and children, the continued blatant disregard of indigenous people, is completely unsustainable and downright unneccessary to many people in this community. And they (on the whole) practice what they believe. That gives me so much hope. But the best bit about loving Example C, is that it's not just a Wellington thing. I have been talking to all sorts of people from all over the country recently and they have so much vision it amazes me. There's such a strong rumbling in a large number of communities that we do actually have the power to determine what happens in our own places. That we don't need to sit around for some other country's government or even our own government to allow us to create our own realities. I was astounded to read Garth George's column in today's Herald was one of the most uninspired, depressing thing I have read in a long time. I would hate to be one of those people who spent their lives either at work or running home to a suburb in an SUV... Stuff that for a life. Absolutely Positively Well Sprayed On