Why “Punishingly Haimona"?

One's my name, the other's my credo.

This is a special post to celebrate reaching over a thousand subscribers to this… Sub? Blog? Whatever 'this’ is. I thought it might be enlightening to write something about who I am and the values I try to bring to my writing.

My first experience writing for a publication was as the Film Editor for Victoria University's student magazine Salient in 2008.

My role was to fill anywhere from one to four pages with film reviews or commentary. It was some of the most fun I've had in my entire life.

I loved being around other people passionate about writing, most of them wanted to write about politics, this being Wellington, but I was still jaded by a childhood deeply entrenched in the beltway - like a child actor burnt out and deeply suspicious of the entire industry.

I’ve always loved cinema, it is still the thing I know more about than anything else, so it was a perfect fit.

It was great, but it also let me in on an unpleasant truth - most people can't write decent criticism.

This meant it was sometimes a slog filling the pages, there was one week where I had to write the entire film section (3000-4000 words on four to six mostly new films) alone.

The issue wasn't a lack of submissions, it was that every single review submitted was either a hagiography of the writer's favourite genre or director, or a hagiography of a film the wannabe critic believed they were 'meant to’ like.

Here were people who had been given the freedom to say anything - student media is famously controversy courting and I wasn't opposed to such antics if done well - they used said freedom to act as cheerleaders and parrots.

In that year, two sibling filmmaker duos with obsessively loyal fan bases released two of their worst reviewed films - The Coens with Burn After Reading and The Wachowski's with Speed Racer. I received more reviews of these films than any others, with every one being entirely uncritical.

The thinking seemed to go that because the Coens are geniuses, every film they make must also be a work of genius.

The Wachowski's, well they made The Matrix, so in 2008 that still meant to criticise anything they did was to criticise a film these writers seemed to have based some part of the late teens self around loving.

Nothing was viewed objectively, every review said more about the writer than the subject.

Later in my time at Salient I asked the Editor why he picked me to be Film Editor.

It was a fair question - other candidates had contributed reviews in the past, some were pretty decent writers, whereas I showed up with one review as my entire portfolio and spent half the interview outlining (in mean-spirited detail) the failings of the previous person to hold the role.

He told me I got the role because I was the only person who applied for the role who, when asked who my favourite filmmaker was, didn't say the exact same answer as the candidate before them.

Turns out six people applied, and five people said David Lynch.

Why Lynch? Because, as the Editor himself knew, it was meant to be the unspoken correct answer for wannabe cinephiles.

Liking David Lynch isn't a bad thing - Twin Peaks is a great show - but it was the on-the-nose choice.

It implied you were arty, a little edgy, but also not so pretentious that you would name some obscure non-english language director.

It was the safe answer, it said you knew what you were meant to like at that age, as a Uni student, in Wellington, at that time.

People weren't answering honestly, they were trying to give an answer that signified the right things.

I didn't answer David Lynch, clearly.

I knew that was the 'right’ answer but I had never given a 'right’ answer (still haven't) in my life and didn't plan on starting.

It turned out there was no right answer, the question was designed to weed out people who lacked conviction or true discernment. It was a Voight-Kampff Test for intellectual frauds.

My answer didn't matter, what mattered was that I had my own answer, that I wasn’t pretending to be something I'm not.

Even as I graduated to mainstream media - writing features, Op/Eds, and profiles for virtually every grown-up paying publication in the nation - I have always kept that commitment to myself that I will always be critical. I will always write from a place of truth, not of convenience or what might help me win powerful friends and allies.

Our local political world is full of craven sycophants, if I’m here for any reason it is to act as a brutally honest counterbalance to them.

The challenge I have found when dealing with some, but by no means all, fellow commentators is that many are that ‘right answer’ giver.

Some are in too deep with a political party, or a party president (looking at you, virtually all Maori media), that they're incapable of writing anything other than the equivalent of the Wachowski or Coen canonisation I saw from first years.

They're playing the role, parroting the lines. Some for direct payment, others to carry favour, and a few are just blinkered by their incurable partisanship.

That doesn't sit right with me. I have matured over the decades, but at heart I'm still the guy who will burn a bridge to illuminate the way.

That is why this blog is called ‘Punishingly’ Haimona, Because, due to a character flaw I have chosen to embrace, I'll say what I feel needs to be said regardless of target.

I don't feel like I owe any loyalty to anyone (other than my wife), I see the flaws in everyone, and no amount of money or praise will fix or silence me.

My opinions might be wrong - a lot of Green supporters didn't like me questioning whether Chloe Swarbrick was capable of leading the Green Party, some National supporters didn't like that I said Luxon lacks conviction, a prominent Maori politicians son called me a dickhead for writing about my experience with the racist Harawira family - but they're my wrong opinions. I have come to them earnestly, without favour to anyone, and through compulsive analysis.

This has severely limited my media career. I'm glad it has.

A dear friend has done his darnedest to get me into the punditry circuit but it's never quite worked out because they are looking to fill a role and I don't fancy myself an actor and I can be a touch strident.

I had a brief stint on an Iwi radio political panel but they stopped inviting me when I started criticising John Tamihere.

You can critique the Prime Minister, but you can't question God.

I find writing more pure, more honest, you're actually undertaking criticism not just filling a space on the political compass.

I'll be in the next edition of Metro Magazine with a profile of a politician I actually quite like. They seem like a really genuine person, we share many of the same values, so naturally my piece is a critique.

I pulled no punches, it would be doing the reader a disservice to do so. It would also not be me.

That's who I am, what I stand for, and what you'll always get with me - my punishing truth.