Chapter Nineteen: Led Zeppelin and Big Mama
Big Mama was questioning the Pom, the Brit that is, relentlessly. She was big, she was fat, she had really big hair, and the vowels in her Texas accent were longer than the Rio Grande, that’s for sure, and they were wider than the wild cowboy-lands stretching from El Paso to Houston. Big Mama was from the latter.
She was accompanied by her small silent husband and a very cool dog.
Mama was grilling the good-natured Brit who sat in front of the massive stone fireplace at the Blanket Bay Lodge with his left hand on the plump knee of his smiling, good-natured wife and his right hand holding a glass of ruby port.
It seems to be a tradition in all the fine lodges in New Zealand to serve port after dinner. Very British.
Blanket Bay had just opened the year before, in December of 1999, and Beau and I just had to try it out that first trip.
At first, I was only half listening to Big Mama’s interrogation because my mind was still on the little hut up in the mountains and our talk with Rangi about Taniwha, Guardian Spirits and Warning Spirits. Thinking about dreams and memories, reflecting about the seen and the unseen.
Also thinking about ‘Luke.’ Leukemia.
But Big Mama was definitely in the seen category of phenomena, and the heard category. She naturally magnetized everyone’s attention in the main room of the lodge and pulled us all in, right in to her person, like iron filings to a giant Texas horseshoe magnet.
Soon I too was paying rapt attention to her. She is the kind of American, the kind of Texan, that is very difficult to be around, too loud, too effusive, too everything. But Big Mama was different.
Something unbelievable for me, given her bigger-than-Texas-sized presence. She was likable. In fact, she exuded kindness, likability. Something about her just made her seem nice. Good. Kind. And oversized in every positive aspect of personhood.
Her husband was just the opposite. I don’t remember a thing about him; he never said a word, never moved a muscle. I’m not sure he was even breathing that evening.
Big Mama was maybe breathing and living for both of them. And probably eating for half of Houston.
“Are ya sure y’all didn’t do a concert in Houston in 1969? I was there and it was wai-ee-yld, let me tell you!”
I am not even going to attempt to represent Big Mama’s vowels in the rest of this. It would take you as long to read through each one as it took her to pronounce them.
“Maybe, I dunno. Maybe. We did a lot of gigs that year, some on the concert tour and some not listed. We did some just for fun. Never rested in those days.”
The Brit had a permanent and comfortable smile that was beguiling, an amused smile, a smile of a person very at ease in his own skin and with all of life, amused, at ease, and tolerant. If he was the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof under Big Mama’s cross-examination, it didn’t seem to bother him. I couldn’t imagine that anything ever did.
Big Mama described a sort of warehouse, the crowd, the strobe lights, the music, the wild Texas crowd of 1960s young people, the fun she had. She was a teenager in 1969 and it was her first live concert. She never forgot it. But she just couldn’t remember the names of all the bands that played.
She grilled him on every detail of that night, every detail that she could remember; he smiled throughout but just couldn’t be sure, maybe they had played in Texas, maybe they had played in Houston, maybe they had played in a warehouse down that street she described, all the American cities blurred together on their tours.
Big Mama grilled him for half an hour or more, determined to force him to say that, yes, he had played at Houston that night in 1969, that, yes, he did remember Big Mama right in front of the stage and, yes, it was one of the most memorable concerts he had ever played.
But, no, he wouldn’t admit to anything he couldn’t be sure about.
At last, Beau couldn’t stand it anymore and he blurted out, “Who are you?”
Big Mama was aghast.
“John Paul Jones, Boy! He is John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin, bass guitar and keyboards. Just the heaviest band of all time, just the biggest and best band of the seventies, maybe all time! Beau! Where in the hai-e-ell were you in the seventies?”
Her vowel, or I should say vowels, in the word “hell” went up and then down the scale like a slow-motion roller coaster.
“Weren’t you even alive, Boy?”
John Paul Jones laughed out loud.
“Awesome!” said Beau, though I knew he had always hated any kind of hard rock.
Big Mama swore that she and her husband were going to follow John Paul Jones to Christchurch, where he was producing a concert with several New Zealand bands, punk and hard rock and what have you, looking for new talent to promote in the great, wide, post-Led-Zeppelin world.
Just then, the owners of the lodge came strolling through the great room, arm in arm, paused, and smiled at the six of us seated around the roaring fire.
Now, it was summer, but the air-conditioning system in the lodge was cranked up so cold that the dining room and the main lodge room were freezing enough to warrant blazing fires that cracked and sizzled and popped.
I had never seen such ridiculous extravagance to set a scene since the year I taught in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A prince of my, um, acquaintance (that was long before Beau—and Riyadh had over six thousand in those days, God only knows how many there are today) used to keep his A/C so cold that even in the Arabian Desert he always managed to have a blazing fire in his British-replica library room.
The owners and builders of Blanket Bay Lodge were American. The husband had been a bigwig with Levi Strauss, a former CEO, I think. I wanted to tell him about his company’s namesake, Levi Junior, and about his facial moko and about Spirits Bay but decided to let it go.
Most of the super-lodges in New Zealand are owned by Americans, some of whom are nice people.
These lodges are:
Kauri Cliffs in the Northland;
Cape Kidnappers near Hawkes Bay over on the southeast coast of the North Island;
The Lodge at Paratiho Farms near Nelson at the northern end of the South Island;
The Lodge at Wharekauhau in the Wairarapa region on the south side of the North Island;
Blanket Bay on Lake Wakatipu down here in the south of the South Island, where we enjoyed our glasses of port with John Paul Jones and Big Mama.
The newest super-lodge is Otahuna Lodge on the South Island near Christchurch, a most charming old New Zealand homestead-turned-lodge — way to go, gay American owners from Manhattan!
The lone exception to these American-owned super-lodges is the Huka Lodge, which is owned by a Dutchman — let’s hear it for Abel Tasman again!
These lodges are expensive, but if you are looking for a super-deluxe vacation in New Zealand, these kinds of Paradise are for you. Gourmet food, world-class spa services, some of the most spectacular locations in the world — often on “farms” of several thousands of acres. And more charm than you can imagine. All are off the charts.
But back to Blanket Bay. The owners smiled at us all and asked if we were having a good time.
“Where did you get those eggs, those quartz rocks carved like eggs?” asked John Paul Jones politely.
There were several bird nests placed artistically here and there around the lodge, nests with little quartz “eggs” nestled in them. They were beautiful and gave an interesting effect.
The Levi-jeans wife went into a long spiel about their use of native New Zealand timbers and the local stones they had chosen to use in the construction of this most beautiful of Alpine-type lodges, about the natural splendor of the rugged surrounding landscape that they tried to mimic in the rugged and natural splendor of the lodge.
She waxed eloquent about fitting in with the local environment and culture and history of the South Island of New Zealand, about being an organic part of the Lake Wakatipu Valley. Then she mentioned the Paradise ducks located in the grand foyer — they were stuffed and mounted.
“These gentle and loving ducks are perhaps the reason that this area of the valley is known by some as Paradise. Some locals say that an early European settler fell in love with a local Māori maiden in this valley. When she asked him what he called his valley, he replied that any place was Paradise as long as she would remain at his side. It may be true. It may be true.
“Or it may be this area of the Valley is named after those loving Paradise ducks, which are native to New Zealand.” She paused for a beat or two. “They mate for life.”
“She likes that,” piped in her husband, as he elbowed her ever so gently, nudged her teasingly, lovingly on the arm.
Everyone laughed politely. Even Beau and I laughed politely, although we exchanged a glance. We had heard this story, word for word for word, and right down to the husband’s gentle elbowing gesture, when we first arrived two nights before. It was in response to a totally different question by a different guest.
It was a script. But this time it had a different ending. A Led Zeppelin ending.
“They mate for life.”
“She likes that.” Nudge, nudge.
“So where did you get the quartz eggs?” said John Paul Jones.
The denim-jeans wife was flustered, ambushed by the bass guitarist, the keyboardist. Big Mama waited breathlessly. We all did.
“Union Street in San Francisco,” said the blue-jeans matron hurriedly, ducking her head. “Union Street.”
Her husband took her by the arm and they practically ran out of the room.
“A magnificent performance,” said Big Mama as she beamed at John Paul Jones. “As good as that night in the Houston warehouse in 1969. May-ug-ni-fi-say-ent!” She applauded quietly. It was the only quiet thing she had done all evening.
“They mate for life,” said John Paul Jones. It was the first time he had not smiled. He looked very serious.
“And they stay together in death if you get your friendly taxidermist involved,” said Big Mama.
John Paul Jones looked around at all of us, at Beau and me, at Big Mama and her husband. “Madame,” John Paul Jones said to Big Mama, “do you know the bishop of Norwich?”
“The bishop of—? Why, no, I don’t.”
“He’s an awfully nice fellow, but he never remembers to pass the port.”
Big Mama’s laughter raised the rafters and beams of the Blanket Bay Lodge and she hoisted her hefty self off the leather sofa and politely poured John Paul Jones and his lovely wife, or partner, another glass of vintage port from the decanter which she had commandeered.
Then Big Mama poured for Beau and me.
She even poured a glass for her lifemate, who merely smiled.
Now when you fly over New Zealand, or when you drive or hike through the country, it seems like the most unspoiled country on the face of the earth. Pristine, unspoiled, natural. Pure New Zealand. And the country is very proud of its “green” reputation.
Don’t forget that NZ has only about four million people. And about 1.4 million of those people live in Auckland City. Over one-fourth of its population is in this one smallish city.
Add in the population of Christchurch in the South Island, the country’s second-largest city with almost a half million souls, and the capital of Wellington, with about four hundred thousand more folk, and we are up to two million, three hundred thousand people just in its three principal cities.
That leaves a remainder of about one million, nine hundred thousand in all the rest of the country.
The countryside is almost empty by world standards.
But the image of pristine, unspoiled nature in New Zealand is a little like those Paradise ducks in the grand foyer of Blanket Bay. A pretty picture but not the whole tableau.
Eighty million years ago, tectonic shifts pried loose from Gondwana the land that is today New Zealand. The rest of Gondwana eventually became the continents of Antarctica, South America, Africa, Australia, and the subcontinent of India. All would become colonized by mammals.
But not New Zealand.
And then, humankind spread out over every habitable continent on earth, including our nearest neighbor Down Under, Australia — Oz. All the continents were colonized by hominids and humans. By about ten thousand years ago, humans lived everywhere.
But not New Zealand.
Human colonization had tremendous effects on the evolution of plants, animals, and even landforms. But not in New Zealand. New Zealand was a land without humans, without mammals of any kind, in fact.
The New Zealand islands, this land without people, developed in isolation from the rest of the world.
Māori arrived on the scene a mere nanosecond ago in geological time, only about seven hundred years ago. The land they discovered was unstable because of earthquakes and volcanic activity, but also because of its shallow soils, very high rainfall, and a very limited group of species living here.
The living creatures who preceded the Māori were primarily insects and birds. Birds with no predators, birds who had lost the ability to fly. Like the Kiwi.
We know what happened to the giant moa and to many other species of birds who were hunted and eaten to extinction by the Māori. The Kiwi itself, national emblem of modern-day New Zealand, is a protected species that is very nearly extinct. Most Kiwis — the people — have never seen a kiwi — the bird — except on that can of shoe polish.
The impact of European settlement in New Zealand, the impact of ‘Pakeha’ settlement and development, started only two hundred years ago and was even more drastic.
The human modification of landscapes that had taken place over twenty centuries in Europe took place in North America, the New World, in only four centuries. These modifications took place in New Zealand in only one century.
One century.
Species, both plant and animal, were wiped out, land was cleared, trees felled and burned, and Pakeha introduced massive agricultural activities. Mostly sheep. New Zealand is famous for its huge numbers of sheep.
The thin soil, hammered by the heavy rains, is washing away into the ocean at a fearful rate. Scientists estimate the loss of soil in New Zealand, through erosion and transport by rivers to the sea, at four hundred million tons per year, mainly because of the fifty-five million acres of pastureland.
The annual loss of soil in New Zealand is ten to twenty times higher than the rate of natural soil formation. New Zealand agriculture, as it is practiced today, is unsustainable. One inch of sheep-and-rain-hammered soil can be washed away by a single windstorm or rainstorm, yet it can take five hundred years to replace it.
The life force of New Zealand is washing away with each rain.
Welcome to the New New World.
Geoff Park, a New Zealand ecologist and writer, says that humankind’s relationship with this last unpeopled world that was so recently discovered by our ancestors is completely unsustainable. New Zealand’s richest ecosystems have been exploited with “all the violence that modern science and technology could summon.”
What happens now in New Zealand is important for the whole world. Watch New Zealand. The settlement and development of New Zealand has been compressed, has been played out in a more intense and accelerated manner here than any other place in the world.
Unsustainability may also be played out here at a more intense, accelerated pace. The hole in the ozone layer is pronounced in its effects down here. And now they are going to begin drilling for oil in the Marlborough Sounds, which have some of the wildest weather in the Roaring Forties.
Watch New Zealand.
On that first trip to New Zealand, Beau and I left Blanket Bay Lodge and Lake Wakatipu and drove up through Central Otago—vineyards, orchards, beauty, and space. Lakes and mountains, snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps.
We turned west through Arthur’s Pass — where someone had effaced the “P” from the big roadside sign — Welcome To Arthur’s ass.
We did some hiking, tramping as they say in New Zealand, and then drove down the West Coast, where the Franz Josef glaciers come down from the Divide of the Southern Alps and right up to the semi-tropical ferns and punga tree ferns of the coast.
No one would ever believe, from traveling through the country, the warnings of Mr. Geoff Parks. I wouldn’t have.
But I kept thinking back to those Paradise ducks. They mate for life. Beautiful, gentle, loving. So let’s kill them, stuff them, display them, admire them.
There is Trouble in Paradise.
END OF CHAPTER NINETEEN
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Aaron Allbright’s novel in five parts will be published soon.
IN A DESERT OR A CITY
BOOK I
‘PRINCE CARTIER’ or HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE BEING GAY WITH MY SAUDI PRINCE AND TO START WORRYING
BOOK II
MONSIEUR LE PRINCE, PARIS
BOOK III
THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS
BOOK IV
TYROMANCY AND LUCIFER
BOOK V
WHY WAIT FOR THE LIGHT?