Don Farmer.
I am rereading the books of arguably the best-ever New Zealand writer, Barry Crump, a situation brought about after having swapped notes with a learned Masterton scholar of the written word, who paradoxically also happens to be a district councillor.
Like myself, he appreciates the unique humour and the extraordinary grasp of words the now deceased Crump was able to muster up to produce a yarn that no other author could hope to match. A lot has been said about Crump the man, but as far as his writing is concerned that is all by-the-by. He was a master writer of light and entertaining books and had a rare knack of being able to craft a story inter-woven with twists and turns that took his readers by surprise. Crump could keep you riveted to a full length book to the stage where you were reluctant to put it down even if the light was fading and the night was long. Likewise he was a magician when it came to short story writing, with perhaps Warm Beer and Other Stories being the best collection of short story comedy ever produced.
Last week as I immersed myself for about the third time in Hang On a Minute Mate, it suddenly occurred to me that another comedian with an almost identical surname is now treading the boards in the United States of America. Not a Crump but a Trump.
Billionaire Donald Trump is unbelievably being touted as the likely successor to President Barack Obama should he secure the Republican nomination. It is the sort of conjecture most people would have broken down in fits of laughter to hear had they been told so a year or two back. Trump's idea of comedy is significantly different from Barry Crump's though.
On the hustings in South Carolina he bellowed out "torture works" while repeating his vow to bring back waterboarding and other equally archaic interrogation techniques.
"Don't tell me it doesn't work. Torture works, okay folks," Trump trumpeted.
That was about the time my somewhat vivid imagination got to work and I mused over a presidential contest between Crump and Trump. In the red corner would be the unshaven Barry, in his black shearer's singlet, tweed pants, dirty workboots with the leather peeling away from the toes, a piece of cocksfoot twirling around in his mouth. In the blue corner would be Donald, immaculate in his Brooks Brothers tailored suit, dress shirt adorned with gold cuff links and a hand-crafted Black Label Ottoman tie, gleaming Italian-made shoes, and his toupee carefully in place.
Barry wouldn't waste words on trivia such as policy but he would hold the audience spellbound none the less with his Sam Cash responses to whatever Donald espoused.
"Now, hang on a minute mate," he would say, "I think it's time you learned how to skin a dead ram." Sensing he was losing ground and that the average Joe Bloggs was warming to the Hick from Hicksville, Donald would resort to more and more shrill and ridiculous outbursts and come polling day Crump would trump him. At that point I would love to be part of the Crump team, carted off to celebrate his win, not to the plush surroundings of Marcels on Pennsylvania Ave to be feted with Petit Fours and Crab Louis but to the Cash backyard in Tokoroa to share a haybale with Crumpy and pig out on pork bones and watercress before his departure for the White House.
- Don Farmer is chief reporter at Wairarapa Times Age.
- Roger Moroney is on leave.