The questionnaire Which living person do you most admire?
Tourettes (Dominic Hoey) is an Auckland-based rapper, writer, poet and teacher. Late last month he released a joint book and album project entitled Feel Like S**t, Looking Great ,amixof poetry, stories, punk and rap documenting his experiences with the New Zealand health system.
What are you plugging right now?
‘‘It’s an album, and also a book with all the lyrics and pictures, loosely designed to look like the Dadaist manifesto I saw when I was in Germany. I started writing it as a spoken word album, but it needed some more up-tempo energy. I never get video funding after I gave New Zealand On Air a hard time years ago, so also made the video ourselves at a cost of around seven dollars. The title refers to me having a chronic auto-immune illness called Ankylosing Spondylitis, which is like arthritis. It’s in remission right now, but when it’s bad, I can’t walk very well. When I get weed, I always joke that it’s medicinal, and it does diminish the pain, but really, I do it for fun.’’
What’s your idea of perfect happiness?
‘‘I’m happiest when I’m creating and performing. I also love teaching writing and poetry. I work teaching people who have been excluded from mainstream education, and it’s amazing to watch people as their skill and confidence grows.’’ ‘‘Probably Patti Smith. She’s a huge influence on my work, and she’s been consistently inspirational. A lot of people eventually take a major f...ing misstep, but she has stayed strong and creative and principled for a very long time.’’
Ever stolen anything?
‘‘Oh, yeah. In our early 20s, me and my mates had this competition to see who could steal the biggest thing. I ended up stealing a keg of beer from behind a liquor store, but it had no pump so we had to puncture it with a hammer and screwdriver and empty it into a bath, then drink the beer out of the bath. But then, just after that, my mate stole a surfboard, which was bigger, so he won.’’
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
‘‘Probably my hunched shoulders, which is part of the disease. I forget that I have it, and then I see a photo and you can see that my spine is curving forwards now like an old dude.’’
Which living person do you most despise and why?
‘‘Paula Bennett. To be honest, I despise every member of the National Party, but especially her. She came up poor as a solo mother, and then once she became a politician, she just pulled the ladder up, you know? She works on policies that harm her own people, and I have no respect for anyone who betrays where they’re from.’’
How would you solve rising house prices?
‘‘You persuade people to be less greedy. You bring in rent caps like they have in a lot of places overseas, and you don’t let people own multiple homes while other people are living in cars and garages. And people need to build warm, dry, affordable apartments. There are a whole bunch of shockers here in Auckland that are empty, because they’re charging exorbitant prices for what are basically corridors with tiny cupboards coming off each side. The council shouldn’t be letting people build places like that! ... You just know that those are your future downtown ghettoes right there.’’