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Finding Matt Marshall

Matt came to New Zealand to "find himself". I love that. Now, although Matt hasn't directly said that out loud you just know it. What he did say was "I don't know what I want to do, or where I'm going.. blah...blah..blah..." at this point, most people including myself shut off. It's a defensive mechanism that saves everyone a lot of time and heartache. We get the idea Matt.

But to really seal the deal, at the start of the trip whilst in Central Otago, Matt said "I fancy doing a WOOF." Working on an Organic Farm. As I understand it - you spend the day picking fruit and vegetables and they give you food and a place to stay. As if that wasn't enough "finding yourself" material he then told us of a friend who's been to this like meditation camp where "they pay your rent if you don't talk or make eye contact with anyone for 10 days." Sounds more like a cult to me.
"Dude, I'll pay your rent if you don't talk for 3 days - I'm practically carrying you round the South Island as it is" I replied. I don't think he saw the humour. I let it lie and hoped that he would find himself soon.

Roadtrip Fun

To pass the time in the car I continually entertained Matt with stories of my youth. Matt lapped them all up and begged for more, despite me warning that I didn't have a limitless supply.

The Movie Game

After some time we turned our attention to the movie game where you link actors/actresses to one another via co-stars in other movies. For example you might link Emilio Estevez to Julia Roberts by going - Estevez and Andi MacDowell in St Elmo's Fire, MacDowell and Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and Grant and Roberts in Notting Hill. That'd be a pretty easy one as there's only 3 links.

Anyway, we managed to link Judy Dench to Tim Robbins in about 10 moves, and Hermione Granger from Harry Potter to Robert DeNiro in about 12 moves, which Matt was really proud of. That was about as far as we got on this particular occasion - so we swiftly moved on to the next game.

Top 5 Lists

This involved simply listing your top 5 - movies, songs, bands, chicks, athletes, female tennis players etc etc. The highlight (let's be honest you can't polish a turd, but there were definitely highlights to us) was naming your top 5 Brant Lakers to spend a day off with. I listed MacKay (you've gotta have a foreigner with an accent for the obvious reasons), Haller (because he doesn't get out much, but when he does...!) Jake (because Jake is the only person who signs his emails - “the one and only, Jacob Frey”. Actually he’s the only person I know that signs his emails “Jacob Frey”, but the epithet, as I call it, “the one and only” apart from sounding a bit like the great one-hit-wonder classic Chesney Hawkes song from 1990, under normal circumstances would, if used by most people, seem arrogant. However, for Jake - it happens to be absolutely “cock-on”, as a couple of British joiners would say when checking the level of their newly built worktop.) I guess I'd have to also take Asa, as he turns into some kind of comedy stand-up act when he walks into any bar, and finally (and this guy is one of the few humans on this planet who could also sign his name "the one and only") Enigma. If you've never seen a man sprint at full speed into a wooden pillar (head first) without feeling a thing - then he's your man.

Matt's list comprised Luis, Bobby G, Fabbi, Harry Herbert, and Me (of course). I might have messed that list up a bit, but it was something like that.

We continued to torture a series of equally dull and mindless games - like "the name game" - famous people first name last name - blah, blah, blah, "name that tune" from the intro of songs on my iPod and also "talk for a minute on ... without stuttering, pausing, repeating or straying off on a tangent". Not surprisingly i was the best at all these games, despite having to talk about "haemrrhoids, "genital diseases," and "bowel cancer". I was beginning to understand why Matt was still struggling to find himself.

Inside his young and fettered exterior was a child still trying to express himself. Unfortunately he was no closer to discovering what was really inside there. We can only hope and pray.

Until next time.

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