Features

Shane Cortese; a man with more talents than there are shades of blonde streaks in his hair. A man who bravely made a comeback after a tragic fake tan incident during Dancing With the Stars that has permanently left his skin a strange, inhuman, yellowy-brown hue.
 
2010 was a triumphant year for the ex-Shorty Street bad boy with the ripped bod, one in which he reminded the whole country why he is known as New Zealand’s most versatile entertainer since Prince Tui Teka.
   Most actors would not be able to move on from playing the 16-year-old-pashing, double-murdering Dominic Thompson of New Zealand’s favourite comedy, Shortland Street. But Cortese followed this up with a win on Dancing With the Stars, a cameo as himself in Whale Rider, numerous women’s magazine covers, and a part as lovable scammer Hayden Peters on New Zealand’s most-watched drama, Outrageous Fortune.
   Cortese himself says that his proudest moments this year were his numerous mentions in Critic. In the very first issue of the year he was identified as Salmond Hall’s most famous ex-resident. A back-cover advertisement to buy Gardies in March urged potential buyers to “not miss this opportunity to buy the old watering hole of Dunedin ‘giants’ such as Marc Ellis, Michael Laws and Shane Cortese.” This little-known piece of history soon got coverage in the ODT, and farewell event planner Blake Luff was reported as “hoping to get Otago graduates Marc Ellis and actor Shane Cortese involved.”
   Our 85th Birthday Issue celebrated Shane Cortese’s birth as one of the most defining events of 1985. The fact that the once self-proclaimed ‘King of Dunedin’ Shane Cortese has turned his back on the city was named as one of the shittest things about Dunedin a couple of weeks ago, and last week he used his recent visit to Somalia to testify that the country is a cauldron of violence and bloodshed. We’re still waiting for the ODT to follow up on these important stories.
   When not filming Outrageous Fortune or removing unexploded land mines in Uganda, Cortese has spent 2010 touring the country as the lead singer of his rock ‘n’ roll tribute band The Sounds of ’58 and answering questions for his fan site, shanecortese.com:
    How many emails do you get from fans a day? It depends some write real letters!!! 
    What is your earliest memory? Sitting on a fire engine with a broken Leg.
    Does anything get you annoyed? Yes People who feel they have a right to abuse me cause I’m on the tele.
    Do you have any bad habits? I spend too much time on my hair.
    How were you described in your high school yearbook? Always on the sports field, with nice hair.
    Is there anything amazing you want to do? Drive a convertible all the way along route 66.
    Do girls recognise you on the street and stalk you and stuff? Yeah – but that’s kinda cool and I’m approachable.
    Did you always want to be an actor? No, I wanted to play cricket for New Zealand and be a fireman.
    Favourite female singer? Atomic Kitten.
 
 
   1st Runner-up – The ACT Party 
 
   The ACT Party started the year hoping to swiftly move on from perk-busting leader Rodney Hide getting busted for perk abuse in late ‘09. They had no such luck. 2010 will forever be remembered in ACT circles as the year of fuck-up after fuck-up.
   Undoubtedly the funniest and most infuriating disaster was ACT on Campus President Rick Giles’ interview with Oliver Driver on Sunrise. Giles shot to national fame with a performance in which he out-David-Brented Brent himself, his most memorable quote being “I think my argument’s so powerful that there’s no need to talk about it.”
   The next chapter was the demotion of Deputy Leader Heather Roy in August. By many accounts the most promising and talented politician in the party’s otherwise aged-white-male ranks, Roy was toppled in shady circumstances. Hide offered a hundred ‘no comments’ on Roy’s axing, leaving many pundits to guess that he demoted Roy because she was perceived to be too much of a threat.
   And then there was David Garrett. The furore started when it was revealed that Garrett, who was the party’s law and order spokesman and the man responsible for the “Three Strikes” Bill passed into law in May, had received an assault conviction for punching a doctor while on holiday in Tonga. Soon a much more startling previous criminal transgression was revealed: in the 1980s Garrett stole a dead baby’s identity to gain a false passport. Garrett was soon out of Parliament, but he can be thankful that the leniency granted to him by our law and order system allowed him a future career as an MP, during which he successfully rallied to remove the same leniency.
   ACT’s only apparent high point in the year was the passing of their VSM bill by a Select Committee late last month. It might pretty much mean the death of pretty much every student association countrywide. Yeehah.
 
   Finalists:
   John Lewis
   It’s been a spectacular year in journalism for one of the ODT’s most senior reporters, John Lewis. On one May Saturday, the ODT ran a story about how the Design Department’s days were numbered. The story was based on Lewis getting a “leaked document.” The following Tuesday, things got weird. The story was still on the ODT website, but it clearly should not have been. “REMOVED AT MURRAY’S REQUEST; POSS ISSUES WITHH STORY” (sic) was the new headline, and a red box up the top said: “This post has been submitted for moderation and will not be submitted until it has been approved.” Murray, in case you are wondering, is ODT Editor Murray Kirkness.
   Murray was unhappy because some parts of the story were not actually based on fact. The University was even unhappier. When contacted, Lewis said that Vice Chancellor Sir Professor David Skegg contacted Editor Murray Kirkness and demanded the story be pulled. “He didn’t want a correction, he just wanted it taken down,” Lewis said. But why wasn’t a simple correction made? “You’ll have to ask the Editor about that.”
   So we did. He wasn’t as talkative. Amongst a bunch of “no comments” was this gem: “It is not my place to have to explain a story.”
   The fallout from this strange saga was not kind to Lewis. In Issue 12 we printed a collection of the stories he’d filed in the weeks following Critic breaking the story on May 3. It was clear that he’d been demoted from the glamorous University portfolio to the old people and local schools beat, e.g. “Columba College mother slapped with a $60 parking fine whilst trying to pick up her daughter.” (May 18)
 
   Dunedin’s Party Elite
   Oh, what a sad year of partying you would have had in 2010 without the efforts of Dunedin’s Princes of Parties, the men who organise, promote, and provide the beats for our city’s biggest social gatherings. Callum Fry is the impresario behind Wilder Promotions, the organisation responsible for all your loosest/tightest nights this year: Grad Parties One and Two! (Three was cancelled due to low ticket sales), and numerous other cloned beatfests at Bath St. Such is the power this man wields over your local party scene that half of Los Angeles now refers to P Diddy as ‘The Black Callum Fry’.
   DJ Higham has provided the fresh new sounds that have had your hips shaking and body swaying at South Bar in 2010. Higham’s trademark confidence and swagger has been backed up weekend after weekend with his unarguably unbeatable skills at plugging in an iPod.
 
   Paul Henry-related-Facebook-Group Members
   For providing the best demonstration of the damage this unapologetic bigot has caused to race relations in this country. It is impossible to not be disenchanted with the humanity of your countrymen and women when reading the outrageous comments of Henry’s supporters on pages such as ‘Paul Henry Start Your Own Show’ (~9000 members) and ‘Paul Henry, just saying what we are all thinking’ (~6000 members). If only Henry’s resignation statement had been a little bit sincere, one could imagine that it was reading appalling comments from his self-proclaimed ‘like-minded New Zealanders’ like the ones below that made Henry finally realise what types of viewpoints his statements have validated:
   Ann Cooper: “Hey people . . . everyone in favor of Paul Henry staying with breakfast change your profile picture to him . . . Then the media might take notice . . .”
   Jude Hewitt: “WELL acutually he was making fun of a nzer wasnt he, didnt john key say hes a nzer through and through, so wots that actually got to do with india, hes a damn nzer isnt he, ??”
   Anne Curry: “It's been said that NZers ‘just don't say things like this...’. What planet are they on? MOST NZers say things like Paul's been saying recently because NZ has freedom of speech doesn't it? That's why I love it here - the PCers need to get real”
   James Speedy: “paul henry was slightly racist but rightfully so”
   Bill Mason: “As 60yr old a Kiwi living in Aus - NZ you take life way too serious and are letting all of the PC wankers take control The GG is fat & he doesn't look like the New Zealander I perceive a Kiwi looks like so wht can't it be stated”
   Justin Rule: “I support Paul Henry isn't it funny that Indian's come here and complain about racism when they should be grateful to even be here in a country that has alot more opportunity than where they come from and come here and feel they have a right too complain about what is said on television”
 
   Shortlisted
   Sir Anand Satynand – “Or however you spell his fucked up fucking Indian name”*
   Jason Gunn – For finally leaving us alone after years of desperately trying to recapture his glory days on McDonald’s Young Entertainers.
   P Money – For maintaining a high public profile through his face-melting tunes and risky collaborations, like the one with Vince Harder.
   Shane Jones – The horniest man in Wellington, and proud.
   Youtube’s ‘cannabis user tripped out by bomb scare evacuation’ – Churr to just sitting at home having a few dots.
   Jesse Ryder – A fat, incredibly talented, hard-drinking, hard-partying role model for sportspeople of all ages.
   Rhys Darby – Formerly funny comedian shown by researchers to have already spent 340 hours on our TV screens in 2010.
   Alison Shanks – For bringing back the gold when pussies like Greg Henderson were too scared to even compete.
   Chris Carter – That gay old nutter determined to destroy his beloved Labour Party.
   Isaac Luke – The best and scrappiest hooker in world rugby league.
   Bob Parker – For best use of a crippling natural disaster.
   Michael Hooper – The Commonwealth Games Federation CEO, for his part in a Games that has daily made headlines for snake and used-condom infestations at the athletes’ village, empty stadia, and general dirtiness.
   Peter Chin – Culled by the Dunedin voting public, meaning the DCC phonebook now has less chins than an Asian … fat man … phonebook … or some shit like that.
   Taika Waititi – Wasn’t Boy a great movie?
 
 
 
   *A direct quote from Facebook – where the nation’s opinion setters hang out