Dr Jarrod Gilbert Sociologist
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Research
  • s27 Reports
  • Contact

Life takes you in strange directions

16/11/2013

2 Comments

 
When my high school decided they’d had enough of me, I went and studied advertising. I was 17 and I didn’t know my arse from my elbow.

Nevertheless, I won an internship at Walkers Advertising agency on Quay Street in Auckland. It was flash. I was not. It wasn’t a match made in heaven but a copywriter there named Peter Grace took an interest in me and saw a bit of talent. He must have been looking pretty bloody hard.

Anyway, one day I rolled in and told him I’d been offered a job as a ‘gopher’ at the New Zealand Herald. He told me that job would destroy my creativity and that I should turn it down. After a couple of days I took his advice and came up with a new plan. I was going to go to the small Canterbury town of Leeston, live in an old, dilapidated house deserted many years previous by my grandfather, and write a novel. Peter was not impressed. 

He said I didn’t have the discipline to write a novel: “If you go down there you’ll become an alcoholic, a brilliant alcoholic, but an alcohol nonetheless”. I told him I was going anyway. He wished me luck and said that I should at least enroll at university. That, he suggested, would give me focus. 

Exactly how he thought university environs would inhibit my drinking habits remains a mystery but after a long summer doing very little writing and much hitchhiking around the South Island I decided to take his advice and I signed up at the University of Canterbury.

I started in English and philosophy but after discovering that dissecting poetry steals its beauty and that determinism removes free will, I graduated in sociology and political science. Then, after creating havoc as the student president for a couple of years, I embarked on a PhD, which took far too long and toward the end seemed like it might get the better of me.

It didn’t and the result was PATCHED and now I’m starting my new project on murder. And for all of the people who helped and assisted me it was the words of Peter Grace that started it all. I have not seen Peter since the day he gave me that advice. If anybody knows him, please let him know that I couldn’t be more grateful. And that I’m not sure I became a brilliant alcoholic, but I am still trying.

Regards, Jarrod.
@JarrodGilbertNZ
2 Comments
Barrel
21/11/2013 08:22:50 am

You, my hooligan friend, are neither brilliant nor an alcoholic. The fact you turned down my last request, for you to accompany me whilst we partook in a night of revelry, due to your month long "detoxification" is proof enough that you cannot lay claim to the dubious title of "alcoholic". Also, whilst there has been occasion, to which one could alude to you having some semblence of brillance, Im afraid to say, they were just fledgling moments which passed all too quickly, due to the fact it was usually very much past the witching hour, and, your good self and I, were in rather inebriated states of mind. But never fear Doctor, for practice makes perfect, and I am always willing too help.

Reply
Nick Hambly
22/11/2013 06:13:55 am

Quite brilliant....I remember you when you were a 17 year and you didn't think you were flash then either. but i've never seen anything like it - in how many friday nights since.

A skinny wee thing with greasy shoulder length hair jump up on a bar (our first for the week) in front of close too 200 revellers and declare "I am the lizard king, I can do anything" just after we walk in. Then without fail, have Nobody disbelieve that statement.

Pretty much i too went to university just after graduating in Sociology, political Science (never voted since but going to vote for the republic referendum, and put myself on the Maori roll - in 2024 and vote in the absolute minimum amount of MPs, hopefully it remains at 7). and just to one upmanship you Mr gilbert-cause I had worked out that getting a Phd was bloody well deserved, and I was undeserving. Also graduated in History.

looking back at school, i started off for the first five or so years learning something new every day. then next five years was simply to understand rules. So knew how rules could be broken.

The one thing I can know I really learnt and kept with me from time at University. Is that the world has been shaped, especially the human one we construct for ourselves by simply having, minimum one person making a single decision about doing just a singular action.

So to this day you have still made me believe, and just cause i dislike people talking about themselves in the singular, changed the wording but not the meaning of your declaration on top of that bar on a wednesday night. "We can do anything" and having people believe that is simply "brilliant!!" The issue of brilliance and this needs to be noted is that when the massive see and believe in Brilliance. The attach it to other actions. And you, Mr Gilbert have always had people believe that about you. Just not many people can deal with it when confronted with it. So dont rest on any laurels you might have lying around. And its brilliant you simply are not.....Murder?!! i could murder a beer or two with ya......

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Disclaimer

    I reserve the right to change my mind in the face of superior evidence.

    Sponsored by

    Picture

    Picture

    WINNER: BEST BLOG

    Archives

    April 2022
    October 2019
    March 2018
    February 2018
    August 2017
    June 2017
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly