Ukelele bashing Rena song released

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/26044-ukelele-bashing-rena-song-released.html

Tuesday 29th May, 2012

Tauranga City Council staff member Marcel Currin is venting his anger over the [derisory] sentencing [of only 7 months] of the Rena captain and second mate by dusting off an original song now posted on You Tube.

http://www.sunlive.co.nz/news/25940-mnz-welcomes-jail-sentence.html

[The Greek owned container ship manned by Philippinos smashed into the once beautiful Astrolabe Reef outside Tauranga Harbour and the cleanup operation has cost to date over $35 million, killed thousands of sea birds, and resulted in massive pollution all along the East Coast and Coromandal, to say nothing of the loss of the contents of over 1,000 containers, some containing the personal effects of intending migrants.]

The song - Rena versus the Ukulele - is a medley of rock anthems accompanied by a cut and paste style video parodied for the Rena situation which Marcel first wrote last year after the Rena grounded on October 5.

"My day job is at the Tauranga City Council so we were all heavily involved during the initial crisis," says Marcel.

"It was an exhausting time, there was a ukulele nearby and the song evolved as a kind of after hour's therapy."

The song was written in part as encouragement and entertainment for the friends he made at Maritime New Zealand.

"They've played it at a few of their meetings," says Marcel.

"I think it might have become a kind of cult hit for them in the same way the local government musical I wrote last year (also on YouTube) is for my own colleagues."

At the end of the video, in an expression of local frustration, the Rena is bashed into the ocean with a ukulele to the words "F*** the Rena!"

Marcel is also a published poet with his works including The Earth's Deep Breathing: garden poems by New Zealand poets, edited by Harvey McQueen, and Swings and Roundabouts: Poems on Parenthood, edited by Emma Neale.

In February Marcel published his first book, Ministry of Ideas, a collection of very short stories in which the ordinary world collides with the bizarre.

In the world of Ministry of Ideas you can have a beer with Jesus and get into an argument with a household spider.

A full version of the Rena video can be found on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0YiEOzV1MY

also on Marcel's Ministry of Ideas website at

http://www.marcelcurrin.webs.com