Episode 32 Freezing Works

Explicit content warning

07/15/09 • -1 min

Episode 32
Freezing Works
This episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast, I talk about Freezing Works, a New Zealand occupation, basically an abattoir or slaughterhouse where the meat is frozen at the end and exported overseas.
Download Episode directly here
My intro was from No Agenda episode 104.
I'll start with a quote.
The meat processing industry is in a constant state
of change. These changes will continue to meet the
requirements of the 21st Century. The meat plant of
100 years hence will probably feature a high degree of
automation. But this will be beyond our lifetime.
If we
focus upon the immediate future the meat plant of the
21st Century will probably incorporate many of the
current trends or developments.
Operating margins will remain small with the
emphasis upon high productivity and enhanced revenue.
We may see the rise of the mega-plant linked with a
national or international network of specialised added
value operations.
The international demand for meat and proteins is
expected to grow. The challenge of the meat plant will
be to meet this demand and produce a range of products
to the exact requirements of the customer.
'In the public eye, the Freezing Worker is one of the
lowest status individuals in our society. A rough,
irresponsible layabout who jeopardises the economy for
sheer greed and goes on strike at the drop of a hat. He
earns high wages for very simple work. He's at a key
point in the economy, responsible for processing one
or our biggest export commodities. He can hold the
country to ransom. So runs the popular myth.
No-one who has not seen what a freezing works is
like, and the kind of jobs freezing workers do is in a
position to criticise. The industry carries mass
production to its extreme. A freezing works is a giant
dis-assembly line along which carcasses and organs roll
with a deadening inevitability while the men scuttle to
keep up. The machine is truly king. A butcher on the
chain must carry out the same operation over and over
again, day after day until the season ends. Not for him
the carpenter's pride in his skill, the watersiders variety
of tasks, the shearers' sense of completing a meaningful
job. Instead endless, mindless, meaningless work, often
standing in the same place all day using a dangerously
sharp knife, surrounded by hundreds of other men doing
the same thing, and by the unedifying sights and smells
of freshly dismembered animals.'
Kerr Inkson of Otago
University, 1977
I had to look up the term Watersider, it means a person who loads and unloads ships, a dock worker.
In Southland , there are a few different Freezing Works, or "The Works", as they are known colloquially. Freezing Works are common in New Zealand rural areas, farmers grow animals like cows, sheep and pigs, and they are sent off to The Works to be killed. When you go past a Freezing Works, they are quite large factory buildings, normally white, and with lots of metal frames outside, where the animals were kept. Trains or trucks will bring the animals in, they will go through pens, to be stunned and then murdered, or in Freezing Works terms, Slaughtered, inside. Their skin is removed for leather, bones are cut and pulled out, heads cut off, tongues cut out, their muscles sold as meat. Their organs are snatched out and thrown in stainless steel trays for inspection, if they are fit for sale, then they are sold for people to eat. Intestines are used as the casings for sausages, the intestines are like socks that get stuffed with low grade meat, to make sausages. I've read that glands are sold, some powdered up and sold overseas as a health thing, some such as testicles, are probably bought in an attempt to spice up the bedroom. In old photos I've seen, you know from the 80's, hairy old men, without gloves on , are wringing out the intestines to make sausage casings, I assume that nowadays they have to wear gloves at least. The intestines go through a wringer, and get washed.
A little about the history of meat exported from New Zealand. Canning of meat was started in 1869 in New Zealand, only the best meat was canned. In 1874, american cooled meat was sent to Britain, natural ice kept the meat cold.
The first ship to carry frozen meat from New Zealand to the United Kingdom was The Dunedin. The Dunedin used 3 tonnes of coal a day, through a steam powered refrigeration machine, to cool The Dunedins hold, down to 4 degrees celsius. The ship was rigged up for refrigeration in 1881, and its first journey, from Oamaru New Zealand, thats in Otago just north of Southland, left for London on the 15th of February, 1882. It took The Dunedin 98 days to arrive, on the 24th of May.
"...

Previous Episode

Episode 31 Michael Jackson's Memorial

Episode 31
Michael Jackson's Memorial
MJ INTRO CLIP SONGS
This episode, I'll mention the memorial to Michael Jackson that happened early this morning New Zealand time. I'll play plenty of emotional songs, interspersed with clips from the memorial service. The intro clips were, in order,
I Want You Back,
I'll Be There,
Aint No Sunshine,
Rockin Robin,
Little Bitty Pretty One,
Who's Lovin' You,
My Girl
This is part of an unreleased song, For All Time, it was included on Thriller 25.
Today there was a public memorial, it was held in the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, 17 and a half thousand tickets were given out to lucky Michael Jackson fans to attend. A private Jackson family service was held beforehand, and then Michaels closed casket was unexpectedly taken to the Memorial, it was just in front of the stage for the event. Many famous celebrities took to the stage and talked about how much Michael Jackson meant to them, some performed his songs. Notable people included Mariah Carey, Magic Johnson, Koby Bryant, Usher, Al Sharpton, Brooke Shields, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson and John Mayer.
This is from today Memorial, Stevie Wonder talks about Michael, and mentions a song he wrote for him that was included in the Off The Wall album, I play a clip from the song.
Heres an early demo clip of Michael with his brothers, working on a Jacksons song together, notice the fighting at the end, in lots of the demo clips, recorded at the Jackson Family studio, you can hear the siblings argue. See how long it takes you to recognise the song.
Ok, so thats not really fighting, but on some of the demo tracks, you can hear the jacksons yell at each other, normally Michael will be saying to turn something up or down, and one of the brothers will say something like "do it yourself", and Janet will take Michaels side.
Often when musicians die, fans go through their music and find odd back masked messages, or hints about the singers death. When I heard about Michael going into Cardiac Arrest, and that he had been injected with a drug shortly before, I thought of his song Morphine, from the album Blood On The Dancefloor. They lyrics are all about Michael and his drug addictions to painkillers, Elton John was thanked as helping him off the drugs.
The lyrics to Morphine are kind of scary to listen to now,
He got flat baby
Kick in the back baby
A heart attack baby
Oh God he's taking demerol
I'll play some of the song
Its kind of odd, he named a drug he was addicted to, and mentions a heart attack a decade or so before he pretty much dies from exactly that.
This is one of my favourite sad songs, Someone In The Dark, it was included in the E.T soundtrack and storybook Michael recorded. Michael Jackson said of all the awards he had gotten, he was most proud of the 1984 Best Recording for Children grammy for this song.
Smokey Robinson, a famous Motown artist who wrote songs for other singers, had some fond memories of Michael, he appeared at the Memorial.
This next song is a Michael Jackson Tribute song, called Better On The Other Side, with Puff Daddy, The Game, Chris Brown, Boys II Men and others. It came out the day Michael died.
Al Sharpton had very nice things to say about Michael today at the memorial, he got lots of applause for his message to Michaels kids, its a great quote.
A song that came up at the public service was We Are The World.
Almost through this episode now, I'm trying to keep this episode relatively short. Michaels brother Marlon spoke at the service today, Marlon had a stillborn identical twin brother, Brandon Jackson, who gets mentioned by Marlon at the memorial to Michael.
Very touching.
I'd like to play my second last song, before a clip from one of Michaels children, its very rare for one of his three children to be seen in public, he hid them away from the paparazzi.
Michaels daughter, Paris Jackson was onstage with the other celebrities near the end of the public service, with Janet Jackson and other family members beside her, when she spoke, it reminded me of Steve Irwins daughter talking at her fathers public service. It breaks my heart to hear Paris Jackson talk, for the first time in public.
That was janet giving her advice at the start.
So far, Michael hasnt been buried, theres talk the family would like to have him buried at Neverland Ranch, possibly near the train station he used everyday to go from his house to the small zoo he had near the back of his property. Its an interesting idea, having Neverland Zoo as a Graceland type tourist attraction, I'd certainly like to visit sometime. Whatever happens to Michaels body from now on, his public memorial was very successful.
I'd like to thank you very much for joining me, with episode 31 of Jay Wont dart's podcast. My outro is one last sad song.
If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to ...

Next Episode

Episode 33 Matthew Shepard

Episode 33
Matthew Shepard
Hello and welcome to episode 33 of Jay Wont darts podcast, where I learn life lessons, and talk about them into a USB microphone.
This episode of my podcast, I'll talk about Matthew Shepard, a young man in America, killed for the crime of being gay.
I felt pretty moved by Matthews story, told by his parents mostly, and it made me think about how people use homosexuality as a negative term, its a put down to say "you're gay" for example. Researching this episode, I found this Public Service Announcement featuring Matthews mother
And it made me think of the words I use, and that I hear other people use, and do nothing about. Recently at work I heard people walking out and talking about something that they didnt like , they said "that was gay". I felt like I should say something, maybe confront the couple "what, you have a problem with gay people?", as if I were gay myself. Im not gay, but they wouldnt know that, would they? Instead, I just pretended not to hear them, I dont like to cause trouble while I work, the "customer is always right" and all that. In future I dont want to ever use terms like "gay" to mean a bad thing, and will bring it up if people use the word Gay as a negative slander.
Matthew Wayne Shepard (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998) was a student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and subsequently murdered near Laramie, Wyoming. He was attacked on the night of October 6–7, 1998 and died at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, on October 12, from severe head injuries.
"Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, 21-year-old Shepard met McKinney and Henderson in a bar. McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car.[4] Subsequently, Shepard was robbed, pistol whipped, tortured, tied to a fence in a remote, rural area, and left to die. McKinney and Henderson also found out his address and intended to rob his home. Still tied to the fence, Shepard was discovered eighteen hours later by Aaron Kreifels, who at first thought that Shepard was a scarecrow. At the time of discovery, Shepard was still alive, but in a coma.
Shepard suffered a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs. There were also about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. Shepard never regained consciousness and remained on full life support. As he lay in intensive care, candlelight vigils were held by the people of Laramie.[5]
He was pronounced dead at 12:53 A.M. on October 12, 1998, at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins.[6][7][8][9] Police arrested McKinney and Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck.[3]
GAY PANIC DEFENSE
The two attackers tried to defend what they did to Matthew as saying that as a gay man, Matthew had made a sexual advance on them, and in their disgust, shock and panic, they had killed him to defend themselves, they had lost control of what they were doing because they were so shocked. Its called the Gay Panic Defense. I hadnt heard of this before, but there have been two well known New Zealand cases in recent times.
New Zealand examples.
* In 2003, a gay interior designer, David McNee, was killed[8] by a homeless drug user and part time prostitute, Phillip Layton Edwards. Edwards said at his trial that he told McNee he was not gay, but would masturbate in front of him on a "no-touch" basis for money. The defence successfully argued that Edwards, who had 56 previous convictions and had been on parole for 11 days, was provoked into beating McNee after the former television host violated their "no touching" agreement. Edwards was jailed for nine years for manslaughter.[9][10]
* In July 2009, Ferdinand Ambach, 32, a Hungarian tourist, was convicted of killing Ronald Brown, 69, by hitting him with a banjo and shoving the instrument's neck down Brown's throat. Ambach was initially charged with murder, but the charge was downgraded to manslaughter after Ambach's lawyer successfully invoked the gay panic defence.
The prosecutor in the case charged that McKinney and Henderson pretended to be gay in order to gain Shepard's trust to rob him.[11] During the trial, Chastity Pasley and Kristen Price (the respective girlfriends of McKinney and Henderson at the time of the event) testified under oath that Henderson and McKinney both plotted beforehand to rob a gay man. McKinney and Henderson then went to the Fireside Lounge and selected Shepard as their target. McKinney alleged that Shepard asked them for a ride home. After befriending him, they took him to a remote area of Laramie where they robbed him, beat him severely, and tied him to a fence with a rope from McKinney's truck while Shepard begged for his l...