Tickled

It's been a harrowing week in the news,

so now it's something much lighter and more fun.

It's time for New Zealand's favorite pop culture reporter,

David Farrier.

What do you make of New Zealanders so far?

Me? Uh, I think that they're... They've been nice.

Everyone has been cool so far.

What's the main thing you're trying to achieve here?

Because obviously you've created a bit of a...

survival.

He's dead.

- Now we're gonna spin around. - Yeah.

Whoa! Holy!

It's so tiring. Whoa!

And what's your nickname that you've got now?

The donkey lady.

Look out! Oh, look, we're going

to have a reporter kicked.

It's quite a kick.

I can't say I've ever interviewed anyone

that looks exactly like you before.

Really?

I've made a career out of looking at the weird

and bizarre side of life.

So when I discovered a strange video online,

I knew I'd found my next story.

It's good. It's good.

An American company called Jane O'Brien Media

was running a monthly event.

Young athletes from anywhere on the planet could apply.

If selected they got free flights to LA,

four nights in a really nice hotel and $1500 cash.

It was called competitive endurance tickling.

You're with the CET,

a Competitive Endurance Tickling group we got here.

And... first of all I'd like to give a shout to you,

Jane O'Brien Media, for making this happen.

- Thanks, Jane. - We all appreciate it.

Fuck off!

Guys! Oh, my God!

Their Facebook page was popular,

with thousands of likes.

And with everyone in Adidas gear,

it seemed to be some kind of tickling league.

It was one of the strangest sports I'd seen.

No!

So, of course, I told Jane O'Brien Media

I'd like to do an interview.

Instead of getting a yes or no, I got this.

"To be brutally frank,

association with a homosexual journalist

is not something we will embrace.

We desperately do not want a homosexual participant base

applying for this project.

My concern is that your journalistic style, fan base,

and reputation in your own country.

Regards, Debbie Kuhn, Jane O'Brien Media".

It was a strange response,

especially considering the sport did seem slightly...

Gay.

And over the coming weeks, Debbie and Jane kept e-mailing.

"The competitive reality tickling

is a passionately

and exclusively heterosexual athletic endurance activity.

We have recently read a googled article about the knowledge

of your living with a homosexual partner

becoming quite a stir in New Zealand".

"The remainder of the globe does not in all corners

share some of the more liberal acceptance of your lifestyle".

"To me anything concerning homosexuality

is at best an objective disorder".

"Shame on you!" "Little gay kiwis". "Faggot".

It was hard to take the insults seriously,

given what Jane was producing.

If anything, it made me more curious than ever.

Your call has been forwarded

to the voicemail for Jane O'Brien Media.

With no one picking up the phone,

I got my geeky friend Dylan to do some digging

into this mysterious company

and this overly aggressive woman.

So, I'm going to just scroll up. So here we go.

It's registered to Nederdietsen.

He discovered that while Jane O'Brien Media

seemed to be operated out of America,

it was owned by a company in Germany called Nederdietsen,

which owned nearly 300 domain names all related to tickling.

This tickling wormhole was getting deeper,

so Dylan and I blogged about what we'd found.

So, the pay's good.

What? Okay, hold on.

Our story got a lot of attention,

being picked up on websites like reddit

and an American podcast.

- Back up. Back up. - When I say

competitive tickling, what do you think I'm talking about?

I mean, I think you're talking about...

some sort of organized sport...

- Yeah. - Of tickling.

Basically what happened was this kind of blew up

on the Internet this week, because a dude in New Zealand,

a reporter, like, happened across this Facebook page.

But is it just for fun? They just...

I mean, obviously it's just for fun?

Is it just for fun?

It's tickling.

Sorry, I don't think that question's ever been asked

about tickling before. It's like a martian question

- about tickling. - "Is it for fun?"

People were so interested by what we discovered,

Dylan and I decided to make a documentary

about this utterly bizarre subject.

Two weeks later,

we heard from Jane O'Brien's New York attorney,

Romeo Salta.

He'd recently made headlines in a case

involving a gay porn star

who chopped a man up

and mailed his body parts to some politicians.

Things certainly weren't getting any less weird.

His letter told us to stop what we were doing, or else.

Soon we were receiving e-mails from Salta telling us

that legal action had been filed in the us.

I had no money to hire a New Zealand lawyer,

let alone face the American justice system.

Then, to top it all off, Jane O'Brien Media told us

they were flying three people across the world from New York

to New Zealand to see us.

They're clearly serious about stopping this documentary.

Jane wouldn't tell us what flight they were arriving on,

but she did tell us the day.

So from 05:00 am, I waited at arrivals.

Not sure what to expect,

I figured I'd disarm the situation

with a rainbow-colored sign.

How's it going?

I thought I'd make up a good welcoming sign.

It's so nice to meet you.

Good. How are you, sir?

It's so nice for you to come and see us.

That's all right. I thought I'd arrive. How was the flight?

It was wonderful, really wonderful.

Oh, good. Air New Zealand?

Got some good sleep.

Yeah, yeah...

Oh, good. Hey, guys.

it was gorgeous, yeah.

Kevin Clarke.

Kevin, nice to meet you, sir. David. Nice to meet you.

...and I'm Adam

This is... look at this sign...

We want to keep this. Can we have that for later?

You can. I gift this to you.

It's gorgeous.

As a sign, I thought it was pretty good.

Thank you so much, it's wonderful.

Well, look, let's line up a time to meet this week.

We just need to rest today and then tomorrow.

Actually if you're free we can do tomorrow?

Tomorrow?

Tomorrow will be fine.

Tomorrow would be good.

Okay, tomorrow works well.

Thank you very much for coming out, what a surprise.

Oh, that's okay. It's the New Zealand hospitality.

It's so nice of you.

Are we on camera

You can get me there.

right now?

Yeah, we're just rolling from the beginning. Yeah, yeah.

I'd prefer if you didn't do that without telling me first.

Okay. We've got a thing in New Zealand,

we're okay to film in public spaces.

So I'm just following the journey.

Listen, we're not... We're not going to have good time

if you do this.

If you don't tell me what you're doing first

we're going to get along.

Okay, all right. Well, we're...

Yeah, I really don't like this either.

It's not...

Okay. Well, I mean, we're shooting a documentary,

so we'll keep... it's a...

I understand what you think you're doing...

but I'm not going to allow

Mm.

you to do... to treat me without respect.

Okay.

and that's what you're doing right now.

Okay. We're okay to film in public spaces in New Zealand,

so we're doing that here.

Yeah, I hope you have fun

doing that.

All right, we'll see you soon.

We'll talk later.

Okay, sounds good.

Thank's again.

All right, see you soon.

Thanks man.

No worries. We'll talk soon.