Ellis' take on Kiwi fullas you love to hate

"Brilliant," Marc Ellis says during a cellphone interview from his car in the Auckland CBD.
It's Ellis' response to my suggestion that his latest book, Marc Ellis' Good Fullas - A Guide to Kiwi Blokes, should be accessible at every tourism centre and council in New Zealand.
The former All Black and New Zealand Warrior is outside a ginga mate's workplace and itching to tell the redhead that without his input the book would be the poorer.
"The gingas are the most loyal and passionate fullas you'll find anywhere, mate," he says in that effervescent TV personality's voice New Zealanders have become accustomed to - love him or loathe him.
The book, co-written with bosom pal Charlie Haddrell, profiles the many species of Kiwi blokes aptly itemised in a glossary, one fewer than the number of letters in an alphabet.
Frankly, the former Otago/Auckland/North Harbour rugby utility back is the front man and without him the book wouldn't see the time of day.
Having started my New Zealand experience as a Fijian in Dunedin more than two decades ago, I'm an advocate of such a book, written in a wickedly humorous vein, vital in putting foreigners and those crawling out from under a rock on the grid.
From the Bogan (rough as guts fullas gravitating to loud music, hairstyles and chicks) and the Ginga to the Cardycrat (bureaucrat fullas like Haddrell) and the Finkle (homosexual fullas), Ellis and Haddrell analyse the characters in a full-on and brutal style that will make readers cast their minds back to people they have crossed paths with before, exclaiming: "Aah, that explains why that joker looked and behaved the way he did."
Incidentally, I recall seeing Ellis in his scarfie days, loitering around The Octagon at the heart of Dunedin or at the movie theatre, his intense eyes indecipherable but indicative enough of something mischievous around the corner in the company of his boisterous mates.
I inform Ellis I'm a sub-species (an Indian from Fiji) of his Pandabear (Kiwi males of Indian descent or whose ancestors come from the surrounding areas of the subcontinent), complete with dark circles around my eyes - not from counting 10c pieces but from slaving over my keyboard well into the wee hours of the morning.
"Oh I love cricket but I don't have a gut to go with it," I say.
He explodes with laughter: "Hey, you can easily work on that, mate.
"It's not hard, you'll get there."
I ask Ellis if there's likely to be a backlash from the different lobby groups and pockets of people who may label him bigoted and homophobic.
"Yes, it'll most probably be the too-goody leftwingers - not the people I'm talking about in the book - who will kick up a fuss.
"If you are the person who will do that then you should go jump in the lake," the 38-year-old says.
He makes no bones about fleecing the concept from Barry Crump's 1971 Bastards I Have Met, a book he has thoroughly enjoyed reading countless times.
He would love to sell the "250,000 or so" copies Crump sold but thinks his contemporary version may fall shy in the popularity stakes.
Nevertheless, Ellis emphasises that the demography of New Zealand has shifted considerably from its axis since Crump tried to make sense of it three decades ago.
"It's a multicultural hotpot now and Charlie and I have done a modern take."
He explains they went to the trouble of getting the culture right in depicting stereotypes that include The Big Fresh (Pacific Islanders) and The Funny Whaka (carefree and jovial Maori fulla).
"A couple of males are gay and they are good friends of the wife and I,
and some of the other characters are Charlie's mates, who all fit
the bill."
Ellis reckons the book offers a smorgasbord of personalities that every person will relate to almost in the fashion of a one-size-fits-all horoscope.
He emphasises that New Zealanders need to be able to laugh at themselves more to grasp its essence.
"Every Kiwi's got a Bogan in them," he discloses as the common denominator before the behavioural patterns branch off into determining the species and sub-species.
So where does Ellis see himself in the equation? He's definitely not a Rugbyhead or Foothead aged between 16 and 40, who has "a voracious thirst, the strength of a fully grown chimpanzee, and invariably suffers from juvenilitis".
"I was a Scarfie (scruffy, silly, scallywaggy student) in my former life but now I've got a bit of the Storyteller (fullas who hate silence but love the sound of their own voice) in me and definitely The Henanigan (a real prankster) and a miserable bugger."
The Anglo-Saxon preoccupation with money, a bigger car and house bothers him while the unemployable, social welfare-type Maori or Pacific Islander renews his faith in humanity.
"Who's richer, eh? You tell me?
"Is it the White fulla with the car and house ... embracing the get-on-the-treadmill theory?" he asks, partial to the other cultures that do what they have to do to get by.
On a parting note, Ellis says it's a book every sheila should have if they want to understand the Kiwi male psyche a little better.
"It'll help the women laugh and get flirty around the blokes," he says, adding that sheilas are adept at pigeon-holing blokes, something totally foreign to the male of the species. Why do I get the feeling a sequel to Marc Ellis' Good Fullas is already in an embryonic stage? Marc Ellis' Lovable Lasses - A Guide to Kiwi Sheilas perhaps?
Marc Ellis' Good Fullas - A Guide to Kiwi Blokes
by Marc Ellis and Charlie Haddrell, Hachette New Zealand, $44.99