The Show goes off to the calisthenics

It is now 6.30pm on a Sunday night and the final of the 14,458 events that make up the South Street competitions have finally ended. Just in time for the beginning of the Amateur Highland Brass Debating and Musical Interpretation for Organ Solo section to open, heralding the beginning of the next 18 months of South Street 2009.

We pause a moment to reflect on the grand institution of Ballarat's hallowed South Street competitions... where young women folk are told to stand up straight and not wince when the makeup shotgun gets pointed their way.

Show With No Name podcast November cleanout

And yes, it has been a bit weak in the pants with not putting up audio, and thankyou to the two guys in Creswick who found my email and sent the photos of their arses in respect for the creative process.

So anyway - let the good times roll and the deebs bounce.

Here's the stuff...



Part one, in which in which Lenny and Mick chew over the new Rollins rant, pick over the bones of the new Guns n Roses album Chinese Democracy, peer in trepidation at the latest sex film starring Gene Simmons and wonder why Ballarat Council is not supporting its posties with better, tougher motorbikes.

And after the halftime oranges:



In which Mick reveals the new cooking tips from Gordon Ramsay for Australia; Lenny explains how he's being assailed by bread products; the Vatican apologises to John Lennon for him saying God is a wanker and the lads discuss the Christmas bargains and fabulous entertainment yet to arrive upon our doorstep.

Slaughter on Sturt Street, or Bakery Hill Blues

Oh... the synchronicity. The strange and beautiful Ballarat madness of the December calendar where, in the same week 154 years ago in the town where some blokes had stood on a hill and asked about getting a fairer deal from the guys they were paying all the taxes to... (then got a right bollocking one morning after a largish pissup at the Stockade)... the hyper fit/fat/fried/funky/fucked up folks of fair B-Town did crushingly kick their former local government representatives in the goolies.

The fleeting moments - so special. Seeing that awkward, bustling handshake between former Mayor Quimby and The Constable on WIN TV. It was all in the eyes... Good luck with the charges, Quimby... yeah - and the Constable was one of the very few from the Good Old Dick 'Cock Swingin' days of yore, when the money flowed free and it was about trade trips to India and Community Fact Finding trips to East Timor, who didn't get a bollocking.

Of being told by one of B-Town's fair citizens that it was Punchin' Jude Violin who was to thank for the 'monstrosity' on Bakery Hill, Australia's holiest of democratic turf... no, not the Mickey D's (which tends to find its way into every shot of the big Eureka flag on the roundabout)...the huge Gay Tent City store. That's Ballarat for ya.

Miss Desperate High School Musical Housewives got in, too - and she apparently used get all switchblade and West Side Story with Violin not long after joining the Party... makes you wonder what phone calls Balla's last serving Liberal senator might be making to the Olde Money about his Nouveau Cached Uppe Riche young apprentice...

And Dusty Ned from the Sex Pistols - who lost his seat but maybe kinda knew you can't become a mayor if you're a bankrupt, and um... who knows? Maybe you're ahead of the fashion and bankrupt elected officials will come into vogue, but... true to form he stayed on message, saying it was those fuckers who read the newspapers wuz wot got 'im in the end. And I agree.

Here's what the Ballarat City Council website has to say about the matter when you go looking for the new team...

This file has been removed from the system.
Page last updated: 28 November 2008, © City of Ballarat 2008

It's been a big week... and it's only Wednesday...

Happy Eureka Day, all you great Australian trouble makers

Show No Mercy

Well it's good to be back in the Show With No Name Dimsim Research Kitchen. And my, haven't things been hectic in B-town. This is one of the bestest and funniest local elections I've never seen - and I've ignored a lot of local politics in my time on this rock. Regardless, I would like to dedicate this clip to Steven Jones, the mayor with the most punk rock of all names and the beard with the most ZZ Top/Ned Kelly allusions in government in the 21st century. We salute you...



(hang out for the pose and strut to the mic at 3:30 that could have turned Ballarat around... that's all Jonesy had to do... reform Chiodo, get Dirty Frank a beaten up old Flying Vee to knock out his licks... and knock it out for the masses in the Titanic bandstand on Sturt Street.)

Thanks, Jonesy, for blaming 'the media'.

Personally I've never listened to Mr Hooper on 3BA but I hear there's fun had in trying to get on to Buy, Sell, Pay Off or Swap...

...oh yeah. That new media from your friendly neighborhood ShowNoName podcast and such is comin' too... just getting the soy sauce on now, should be a mp3 encoded jiffy in just a few...

Hello Dear friends and people who owe me money,

(You know who you are and by reading this I've accessed your account and I am downloading your genomes. Ha!
Mick Dog -1 Reality- 0. Suck shit God! and yer sneaky little Viva La Evolution friend with his swanky banjo hit "Mama, you all is one baldy Ape ).

Anyway.....to make a short story far longer than it should be, I'm frankly perturbed and persnickety about how unfabulous this 21st century bizzo is.

Man alive....when I was planning for this century I started by throwing out the Suzi Quatro eight tracks, turning my flares into a bird feeder and getting ready for what I thought was gunna be one pimp century with none of the 20th C's bitch jive.

I thought to myself "Yeaha!.....what with Miles having broken through the 40minute beep barrier who knows what funky jiggery is gunna bop my bee'd brain. "
I was all cut and thrusted, waiting to hear new spicy jalapeno sounds from swashbuckling beat fezzers who'd take up the Holy Torch of Outsoundishness and really set my brain 'a whirrin,

However...........
Eight years on and I'm still licking Elvis......and this isn't even one half of one nth of a nanoscoot of the worst of it all.......so lemme just clear up a few things until the knitting needles finally meet at Club Oblongata...

1)The New ACDC album
Hmmmmmm......didn't Holden bring out a "New" Monaro? Didn't every body look at it and say "What a bloody shopping trolley.."
Sure... it had the Monaro badge on it and some fat bloke in tight overalls did a wheelie in it, and sure, it revved up a virtual BBQ of tyre rubber and made that deep throbbity noise that makes the faithful steam their smalls, but deep in our hearts we knew that what ever this bloody piped-upped grocery wagon was, it was not a Monaro.
Not even close.
Nah. Nada. Nope.

Badge whatever ya bloody like but that thing ain't a fuckin' Monaro.
But it made you want a Monaro, made you wanna suck back a cold tinnie in a Monaro and make comments to your mates that the young lady walking by, with her straight hair and her crisp Madder Lake album, was a good looking sort and when you sat in a Monaro you were the Kings of the Wood and you could say "Sure...my bloody relo's were a bunch of tissue box stealing convicts who got sent to the land of flies and buggery, but fuck you coz I've got a fuckin Monaro".

New Monaro? I'd rather pedal around on the shin bones of Bon Scott.


2)The Young Kiddies
I had a young kiddie in their 20's look at a picture of Karl Marx and say "Who's that Boong?"
Can't tell the difference between The Father of Communism and some Darwin derro on the bot? Please...have a seat you poor dear.....I've taken the liberty of plugging it in for you....


3)The Declining State of Funk and it's perpertuance by people who have less groove than G.W.Bush's spoken word album "Don't make me laugh. Coz I won't. ".

Ahhhhh Funk.
Wasn't it creamy and delicious? When you first heard it, didn't you go "My Goodness! I had no idea I could root for this long"?
When J.B sang "Say it loud. I'm black and I'm proud" didn't you want to shake the crumbs out of the toaster and rub yourself hip?
And when something in your life was getting to be a tired scene, didn't you and your mojo just slip on some rumpy, rumpy bass response and git your membership card at the Library of Allright renewed?

Wasn't everything juuuuust a little bit better with Funk?
Wasn't that Solar Eclipse just a little shinier? Wasn't living in a cardboard cut out of John Belushi a little more zazzier?
Didn't you marvel at how the same set of sloppy monkey genes that you had mooching about your own personal bustop had been re-arranged through the Power Of Being Crazy Alive into that spirit jiggling aruba that made being not O.k with things O.k?

Why of course you did.....we all did.
And we loved it. We thought it would never end. We'd sing and dance forever and a day.
Ma Baker would always keep cutting the soul cookies and we just hadda just keep hanging round the window sill hoping for the hot sound of a new cooling cookie? My Lord we did.....and we were richly rewarded.

O.k.....now cut yourself a looong line and snozz yourself forward a few years.....

Did you get up wiggle it (just a little bit) when Audrey Shrinkbot and the Frank Ifeild Funk School Graduate Diploma Group of Pre-approved Groove released "Get up offa that thing and find a variable mortgage rate"?
(Now let me think....I'd just done the dishes and was helping Jaidyn with his homework...no I don't think i did)

Did your Doctor ask you at casualty where you got that sexy pelvis after slamfunking your night away to Gritty Saucebottle's soul stirring blockbuster " Tear the roof off the child proof Aspirins"?
(Oh heavens no....I'm pretty sure I was listening to 774's "How to save money by marking the days on the calendar when you need to have a shit and holding on 'til the dollar hits 67 cents to the Farnham")

And did your lover just wanna lick the pure animal sauce that smoked out of your pores after you got front row tix to The Harry Butler Trio's " I wanna be nice!" Tour? ( Well..actually things have been a bit tense lately.....I suppose I do work long hours and after reading the Helen Razor's book "Stress yourself to Celibacy", I can really see how much time I wasted being happy when i could have been just quietly bearing things)

Shame reality. Shame, Shame Shame.....

You had every chance of using the 2000's to lose some weight, give up smoking, getting to the gym and you did.
You cut out the fat, swapped the thrills for carrot water, and traded places with respect so you could pretend you were your own Dan Ackroyd.
You made it O.k for uptight honkeries to feel good about singing and listening to that chinless pap that passes for Groove while I'm spitting out curdled spume suckle from this low fat titty of Fonk and frankly (To quote Pope Hardstart the First) I'd rather listen to St. Gavin taking the Shine off a pair of Heels than this wheedling trickle of self satisfied bumsnot.

'Til next time

Mick "Tonga is funkier than us. Tonga for fuck's sake!" Dog

Good day sirs and Madam. No show this week as Vinnie the Skip is nude and wild in the country. Whilst this is happening I would like to make it perfectly clear that The Show will go on! I think? Will it? I think so? Cant see why not? Risk listening to it and find out! i'm sure I left a joke around here somewhere?

Show with No Name: the end?

Could be. Anyway, here's the latest.

Show With no Name: Ballarat's shiny glitter turd ball

There's nothing greater than having your elected representatives spark off a philsophical debate; tjere's nothing warmer than that feeling of engaging with the bigger questions in life other than How Did A Bunch Of Rich Guys With Rat Cunning End Up Getting Greedy and Criminal - so when a Ballarat councillor who's resigned saying this is the worst council in history ends up on the front page saying the report showing how Mayor Quimby carved up Springfield and earned a few dollars off the monorail will get spun but you can't polish a turd...

Well that's when Mick and Lenny spring into action. Local history is their specialty. The Legend of the Giant Jesus-Shaped Glittering Turd Ball of Sturt Street and Steven Hawking's role in analysing the role of Ballarat's local councillors in the actual operation of a city council responsible for millions of dollars' worth of stuff for the ever-lovin rate-payin' descendants of Eureka... well, that's how we finish part 01 of this week's edition, anyway:




Also, here Len give an insight into what it's like having a man from Religion visit your house and promise you a life free from pain (and later on remembering when people would play the gorilla bones for the Pope); along with an investigation of car trouble under the current petrol scheme - in particular the fine art of hitch-hiking at Bathurst and getting Skaifey to pick you up on Conrod Straight.

And a big part two
Oh yes. It Just Keeps On Coming. Take a deep breath and wade amongst it as Lenny ponders the fashions of the 90s and an age when the shirts would go out and have a better time than he.




Of course, television news. Pork-Zan the Jungle Man and a long line of surrealistic euphemisms; the links with Sting, Jaimie Oliver and the horrible Obese Ear Syndrome, bringing in the Only Leans Beats diet craze; AC/DC performing on the back of Billy Connolly at Ayres Rock* in the long awaited new Denim Tampon tour; Martha Reeves projected on the back of Robin Wiilliams at the MCG; Prince playing North Techh and Lenny's admission of the Boot.

*A Pam Ayres limerick festival at Colac. No relation to Uluru, a sacred Australian landmark.

Show With No Name - October 7 crash edition podcast

Yeah and verily did the latest chunks of cooked audio come squelching out of Ballarat; hear now as we swing in to the dark days of What The Fuck and Everything's Changed again. Stock markets be buggered - what about that poor bloke in Geelong who got the tattoo for Premiers 2008?
OK, what about the fuckoff cyclone about to bear down on the other side of Mexico - (the other side from the major gathering of whitefolk in Texas, New Orleans etc, it's not news...)

So, the show. Lenny on ace of spades. Mick Dog on bums. Vinnie on buttons and DB on the tin lid. The Show With No Name throttled out of the Clunes O'Brien Memorial studios just before the shit went down on Wall Street and beamed it around Western Victoria (or as far as Mr Poon's shop, we're not sure) and it sounded like this:



Consider the American election as only some miscellaneous fellas from a room somewhere on a hill in Ballarat could: as a Looney Tunes production of mammoth proportions entwining Bruce Springsteen, Diana Ross, My Ding a Ling and that moment in rock few have spoken about: the Obama-lama with Clarence Clemmons.
Music news: Robery Hairy Palmer's comeback foiled by a random beating of the Skaggs brothers by Rastafarian sausages; our favourite World War 2 Greek pastry films and Westerns, such as the Magnificent Souvlaki; and the perennial ecceliastical cryptic crossword clue develops into a discussion of Popes in catalogues and the good old days, when Jesus would run out onto the ground at the MCG and take his place at full forward... Ahh. Kevin Bartlett. What a bloke.

And part 2 of this week's radio squirt:

The second part of the second week of October, when the TV guide beckoned and all that was found was the Ballarat Steak House bringing out a film, following the huge success of their ad*. Eric Bana in a Gold Rush alligator romantic restaurant comedy. And the horror of an ad found in the Courier. Nevermind Henson in the primary school, what about the Search for a Super Moodel, where slutty cows were made to do not normal things before the shooting and Supertramp. And then it gets weird.



Then, the economic hard talk - the battle against daylight saving - who is pocketing the difference? Is this where the world's finances have gone wrong? And finally - Ballarat teenagers again forced onto cultural slavery, doning their strange panted costumes and press-ganged into a performance of Bolshoi, Bolshoi, Bolshoi - seen by all as complete and utter bolshoi.

As for music? Somehow, the Circle Jerks off the Repo Man soundtrack are getting dusted off.

in a sluggish economy
inflation, recession
hits the land of the free
standing in unemployment lines
blame the government for hard time

we just get by
however we can
we all gotta duck
when the shit hits the fan

Ah yes. Leading one to knock out Fugazi's Merchandise quite a bit more again these days. Bless the punks and the hardcore, for they truly did keep the faith...

When we have nothing left to give
There'll be no reason for us to live
But when we have nothing left to lose
You will have nothing left to use

We owe you nothing
You have no control
x2

Anyhoo - thanks to everyone who tuned in via the ancient signal transmitter nailed to Warrenheip from 6 till 8 Tuesdays, 99.9FM!

*You can actually hear the screams from outside people's houses when this comes on.

Show With No Name podcast September turns October

You can download the podcast of part o1 of the Show With No Name or what the hell, listen to it here, who cares what the people in the office think...

The Show With No Name versus Malcolm Turnbull, vein by braille, colour orange juice and all-night telly, bird fight in Federal Parliament, the Kank Wolverang box set, Desd Parkinson the People's Illusionist and more...



And there's the download and RSS for part two - Dessy Rae Spainchter and the moving of Smeaton; the origins of the word bivouac, the blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll - and then went to a picnic with jazz and funk; the new PornStation2, having your virtual face torn off with a tiger before dinner; finding the rim of a Commodore buried where your mail box was supposed to be.

Kick back and kank the volume on the lappie, G...



This is how it sounded booming out of the remains of the BBB public radio transmitter in Ballarat, folks... honest. If you're driving down the Western Highway after 6 on Tuesday nights, tune to 99.9FM and pray they're out there...

Lenny hits the whole podcasting thing

Man the interwebs! Gang the kank walk! Lenny's strapping on the virtual waders and preparing to assail the wide vistas of the webotron. We're polishing off the i-tuneophone for you children of the i-Cult so you can i-tune your devices in, but here's a quaint old mp3 player of this week's (meaning last) slices of the Show... as broadcast from the remains of Triple-B (now renamed in a friendly Christian community fashion as the Voice) from a loungeroom on Drummond Street, South Central...



And get your RSS podcasting code thingmy to put in your iPod here.

Lenstock: Peter Lalor stables, Grand Final Day.

Here's a few of the acts from Lenstock, one balmy Saturday evening in the Ballarat as the crowd started really piling in the doors after 6ish (about the third eccie was being popped around Hawthorn)

Firstly, Pig's Arse. They make the White Stripes look like Yngwie Malmsteen in complexity. Note that Ollie displays his skills in being able to knock back the entire pot of beer just in time for the lead break. Gold for Australia.



Secondly, irrepressible Adam Simmons. Only in Ballarat do you find one of Australia's greatest jazz musicians standing in a pub getting a room full of lagered-up rock and roll veterans to sing a drover's folk song they've never heard before...

Then, Earl Leonard. One man and a guitar knockin' it up while the band tastefully organise themselves behind him. Tasteful and elegant as the room gets slowly more liquored up on a quickly emptying bar fridge and the company who'd come to kick on...

Then, (after a beer, a snag, a chat) those delightful deliverers of the disturbed and droll drumbeats of dystopian doom, the beloved Brand X came on to give it a red-hot and kicked it well and truly in the guts...

Lenstock: Ballarat kicks on through Grand Final Day

It was grand. It was a kick-on. Below is a first taste of what it was like in the Stables on Grand Final night in B-town, when all of Ballarat's rock and roll survivors from the turbulent 90s gathered to kick on in honour of a true soldier of the Great Fight Against Boring...

Thankyou so much to everyone who organised it - first place getter Rockin' Ronnie - who got the bands togther (and off again) the whole day (while pausing to knock out a high voltage set with the 23rd of Elvis); Roddie Ramos, who made the stage look space-rock-a-go-go (and was nice enough to get up and beat the living bejesus into the Fat Thing's set), Suds McNulty who brewed a special slab of beer for the occasion, Big Beats Bad Boy Corey on the barbie and wryness, Shep "No Bullshit Bids" Huntley whipping the ker-lassic t-shirt auction into shape... and there was the bands.

The bands. We love you all. We forgive you, man of the broken lead on the Gibson for the Rye Catchers. That epic set-up time. That edgy drummer who kept nailing sweet little hardcore double bass/snare riffs. And then, the sonic horror. Those shallow Generation Whatevers know it in GuitarHero talk as the 'bit where the bottles start hitting you' - but here, in Ballarat, we love you for getting up and having a crack. It was rock, the crowd was loaded, and the night was magnificent. And I am so broken.

For now... A quiet Sunday arvo and some time with a cup of tea and a media encoder... Stay tuned for more... including these guys, featuring the man himself - Kan- ... er - Len, ripping the guts out and flaying them in sacrifice to the Gods of Rock themselves.

Equine bong art, footy players with dicks out and glassing in Black Hill

Ah yes... in the spirit of the Enforced Culture of Inclusiveness that's all pervasive in our increasingly heated world, this week Victorians are expected to care about who wins a popularity contest amongst football players

Brownlow night is a chance to step out of your everyday world into the make believe

Excitingly, this contest has been expanded to their wives and girlfriends, who realise there are a few brief years where they too can be famous for nothing more than getting their tits out at a paid-for pissup before years of slow decline, the inevitable slide from the social pages after their meal ticket does a knee/groin/shoulder, the lessened interest from Woman's Day in where they're getting their hair done, and then they find themselves as just another jaded, coked-out former glamour who gets glassed while waiting for the guy to turn up with the pills.

It's a grand tradition, only just begun.

Regardless - here in Ballarat there are other celebrations apart from the ones where massed groups of blokes stand around drinking bourbon, watching boxing on widescreen and asking where all the pussy is. We call it 'taking the piss'. It's been going on for years - and here you can listen to a couple of descriptions about the folk culture of B-Town. The Art. And the Footy Players. You may remember an incident with a rubber marital aid and Brendon Nissan-Fevola. Our dear Len has the insight to it - and MickDog has his own anecdote of what really happens inside Ballarat Football clubs at a pie night.


Meanwhile - news that someone was glassed at Black Hill has only further enhanced our basic political point that the kids are not being taught the proper amount of respect they should be showing in licensed venues. It used to be the tribal call of "You, me, carpark NOW"...

Ballarat's first radio podcast goes live

Step aside, 3BA bunnies and your automated computer jukebox system on weekends! Move over, earnest government-funded ABC types and your Consternation Hour! Ballarat's shiniest radio show - putting bums on radio since 2006 - is now up and shakin' a leg in the online stylee.

The Committee For Not Having Fun In Ballarat continues its deathless battle against creativity in this town (no, Roland, wiping your dick on the Southern Cross flag is not creative) - and my freakly newspaper the B-Town Times tells me the Sovereign Hill Music Festival has changed its lineup so ONLY tired, jaded hasbeens from Mushroom get work (hey Deb Conway! That's you!).

The Show With No Name - normally broadcasting live from a loungeroom hideout on Tuesday nights from 6 - is now pumpin' like the latest Crazy Frog ringtone in living mp3 colour. We're excited. Call the doctor.



There's a shiiteload more to come - due to popular demand the Equine Bong Art segment is currently being rolled in a herb and cheese crust for baking until perfection. Play your cards right and we might start posting the music as well... who could say?

Dirty Frank says "The Show With No Name puts a lump in my pants everytime I hear the sounds of dirty rock and roll and unshaven bums slapping on my radio."

And who are we to judge the man's taste?

Ballarat asks: who is DB Monday?

Each week upon our shiny radio show Len introduces the team - Len, Mick, Vin, and DB Monday.

Emails have been flooding in (none), the phone calls have been running hot (none) and this guy stopped me in the street and asked Who is DB Monday?

He is a man. A concept. A way of life. He is the very binding neutrinos that hold together the Show With No Name team, a man not unlike myself who chooses to eschew the microphone and speak with his hands.

DB Monday is no relation to DB Cooper, although his evil cousin, VB Sunday, has been known to lurk with intent around the Show With No Name Dim Sim Research Facility.

While dear old Roland Rock-hard-jelly gets the gig on 3BA on Saturday morning to flog his wares (and sometimes his whens), and gets the Courier's page 3 treatment when he gets his kit off and wraps his tadger in this nation's only flag to represent democracy, it's DB Monday who really keeps this town going. It's DB Monday who came up with Wrongfest.

You may or may not have heard of Wrongfest, one of the quality cultural icons on Ballarat's fairly empty calender of events. Wrongfest is as Wrongfest does - and here's a couple of pics from this year's event, where people were asked to dress up as their favourite Ballarat councillors. It was wrong. Very wrong.

But I digress. There's more to this town than teenagers trouser-banging themselves on Myspace. There's even a gay piano bar just opened on Camp Street! I walked in there and asked could I see the pianist and got the fright of my life. Maybe it was my pronunciation... but I digress.

Now that Bob Dylan has put together his own tribute to Ballarat radio's evergreen talent Kank Wolverang (see below) we can expect a new addition to the Sovereign Hill Music Festival - remember that? The Ballarat Council dropped a hundred thou or so on a festival which nobody came to. The Sovereign Hill staff were paid overtime so there was a crowd to watch James Reyne. Nobody could be paid enough to watch the Bullamakanka Hasbeen Bush band though.

DB Monday, take a bow. Having just recovered from the emotional rolldercoaster that was the Beijing Win Gold Or Die fest, it's great to have you on board.

Bob Dylan salutes Kank Wolverang

Its that time of year again when everyone looks to the voice of a generation, Kank Wolverang, that's WolverANG, to explain the tears and fears of a psychotic and psychiatric winter in a manner that befits a softly spoken git with nothing to say. "Tangled up in dudes", traditionally an untraditional Turkish work song. "If it aint turking it's just beef jerking" (Traditional Untraditional old Turkish saying) has finally landed. Born from Wolverangs tiresome work for charity whilst chronicling a lifetimes experience of crossing this wide brown sandy deposit we call Dudeton, population: me, or him, or her, or you? "Dudes" was originally born as an unguided way of passing the time between that horrible stretch that is Yass and just outside Yass and now through the grime sweat and sheer bloody hard graft, that and 20 minutes to write down the verses, it comes fully formed in a Brady Bunch environment that shows unreservedly that Alice doesn't live here anymore.

Ballarat and Beijing: better and worse

Oh god. It just doesn't get any better. London journalist bags Ballarat athlete. London journo bags "our" (don't forget even American basketball coaches who stayed here for more 20 minutes are labelled 'Ballarat residents') Erin Carroll for being the first athlete to lose in the Olympics.

Carroll had not been in the original Australia team, but snuck in when some
spaces were reallocated by the International Badminton Federation. She has been
playing at the top level for a couple of years, so she was happy just to have
taken part. Which is not something you hear often from an Australian.

Ooooooooh! Fire up the jingo machine! Man the patriotic defences! Get someone famous from Ballarat to say those British people are mean and nasty and anyway we have a bigger tally than you andwhataboutourmineral richesandwehavenicerbeachesandexcellentfruitywines. At a reasonable price.

Here's the latest from the Show With No Name Studios:

Winter hits Ballarat and we crack the SADS

Seasonal Affected Disorder. The feeling that winter has gone on for long e-fucking-nough. It's hit Ballarat. And I shit ye not - a bomb has just gone off in the carpark not far from the Hamburger Cart. That's how shitful Ballarat is at the moment with this cold weather.

In tribute, the Show With No Name is back on the interwebs. From Redan to Sebastopol. From Alfredton to Golden Point. Ballarat's biggest little blurters of the truth on a transmitter you can't hear...

Happy 4th of July

Today, someone asked me what's good about America. Y'know, bein' fourth of July and all.
Pictures speak louder than words. First, the insanely good:



Then the howlingly good:


And the ridiculously good:


And the bad? Hmm. There's the obviously bad.


The just plain bad.


And the really, really bad.


Send in the clowns. Norman, bless America, please:

Take me to funky town...I beg of you....

Hello Fans,

Ahhh Winter.
I'm currently snotting about the side alleys, coughing up gouts of organic blu tack and blowing out (in a free to air concert of freaky nose jazz), what looks like the filling for Satan own country style Vanilla slice.
But I digress...

Is there anything actually happening in this town at the moment?
Sure.....the Discount King is still pumping out bilk cheap flatscreens, Duke Hootch is selling a garbage bag of Jimathon Beam for 20 bucks and the Pregnancy seems to be thriving.

But if you're reconciled to the fact that tele is crap (may I implore you to dial up Rahsaan Roland Kirk blowing a coke solo at Montroux and compare it to a bunch of terrier brained gooseberries shitting us to death in Big Bother 65 and tell then try to tell me it's not all over for free to fuckin' air . C'maaaaaaaaaan.........).
Or if your not interested in drinking your bladder to bursting point and grinding off those odd angles of your brain with the Big Brown Bag Of Bland.......
Or aren't quite ready to join the Alien Club and watch your self (or a another) burst apart at the spaceman seams with new, mewling puking life (to quote the Bard)....
Then, pray-forth, what do you do to fill in the long lonely hours between finishing your crap job and getting up for your crap job?

Case in point.

Myself and a lassie (whom we'll call Honeypants Jones. You can hum the 007 theme if you like), decided to kick up our tam o shanters the other night and go out on the tear.
After a few heart starters at Pad Dog (a little joint i dig that makes Jazz noodles), we jiffied off into the wild black yonder in search of moonlight, good times and boogie.

Our first point of call was at the funky Quinn the Eskimo bar.
We scampered in from the cold and stood in it's nuevo Igloo stylee barn with a throbbing throng of four other people.

A D.J spun his platters, but in all honesty, he looked like he was down at the 12 grooves or less isle at Colesway.

We pushed our way through the teeming, hotpants masses (not) to sink a few brews.
After a learned discussion (choosing which one of the 20 empties was quite the drama) we then plonked (figuratively and fluidly) and sat chatting about this and that.
Hoopla! Frugalicious! What a happening thang!

So......
It was then suggested we sneak down to the Combover Bar to check out what the young saucy types are doing with their fuzz-boxes in this libertine age.

A quick stroll down the Poof St. precinct and there we were, standing solo in the joint, the bouncers outnumbering the band, punters and bar staff.

Five minutes of groovy awkward later and it was back to Quinn's for a night cap.
Highlights included some pissed chick trying to dry hump my leg while Honeypants was having a wizz and the magnificent Agwa (Spirit of Shambolic Kings).
Honeypants and I exchanged glances, had an executive and it was decided that we could probably go home and have more fun watching the tea towels dry.

And, if this wasn't rubbing salt into and already inflamed and crusty dude of a night, we foolishly stopped in at the ol' Bottom of the Ballow Hotel to see we couldn't get one last desperate drink and giggle.
We could and we did (sorta).
However the young goon yowling his Pearl Jam cover over his tinny arse guitar (aurally imagine a cheese-grater in amongst broken glass and coat-hangers) was enough to make me tip my glass of cheap sauce on the pot-plants and suggest to Honeypants we catch the next flight to somewhere where a night out still correlates with Steppin' Out! rather that a night out being equal to puttin' the bins out .

Shame Ballarat. Shame.

I'm old enough to remember when party meant kit off craziness.
When bands were keen to blart out one more bit of snazzy caper and when you danced, you fruged until your could steam a dimmie with your eyebrows. No sweat!
Where you would run (yes you heard) to the next event because you didn't want to miss any of the life affirming shenanigans taking place on Fri and Sat (usually Sun and always Monday).

But now..........

I'm had more of a randy toot watching Question time. I've been more razzed reading soup instructions.
I've had more jive from a jar of pickles and more hep from a typhoid immunisation.

Piss poor, Goldtown city.
You have been warned.


Mick 'I remember Coles cafeteria" Dog

The ugly truth revealed

This is what it looks like from inside the Dim Sim Research Production facility...

Apologies for the three people who've been watching our stuff online. Youtube production has dropped markedly since I forgot to pay my interweb fees and got cut off....

At the moment I'm blogging by throwing five cent coins through a partially opened window onto a keyboad at the Snake Valley Primary School. It's tricky.

We shall return as soon as possible - until then, think about this for a red-hot rumour:
Premier Brumby Stallion comes to Ballarat to open the special Water Pipe to save the town. Only problem is, it wasn't finished. But people were starting to panic. So, a tankerload of water is purchased, one pump is turned on up the road a bit, and the awaiting hawk-eyed journos taking pics of themselves near Brumby Stallion get to see some water coming out.

'Strue. I heard from this bloke who knows this bloke.

Culture belongs in yogurt

Hello Fans,

Well you can't say that we here at The Show With No Name blog-a-ma-doodle
don't bust out the freshest jive since Will Smiff left Bel Air.

I, (and by that I mean me), can break it to you (etc.) that our beloved B-Town is due to get a new Arts Precinct within the near future (geologically speaking).
The juicy prune goss is that the Old Railway building (down in the old Railway Yard, on Old Railway St, in Railwaystopol) has been ear marked, (like a wandering Beagle), to be turned into some sort of magic playground of imagination, so the residents of our town can git along and look at some purdy pictures of gum trees on a widescreen digital format.

Sources close to the Proj. can reveal that it's some sort of State initiative and (in the infinite wisdom of the bureaucrat) it's been decided it's best if the whole thing is keep a secret from everybody.
As you read, development/funding/consultation etc. is being undertaken by industry profs who wouldn't have a clue as to where the Albert St bogs were even if they were having a shit in Albert St. at the bogs.

Which is tremendous stuff. Just what we need!
Another Arts Precinct designed by people who know about nothing but Art! Yay!
Who know nothing about Ballarat and it's curly inhabitants! Whoopee!
And probably find the fact they don't have hot cold and cold running wank in their rooms (like they have in yon big cities) a thrilling brush with colonial life! Gasp!

I suppose it will follow on from the fabulous success of the Camp St Arts precinct.
My heavens...hasn't that changed out cultural landscape?

Indeed there's nothing like heading down to Camp St, gliding along the glitteringly lit paths, watching the beautiful displays of local sculpture and endeavouring screevers, sitting down to be tempted with the fine and luxurious foods from our district and then being swamped for choice as to whether or not to enjoy the world of film at the University's Independent Cinema or to head off to the Ol' Helen McPherson McSmith McBuggeryTheatre for some excellent type of wonder music or challenging new theatre, then shaking one's rumpa to some imported boogaloo from interstate at the heated outdoor Venue-ma-tron and truly feeling the life of this funky town pump through the floorboards till the sun comes up, so we can all troop happily along, hand in hand, to the French Breakfast restaurant where it's always Croissant o'clock.

Why, we're spoiled for choice here that to that Sparkling Beacon of Wonder!
When someone says "What's going on Dude?" those two bounteous words "Camp St" are all you need.
It's the happening place Daddy-O!
Why the millions of dollars thrown at the re-vamp have paid off in spades!
I can't think of a more happening joint, right through the week, but especially on the weekend.
The variety! The inventiveness! The ever changing surprisery! The Goodwill! The sheer magnificence of it all!

Berlin can go to buggery. Tokyo's for tossers. New York is Old Hat.

Camp St!

It's got the buzz, friend.
Up there with Beale St, Soho and Carnival!

So yah-boo sucks to those nay sayers who said "The the entire joint was a poorly designer three legged white elephant that nobody would ever go to and would primarily be used as a walk through and spew stop for late night alcho monkeys"
.
A big bite yer bum to those negative types who said "The University is run by a bunch of nepotistic fossils, who's tenure means they can be a bunch of incompetent hacks, grimly ignoring the 21st century and not giving a shit about their work reaching any further than payday, who've never ever been interested in a wider community (what would those philistines know anyway)...and run a third rate bag of guff Uni"

Go to buggery for those who said "Helen McPherson McDonalds Theatre? What? Where? Who?"

Up ya clack to those who skyted "With so many musicians and theatre types supposedly hanging around, why is it we never see any thing good? Why are there no independent companies producing modern work? Why are the same old hacks producing shit that was crap in the 40's?"

Go to steaming Hell those never satisfied types who said "Another bloody Arts precinct? What in the fuzzy muffin would we need one of those for, when our current Arts Precinct, which was touted to be a fuckin Mecca of Western culture's greatest achievements, is nothing more that a huge albino mammoth, squatting like a bored cane toad, inhabited by nitwit kids and senile staff, ignored by the locals, laughed at by visitors, a place that begrudgingly squeezes out a small shiny nugget of dancy poop (to be watched by the people who are studying Dancy Poop Squeeze 101 and associated relatives) twice a year and is nothing less than a complete and utter fucking debacle that has successfully alienated anyone who could have breathed some life into it and whose only redeeming feature is it's ability to relax while the icy cock of corporate culture jams another inch in?"

Ha! You were wrong. All of you.

Camp St!
Wow!

And on a personal note, I'd also like to point out the fabulous success of the Music Festival held at Sovereign Hill last year.
A triumph of planning!
Why putting a festival in a rickety old joint where you can't touch anything was genius! Charging people their superannuation to see the cream of 80's folk really made me feel like I'd sacrificed for culture.
Getting the kids up to run around in the land of rusty spikes was a touch of brilliance!
And placing that roped off area for councillors, developers and associated cronies in the middle of the festival made me thankful that people (superior in all ways to myself and most others) were generous enough to let me wistfully gaze upon their grace and allowed me to furtively photograph them enjoying their trays of delicious sandwiches.

Indeed, there's nothing that says "Eureka Spirit" to me than spending a mortgage payment to gaze at the musical past and give silent and respectful regard to my betters who can proudly say "The Birthplace of democracy means I'm free to say get the fuck away from me you filthy fucking urchin. I bet you can't even name Max's merits!".

So....New Arts precinct....
I've said it once and I'll say it again......
When it comes to building Arts and Culture that reach out to plain old dumb bunnies like myself, that subtly and amazingly make me proud to live here, then Ballarat is number one.
The Big Cheese so to speak.

With the Wonder of Camp St and the Folks responsible for incredible Events at Sovvy Hill (for which the financial figures speak for themselves!) at the Helm, how could this new Art Precinct Endeavour be anything but the envy of the World?

Face it.
All past achievements have been met with resounding success and the next time you pass a group of carolling singers who warm your heart with generous song, while strolling your way to The Camp St Art precinct in the Christmas like hope of being thrilled to bits again by Art (or the twinkly Elves of creation), you can squeeze your honey tight and give thanks that you don't live in a place where our poor ignorant forebears had to eat a crap Italian sandwich, sink a jug of cheap hooch and try to con onto something with a pulse at a crowded, pestilent nightspot run by a belligerent Mafia in order to have fun.

We should all thank our lucky stars.........

All for now


Mick "Does anyone have the Events calendar for the Pre-mix King?" Dog

Crazy town needs town crazy

Hello Fans,

A bit of sad news this week.
Our beloved town oddball, Mr Bill Morrell, finally shuffled off to the great big brightly colored hat in the sky.
For those of you who may not be in the know, Bill was the guy who walked around town, usually smoking a pipe, sometimes holding a fuzzy bear of some sort, sometimes wearing a giant novelty hat and most of time with a open gladstone bag that contained God knows what.
I had a squiz one day and it looked like a show-bag you might be given at the Dementia Show.
Just bits and pieces of things and stuff.

I'd known Bill for nearly 20 years and met him when I was a wee pup serving glutinous pancakes at one of our beloved franchises.
He'd come in and order a cup of black coffee, every day, at about 1 o'clock.
Without fail.

This went on for months and one day, when I was so presumptuous as to take down the usual order before he'd actually ordered it, He looked at me and said "Actually, Mick.... I'll have a Swiss Shake!" (a monstrous milkshake thing with about a litre of ice cream and enough chokky topping to get a Primary school off chops).

I bought it down to him and he sucked the pint glass dry and then never ordered anything else but coffee after that.
Zen humour? Low blood sugar? Birthday celebrations? I'll never know.

But, it must be said, that even then you could see the crack in the glaze of his eyes.
Other, more free wheeling dudes (who cooked the pancakes) would goad him into singing Opera (which he loved) and we would stand around in the faux wooden acoustics listening to the tremulous warblings of an Old, sad man having a crack at Puccini and the nasty cooks would piss themselves laughing.
Bastards we all were.

Still, every town has its colorful residents and without wanting to hang shit (which is odd for me) and with due respect, it is sad when a town loses its Town Crazy.

Before Mr. Morrell there was Radio Dave, a bloke whose life story was nothing but shite and tragedy, but still cruised about, blagging tapes and having the dubious distinction of being the guy everybody knew but no one wanted to know (this awkward attempt at sincerity makes me sound like Anna Coren. Forgive me, Zombie Jesus....).

Dave was one of those guys who was never really going to fit in anywhere, but none the less, I've heard crazier shit come out of less damaged people and at the heart of it all, Dave was an o.k guy (once again I'll admit that about 20mins was my limit. After that one of us left)
A champion bot and an enterprising dude who sold music from various bags from corner to corner, He always carried a large Boom Box (as it was known before these accursed MP3 toys turned us all into selfish shits).
Indeed, if Dave wanted to flog some merch, he'd whack it in the tape player, give it a crank and we'd all enjoy the goodness (conditions apply. See Ramones for details).
Cash would change hands. The Taxation department could go fuck itself as I don't think Dave had any sort of ABN or even a last name that I knew of.
Big Guy. Too loud. Too awkward.
Shuffled off to the big street in the sky a few years back.

Before him there was a guy called Herman The German, who was another trench coated guy who just hobo'ed around, not really doing anything but smelling odd.
A fixture of my childhood Ballarat, I don't really know what he did.
Rumours abounded that he had everything from Nazi Gold to Phyllis Diller sewn into the mattress and that he chose to live in odd shambling poverty.
Of course, there wasn't and he didn't, but when he died the whole town turned out. Why? I dunno.
Guilt? A sort of weird pre-B-Brother celebrity reality before television?
Beats me. But He's gone too.

And now Bill Morrel.
I can't lie and say I didn't cross the street when I saw him coming up the road in the last year of his life.
Previously, I'd often stop and have a chat to the old bloke, but then one day he just gave up washing and eventually started exuding a uric odour that was like a Hyena trying to hump your face.
I couldn't hack it. I'm shit with smells. They just make me chuck.

But he's gone too. Poor bugger. (He looked awful before he died. Really bad.)

So.
Here's the ad you won't see down at Centrelink but none the less is hanging somewhere in the continuum, (or maybe on the City of Ballarat website) and is yet to be answered by the next strange candidate

Wanted.
Town Crazy.

Must be largely benign but obviously completely off chops.
Ability to politely/emphatically ramble to anyone who listens a plus.
Must have own clothe (pref. one set) and distinctive prop or icon (music player, large hat, trenchcoat etc.)
Duties include walking endless loops of Sturt St and staring into space.
Benefits include polite cafe owners, passing interest from humanitarian types and first name basis with staff at Base Hospital.
Experience with young yelling pricks helpful, but can be learnt on the job.
Chance of promotion non existent, but successful applicants will be provided with ample sun if it's a nice day.

Salary- Nuttin'
Apply - Sturt St C/o Any Lamppost.
Successful applicant will start immediately. We suppose. (Sort it out amongst yourselves).


All for now

Mick "Today Tonight is my Bitch" Dog

Peakin oil in Ballarat - the extended club mix

It's late. I'm almost out of petrol vouchers. Just time enough to push this downhill:

Peak oil fever hits Ballarat

It's coming... it's coming.... Len and Mick have been ensconsced in the Viper Room in L.A finishing off the last of the tax that ol' mate wassisname said was left in the locker at the train station... Anyway due to the oil crisis we haven't had a show on air, but this is the first cut from the bowl of congealing dim sims that is my brain right now...
Kick the fuck on!



That's all right now... currently hard at the mincer, making more dimsim meat for the next parts of the feast that is Peakin' Oil in Ballarat. The Show With No Name is back on the air this week, by hook, crook, or petrol price mook - in the meantime, siddown and relax as we consider a future of the world as the Juice Crisis takes hold...

Comedy my arse

Hello Fans,

What is the attraction of the ineffectual gonk?
Everywhere one looks these day, there's another example of an inept twerp simpering about how "useless" they are for laughs and making other fucking oxygen thieves feel good about their lives.

Case in point.
Reading today in one of the nation's broadsheet arse rags, I quote; "Flight of the Conchords is the funniest show on television". (end bullshit)

Upon reading this I partly rejoiced, for it means that the boob-tube has now become so piss weak, so brickishly dull that people may start doing things like shoe cleaning or gutter de-clagging as a preferable option to being dribbled upon by the electric bukkake of light entertainment.

For those of you spared "The Flight of The Conchords" kiwi infused poop, every episode runs like this

Fool 1- I'm inept
Fool 2- I too am inept, but not as inept as you

(Sight gag proving Fool 2 is, in fact, more inept than Fool 1)

Fool 2 - Curses!
Fool 1- Lets sing a song about how furniture makes us glad.

(Fin)

??????? Huh? Wha????
Sheer buttocky scrape.


And for those who like their shows in a Kervorkian stylee, may I suggest you expose yourself to five futile minutes of "Balls of Steel".
This filthy little pile of steam works on the premise that people shitting people to death is funny.

Now, I don't know about you, (thank Christ), but I'd just like to put my hand up and say I've got enough to shit me in this world without paying money to watch some cunt kick a Nana up the arse for laughs.
Buncha fuckin goons mugging for cheap laughs.
If the aforementioned Balls were made of steel, perhaps they could actually take a risk and present some comedy that would maybe get them in a bit of troub.

Some suggestions include..
A home make over for your Austrian Dungeon? Or maybe getting up the front of a Mosque and mooning the faithful when they do that bendy over thing? Start selling shares in Antarctic oil to investors? Maybe faking adoption papers for that 42-kg tumour they removed from the Indian rickshaw driver today? Driving round the Whitehouse with "Paint it Black" blaring from a tricked out ride? Anything that doesn't involve picking on some poor bastard just trying to get through the day?

But noooooo......just a bunch of lackwits harassing their fellow folk so that people who own television stations can add another rumpus room to the Death Star.
Balls of Steel? Balls of fucking cheese, you lank witted scrot fondlers.

But while I've got my spleen in my hand, lets just pile some more script diddlers onto this bonfire of blag.

Rove McAnus. Australia's answer to Webster. It's a pity our African neighbours don't kill television personalities for bush meat.

Tripod. Puerile nincompoops blarting out the same song again and again about how Galaga is better than a girlfriend and how they wish their Nintendo had a box. Prannies all.

That McDermott thing. Is he poking that talentless blonde blow-up or what? Every time I've glanced at her over wrought monologue, I can feel the lighting guy wanting to drop something on her gibbering head.
As for that McDermott thing...apart from having a head that looks like a shitty Pixie caught in a three accordion pile up, I'm sure I'm not alone in saying "If the sheer realisation that you are a fuggling hack doesn't shut you up, perhaps several very hard blows to the face will. (tip your waitress. Try the veal etc.)"

Who else.......Julia Zemiro! (please.....can you just talk like a person rather than a ring leader in CirqueDuMerde? If we can record the pristine mumbles of Lou Reed then we can safely assume microphone technology doesn't need you to yell like a fishwife selling cushions)

And any "Personality" that does those 20 to 1 abortions with Bert "Still here, ya bastards!" Newton. (Can we please get Amnesty International to give Nick Gianopoulos a job somewhere? That poor bastard...every line he delivers is like watching an old, old man desperately flap his floppy cock up against a bored prostitute.)

Hamish Blake! (Whassamatter? Ran outta funny stuff there, young fella? No more cred cause you can dry and chop up yer snot and snort it again for that 3 o'clock buzz? Used all your funny lines after being pumped every day on radio, Tv and Martian space probe? Falling into the trap of being a desperate compulsive joke belcher? Word got round you're a dud root? May i suggest taking some time off to suck shit, you furtive freckle fondler)

And of course Shaun "had it, lost it, oh no...found it again...no gone..hang on ....no....yup, there it is.....no...no .....bugger it...." Micallef, (word to the wise, Shauny baby, The dream is over. You are getting dangerously close to being offered Larry Emdur's old job. You could have made something really cool. But you didn't. You could have whacked out something as fucking funny and dry and great as "The Games". You could have been the thinking man's Norman Gunston. But you blew it all on cheap gags and fancy light bulbs for your mirror. Bob Dylan is funnier than you. And he ain't funny).

Or Denise Scott. The only thing even vaugly funny about that luddite bag lady is her rsemblance to a pet rock with a wig on. The way some cameraperson has to feel their life ebbing away, while they get a tight shot of her early dementia style routine, screaming about her prolapse and her geographic titties, sounding to my ear like some sort of oral hybrid between a runaway fax and a trickling brook of Werribee's finest, is heartbreaking. And bile inducing. And gun law reconsidering.

Nope. Bugger it. Had a gutful.

Can't see how these frisbee chasing bafflements make a contribution to the World.
Lift your game or get over to London for Panto season the lot of you.


All for now


Mick "Karen Middleton, that politics reporting chick, is hot" Dog

University of Ballarat goes to Sydney

This just in from our correspondent Matt Heuston-What'sYOURFuckinproblem-Kennedy in Sydney... It seems Ballarat Council is not being consulted on some plans for the expansion of the city's boundaries...

BREAKING NEWS: PHOTO REVEALS EXPANSIONIST PLANS

Gold-rush city expands, abscess-like, into the heartland of Sydney.
M Heuston Kennedy - AAP Rooters.

It's an unusual advance guard, but the Gold City has begun its take over of the Emerald City by establishing a office of its University in Sydney's CBD (currently sharing the space with a Scientology Personality Testing Centre and a D&D gaming club).

"Believe you me. Soon, Sydney will be renamed 'North North North Ballarat'. This is just the beginning of our plans for the expansion of our golden town" said an un-named and imaginedcity councillor.

"The bloody soap-dodging hippies might finally shut the hell up aboutthe lake having dried up once we show them our boys rowing on North North NorthBallarat Harbour under the *Golden Arch!"

"We've some grand plans for NNNB, including the forced repatriation of all shirt-lifters to that nonce-hole Melbourne. We'll be keeping keeping most of the 'vagitarians' though. They might be rough as a dog's clacker, but many lezzers - the 'butch' ones I think they'recalled - are renowned hard workers and will form the vanguard of our new NNNB mining and construction efforts. They're like Malley Bulls some of em, but with twats, which, onreflection, isn't very bull-like is it? Anyway, we'll save millions on work-gear too as they all have their own dungarees and boots already."

Further plans discovered by this correspondent include a plan of rapid national expansionin which the the eventual annexation of Papua New Guinea is seen as a real possibility.

"Bogan-Ville sounds like a great name for a regional Capital in the Ballarat Sovereign (Hills) Empire." Said an utterly non-existent council spokesperson who said he enjoyed beer, golf, beer AND golf, sitting, sitting and beer, and reading - with a beer.

This correspondent was then treatedto a recital of a few passages from the spokesperson's favourite book called: "Me In Kamp F" a rollicking adventure tale of the Gold Rush which he related in what seemed to be a local twang, which to the unacustomed ears of this city-slicker reporter, sounded oddly Germanic.

"After NNNB, we'll move north again. Onwards and upwards we say. I mean, you can't have a place called "Queens" Land on the Northern border of the most glorious blokey Empire the world has ever seen can you? Especially after we've sent all the 'queens' to Melbourne where they'll never be seen again - mainly because no-one ever goes there. From there it's onto Bogan-Ville and shortly after, Indonesia which, as there are no Indians - or Esians - hardlymakes any sense as a name, so we'll just call the whole bloody thing China Town. Anyway, I better be off as it's Happy Hour at the Country Club (6 'til 11) and we're sacrificing a hippy to the lake-God tonight - plus there's a choock raffle. First prize is a ham!"

* The proposed new name for Sydney Harbour Bridge which, after being gilded, will beboth an eternal tribute to Ballarat's glorious past and the most ambitious partnership McDonald's has ever undertaken with a city dictatorship.

Blog 10/06/08

Hello fans,
Firstly I’d like to thank all those involved in the bid to put The ShowWith No Name up there with such television classics as The Collectors and "The Twiddlebugs go to Indented Head".
We can’t disclose too much at this point, (what with nothing having actually happened and the Pigeon that we tied our hopes and electronic dreams to possibly crashing into some power lines round ACDC lane), but it is good to have actually been part of licking a self stamped and popping stuff off to a bunch of grey headed people, who hate this confounded modern age, but love a good panto with Kevin Rudd dressed up as Luscious Lillypad, a transvestite frog who’s off to see the Emperor! (Cymbal crash!…cue piano.)

Ahhh….the smell of the greasepaint….. Lube me up Charlie! I’m ready to rock. (Cash, cheque or money order)
But I digress…..

How lovely is it to be frozen stiff in the mornings? How wonderful to see the Walrus lolling about on the council steps, their gritty flukes tapping away at water rates and the like?
How delightful is it to see mercurial hump bunnies fused at the frozen dude outside gaily-lit nightspots?
Yes indeedy, Winter in all of its floral shirted goodness is here.

How I love to see the flakes of exhaust fumes settling on the children, their cak handed attempts to make a petroleum snowman being thwarted by motorists scooping the carrot nosed busts into gleaming automobiles and chugging along to work on crap and steam?

How I adore the happy panted choky scrufflers, scooting about with the monthly horde, the Vinnie Barbawino’s emerging all smiles with their crisp bags of new goon, the pleasant singing of pregnant teens, like tender mother buffalos, bellowing to their squat progeny down Central Square, their jammy Longbeach fingers poking into bargains and what not.

Yes…. It’s certainly Poetry in some sort of motion (perhaps Poetry at Bingo nite or stuck in traffic in Mossman), but indeed I truly think (conditions apply) that of all the wonders of God’s green tea bag, that Winter in Ballart puts the gleaming stars to shame and makes the beanies hide their furry heads in awe.

As a pup, growing up in this Alpine light, we would be huddled into a room with the livestock, perhaps a few old blankets and then we would set fire to the unused wings of Doggly Manor, (Central heating still being a pipe dream in 73’).
We’d sing songs into a Cb radio and it was wonderful to hear the truckers fill our cold little chicken roost with odd, dreamy far away sounding names such as Boort and Maldon.
It was cold, colder that the teat of a cryogenic Witch (Moly! Dat’s cold!), but we laughed and died, like soldiers in a drink tray together.
We’d skootch under four metres of doon at night and back in the day we had tame Elves, (except for that one got rabies and took out the dog before Dad clubbed it to beans), who would drive weenie snow ploughs, so you could get to school and be cold there for the day.

Our beloved lake Wendouree would freeze and we’d skate, happy as horny Larks until the Ice Pirates came in July and stabbed you with a swan if youtried to get to the kiosk for a cup of warm mulch.
Ahhhh…Winter. It’s like the frozen things your lover pokes up your bum on one of those night where you are both feeling co-sassy.

Sure, it’s a shock at first and one is almost tempted to pull away, (perhaps to Brisbane), but after a few deep breaths and a little melty patience, soon Winter is as snug as a bug in a bog roll and you just await the comforting melt while your lover tightens your saddle. Yee Har!

In fact I’ll go as far to say you can keep you balmier climbs, what with all the Secession talked about the Colonel Jo.
Sure, it must be bearable to waddle from the waterbed with a “Free pass to SeaWorld with every dressing gown” dressing gown on, make your lackadaisical way to some squid vendor and go the morning chomp while naked young’ns catch the tram to their get fit fondles.
It must be passably to sit at night with nothing but a flimsy chenille on, sipping on some sparkling liquors while some sort of Afro Jazz plays to the freakish skies, the night breeze flunking through the drying washing and the nymphs from next door have a “Nude against Mug!” contest on their frilly trampolines.

It must be o.k. to have endless sunny skies and that “Tie me Campervan down, sport!”, you beaut Ute Aussie dinkum sports drink attitude that seems to come easily to our northern neighbours, but given the choice I’d like nothing more to stand on the top of Sturt street, my dude whipping about in the frigid air singing “Counting the Beat” by the Swingers and then rubbing myself all over with the moist, carbon smelling soil of my lovely freezy burg.

Of course, after certain court orders have now been freed from their envelopes (rather like that scene where NASA smashes the prison prism in Superman III and the bad guys who can kick superman’s ass get out and wreck terrible havoc setting fire to Buicks and the like, but Superman gets better lines and Lois won’t root the beardy henchman and the leather dominatrix chick falls in love with Kurt Cobain’s country cousin, Capt. Kyle Cobain Jr and the really smart guys with the evil eyebrows gets his own show called “Punch in face for a million!” , where ex-wrestlers get punched in the face by a man who excerpts more force than a steam train being dropped from space when they can’t answer questions like “What is the mathematical representation of the code needed to seed other planets with sentient life?”), then the above mentioned nudie duding won’t be appearing at an Arch of Victory near you soon. Pity………..

Still……it nice to be cold. (sorta)
I find it brings out the resilience in a person. An attitude where you have keep your wits sharp and your eyes open lest you blink and they freeze together.

All for now!

Mick ‘Wimmens is better that electamatrical blankets” Dog.

The Henson photos you can't see

It's all gone bear-shaped now. Until the Rudd paedo-police move in, here's the exclusive inside report on the Henson exhibition as filed by the Show With No Name...

Rock and roll hospitalisation in B-town

It's all gone hospital shaped for our comrade in charms Mr Len this week, folks! Last seen headed off for a public performance of loud guitar abuse, more lately it seems he's gone and landed himself in a small cell with a leg full of plaster and nought but a couple of euro-crit music mags and a small wire connected to a box which pipes the sounds of daytime television, of which a small box hangs from a ceiling some 6 feet above him broadcasting pictures of the same.

We gots to bust the man out. It's only a fortnight since our award-binning Rock for the Mok, in which we drove mid-song up to Albury Wodonga to bring you the sounds and commentary of the huge celebration of the return the nation's latest celebrity outlaw to justice... with fond appearances from our very first celebrity
home detention figure, Glenn 'i was caught wiping the tax from my nose' Wheatley.

But I digress. As I said, Lenny's managed to sidestep the usual public medicine predilection for invoking the horrors of Floydesque institutionalised uncomfortably numb drug trips (Just a little pin prick... there'll be no more AAAAAAAAAGH!) and ensuing spiders-crawling up wall. Or, indeed was that a Linda Blair-lookalike from the paedetrics wing-type freakzone? Nup, he's sitting tight.

But we gots to get in there.

The Utility Dim Sim Production Facility (nah... we're waaay not up to researching muffins yet... although a lot of it IS done in the kitchen..) - is hard at work nailing together the finishing sparkles to last week's Nude Henson Gallery Outrage edition of the Show With No Name. It truly was something to behold... nevermind where the hell we're going to find a picture of Gonzo... oh dear.

Regardless, send us any suggestions for Len's recovery - there'll be no show for tomorow, they wouldn't let us bring in the special Ratnet Hardware death-ray/multitrack/phonebong broadcasting gear (yeah, I actually DID check..) to let Len loose from the bed on the airwaves of 99.9 from Ballarat to greater western Victoria/earth, but we shall definitely be back on air next week, with latest rumours from the local bookie-fish'nchip/video/newsagent in South Central Ballarat declaring this will mark a return to the classic insane recordings as heard on the Show some months back when Len last found himself with smashed bones and a bruised sense of entitlement from the crime gang known Fate, Gravity, Pure Shit Luck all operating under the brutal doctrine of Murphy...

..and with that, ladies and gennilmen.... the 23rd of Elvis. Watch for Lenny as he plugs in the four-string Doberman and gets it boisterous...

For those about to Mok: we salute you

No-one but the Show With No Name could do it - a one hour special broadcast to commemorate the return of Tony 'The Mok' Mokbel to the warm and loving arms of Australian justice.
It was a broadcast that brought forth the best of the world's entertainment industry, from Australian legends Queen Bea and Vinegar Tits to the remarkable spontaneous performance of Chinese Democracy by Axl Rose live at the Albury Showgrounds.

We'll never see the likes of this again.... here's the highlights

Show With No Name playlist May 20 - special Rock for the Mock edition

It was emotional. It was intensive. There's probably gonna be some 'tube of it 'cos it was at times hysterical. Here's the tunes, or as much as I can remember.

The full list of Mok tunes wil be listed as soon as the audio is carved... lazy tongueless bugger I am, but... Mok the Casbah, Mok Around the Clock, even the surprise inclusion of the Tony Bartuccio dancers just couldn't compete with Only the Tony in the early heats...
But anyway... here's the tunes for our many* listeners .

The Prisoner - Iron Maiden
Tony's Theme - Pixies
Maniac Blues - The Bell Rays
We Don't Understand You - Front End Loader (live)
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
Carlton - Skyhooks
Welcome to the Jungle - Guns n Roses
Killer Parties - The Hold Steady (remix)
Jailbreak - AC/DC
Hate the Police - Mudhoney
Riot In Cell Block #9 - The Coasters
Chains of Love - The Dirtbombs

7 O'Clock Mock Mix
For Whom the mokBell Tolls - Metallica
Thousand Points of Hate - Anthrax
Over You - The Dwarves

Stay Hungry - Twisted Sister
(And a huge shoutout to the first caller in two years who called about the music. Right on!)

100 Fresh Disciples - Nokturnl
Zombie Woof - Frank Zappa
Smile - Quadbox
I'm So Bad Baby I Don't Care - Motorhead
September Crush - Asteroid B612
Eiffel Tower High - Husker Du
I Got Chills - The Bronx
New Direction - Gorilla Biscuits




*word 'many' may not correspond with any dictionary definition

For those about to rock - or wooga wooga

Can't begin to tell y'all about the awesome rock-throbbing power of Camp Street the other night, with Ballarat legendary goth kings/queens/royalty Immaculata in the Helen MacPherson Cancer Stiff Theatre on one side and Tassie's bad boy duo betterknown as the Beasties from Hobart stylee (otherwise known as The Scientists of Modern Music) on the other in Ye Olde Karova, you couldn't go wrong.

After the sad post-AFI baby-baby rock of Talk Radio, the earnest college kooky rockness of Neon Love began the night properly, to be followed by those two little rascals bangin' the electro vibe like Dr Who with a strapped-on Angus model Gibson SG... with bonus dance moves. What's not to like? These Scientists of Modern Music received my thrustily put $10 for a CD and all is well.

While we've been hard at the Youtubin the switchboard has gone wild, hence we've had to include the Sebastopol-Redan remix of the Frank Callahan Lal Lal sessions tapes right here and now due to the pressure of the public persuasion (yeah, it's cut short to a minute or so):




we hope that's suffficient for the hard rock appetite of our devoted listeners.

meanwhile, we're talking about a new way of getting down Humffray Street and a new way of employing the energy of youth for our mutual entertainment.

Cure for the winter horn, Kyle Sandilands and backpain

That's about the long and short of it judging from the latest Youtube that's gone up... bless us, you mothers, for we have sinned.


There's also the report into the Big Horn of Ballarat, following scenes of wild hysteria in the studios last week.

Show With No Name playlist May 13

An exciting week this week. We walked in the studio to find the right wing of the Liberal party have turned their insane eye to regional Victorian community radio stations: a giant sign saying 'Voice FM is now a no obscene language station'.

And not an unwashed copulating Semite in sight.

I asked whether someone has deleted Cold Chisel's Bow River and Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side from their constantly browsing computer, used to replace humans in making this thing called radio... I think a well researched letter to the Board is in order, with demands for a a new list of obscenity. Having been a zine publisher back in the 90s and finding out the list of words you're not allowed to put on the front pages of Australian magazines or newspapers, I look forward to embedding the words 'smoo' and 'nunga' in all manner of speech.

FZ - The Illinois Enema Bandit
AC/DC - Back in Black
Dirtbombs - Leopard Man at the C & A
G-Love - Things That I Used to Do
Eddie Bo - If Its Good to You It's Good For You
Jimi Hendrix - Izzabella
Sons and Daughters - Guilt Complex
Soundgarden - Outshined
The Hold Steady - The Swish
The Riptides - Cigarettes and Alcohol
Dogbuoy - UpRock

The 7 O'Clock Nup, Winter Is Still Creating Fear and Loathing mix
Sublime - Falling Idols
Sick of It All - This Day and Age
Bad Brains - Build a Nation
Ministry - Greed, Power, Corruption

Fear Factory - Cars
Open Hand - Take No Action
Urban Dance Squad - Alienated
Fugazi - Suggestion
Chuck E Weiss - Pygmy Fund
Black Sabbath - Iron Man
Harem Scarem - Animal Tracks
Eli Paperboy Reid and the True Loves - Doin't the Boom Boom
The Kinks - I Gotta Move
Bay City Rollers - Bang Shang a Lang



Although if you listen, I think Joe Dole is fast becoming the real outro theme song for the Show...