Death on wheels: the traditional Easter media snuff fest

There are some Australian media cliches that withstand the test of time - we will always have rain failing to dampen spirits of revellers at the Melbourne Cup, and close-up shots of fat arses and guts during stories about obesity, but at this time of the year we get long, drawn-out cavalcades of B-grade personalities during interminable telethons accompanied by images of people handing over giant novelty cheques.

We all feel better, some kids get to say 'hi mum' on telly and some of our more colourful 'business identities' get to write off another bag of money for the taxman - with the added bonus of televised character references for the next time the Feds come a-knocking.

The other grand tradition in Australian media is counting how many people are being killed on the roads - and then running a national scoreboard between the states, showing how many people got splattered. Currently it's 19 - but we can do better, Australia!

Have a look at how West Australia is going at it: Easter road toll in WA: 5 and rising See? That's a state that's getting behind the annual cull of young and old alike. Right now it's lunchtime on the Easter Monday and so far Google News has 399 stories listed about the Easter road toll. Extra bonus points to the kids of Cressy, however - for taking cops on a car chase after robbing a service station, while one of their mates was in the boot. They stacked into a tree. Sadly, officers were not allowed to handcuff any of them to the bumper bar, hand them a hacksaw then set a small fire in the dripping petrol.

At this point in Easter you can start playing media coverage bingo - you get bonuses for these particular words used in any headline/story text combination:

Horror, Carnage, Police Frustrated, Toll (never a bodycount or a corpse-score, it's always a toll), Young Lives, Fatality, Tragedy and Lives Shattered.

Tomorrow, we will bank the money Holden and Ford paid us to advertise stupid-fast cars to 19 year olds needing a manhood ritual, and the money we made from BMW and Mercedes making giant four wheel drives the new must-have accessory for the over 50 executives who just can't bear to be dragged off by those fucking 19 year olds. And then we will write an editorial about there needing to be more education and tougher laws. Australian media, you make me sick.

Resurrection shuffled: or getting hammered is traditional for Easter in Ballarat

Another weekend reading the Springfield versus Shelbyfield pissing contest of The Age and The Australian, considering again that perhaps all the best writers of culture have given up trying to be published on dead tree in Australia and are wandering about online, mostly. And then there's us. *tumbleweed*

Musically, the good, bad and ugly list this Easter looks like this: Paul Stanley says he will quit kiss, which only goes to show what kind of sway Len's editorial on last week's show has. My bringing out of Heard It On the X was the precursor to the announcement that ZZ Top are recording again, so I guess it's my turn to line up at the Disappointment Ride for my chance to watch once favoured legends squander their once-shiny legacy.

Yes, my mulleted teenage bad self was there when ZZ Top played at Olympic Park in 1987. Me, my two mates and about 10,000 bikies.They were awesome. Billy Gibbons helped bring me to the psychedelic and freaky in blues and rock and roll music... - ah, the Deguello album - but their gradual decline throughout the 1990s does bring back the classic modern musical dilemma: just where do you go after your psychedelic retro-hotrod becomes a push-button spaceship?

No, what we've seen this Easter is the arrival of the rock'n theme song for Presidential candidates. One of our spiky-haired brethren from Twisted Sister (no, not Dee...) has whipped up a version of I Wanna Rock - except it's I Want Barack.

Yes - how fucking stupid. But is it stupid enough to win more votes? I think so. Which means not only will this get really ridiculous as the major media outlets seek more creative ways to ignore 5 years of carnage in Iraq, and desperate old rockstars seek a way to be relevant again (Bono. Say no more.), but also as with most American political stunts and trends, Australia will either get a shitty copied version of this very soon, or a really good ripoff of it in about three to five years' time.

So here's my early picks for remakes/repostings/corpse raping of OzRock for Oz Politicians:

Kevin Must Be There - Eurogliders

Maxine - Sharon O'Neill

The Phillip Ruddock Blues - TISM

Kochsucker Blues - David Koch goes for Indendent MP with the Beasts of Bourbon

It's A Wong Way to the Top - the massed drummers sacked by AC-DC

What About Pete - Peter Garrett with Shannon Noll and the Hard Knocks Choir

Of course, I live in Ballarat. Where Steve Jones is the mayor. The farking bass player for the Sex Pistols, if you 'aven't 'eard... Although curiously, the Clash's Janey Jones could get a work out... Anyhoo.

At least hearing Sweet Home Bazz Obama sure will be funny... I'm sure. What we need is circuses made out of bread. I'm hungry.

Show With No Name playlist march 19

Easter. Jesus. No breaking stories on the lack of water this week. Although fans will note that the power of the Show With No Name endures, with the report that Van Halen may well be back on the road.

And a discovery: we found out the guy who hosts the 'lifestyle show' from 4-6pm before us was the bassist in the band who supported KISS at their legendary 1980 gig at Waverly Park. Lenny and I consider ourselves to be hard to impress - consider us impressed. Very. Especially when he backed up that tale with one about being a session bass player who knocked back royalties in favour of the one-off payment for his work on a little number called What About Me.
Big Al, your credibility just went up a thousand points on the Show With No Name... so inthe name of respectable lawyer-types who still hold a flame for metal, and with Easter on the horizon, we rolled in the rock:

Prisonshake - Bedtime Beats You Senseless
Rev Horton Heat - Prophet Stomp
Blur - Globe Alone
Harem Scarem - Animal Tracks
Rancid - Time Bomb
The Sparkles - Hipsville 29 B.C
Spanky Wilson - You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover
Bzark - Be My Parasite
23rd of Elvis - Waco and The Outsider (live Karova desk mix)
Boris Sudjovic - A.Harry & Mainstays theme
Dead Milkmen - Punk Rock Girl
Teenage Radio Stars - Sweet Boredom
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak

Seven O'Clock Rock**:
Suicidal Tendencies - Posessed to Skate
The Bronx - Cobra Lucha
Ramones - Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
Misfits - Where Eagles Dare

Detroit Cobras - Bad Girl
Flamin Groovies - Golden Clouds
Circle Jerks - World Up My Ass
TISM - Extreme Sports Can Kiss My Arse
Frank Zappa - Stevie's Spanking
Martha and the Vandellas - Nowhere to Run
Butthole Surfers - Goofy's Concern
AFI - Wester
ZZ Top - Heard it On the X
The Clash - Janie Jones
Joe Jackson - Happy Ending
Alice Russell - End of the Road
Richard Cheese - Crazy Train
Bay City Rollers - Bang Shang alang

**dedicated to all hardcore fans who hang around petrol stations near skateparks

Hot Autumn ideas for Ballarat Festivals

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Ballarat festival ideas

Shit! Goddamn! Make mine a cheese and ham! Mick Dog's revelation of another fantastic attempt for Ballarat to sink a shitload of money into something other than the behemoth of boring, the Begonia Fester-Vale, ignites a spark of interest in the cloistered explosive fumes of my pants. A festival, you say? Not like at Sovereign Hill, where a tonne of money was dumped on a sad and pathetic retelling of the tragic story of Australian music in the 1980s, as re-enacted by the people who were actually there (was it true the staff of Sovvie Hill were PAID to watch James Reyne?)

How to get the folk of Ballarat on board and supportive of something more complicated than queuing for dimmies at the Hamburger Cart, yet not as awkward as standing around on Camp Street watching councillors get drunk and Ballarat artists get short shrift during the Commonwealth Games...

Here's the grab bag of festival ideas we could - or yet might have if the collective genius of the Middle Aged Caucasians Without Soul has its indomitable way in Ballarat:

Crimean War Festival: everyone has to dress up as their favourite character from this charming 19th century fracas between Russia and the Poms, Frogs and Turks. The highlight is a restaging of the Siege of Sebastopol, with Ballarat's own namesake of this historic place heavily bombed, and then invaded by the armies of Wendouree and Redan in their fleet of P-Plate Commodores.

The Plugger Festival

A festival of quietly spoken, barrel chested large men who can kick footies a fuckin' long way. They will all gather at a footy ground and begin drinking in March. In April, one will say "jeez, I'm a bit hungry" and then the 8 weeks of barbque food festival will begin. Sausages of the World, Celebrity Steak Sandwiches (I'll have the Terri Irwinburger) and Exotic Onion Cutting With Chainsaw displays ensue. A sideline program of dishlickers and a parade of beefy blokes in utes driving past giving a passive 'owyuzgarn?' will also bring put back the 'big bastard from the country' that's been missing in Ballarat's marketing.

Single Mums on the Tear

Finally, a week long shindig for all those young women who found out just being able to shoot a wad into the back of the net doesn't neccessarily qualify a man as good fatherhood material. Instead of just wandering mindlessly around Stocklands Wendouree or the Mall with your screaming brats, here's the chance to get together with other mums and really discuss those big issues of whether Breehanna has become an over-used name for the effects of unwanted pregancies and maybe cop a rough shag from some miscellaneous speed freak from Colac. Music from live Britney and Bon Jovi tribute shows and, of course, an invite out to every tattooed dirty bastard across the state that there's plenty of desperate-for-any-action types gathered in one spot, so we can begin the process all over again 9 months after this event.

Stupid people and the impending massacre in Ballarat

My favourite author of all time is a bloked called Harlan Ellison. Your fuckin' uneducated fault for not knowing who he is. He's doing some interviews with people because there's a movie coming out about him. Knowing Australia we'll get the usual 5 second-crap press release rewrite, about 8 months after the fact - not unlike SBS TV news finding out that Terry Pratchett has dementia last night... like it was fuckin' news.... (can't even find the story on their website, that's how important they thought it was)

Anyhoo, I read this interview with Harlan on salon.com and I thought this particular quote resonated best, although sadly, it may mean the end of Ballarat as a heavily populated regional city if Harlan ever moves here:

"I'm an elitist because I think there are too many stupid people in the
world. But one must not pity them; one must take an AK-47 and kill them. You
just need to kill as many stupid people as you can find. Go out in the streets
and ask them if they have ever heard of Guy de Maupassant. No? Bam, you're dead.

Have you ever heard of Bessie Smith? No? Bam, you're dead. Beyond that, I
think it is really smartass of me to be cranky at people for not being as good
as I want them to be. I have, I suppose, a very peculiar love-hate relationship
with the human race. As a concept, the human race seems to be a very workable
idea. When you get down to the individuals, most of them need a ball-peen hammer
to the middle of their forehead to make them move even as a slow pony. I figure
any species that is capable of writing "Moby-Dick" and painting the Sistine
Chapel ceiling and putting people on the moon does not have to settle for novels
by Judith Krantz, McDonald's toad burgers and movies like "Dumb and Dumberer."

What is that Latin phrase? Spero melior -- I hope for better things. I have
a very low tolerance threshold. It's one of my many, many flaws and I get cranky
with people..."

Hits and Gig(gles)

Hello Fans,

It's been a while, but then again I have been hiding in the cavities of certain diplomats to bring you this fast breaking news story.

I must say it's serendipitious (thats the word for covering your lovers rooty bits in Ice Magic and making them stand in the fridge so you can crack their rocks off) to read Dr. Le Skips well deserved skunking of the Begonia debacle.
Indeed it's good to see someone backing up and squeezing the anal glands hard at those motherfluffers.
Anyhoo......

The rumour is that somehow, somewhere the City council has actually managed to hire someone competent and fun to do the big Arts Officer job, (rather than another middle aged nitwit who thinks water colors of menopausal clowns are the ducks guts) and that there may be (drum roll please...) the chance of getting a proper festival in town.

Y'know.....a festival that has fun in it. That you look forward to. That lets new stuff hapen. That contains no Brian Adams.

A festival that makes the final few seconds of the National News just after the Weather (thats when you know you've made it in this country.....when some be-suited gonk says "rain and drizzle in Canberra...and now lets take a look at the Ballarat Festival where forty seven competitors had to swim through ice water, root a peguin and do three vodka luges in order to be crowed "Mr Hypothermia....." (fade to Summer Bay).

Yup. You heard it. A festival.
The question remains...how do we stop the Menzies frotting conseratives from giving it the icy dick of Satan?
Or letting Mr. Bus and his cardboard minimalism (or as we older types say "Fuckin boring horseshit") from hi-jacking the thing and using this fuckin "Tolerance" card to be piss poor and drag the whole thing down so Ballarat can hate itself again?

Is it possible in this town to say "We are just as mad as any other bastards. Our freak flag with be made of colored steam".(?)
Is it possible to get a festival up that shows those boring city doodles that no one here gives a shit about goast cheese ceramics and get Lydiard street covered in snow by one of those big snow blowing bastards?
Is it possoble to say "Shut up already with the cold. Put on another jumper and create a huge percussion sculpture that plays a tune when it pisses down on the locals?
Is it possible to have bands playing in the cold and (gasp!) you might have to dance (is that the word? I've only seen it in movies....) to keep warm?
Is it possible to have on street carveries of delectable roast meats and rivers of molten chocolate?
Is it possible to have a chilli fest in amongst it all so you have to roll around in the snow to stop your head from exploding?
Is it possible for the waring faction of ning nongs in this buggered burgh to set aside tribal differences and having a crack at defeating the larger threat of being bored fucking stupid?

Who knows?
But it's on the cards again.
Admittedly its a bit like a bunch of old soviets (sitting in the streets of Moscow with a McSomething, talking to the Ford dealership on the mobile about getting extended warrenties) suddenly geting teary about how much fun home made pickles were.

But they were good pickles, goddammit.
Damn fine pickles and when you dropped a few of those saucy gherkins down the cakehole and chased it through with some of Uncle Vlas's homemade thistle vodka, you did feel beter.

Even as you went blind for a while, (Uncle Vlas always loved the thinner in the mix. Cheap bastard...) and the pickle popped out a freshly burnt gullet hole, you realised what a good short film it would have made and realised no where else could a metaphor for a festival in my town be made but here.

And that's got to count for something.

Til next time

Mick "The worker's flag was in this box....shit...where it is?....hang on I'll ring her Maj..." Dog.