Cred

..
to be some sort of ‘interruption in the data flow’ and that somebody
would look at it over the next two working days. So, when I can make an excuse
to go to somebody’s place with a working Internet connection, I’ve
been sending off another instalment of our monthly e-mail on their PCs. That’s
what friends (and rels) are for..
And it was yesterday I got a momentary thrill when I found an envelope from
the ABC in my letterbox. Maybe there was an appearance fee for Spicks &
Specks afterall, despite nobody mentioning it. Not that I feel that I deserve
a fee mind you, it would just be nice to have it in case my landlord wanted
some rent this month. It’s a variation on one of those cute laws, (like
Murphy’s Law), but this one doesn’t have a name that I’m aware
of. It’s the law that states that when you’re famous, everybody
wants to give you things (like appearance fees) that you don’t really
need, and when you’re struggling and could really do with it, they don’t.
We’ll call it Rudd’s Law.
So it was with mixed emotions I discovered that it was actually a very thoughtful
card from Adam Hills saying how much he’d appreciated my being on the
(Spicks & Specks) show and how I’d lent it some ‘much
needed musical cred’. Well, at least it was a stroke I s’pose, and
better than nothing, but right at the moment the money might’ve been better
received.
And then bro’ Dick rang me saying that I’ll Be Gone had
been mentioned on the ABC’s East Of Everything drama series the
night before. ‘Kudos are flowing thick and fast from that august institution
this week. What does this mean?’ I wondered to myself in Swahili. I’d
noticed a series of e-mails on Yahoo from Mal Padgett (before the page defaulted
to the page cannot be displayed message) that mentioned East Of Everything
in the heading, so when I was round at Jenny’s this morning dispatching
the last of the mail-out I checked them out. Mal had gone to the trouble of
locating the piece of film concerned and sent it to me to look at, for which
effort I thank him very much. check
it out
In case you haven’t seen it, and in case you can’t view it for yourself
now, the scene has some not-that-old bloke (Vance) in a shed putting on a treasured
vinyl record – and on comes I’ll Be Gone. The poor bloke
suddenly starts gesticulating wildly as though he’s been poisoned or is
choking or something – at which point he’s interrupted by some callow
youth and takes the record off and explains what he’s been listening to.
‘It’s a classic Aussie band, mate’ he opines, which is all very
gratifying, but the scene also demonstrates something very odd about human behaviour
that we (the band) observe almost every time we play. (I think I can remember
that). Every now and then people will approach us (usually while we’re
fair in the middle of playing a song, which may give a clue as to their state
of mind at the time) and demand that we play something that they can dance to.
Now, I can say with some certainty, that’s not what they’re
asking for, because, more often than not, the tune we’re in the middle
of playing is something they could easily dance to. No, what they want to hear
is something that they recognise, something that they know, and it doesn’t
matter if it’s not really a dance tune, they’ll get up and dance
to it anyway.
I’ll Be Gone is such a tune. It’s actually undanceable
to, (try it at home), but if the punters have been glued to their seats all
night, that’s the tune that will unglue them, every time. So, to see some
actor contorting himself grotesquely to the strains of my famous song is not
that unusual, but the context (alone in a shed) strains the credulity somewhat.
Lacking in shed cred, I think that is.
On a different tack, have you noticed the Americans don’t have the very
useful ‘shone’ past tense for ‘shine’? The best they
can do is the clumsy ‘shined’. I noticed it in an obituary of some
American woman in The Age. Crap! I’m owning up to reading the
obituaries now..