PC

..
existence, I volunteered that the Max Merritt song I’d commissioned myself
to write was on hold while I executed another actual but highly unlikely commission
to write some English lyrics for an Italian sixties pop song. The ‘being
commissioned’ thing is a good story, but in practice it’s not quite
as romantic as it sounds. Quite hard work in fact, and after a good couple of
cracks at it, I’m no more than half way there – and the disconcerting
thing is that I’m not quite sure where ‘there’ is. If my body
is found floating in the Yarra in a couple of weeks time you’ll know that
I’ve been a smartarse lyricist once too often.
Then the conversation turned to the Red Faces incident on the Thursday night
edition of Hey Hey It’s Saturday. The discussion was hampered
rather by my not being able to remember any more than the ‘Jr’ part
of Harry Connick’s name, and despite a comprehensive description and our
both knowing who I was talking about, that’s as close as we got.
In any case, I thoroughly enjoyed the show and even found Daryl’s apology
to Harry for any offence given to him and the entire US nation quite endearing.
The subsequent condemnation of the Jackson Jive skit has been fulsome and worldwide,
but while Harry’s umbrage has given us Melburnians pause for thought, there’s
no way that the skit was intended to be racist and there’s equally no
way it was perceived to be racist at the time by anyone on the show other than
Harry. I suppose it could be argued that historically ‘blacking up’
played a part in the ultimate acceptance of Afro-American culture in the US,
but I don’t intend to get into that argument because this is essentially
an Australian cultural issue and while the skit momentarily had none of the
racist baggage it would have had in the States, it certainly does now.
Which brings me to one of those aphorisms that I’ve always struggled with
– i.e. ‘Ignorance of the Law is no excuse’. I’ve
never fully understood that since I was a nervous little tyke being asked to
provide an excuse for being late for school. (I didn’t know what ‘excuse’
meant, but when I was told that it was by way of a story to explain my being
late I started to concoct this weird and wonderful tale based on a dream I’d
had until the class monitor eventually told me to shut up).
Flashback to Hollywood in 1978 when Bill and I were being held at gunpoint on
the sidewalk by one of the good ol’ boys of the LAPD while his buddy searched
Fleur Thiemeyer’s car for booze or drugs. He asked us where we were from
and on discovering we were Aussies mused approvingly, ‘Australia huh?
I understand you have a few rednecks down there.’ I have a feeling that
he would’ve enjoyed the Jackson Jive skit – and for all the wrong reasons..