The Sideshow: Axed By A Biased ABC Board

Bias at the ABC. Yes, it exists. But no, it’s not left-wing bias — it’s bias well to the right, courtesy of the changes to the Board of Directors that Howard instigated. The Sideshow with Paul McDermott has gone the way of The Glass House before it. Both were popular shows, regarded with great affection by many, and both were relatively cheap to make. In both cases scheduling changes preceded the final deathblow. And both shows included political satire that was damaging to the Government and its allies:

G’day folks. Welcome to The Glass House, the program that asks the question ‘Even though today’s anniversary of JFK’s death is sad, isn’t it good at least one American President showed a bit of brains?’ — Wil Anderson, The Glass House, 22/11/06

John Howard has finally said ‘sorry’. Well, not about the Stolen Generation, Children Overboard, Iraq or making us a terrorist target. He’s sorry interest rates have chundered all over his re-election chances. — Paul McDermott, The Sideshow, 10/11/07

The Sideshow also regularly ridiculed right-wing religious fundamentalism. In this moment from the ‘New Moods in Intelligent Design’ series, we discover why God didn’t design The Pyjamadillo, a pyjama-wearing nocturnal armadillo:


Nylon PJs and open flame — recipe for disaster
for three young Pyjamadillos!
The skit ends with the phrase ‘Ergo: God is Smart’ (for not designing such impractical creatures), but the real message is pretty clear: The excellent design of the real armadillo can be perfectly explained by evolution and it’s the concept of Intelligent Design that’s ridiculous.

Conservatives are typically against the avant-garde and risqué, and would have all sorts of issues with the burlesque spirit of The Sideshow, especially on the State’s TV channel, where it would be endowed with a level of legitimacy. What was The Guru’s TV moment of the year, Imogen Kelly frolicking with a cream gateau, would have the John Howards of this world protesting vehemently:


How to lose calories on gateau!
In fact, with many of the musical numbers having a political message, there wasn’t much about The Sideshow that wouldn’t have rubbed a staunch conservative up the wrong way. But it seems to have been the eponymous Paul McDermott himself who’s become public enemy number one with the ABC management. He revealed on the show that some crew’s IDs had been seized and replaced with visitor passes, including himself — now Visitor V3035.


“The star of the show is the A-B-C!”
In what, if the current Board of Directors have their way, will be the last ever Sideshow, the talented team of regulars sang a satirical song with the chorus “The star of the show is the A-B-C!” Over some 30 episodes the artists had put their hearts and souls into The Sideshow, and created something very special — a world in which free thought, progressiveness and creativity came together with a sense of community to engender optimism. “How beautiful is living?!” exclaimed Paul at the end of one ep.

Make no mistake, for the time being it most certainly is not Your ABC.


Images: ABC TV

Fading Sunshine and a Disturbed Mind

Sunshine is a film that stays with you. Flawed, certainly. But it is forgiven much because it dares to stare into the abyss.

Danny Boyle’s epic film is ostensibly about a last-ditch mission to save Earth by rejuvenating a failing Sun — a manned ship, the Icarus II, is to guide a huge payload directly into the heart of our sun. But ultimately it’s about the huge existential challenge of facing our fragile existence in the vastness of the Universe. A journey of a mere eight light-seconds, it nonetheless takes the crew to the edge of insanity. And our galaxy, one of some 20 million, is over 60,000 light-years across.

The abyss as experienced by the crew is a vast fireball, over 300,000 times the size of Earth, burning into the psyche. But also being faced is the consequence of failure: environmental catastrophe and mass extinction — humankind included.

Where 2001: A Space Odyssey (a film it borrows from heavily) envisions awe-inspiring new horizons, Sunshine contemplates awful oblivion. It is a film for our time.


Links: Review by Jake Wilson, The Age

Not Hailing Black Cab

But a rating of three and a half tortilla chips out of five, especially when they’re dipped in guacamole with cashews, is no bad thing.

Yes, The Guru is not an advocate of shinning up wooden poles wearing only a loincloth — the splinters don’t bear thinking about — preferring to widen his horizons. After all, what use are answers if they have no relevance in the real world?

And Saturday night’s Black Cab gig at The Spanish Club, Melbourne, was certainly food for thought. It was the album launch for Jesus East, their follow-up to the 2004 Altamont Diary. The evening was MCed by Sam Cutler, who was pivotal in organising the Rolling Stones Altamont Speedway concert in 1969 (and whose better half is an old friend).

The tragic events at that free concert in ’69 — policing by Hell’s Angels went very wrong and a fan died — did more than end the Summer of Love. Rock had to make an adjustment from its clear-cut ‘us versus them’ stance — perhaps things couldn’t always be blamed on The System and The Police after all.

Black Cab’s Andrew Coates (bottom-left) and James Lee are gen-Xers who’ve been greatly influenced by those events and their aftermath. And not in a ‘slowing down to get a good look at a road accident’ kind of way. They’re into ‘real’ Rock and they’ve germinated some of their own.


The music is not vocal-centric. James Lee, who spent most of the set with his back to the crowd (main pic), is adept at pinning his guitar to the ground (literally) and extracting startling sounds from it. The other guitars and synth were also accomplished. And the drums became first intense and finally righteous as things heated up.

The evening was topped off by freestyle spoken word lyricism by Sam (bottom-right), backed by Black Cab, in the style of William S Burroughs.

Black Cab’s MySpace page includes audio from the two albums.


So what words of wisdom can The Guru impart after his evening at The Spanish? (a) Black Cab need a manager, (b) Rock is alive and well, and living in Fitzroy, and (c) shit happens! Try to learn from it and grow as a person.