rozo the roo: the police called in

 

david thomas died

It was of course sad to hear that David Thomas died a few days ago though without wishing to be glib it seems like the last few years - quite a while before I took this picture of him in Oslo on the 11 October 2019 - he was on borrowed time, whatever that literally meant. I was a huge fan since my late teens particularly of the Pere Ubu albums mainly from Dub Housing through to Song of the Bailing Man and his subsequent solo career up to Monster Walks... though there was plenty of incredibly good stuff after that time with and without the PU name, of course. 

I didn't know him, but I did really enjoy his output. 

twentieth anniversary

Hi, and welcome to what is not really the 20th anniversary of this blog. I started some time a little earlier than the 27 April 2005 but I can't remember when. I have nothing more to say. It just is. And yet at the same time it also isn't, for reasons explained above. Enjoy! 

graphic novel progress five years ago

There have been a lot of false starts but I finally feel like it's getting somewhere. I'm doing this long chat show sequence because I think it'll be the easiest to draw and hopefully then I'll have worked up the chops to take on the harder stuff. I'm enjoying this now. My plan at the moment is to scan this in and photoshop greys into the background so it's more like TV (whereas most of the time it'll just be black and white, no grey).

The line was actually supposed to be 'It cuts at my skin like tiny piranha teeth you shits!' But I was hoping to find a way to make it one of those things, in the days of live television, where you wondered if someone swore but you weren't sure, it was indistinct. Well I don't know how to make that happen here.

I'm pretty pleased with the audience picture.

rozo the roo meets mr fleesum

 

Frankston and Somerville Standard 23 April 1937 p. 1

other places

Whether it's on foot or in cars, one of the great elements of every Crawfords show - and almost always obligatory - is (at least one) chase sequence. One more element that testifies to the quality of these programs: it never seems rote or bolted-on. 

But even in a time before, you know, online banking and surveillance and similar shit, the question still really remains - where are they running to and why? I guess there's an innate impulse amongst human beings, when in trouble, to get out of the immediate situation and worry about the details later. Nevertheless, it's silly. If they're ever pressed for their plans they're always about to shoot through, to Sydney or Adelaide or Surfers.* Presumably until the heat dies down, and I guess if I think about it I assume that police resources (or lack thereof) do mean that a lot of things, then and now, get put on the back burner or even dropped down behind the stove, so you have to assume that if you do get away on the day you only have to stay away a short time and they'll move on to something else. The perps in D4 and Homicide of course don't know that the detectives remember every crim they've ever met, whether it's the next day or the next decade. 

The small but effective sequence above is from an episode from 4 August 1975, 'Just for Kicks', which is the first time we really get some backstory/ storyline with one of the 'new' uniform cops to (essentially) replace Ted Hamilton: John Hannan as Paul Gray. Gray is in a relationship with a girl called Jan (JAN!!! So old school) played by Noni Hazlehurst in her third (of four) Division 4 episodes. 

By the way I wish I had kept better track of the paintings on the wall since D4 went colour, because the one on the left here is in every second house. Maybe they bought special new paintings for colour TV, but not many. 

*In this case, the teenage hoodlums initially plan to go to Surfers but it's later suggested by the mothers of one of them that he is going to Adelaide, by which Vickers deduces he is either going to Sydney or Brisbane. 

division 4: life's a gamble

Just wanted to mention how much I enjoy it when Janne Coghlan makes an appearance in Crawfords shows. What do I know about Coghlan? Really not much, except that she was on the stage a lot in the 50s-60s and then in Crawfords programs and a few other minor films up until the very early 90s, then nothing heard of her thereafter. Somewhere along the way there, for some reason, she lost the extra 'n' in 'Janne'. Here she is in the ABC Weekly for 15 May, 1954. 

 Let's say she was twenty then, so I guess she's 90 now if she's alive, and she was 40 or so in 1975 when she played loyal-wife-to-a-loser with Tom Oliver in the episode of D4 'Life's a gamble' (7 July 1975). 

You can (well I can) imagine them looking at these scenes in the Crawfords meeting, or whatever they did, and saying 'this is real Janne Coghlan stuff' - a lot of domestic two-hander with Oliver where it's like, they have a deep attachment but he is a terrible man. 

This is a rare D4 where you can actually go back and watch it again and it's different all over because you (or I - gullibly) believed that Oliver's character had killed the underworld identity. Actually he hadn't. But when she shows him this paper and he's all like 'the papers are full of lies', it's actually really interesting to see it a second time. 

Yeah, yeah, I know. The real crime is that beard. 

Well, that crime is solved about half way through the episode. 

Anyway, I wonder what happened to Janne Coghlan? I suppose she retired. Let me know if you know.

Also a nod to Luigi Villani, who has a small role in this episode as a boat hirer. It's always best for him when he's not affecting some sort of Chico Marx accent. He was Mick Moloney in The Box the previous year, but usually he's got a kind of bastardised Italian name - he had ten roles in D4 including 'Pastrani', 'John Zammitt', 'Tony' (twice, but I think different Tonies), 'Mario' and 'Musso', but here he's 'Bert Williams'. Villani was born in Wangaratta, don't know about Bert. 

division 4: the human factor

The final year of D4 was patchy. 

This might be (I haven't looked it up - yes I just did - and it is) the last of 13 appearances of Keith Eden in the show. This time he's an older man in a car accessories firm who sets fire to a computer because he can't stand progress, or whatever. 

He's good. He has a twinkle in his eye. I have a lot of time for him. He's gone now. He died in 2003. 

I'm guessing this opening shizzle was shot from atop the Crawfords building in Abbotsford. I haven't compared anything but it looks familiar. All of this. 

This is not the greatest episode, particularly given the weird bit where even though Eden's character commits arson, then steals some car radios to try and cover it up then dumps them, then tries to do himself in, the company still wants to redeploy him to personnel (!!!!!!!!). Explain why!

OK one more thing of note: this twenty-year-old. It wasn't her first TV appearance, she'd already been in The Box for six episodes as 'Office Girl' and 'Debbie - Office Girl' and now here she is: 

For some el weirdo reason IMDB thinks she is reprising the role of 'Office Girl' and also that this is true: 

But it is not true:

I don't think she says anything, but I didn't notice her in the show until I noticed her name in the credits. I am looking forward to seeing her in The Box though. 

graphic novel progress - five years ago

This graphic novel is entertaining me very much but it is a real wake up call how limited my drawing skills are. I have to go easy on myself and remember that I did actually put things in the script (I have never scripted anything like this before) that were meant to be a challenge. So I have to wear it.

So here you see my problem. I am trying to indicate, in panel #3, that Cashew (as he is presently called) is greeting Wilhelmina; kissing her (I am pretty happy with the kissing scene, because i wanted to emphasise how impractical his head is); then in #5 they hug (this is almost OK, it's a second go, but I can't figure out where his arm goes, or how to depict it) and then he invites her back to the desk. This all has to happen wordlessly. I think I am going to have to scrap this and try again, it'll probably be better second time around. I set myself the task of drawing ten pages of this thing this week (the piece of paper to the right of the page is my list of things I have to do), and writing the third section. I have certainly spent a long time getting the pages together with all the TVs as frames, two trips to Officeworks there, but I haven't got very far in the drawing. In fact, this is as far as I've got. 

Nancy in relation to the page. She is on the floor at the heater, which she doesn't mind, but I think she is a little uncomfortable about how Helmi has taken up position right next to me. I'm uncomfortable about it, tbh; I don't want to alienate Nancy in any way and what surprises me is that Helmi is quite hostile to her. I am assuming this is going to change, and there do seem to be advances daily. 

I am a bit freaked out that this is going to be posted a few days before I turn 60. I am definitely not ready to turn 60, but, one reason for that is that at time of writing I am only 54. 

more keith eden

A fine late period two-part D4 (6 May 1975) in which suddenly Keith Eden, who has shown up numerously in various roles as various crims, is now suddenly Frank Banner's old mentor and confidant. 

I just liked this image because it's a composite phone call. Cool. I think it's from 'A Bird in the Hand', 28 April 1975. 

Oh, and note to self: the episode from 12 May 1975, 'No Prize for Second', is a rare example of where the crooks get away with it. Amazing non-sequitur ending. Pretty unsatisfying! 

 

rozo the roo: trouble ahead

 

Frankston and Somerville Standard 16 April 1937 p. 1

joni mitchell and the l.a. express' miles of aisles

Found a CD of Miles of Aisles amongst various stuff in the box room a few weeks ago and it finally made its way to the car (where so many CDs go to die, I guess) alongside its longterm companions an Albert Ayler CD and the Raoul Graf CD largely written by and produced by Ed Kuepper. 

Anyway, unlike you and your various pals, I have not much time for JM's first - say - five years as a recording artist, although that said, I adore Live at Canterbury House 1967, so perhaps it's not the songs so much as the approach and the production that bother me, that and, fuck Blue. I mean the reason I say fuck Blue is less about Blue anyway and more about the emotional environment I was in when exposed to liberal helpings of Blue, and by that I do not mean I was depressed, more like, oppressed. I don't want to go into it. Same reason I think I can't ever listen to Karen Dalton (different scenario though). 

So, having written all that down I realise the stupidity of it. But you know, those early JM records are twee, and I've just heard them too often in idiotic commercial radio environments or in some cases, I've heard the songs done better (The Supremes' amazing version of 'All I Want' for instance). 

But that's all redundant, because, this is a sensational record. It came out between Court and Spark and The Hissing of the Summer Lawns and it sounds like those records much more than the earlier albums. That's primarily I suppose because of the L.A. Express - this LP is kind of the middle instalment of a triumvirate of albums made with that band and utilising its particular flavour - although that said half the record is JM on her own, so yeah nah maybe.

Anyway, I could not imagine any other way that I could be induced to listen to, and in fact enjoy, stuff like 'Woodstock' and 'Big Yellow Taxi' but than with the radical rearrangement that allowed L. A. Express to do their bit. Of course back in 1974 these songs weren't super-old classic rock, so it might not have seemed so imperative to vibe them up or for that matter there might be have been fewer people offended by a radical redo. You can hear people in the audience calling out for things though. There's only one song from C&S on this record - which is fair and reasonable, given that it wasn't even a year old - but the concentration is on older material. 

Court and Spark came out in January 1974 (and was a big success) and these songs were mainly recorded in August that year (a couple in March). So the crowd knew what JM's new material sounded like, and were presumably into it, and were in some way or another primed for the new sound. 

I couldn't find any reviews of the August shows recorded for the album, but I found this, which is refreshingly stupid in many ways, and reminds one of the good old days when it was OK to be stupid.

 

script for my graphic novel part 2

26. Promoters to WTS, in a musical manner:

Promote your work

Be useful to the weak and slow

Promote your work

Activity you should not shirk

You’ll stay and waste unless you go

Your prime directive is mach schau

Promote your work

27. 

A. Cashew: So let’s bring her out here… let’s hear from her… 

B. Wilhelmina Tongol-Schörter – ‘Biltong’!

C. Cashew comes to meet WTS who emerges from the curtain 

D. They kiss

E. They hug

F. They go back to the couch/desk

28. 

A. Cashew: Wilhelmina. It’s been

B. Audience: Bil-tong! Bil-tong! 

C. Cashew: Can I call you Biltong?

D. WTS: No I hate it. I really hate it.

E. Audience: Bil-tong! Bil-tong!

F. WTS: I really hate it. Don’t.

29. 

A. Cashew: Wilhemina (Audience: Booo)

B. WTS: Cashew. Thank you for having me.

C. WTS: And thank you for (tear in eye)

D. WTS: Thank you for respecting my right to have an actual name.

E. WTS: Not the word for a strip of dried meat.

F. WTS: When you call me that… word, you’re saying I’m a strip of dried meat.

G. WTS: When I went into show business, a few hours before I was to sing a song on Jiminy Thunders

30. 

1. Cashew: You were great on that show 

2. WTS: Thank you, thank you Cashew (audience applause)

3. WTS. A few hours before I went on, Jiminy took me aside and said

4. WTS: ‘From now on, your name is Biltong.’ 

5. WTS (echoing vision of Jiminy): ‘Your real name is too long for these idiots.’

6. Audience: Boos WTS: He called you idiots. 

31.

1. Cashew: OK, alright

2. Audience: Boos

3. Cashew: Alright! Alright! She’s my guest, my show. You can…

4. Audience: Boos Cashew: YOU GET YOUR OWN SHOW AND…

5. Cashew: We’re going to go to break, and sort out some shit.

32. ADS

33. ADS

34. 

A. Cashew: So we’re back, and some order has been restored.

B. WTS: Thank you Cashew and thank you everyone.

C. Cashew: You did the Thunders show for two years, then your career took a turn.

D. WTS: That’s right Cashew. On Jiminy’s show, I’d developed a character.

E. WTS: Someone I could just retreat to whenever I felt like showbusiness was too much.

F. Cashew: And that was Suzy Sprocket.

35. 

A. WTS: Suzy, yes.

B. Cashew: Does Suzy feature much in your life these days?

C. WTS: Oh, no. No, she’s in the past.

D. Cashew: But she did a lot for you once.

E. WTS: Yes, yes indeed. She got me on The Rest of Quiglet.

F. Cashew: I gather there’s a funny story there? 

36. 

A. WTS: No, no, I was contracted to do the show.

B. WTS: Nothing unusual. It was at the last minute, though.

C. Cashew: Last minute? 

D. WTS: Yes, they had cast everyone, including a great actress, I won’t say her name, sadly, she has since died.

E. WTS: She would have benefited from the exposure. Cast her as the maid. Then someone at the network said, ‘Robots’.

F. Cashew: Robots?

37.

A. WTS: It was a moment when everyone suddenly went Robot mad. 

B. And Suzy was a robot.

C. Cashew: She was indeed. Let’s look at a clip from the show. Can you set this up for us?

D. WTS: This is from… this is from the last episode of the show, which…

E. WTS: I am really not sure this is the right clip to use.

F. Cashew: Let’s roll it

38. 

A. Quiglet is sitting in a chair. Quiglet: Daddy?

B. Daddy: Yes, Quiglet

C. Quiglet: You… are… a… murderer!

D. Daddy: You finally caught on

E. Grace: The robot told me

F. Suzy Sprocket: I have a name

G: Grace (grimly): Robot. 

39.

A. Cashew: So things did take a turn on the show, towards the end

B. WTS: They did indeed. The writers were looking at a particular market.

C. WTS: But also, the principles in the show, Grace and Schiegel, really wanted out.

D. WTS: And so did I, to be honest.

E. WTS: It was a very difficult time. Ola Platt. You know, Whimsy? She was the only one who was happy. 

F. Cashew: On the upside, you had your first hit record. Let’s have a listen.

40. A: Suzy Sprocket: Those robot school days klik of binary code and data readouts are gone
B: But in my mind I know they will still live on and on eternally klik
C: But how do you thank someone, and what is thanking, who has taken you from small pincer motions to rocket jets?

D: WTS: To anyone who bought that record… I am truly sorry (Audience laughter)

E: Cashew: I bought that record! 

F: WTS: I didn’t know! Sometimes I feel we were brainwashed.

41. 

A: Cashew: So do you see much of the cast of the Rest of Quiglet?

B: WTS: No. I don’t. But funnily, I saw Schiegel just last week.

C: Cashew: Schiegel, who was one of the mainstays and a surprise star.

D: WTS: Yes, he was a musician, a talented musician, who was discovered on set.

E: Cashew: And as we all know, he married Grace Mannix.

F: Cashew: And you saw him last week.

42. 

A: Cashew: And how was that?
B: WTS: He seemed fine, uh, low-key. He’s making an album. 

C: WTS: He and Grace they still seem happy, so – who knew!

D: WTS: Uh… next question. 

E: Cashew: And where have you been since the show ended? 

F: WTS: Well, It’s been a long time, so where do I start?

43. 

A: Cashew: We don’t have long (audience laughter)

B: WTS: I did some movies, did a Bond movie. I was in Pollyanna, as Mrs. Fitz.

C: Cashew: Not a character from the book.

D: WTS: No, they told me she was created with me in mind. If they couldn’t get Ann Margaret. (laughter).

E: Cashew: And now you’ve written a book

F: WTS: I have indeed.

44. 

A. Cashew: A lot of people are going to have trouble with this title.

B. WTS: Well maybe it’s not for them.

C. Publicists slap foreheads, groan

D: Publicist A: she just said that? Publicist B: You freakin’ idiot Biltong

E: Cashew: ‘Also sprocket Wilhelmina.’ I’m going to assume it means something.

F: WTS: You know Also sprach Zarathustra? 

G: Cashew: Oh, right, of course. So it’s a play on that title. 

45. 

A. WTS: I knew my fans – my real fans – would get it. 

B. WTS: It tells my story – the story, but everyone’s story really. 

C. WTS: Suzy was the übermensch, as we now all know. And the themes of the Quiglet show were, uh, the eternal recurrence of the same. As we now all know. 

D. WTS: Throughout the show, I was on a tightrope over an abyss. I think that’s clear. 

E. WTS: I think we’d all agree. 

F. Cashew: You, uh...

46. 

A. Publicist A: We could call in a bomb threat. Publicist B: Why did we even try with this one.

B: Cashew: So this book... it’s a great book.

C: WTS: Thank you Cashew. Thank you, I thank you.

D: Cashew: And I believe you’re now going to perform for us not a song but...

E: WTS: No. Not a song. A roundelay.

F: Cashew. A roundelay, which is a kind of a song. 

47.

A: WTS: Like a bicycle is a kind of a, a, building.

B: Cashew: Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had our ups and downs...

C: Cashew: Even in the last few minutes, but please, give it up for

D: Biltong, and her roundelay, They Say Robot

48. 

A: WTS: Robot they say

B: They say you have no will, no mind

C:Robot they say

They say just go on tv today

D: Being Biltong is fine you’ll find 

E: You’ll be dried meat unto the rind

F. Robot they say!

49. 

A: Audience applause

B: Audience on their feet

C: Cashew weeping with joy

D: Book tops bestseller list

E: Wilhelmina Tongol-Schörter Rondelays album (with three dithyrambs)

50.

A: Elyse: Napeel? Napeel?

B: Napeel: Elyse? Really?

C:  Elyse: Napeel, it is you! I thought it was you... then I thought... no...

D: Napeel: It is me, Elyse. It’s not that surprising.

E: Elyse: It is to me! 

51

A: In a cafe. Napeel: Then you got a second degree? The only degree I’ve ever had was a burn

B: Elyse: You should do more study, Napeel. You were so good at school.

C: Napeel: You don’t know what I was like at school. You were far below me.

D: Elyse: Only three years. I heard the teachers talking about you one day

E: Napeel: Teachers? 

F: Elyse: They were talking about a story you’d written.

G: Napeel: Story? 

52

A: Elyse: A story about a fairground freak. 

B: Napeel: Me?
C: Elyse: No, a story about one. They said you had a rare vision.

D: Napeel: Blank look. Elyse’s voice: Anyway, it’s so strange that I should run into you today.

E: Because look what I just came into town to buy

F: Elyse holding the WTS album. 

53

A: Elyse: Remember? She was Suzy Sprocket on that show we watched.

B: Napeel: The Rest of Quiglet? I was only watching a repeat of that the other day.  

C: Napeel: I love that show! I still love Schiegel.

D: Elyse: I used to think you looked a little like Quiglet!

E: Napeel: Only in the antlers. But thank you, you’re sweet.

Notes for 3. Wonderland

The lives of Shiegel and Grace ten (?) years after Quiglet.

They live in an idyllic suburb – scenes of walking around doing not much. Obviously life is serene. 

Their daughters Amber (11) and Aspic (4), Amber finds out about the Quiglet show from a kid at school who says that her mother’s father killed her mother, can’t process people pretending to be other people, is disturbed. Aspic is always finding the bright side, surreally

Rod Sims calls and wants to reboot the show, he has the rights, cut out the dark stuff at the end, if possible exclude Biltong (‚I’ve been trying to reach her but she’s just trying’).  Ola Platt said yes straight away, the first on board. 

Shiegel is recording a beach boys style confessional album with Todd Rundgren producing. The lyrics are hard to write because he is constantly being barraged with ideas relevant to today from other media, it used to be ok to be lazy and being lazy worked.

He goes to a meeting with management, and on the way hears on pop radio (?) a song wherein someone has remade the Quiglet theme, he is unsure whether this is homage or theft. 

4. Amber at (say) 35 

rozo the roo: preparing for his journey

 

'middleman'

A pretty fine episode (although it has some odd cuts in it, such as when the main character is just about to molest? attack? fondle? a girl (Carole Yelland) and suddenly he's being roughed up by her crim associates).* The protagonist here, played by Alan Penney, is known only as Raincoat. He's a fence who went straight and he is clearly a sex, er, maniac. These are the final scenes of the show which as far as I'm concerned represent director John Jacob and/or David Hinrichsen paying homage to firstly, North by Northwest (the final double entendre) and Breathless (the last seconds of that film). 

It's arty yes but it works as well. 

The loving concentration on the railway bridges is in itself quite delightful too. 

Also, top marks to the set designer of this episode. Raincoat's living quarters are also a work of art.

You will be pleased or disappointed or unconcerned either way to know that after this I am onto the last full DVD compendium of D4. 

*What I wonder is whether Channel 9 insisted on cuts here in what is, if you count the nudie pictures on the wall, a pretty explicit ep.