Piped Muzak of Peace
Today’s Guardian (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1791155,00.html) reports that Australian authorities are piping the music of Barry Manilow into spots where teenagers or “hoons” cluster together and frighten older, much nicer people.
Apparantly, the town of Rockdale near Sydney has a carpark where the “hoons” gather to play their “doof-doof” music and glower. Not content with doing what teenagers in the free world have always done largely peacefully for decades, they also rev their cars loudly and “compare their fittings” which I can only assume is an automotive activity. However, even these behaviours are pretty much the same as those listed on the tin when you purchase a teenager, and the town appears to have aquired at least 100 of them with no chance of getting their money back now.
BUT, see that’s not all they do, these hoons. Oh no; they insist on seeking out the company of like-minded individuals, albeit about a 100 other like-minded individuals in the case of Rockdale, and they stand about together with their disconcertingly blank teenage faces and frighten older people who can afford to go places maybe even inside. To be fair to the much, much nicer older people though, the default position for some teenage faces is Black Sulk. But who didn’t know that? Isn’t it the job of teenagers to despise their parents for around 3 years, eat only toast and wear baffling fashions?
So, the town is fighting back against these ne’er-do-well clusterers. Not for Rockdale the Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) of Blair’s free and open and hardly becoming authoritarian at all Britain. No, the Australians are far more hardline on the young ‘uns that would “disturb the peace” as one councillor Saravinovski accused, adding that “These people don’t show any respect for the law”. Probably with all the impertinent standing about (But what can they be doing, Roger?), being insolently, enviably young and also , inconveniently, the loin-fruit of his own town.
Taking their cue from another town that successfully cleared loiterers from their mall with the tunes of Bing Crosby, the council selected Barry Manilow as the acme of uncool for the acne set, the “WHY?” for Gen. Y. The theory runs that “Copacabana” will kill the atmosphere and the mood of general malfeasance. For these hoons have obviously nothing but you-know-what and granny-bashing on their minds, I mean, Look how they cluster so, Roger! They stand there and cast stormy, entirely teenage looks – all the while still clustering, mind – at pleasant older folk perhaps on their way back from the garden centre or the “Concerned Citizens for Doing Things Tastefully” meeting. It’s simply intolerable to have to put up with these … these… other people, Roger. Oh wait, isn’t that our Margery over there with that boy with the nose-ring, ill-fitting pants and the haunted mien?
But in the end the hoons have really brought it on themselves and if they weren’t so preoccupied with “comparing their fittings” and, ahem, “revving their engines ” (it’s all those hormones, you know – such a delicate time, such a potentially damaging juncture to be forced to listen to “Mandy”) they might realise that a legitimate counter-argument could be raised against the council who, by playing their raucous, screechy music with its offensive lyrics too loudly, are destroying their peace. Oh Roger, I think the Manilow was a muzak too far – these are still-forming minds, you know. It can’t be right! And, besides, these tinny parking lot speakers can hardly cope with Manilow’s soaring high notes and swooping lows -they’ll have to buy more tweeters in about a fortnight. They’d have been better off with Rolf Harris.
Full disclosure: The author secretly doesn’t mind Barry Manilow all that much and will dance to him happily enough at weddings etc. but I would set my own eyebrows on fire if it were generally known. Ssssh now! That’s a secret.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:28 am
All that standing around can only lead to thinking, and everyone knows that thinking leads to revolution. Look at Che Guevara.
Brilliant post, by the way.
June 9th, 2006 at 11:54 am
I love Barry Manilow too and I don’t care who knows it. God bless him for not getting a nose job. Tom Jones looks like a sissy ever since he had his, he had such a lovely masculine hooter back in the sixties.
June 9th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
He’s the regular at the Hilton in town now. Supposedly puts on a pretty wild show. So next time you’re here you can go see him live!
(no, the Hilton didn’t rename the room he’s in the Copacabana Lounge)
June 9th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
I’m sorry, I just don’t have the right dna code set for Barry Manilow.
All my twirly whirly dna molecules don’t have a spare socket for those BM vibes to plug into. He’s proof that a fine songwriter and pianist does not a singer make for the likes of me and my gene pool.
A great story about the yoofs tho.
June 10th, 2006 at 3:34 am
If Barry Manilow doesn’t do the job there’s always Chris de Burgh, or Billy Joel. Personally I’d give them some nice Rolf Harris, but then I was always a law-and-order hard-liner.
Great post. Welcome back.
June 10th, 2006 at 11:40 am
Why not go “all out” and put Cliff Richard’s “Wired for Sound” on a loop – that’ll even curb the teen pregnancy rate.
June 10th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
I discovered much the same when upon getting into my car and turning on the radio, I discovered all my pre-sets had been changed to “THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA.”
Oy vey.
Cheers
June 11th, 2006 at 3:44 am
Can’t say that I’m a big Barry fan but I do feel a bit sorry for him now that I’ve read your post. I mean, if I were a successful musician and learned that my creations were being used to, fundamentally, make any group of people so uncomfortable and frustrated they would leave the area they were congregating in, I’m pretty sure I’d be more than a little upset. On the other hand…I’m pretty sure that if Barry’s music was played endlessly in any place I planned to be at for a significant length of time I too would bolt. Nothing against Barry you understand but I his music tends to fray the edges, if you know what I mean and I’m pretty sure endured long enough could provoke violence. But, maybe not. Great post.
June 11th, 2006 at 6:01 am
Swearing Lady, that’s exactly why I worry about what’ll happen when the dairy cows get a manifesto together.
Emma, I didn’t know about the nose but, thinking on it now, it looks obvious. Wih Tom I’ve only noticed his increasingly orange skin. He looks like he’s wandering around in his own little sepia-toned photograph.
Joe, I heard that Spamalot is going to your neck of the woods too. Is it true? If I were to meet an actual showgirl and she wasn’t called Lola, I think it might be a bit disappointing.
Luke, my own twirly Barry bit of DNA is also deeply located. It surfaces, usually about once every five years though, usually in embarrasing circumstances at weddings etc. where I say foolish things to my friends (who will never let me forget) like “Oh, it’s Copacabana! Lets dance, everybody!”
Rob, I’d save Rolf Harris for the Big House. Not in solitary though – could lead to bother with the Human Rights people.
Claire, I’ll not hear a word against Cliff. I had a huge crush on him in Summer Holiday when I was still in my single digits. For deterring teen pregnancies, I think a bit of Terry Wogan’s “All Together In The Floral Dance” would do it. Or even better, Gazza’s “Fog On The Tyne Is All Mine, All Mine”.
Randall, consider yourself lucky. I’m usually forced to grit my teeth through “Oh Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone” on an endless loop with other squeaky children’s songs. But what can I do? The hubby loves ‘em.
Hey Joel! Your’re right. It will end in violence. These Australian so-called authorities are taking a bunch of no doubt mild-mannered teens and radicalizing them with their piped Manilow. A long term study of the effects of Manilow is needed. In a lab, for safety.
June 11th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
You should have seen Tom in the sixties. He was so ugly he was beautiful!
How about a bit of Mozart? Having finally learned how to insert a CD in the car it has a remarkabley calming effect on himself!
June 11th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
Didn’t he later sing ‘I want to do it with you’ to project a more dissolute image? There are many female gorillas who would love to pull his nose.
June 12th, 2006 at 2:26 am
Emma:Good to see a woman appreciate a fine masculine proboscus. I, myself, am quite gifted in that regard. My wife has never voiced her approval in so many words, however…
Sam:It could be worse, they could be forced to listen to “smooth” Jazz. Nothing quite so aurally emasculating as Spyro Gyra or Kenny G.
If I were one of those kids I’d memorize the lyrics and start singing them at the top of my lungs. If they all did it, I bet they’d cut the stupid crap out.
June 12th, 2006 at 5:51 am
Pat, “He was so ugly it was beautiful”. How true that is of many men. How else might one explain the appeal of Gerard Depardieu?
Mr. Nanas, what did he want to dissolve?
SafeT, but think of the consequences, man! There would then be a whole new generation of people who WILL, as night follows day, embarrass themselves at celebratory events in their futures when the liquor is flowing and the guard is down. They too will be mocked; they too, in the painful cyclical way these things continue, will try and “teach some hoons a lesson”. And the pain and shame will continue through the generations…
When will the hurtin’ end?
June 12th, 2006 at 8:03 am
Their first choice was Billy Joel but it turned out all the nasty teenagers secretly liked Billy Joel, and so that proved unsuccessful.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:11 am
Cool Blog. If you leave the streets vacated and provide no alternative place to hang out why would teenagers NOT go there?? And I do believe Barry Manilow could qualify as noise pollution and a breach of human rights…
Enjoyed the tone of the post very much!