Wiener Notes

A collection of tidbits of all the stories from my most recent book ‘They Can All Be Wieners’.

Plum Distress: This is the most self contained story of the collection in that it is a 500 word murder-mystery. As such, there is little I can reveal about the plot apart from telling you the murderer was inspired by a throwaway line from ‘A Few Good Men’ and the title was a throwaway joke from the long defunct radio show ‘Get This’.

Nonsense For $100: It is no secret that I would quit my job in a second and become a professional pub trivia junkie, assuming it was possible to survive on meat trays and bar vouchers. This story, about a pub trivia night, tries to evoke the spirit of a random weeknight playing with friends like Steve, Jim, Alan, Michael, Jarrod, Katie, David, Georgia and many others. The title is a homage to the great quiz show Jeopardy. Vale Alex Trebek.

This Time Round: So a part of this story was based on an encounter with someone I know. That person is someone I am still friends with on Facebook so out of respect I won’t name them. The story tries to encapsulate my feelings at that time (now long ago) but I thought if I could play around a bit with time (and dimensions!) then I could be comfortable in talking about it. I liked the idea of it being in the form of an email that may have been read that day or discovered (or even rediscovered) years later. For those that have read my first release ‘On A Winter’s Night’ you may have picked up that this is set in the same universe. The title is lifted from a Cold Chisel song.

Number 1: Robbie King — What A Year (For A New Year): Before I became a corporate fat cat, I was a slacker that worked in a record store with a side hustle as a failing music journalist.

One of the great ventures during that time was a music review website that was created by Matt Granfield called ‘Ear Medicine’. It was there that I, along with contributions from Chad and David, wrote snarky (but sometimes insightful) reviews of records of the early 2000s.

My favourite was for The Beatles’ ‘Love’ album in which my review was a picture of a man flogging a dead horse.

This story was a way of getting back on the tools to write a review of a fictional posthumous concept album about the months of the year. Robbie King was a character mentioned in passing in my first release ‘On A Winter’s Night’.

Havlicek Stole The Ball: One of the great recurring gags on the sitcom ‘Married With Children’ was Al Bundy’s incessant re-telling of scoring 4 touchdowns in a single game for Polk High in 1966, including the championship winning touchdown.

This story is a version of that, except it isn’t as special (in many, many ways). Based on the last game of the season for a Basketball team that Michael Brauer and I played for, this is a far fetched attempt to equate a passage of play by amateurs in a near empty stadium late on a Tuesday night with the famous ‘Havlicek Stole The Ball’ event that happened in 1965. YouTube it kids.

Sometimes it is all in the telling.

Cutting Clean Through My Heart: This is what you would call a pilot.

A few years ago, I came up with idea of a detective who traversed the world of popular songs and solved crimes and mysteries. The outline for a book was being fleshed out when I decided to take on this project.

I thought what better way to test out the character then to set one of the stories in this collection inside a song. Because I had already done a murder/mystery (see: ‘Plum Distress’), instead I focussed on the detective’s emotional side as he tracks down the wayward son of a friend.

The song this is set inside is ‘Rogers Park’ by the (now) late Justin Townes Earle.

I could say more but the song does the rest.

The Ballad Of Benny The Ball: One of the things I learned very early on working for a Trustee Company is that the best way for the business to earn money is to kill all our clients.

As the bulk of them would have Wills where we are the executor and perhaps leave a perpetual charitable trust with us, we would be wise to ‘pivot’ to genocide in order to smash budget estimates.

Of course that is not an option a publicly listed organisation would take but it made for a great idea I once had about a junior staffer at a law firm discovering the partners were engaged in such nefarious activities.

Though the book went nowhere, the unfinished draft I still possessed had this neat little scene between the junior staffer and an old timer in the firm. All I did was add the ridiculous twist ending and turned it into The Ballad of Benny The Ball. Named of course after Top Cat’s loyal gang member.

Victim Of Love: I have always loved Honorific nicknames for musicians, particularly those that are bestowed the title of ‘Godfather of…’

It wasn’t a great leap to think about all those with such a title being the people who actually control music (and not David Geffen).

So ‘Victim Of Love’ is about the death of the Godfather Of Soul (James Brown) and the heads of the other families coming to gather to choose his replacement. They being:

• The Godfather of Punk (Iggy Pop)
• The Modfather (Paul Weller)
• Tha Doggfather (Snoop)
• The Godfather of Grunge (Neil Young)

The title comes from the Charles Bradley song, with Charles being important to the ending of the story.

Judea’s Got Talent: Notebooks and Journals are where you will find the rough drafts of the stories I write. The ideas, however, usually begin in the notes section of my phone. It is also where you will find various Top 5 lists I have made over the years like ‘Greatest Albums of the 90s’ which looks like this:

1. New Miserable Experience — Gin Blossoms

2. ?

3. Nirvana? The one with the baby on the front?

4. ?

5. ?

Ideas don’t just appear in the Notes App, they are usually cribbed from a factoid I have stumbled across, like that there was a guy that replaced Judas as an apostle.

It was that one line that formed the basis for ‘Judea’s Got Talent’, as I leaned into the reality show feel of it all for Peter, Paul and the other Farris Brothers to find a replacement for Iscariot.

They Can All Be Wieners: The title track and one of two actual love stories in the collection.

The 6pm news is really a cesspool these days but the shaggy dog story at the end can often provide some gold. The best ‘go to’ is the odd pairing of animals that are best of friends.

Like a Dachshund and a Duck.

Friday 22 November, 1968: My second book ‘The Other Guy’ is what you would call a ‘passion project’. Well, you would, if I actually had any genuine passion for Australian musician Glenn Shorrock.

The book was a fake memoir, covering the years he was absent from his group Little River Band. It was like playing with the negative space. In his actual biography (something I have not gotten around to reading), this time in the wilderness would have been barely covered. Instead, I lean into it like it is the only thing that mattered.

The short story included in this collection sort of acts as an origin story, as I weave in characters that become a big part of Shorrock’s life later on. Namely, John Farnham and Glenn Wheatley.

Like ‘The Other Guy’, most of the events and things described actually happened (research people!).

The Great Roar: My third book ‘The Bear Supremacy’ was a Robert Ludlum style thriller about an anthropomorphic bear who returns home after fighting in the Great War. Or is it home? The ending is deliberately abrupt and vague so that the reader can draw their own interpretation.

For the short(er) story ‘The Great Roar’ we return to the world of Private Sanders, but this time we go back to his time rehabilitating on the island of Malta after being shot in battle. It is the second love story of the collection and, truth be told, it is my favourite story of the lot (don’t tell the others).

It’s the sort of story I hope my Maltese Grandfather Albert Martin is proud of.

All Repeat Workdays: The collection had been set and seemingly put to bed when I came up with the idea at the last minute.

I was thinking of my Father who was lamenting the end of Smooth TV on Foxtel when the thought arose that perhaps someone who was slightly unhinged would do something drastic to get it back on TV. Sort of like a piss weak version of ‘Dog Day Afternoon’.

Would they go as far as holding up its sister radio station Smooth FM?

Would they make the on air talent (in this case Cameron Daddo) play a song on repeat until his demands were met?

What would that song be?

To me there was only one answer.

Putin On The Fitz: Assembling this collection allowed me to find some of my orphans and strays a permanent home.

‘Putin On The Fitz’ came from a writing exercise from a class I took a few years back. Set entirely in the alleyway behind our (now previous) house in Fitzroy North, it allowed me play within the set boundaries whilst conjuring up something fantastical.

Pointless fact: The house across from us in the alleyway was once occupied by Tim Minchin.

Thursday 18 January, 2018: Regardless of what side of politics you lean towards, politicians releasing playlists of music they like is never not cringeworthy.

Back when meaningless shit like Triple J changing the date for their Hottest 100 countdown away from Australia Day occupied too many column inches, far right wing Senator Cory Bernardi dropped his own Oz Music playlist on Spotify.

The previous year I had released my fake Glenn Shorrock memoir ’The Other Guy’ and still had some juice left in the tank. Little River Band didn’t feature on Bernardi’s playlist so instead of criticising the Senator for releasing a playlist, I thought it would be fun to pretend to be Shorrock once more and criticise Bernardi for not getting a look in.

Zag when everyone else Zigs.

It’s So Funny How We Don’t Stalk Anymore: Of all the stories in the collection, this is the most autobiographical, in fact apart from changing the names of people and schools, this all actually happened.

Our family moved from Morwell in Victoria to Gladstone in Queensland and despite that fact that both towns ran on an industry that dug stuff out of the ground they couldn’t be further apart.

So when Lisa* from Morwell turned up in Gladstone I was pretty shocked to see her.

Then it got even stranger.

*Not her real name.

‘They Can All Be Wieners’ can be found in your local Bezos emporium.