Murder, Melbourne and Me

Caught up with a mate who works with my most previous next door neighbor. Turns out the bloke who moved into my house in Collingwood when I left was the infamous gangster, author and funny-man, Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read. When I lived there, Chopper only lived in the next street. I would see him regularly at the local milkbar or sitting outside his fave pub, The Leinster Arms.

There is an underworld war going on right now in Melbourne. It is BIG, with more than 25 killings in the past four years. The morning after one of the murders Chopper was interviewed by all Australia's media in the sun outside The Leinster Arms.

I was nearby buying milk. Couldn't help but stare. Who wouldn't? My gob-smacked looking agitated Chopper's burly, hanger-on minders. Even through their prison style Oakleys you could read their thoughts buzzing wisdom. "Who IS this cunt? What's he doing? Is he okay?"

Had to go. Real quick.

"But don't get me wrong, for a one time toe-cutter, knee-capper and killer of 19 men (in my lighter moments), swapping my four ten for a HB2.0 is not without it's price. It could happen someday, that someone asks me for my autograph and while I'm busying myself with the pen, they put a bullet in my head. Not really a desirable outcome for me is it!" From Chopper Read's website.

But that's not my only connection to the Melbourne crime scene....

I have a friend. He killed somebody. It happened when he was doing his work. He didn't mean to kill. An inquest agreed. There was no jail. It was front page news.

It doesn't end there.

The person my friend killed, lived in the house I live now and grew up in. His bedroom was my bedroom.

Casey's Idle Sales Figures

Australian Idol's Casey Donovan's single made it to number one in the charts in its first week. Whoopee! But the real problem is that only a bit over 35,000 copies were sold compared to the 100,000-ish sold last year in the first week by Guy Sebastian.

Here's why.

The song, "Listen With Your Heart" is pure scrotum. Its writer, Diane Warren was responsible for Milli Vanilli's Blame it on the Rain, Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time, Starship's Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, DeBarge's Rhythm Of The Night, and almost all the lyrical vomit spewed out by Michael Bolton and Celine Dion.
Everything is bad, cynical and dated about Listen To Your Heart. And no, the song wasn't written exclusively for Idol as claimed earlier. It originally recorded by soul nobody, CeCe Winans in 1998. Listen to it if you dare here.
If you were to release a cover version of a bad song, why not You're So Vain? At least that song was made her own. Oh well, contractual obligations win out every time.

While according to ARIA, the CD single as a format is dying in the arse, the song was available for two weeks on the infamous Casey Donovan website.

Song gets played to death on water torture FM radio. Kids like idol. Kids at school. Kids download. Kids burn. Kids get sick of the song real quick. Kids go back to sniffing liquid paper. I did that once. It hurt my head. At least I didn't die.

Word is that Idol runner-up and apprentice jockey Anthony Callea's cover of The Prayer will do much better. Why? Old ladies don't download music. They're too busy looking at sites like this and this. Nurse!