Recently, a colleague sent me a news item that struck a responsive chord in the upright piano of my brain. The story began like this::
“A man fed up with the repetitive strains of Pop! Goes the Weasel from an ice cream van parked outside a shopping mall in Macquarie Fields attacked the hapless 67-year-old driver with an ice cream cone and a pickle jar, police report.”

Here we have yet another argument for a mandatory five-day “cooling off” period on the purchase of ice cream. Because in this day and age there is NO EXCUSE for this kind of violent incident. Just because a driver is operating a van that repeatedly blares an annoying song over a loudspeaker in a public place, that does not mean that we should attack him with dairy products and condiment containers. We should use nuclear weapons.

Forgive me for sounding hostile, but I am getting SICK AND TIRED OF LOUD INTRUSIVE MUSIC IN PUBLIC. It is everywhere (and should be restricted to live bands’ gigs – preferably the Top Dogs or Creedence & Beyond – take note Gazza and Zack). All our shopping malls and restaurants and airports are gangrenous with low-fidelity loudspeakers, which apparently have developed the ability to reproduce by themselves. These woeful speakers are all connected to a special programming service called Music Which No One Likes, but YOU CAN’T ESCAPE FROM. For example, recently I was in a shopping-mall toilet, and suddenly, without warning, the speaker started blaring out the chewing gum-flavoured 1964 hit song Dominique, sung by the Shrieking Nun.

Now listen here, Mr or Ms Westfield Manager: I speak for all humanity when I say that, when I am in your toilet, I AM NOT IN THERE TO BE STARTLED BY A NUN JUST AS I’M REACHING AN IMPORTANT POINT IN MY VISIT.

Similarly, Mr or Ms Sydney Airport Manager, I do not go to your airport to listen to awful `soothing’ wallpaper music. I go there for the same reason as millions of other travellers: to be annoyed by Gestapo parking cops, hassled by religious nuts and to learn – as I am about to climb aboard - that my Jetstar or Virgin Blue flight to Bali has been cancelled.

And as for you, Mr or Ms Restaurant Proprietor: I don’t mind if, while I’m stuffing my face, there’s an actual musician somewhere in the background tinkling softly on a piano. But why do ya hafta play dull dirges so loud that people can’t order their meal?

WAITRESS (shouting): G’DAY THERE. ARE YOU READY TO ORDER?

CUSTOMER (shouting back): THANK YOU VERY MUCH . . . PLEASE COME UP AND SAY HELLO AFTER THE SHOW.

And it’s just as bad when you go outside. One afternoon I was at a beach, along with hundreds of other people, all of us enjoying a pleasant afternoon listening to the barely audible “ping’’ of solar rays ricocheting off of our 16,000-rated sun block, when some young blokes arrived with a boombox the size of a caravan, and of course it was turned up so loud that the Pacific Ocean was being driven backwards towards New Zealand. You could see that lots of people on the beach were pissed off, but nobody dared to say anything. It was like a John Wayne western movie, when the baddies (they’re the ones in the black hats, remember?) gallop into a small town and use their six-guns to force the terrified townsfolk listen to stupid music. Finally I’d had enough. I am not ordinarily a brave person, but I stood up, brushed the sand off my bum, and decided that, no matter what the personal risk, I was going to write a letter to council.

That would have been a perfect situation for an invention thought up by my dentist, Big John McWilliams. Big Jarn is always having ideas. He’ll be peering into a patient’s cakehole, trying to work out if he can cram any more dental appliances in there, or maybe even - this is what dentists do for fun - pop in a harmonica or a kazoo, and suddenly he’ll have an idea, and he’ll instruct the patient to rinse while he calls me up to tell me about it.

This particular Big Jahn brainwave involves a small but powerful transmitter that you would carry around in your pocket or purse. When a person starts playing a loud boombox in your immediate vicinity, or drove up in a car with one of those sound systems emitting bass notes so powerful that they cause the Bureau of Meteorology to issue tsunami warnings for the entire Aussie east coast, you’d simply push a button, and the transmitter would send out a signal, and the person’s head would explode. No, no, no - that would be wrong. Innocent people could be hurt by the bone fragments. Big Jahn’s actual idea is that the signal would cause the boombox to emit annoying static. Realistically, I guess there’s always the possibility that the kind of people who play loud ugly music in public would LIKE annoying static. Perhaps it’d be better if the signal caused the boombox to play Pop! Goes the Weasel.

Anyway, I think somebody should make a transmitter like this and send one to me. It should also have a feature whereby, while you’re driving, you could point it at the car in front of you and press a button that would cause that vehicle’s radio, even if it was turned off, to shout at the driver, in Ray Hadley’s voice: “Hey you! If ya hafta drive on the M4 at 60km/h, can ya piss off into the slow lane, ya maggot!”
Also it should be able to make neighbours’ dogs shut up when you get home from a gig and need some shut-eye.
Also Fred Nile and Pauline Hanson.
You can rinse now …

stix

9 Elder Road DUNDAS 9.00-11.30pm

On stage at 9pm.

26 Bridge Rd Belmore. 9 pm- 12

76 Marshall Street DAPTO 8.00pm-12.00am

West Cresent CULBURRA BEACH
8.30-11.30pm

Second Avenue BLACKTOWN 10.00pm-12.30am

Gamban Road GWANDALAN