Book Review: Iraqi Icicle and The Second Father
Guest post by Ian Curr
WITH the current surge of audiobooks here are two unlikely bedfellows in popular writing. Both books are set in Brisbane during the bad years of the Bjelke-Petersen government. I know both the authors Bernie Dowling and Domenico Cacciola. We lived in the same district of Fortitude Valley and New Farm during some of that time.
The protagonists in the books are on opposite sides of the law. Both had fascinations for horse racing, illegal gambling, corruption, political police, sex, drugs, and prostitution. Iraqi Icicle is neo-noir fiction and The Second Father is a memoir. Step aside Andrew McGahan’s Last Drinks – they say Queensland is another country; if so, these authors help redefine the streets of your town.
MUSIC PUBLISHERS held up the release of my completed audiobook Iraqi Icicle for two months while they decided if they would approve my use of a song extract. I had approval to use the lyrics from Go-Betweens songs in the text and thought that permission would extend to a song extract and so had it embedded as a through-line throughout the audiobook. My distribution aggregator wisely suggested I should check with the copyright holder. Thus began the two-month wait.
. . . And the law won
THE TARDY REPLY was a “no”.
I went to see my Brooklyn born and raised lawyer Irma Fawda-Law in her office in a seedy alley of the Valley.
Irma had her nameplate burned into an ancient ironbark door with a branding iron. It read “I Fawda-Law –Mouthpiece”.
I entered to see Irma sitting on a one-seater sofa. She was eating popcorn and watching the Bobby Fuller Four on a large computer screen atop her desk.
ANOTHER MAN might have wondered why Irma was watching the grainy 1966 black and white video. All I said was, “Great show, Irma.
We watched the 2:22 rock epic all the way through before I unburdened my woes. Irma thought for a minute. “You wanna I should get Artichokes to tawk to them.”
No, I didn’t want Sydney Heavy, Arthur Choker, who metaphorically choked three for a dollar, to talk with the copyright holders.
“Den, we gotta replace the recawdin’s. Got anything?”
I told her about my parody of I Fought the Law.
Shootin' strangers with a big gun I fought de War and da War won I fought de War and da War won
I miss my sweetie and her smile some I fought de War and da War won I fought de War and da War won
“Parrot tawks are good,” Irma said making a pun in parodies. She likes to pun. “Parrot tawks are protected under copyright law.”
Well, everybody’s done a version of I fought the Law since it was written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets. Why shouldn’t I?
AFTER WAITING EIGHT WEEKS for bad copyright news, we arranged with Caboolture musician Maurice Hardy to record serviceable excerpts of my parody in seven days and it took less than a week and $US100 for the production house to slot the excerpts into the audiobook. We sped up the process just as the covers of the song became more frenetic.
I AM NOT SAYING my parody is as effective as the Go-Betweens The Streets of Your Town would have been but we quickly pushed aside the roadblock the copywrongsters put in our way. In this sense, I won
The proof of the pudding is, as they say, in the eating.
