Comments on: Cheerful and violent

By: Andrew E

Andrew E — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:46:32 +0000

David: I didn’t.

FXH: it doesn’t do to sneer at TAFE.

By: Ambigulous

Ambigulous — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:00:23 +0000

Indeed, Fine

Unlike your good self, the greyhound-owners in question weren’t exactly rolling in cash. So they paid in kind. Probably the vet didn’t use the info; apparently he was very amused.

By: David Irving (no relation)

David Irving (no relation) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:56:41 +0000

Andrew E, up there a ways (no counter at work ;( ), I’m surprised you exclude John Elliot from the world of spivdom.

By: Fine

Fine — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:37:37 +0000

Yep, Ambi – who woulda thunk it? Although the only time I’ve been to the greyhound races, there was so little money floating around you felt like Kerry Packer if you put $20 on a dog. The bookies went all grey and sweaty and reeled in the price.

Actually, I took my whippet to a greyhound chiropractor in Altona last week. Fantastic old bloke. Loves to yarn about dogs. Manipulated a vertabra that was out and gave her a massage for ten bucks.

And Casey, I think you’re right about how the gangster narratives are so compelling for some really basic reasons. They’re great drama and people respond to that, not the mundane reality of their lives.

By: Ambigulous

Ambigulous — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:32:24 +0000

Fine: a friend took pet dog to vet’s (in a regional town) and observed several greyhounds lining up. The vet joked that a couple of the greyhound owners could never afford the fees, but offered dead cert hot tips at the next dogs meeting in lieu of cash.

Who woulda thought? These were NOT gangsters.

Shakespeare, Casey? Some of the dramatis personae have trouble with grunts and smirks. Shakespearean dialogue?

“Two families at war” wasn’t obvious to me in the early stages of the Great Melbourne Frisson, though I’ll admit I’m not good at reading between the lines of press reports or TV news items.

By: jo

jo — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:24:03 +0000

Definitely in the treatment, the material is often much the same story with a few twists etc.

How does Underbelly compare with Michael Jenkins’ Blue Murder & Scales of Justice and ABC-TV’s Janus and Phoenix, all hugely popular and award winning programs in their day – none criticised for glamourising their protagonists.

Having not seen Janus since it was screened on ABC-TV in the early 90′s..my recall is a little wobbly, but the Hennessey’s (the Melbourne crime family du jour) were rendered all ugg boots and packets of winnies, but maybe that’s just Richmond

I remember listening on the radio some years on, when all the boys were locked up etc, that old Ma Hennessy was done for dealing pot to school kids in some coastal Victorian town…glam-o-russ.

By: Fine

Fine — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:15:02 +0000

There is that too Ambi @ 49, especially in the bush where prize money is low and there are fewer people looking.

By: Casey

Casey — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:14:58 +0000

“We haven’t historically idolised our spectacular crooks in quite the same way as the Victorians, in my opinion because they’ve generally had far better connections to the Colonial and then State Government than anywhere else. ”

Yes there is that. My market contacts (oh snicker) tell me that quite a no. of pollies and govt. officials were at the Trimbole funeral. Whom they saw with their own eyes. Okay I will stop or I will start sounding like Patricia from WA.

I always thought the Melbourne gangland wars were unique because the unfolding of that conflict hooked into the universal theme of two houses at war with each other. The spectacle of two tribes canibalising each other over a decade or so and the rising tally of the deaths is quite compelling. And while Roberta Williams is the certainly not the Lady Macbeth we wanted, but the one we got, it still is all a bit Shakespearean with intricately wrought characterisation and improbable plot lines. Its hyperbolic. Benji Veniamin heard voices from God. Gangitano styled himself on Goodfella’s. Lewis Caine died and his beautiful lawyer who had ben a virgin until he came along, wanted to impregnate herself with his frozen sperm after his death. But this is the legendary stuff of royal houses normally conferred with Shakespearean gravitas and staged at the Globe isnt it?

And its a global fascination. The Mafia has always been romanticised. After all – it was the first union movement..

By: Liam

Liam — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:57:16 +0000

Bernice, surely performance as a Minister of the Government requires a bit more than the writing of gossipy tell-all books from a prison cell?
If Grassby had criminal connections, Chopper is a violent, murderous criminal, it’s not really fair to compare the two of them.
I’m very uncomfortable with the recent trend to demonise Grassby’s legacy as Immigration Minister and CRC director because of alleged criminal links. First because, as I said, everyone waited until he died, and second because it’s unfair. He certainly wasn’t a saint, he was definitely a sexist pants-man, but he was a rather good Minister and advocate for migrants’ rights, criminal links or no. Much, I have to say, in the vein of the Americans’ President Kennedy.

By: Francis Xavier Holden

Francis Xavier Holden — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:55:31 +0000

The suggestion that Carl Williams could have made it big in anything other than a teachers assistant in a TAFE course on Eating at McDonalds is interesting to say the least.