Home on the range in the kitchen — bitchin’
Cursin’ the day she was wed.
’Cos her man don’t seem to understand
That you can’t get nothin’ from a sunburnt land
Day after day, you know it’s gettin’ her down.
She knows she won’t even make it the long way around
Kerryn’s songs had wit, and for our fans — who gave us fierce loyalty in return — they validated a tentative nationalistic pride. The Dingoes’ songs could be seen as harbingers of a growing cultural confidence, among the first sedimentary islands to settle after the denuding cultural flood that emanated from wood, Bakelite and plastic boxes sitting in the corner of every Australian living room.
Kerryn had absolutely no airs or pretensions of greatness. He was strictly one of us. Nor did we feel he was superior in any way. Although he had the most to gain from any success we might have had, we would allow no leader to rise above the rest. I felt that Stockley, Kerryn and, to a lesser extent, Brod each thought they should exert more control over the band’s decisions. Whenever one of them complained about our lack of leadership it was tinged with regret that they had not taken charge themselves. Since I had come to the band last, and I was not the lead songwriter, the lead guitarist, the lead singer … the lead anything, I was not a contestant. But my judgment was well respected and I could have handed power to either of them had I wished. But I felt none of them had natural leadership qualities around which we could gather in admiration and respect.
Perhaps this conviction was affected by my own repressed hunger for power and envy of those who held it. I had had a miserable experience as a sixth-grader.
In a meteoric rise to power I was voted captain of the Chatham School football team. But immediately after my ascension, the team of eleven-year-olds refused to submit to my overambitious regimen of push-ups, jumping jacks and fifty-yard sprints. In any case, we were half the size of all our opponents and we went on to a completely scoreless season — in a game where a low score is thirty points.
The next year, I returned to brag to my teacher about my success in high school mathematics. He invited me into his classroom and said, ‘John Bois is going to show us how a mathematical wizard solves a problem.’
With that, he wrote one of his most convoluted word problems on the board. I choked. He asked one of the sixth-graders to solve the problem and she did it easily.
I must have looked crestfallen as I walked down the corridor. Another teacher stopped me and asked what had happened. After I told him, he explained that Mr Evans didn’t like me because he blamed me for our losing season last year. He said that he felt this was wrong because, while Mr Evans didn’t come to a single game, he had. And he thought I was a good captain.
This is a previously unexamined memory. And it’s only now that I realise how absurd it was to blame one person, me, for the performance of our hopelessly mismatched team. Yet it was Mr Evans’s judgment that I accepted. And until now it has stood there like a hazard sign whose simple message reached my subconscious: Remember the disaster that befell you the last time you went down this road — turn back!
Leadership was a recurring problem with The Dingoes. Stockley, Kerryn and Brod each had a valid claim to it, but they couldn’t step forward for certain knowledge that they would be knocked down again. And, since none could claim it, all denied it. This was often embarrassing. When an interviewer asked us who our leader was, we all froze for a revealing second. Then we blurted out that we were democratic. The interviewer looked at us as if to say, ‘I don’t care who the big chief is — I just want to know who to ask the question. Geez, guys! Get your act together.’
And so, when six o’clock came around, when we met in the lobby of the Sandy Beach Hotel, I was wincing from apprehension of the delicate tussle about to take place — who should make the call to America?
‘Well, then. Let’s do it,’ said Kerryn, as we stood around the lobby.
‘Who should ring?’ asked Stockley.
‘I don’t mind. Do you want to do it?’ said Kerryn.
‘No, mate,’ said Stockley. ‘You do it. You know Paul better than I do.’
Kerryn snatched the phone message from his own hand as if to say, Come on. Let’s not play one of these ridiculous games.
‘Come on,’ he said.
‘He’s a ratbag,’ said Stockley.
The issue was in the open but it was never addressed. I sometimes wondered what would have happened if one of us had said, ‘Look. We know power in this band is shared. No one of us is going to run off with all of the goods. Let’s just say that one of us, say me, is the leader. No leader gets everything his way. It’s usually no more than a formality — just like we agree to drive on the left side of the road. There’s nothing inferior about the right side. We just drive on the same side to avoid accidents. Having a leader would do the same thing — it would make the path to a common goal easier.’
Then we could have gone outside and done push-ups, jumping jacks and fifty-yard sprints.
Even if we had had such a leader there could be no inspirational element — we were far too equal for that. And where would such a leader take us — our common goal wasn’t formulated beyond wanting to make lots of money doing what we wanted to do. Besides, at the Station, the obvious power vacuum within the group was endearing, perhaps even the cornerstone of our highly prized anti-professionalism.
The leadership question was a conflict that remained with us. Though we felt we needed leadership, we rationalised our democratic dynamic with an attitude that said authority was for children and right-wing governments — we were gentlemen and boon companions; we needed no conch shell.
We tramped upstairs to the room Kerryn and I shared. I reached the door first and knocked on it. They stood still for a Pavlovian second.
‘Boisy!’ said Brod, as he shoved my shoulder.
I unlocked the door and we went in. Stockley came in last, having stopped at his room to get some beer. He opened one. Pretending to be drunk and talking to Paul McCartney on the phone, he said, ‘G’day, Paul. Chris here, mate. Yeah. Chris fuckin’ Stockley. How the fuck are ya. I’m good, thanks, mate. How’s John, George and Ringo … Fuckin’, eh!’
I walked over to turn off the air conditioner in the frigid room. I listened to the wind buffeting the salt-begrimed window as Kerryn talked to America, ‘Hello? … Hello … Yes. My name is Kerryn Tolhurst. I’m ringing on behalf of The Dingoes.’ He spoke too loudly — he had never spoken to anyone that far away before. ‘We got a message to ring someone called … Paul … McCartney.’
We snickered.
‘Yes … I see … Yes … No Paul McCart … Billy McCartney … No, that’s alright. Our mistake. Is he there? Thank you.’
We knew Billy McCartney. He was a road manager who had gone overseas to crack the big time. It was nice to hear from him, but not at the expense of my destiny.
‘How dare he not be Paul McCartney,’ I said.
‘He’s a fuckin’ ratbag,’ said Stockley.
Kerryn held up a silencing finger. ‘Billy! How are you, mate? … Good, thanks. Listen — we got this message to ring the Rolling Stones’ office … Yeah … I see …’
My heart sank as Kerryn sat on the edge of his bed with a poker face, saying ‘Yeah’ and ‘I see’ for the next ten minutes.
I looked at Stockley. He had on dark sunglasses that were supposed to turn transparent indoors. But they stayed dark and he looked like a heroin addict as he sullenly sipped his beer. He stood up, walked over to the window and gave me an exasperated look. I took great pride in the personalities of The Dingoes, and as I looked at Stockley I felt sadness that the