Off we go to the dentist, but not before our obligatory tussle over who gets to operate the Daewoo's CD unit. I want the Carter Family; my daughter wants Green Day. Even though she is praying for Reese Witherspoon to get the Oscar for Walk the Line, she cannot bear to hear the original recordings of June Carter's mum, dad and aunt. Where, I ask, would Reese's inspired characterisation of June be without them? By way of reply, she tosses her head, regulation latte coloured streaks catching the summer sun as it bakes the brick veneer kiln we call home. In a word -- or gesture -- she has never heard such awful music.
So we listen to American Idiot, mercifully catching every green light en route to the drillmeister. How sad it is, I wonder to myself, that this country hasn't produced a band who can tell us about our very own Australian Idiot. Most likely it's because the country is made up almost entirely of Australian Idiots. Daughter breaks into this depressing thought by reminding me that her generation will never become fascists thanks to Green Day. I should say something positive, but stupidly sing, "For they are jolly good fellows." She looks at me as if both of my conical heads were too small. I apologize. Stupidly, I make matters worse by doing a pretty good imitation of Billy Eckstine singing I Apologize. I try to tell her that it's not easy imitating Billy Eckstine, with his massive shifting clackers, but she just turns the music up. I sense that she would rather become a Magdalene Sister than ask who he is.
Now we're listening to Green Day whipping their English audience into ecstasy by shouting the word "England!" The fans go bananas. Dear one admits that the lead singer, Billie Joe, could have shouted "boiled cabbage" or "Inuit semen" and they would have reacted the same.
In the dentist's office, we settle in for the usual waiting period of 15 minutes to three days. She leafs through a celebrity magazine, flipping each page with nerve-assaulting violence while I try to concentrate on an expensive manual meant to make blogging with Movable Type easier. A remarkable tome, it uses full-page illustrations in colourful hieroglyphics coupled with concise step-by-step instructions in Aramaic. One of the words looks suspiciously familiar. "Eee-zee," I pronounce slowly, and, unfortunately, aloud. I am instantly slapped in the face by several hundred strands of hair as the daughter who must be obeyed turns her head sharply: "Be quiet. You're so annoying!"
She finally gets the call. I join her because my wife has requested I ask three things of the dentist regarding his opinion on the possibility of braces. I have also promised both daughter and wife to refrain from discussing politics with the amiable dentist while he goes about his work.
For a girl who routinely speaks a dialect of English in which every syllable of every word is contracted to an undecipherable slur, she responds to the dentist's banter with the aplomb of a grown woman speaking the dialect of English known to those who reside in our locality. I am forever amazed at this transition between languages … how does she do it?
After a few moments I realise I have forgotten one of the three questions I am meant to ask. Cleverly concealing my panic, I excuse myself and scurry to the waiting room where I whip out my mobile phone and call my all-knowing, all-tracking beloved. There is no answer. I am doomed to ask only two of the three questions, except that now I can remember only one.
The dentist is busy cleaning dearly's teeth when I return. I sit and fidget for a while. I sense that he wants to talk politics. Well, perhaps I don't sense this exactly, but supposing he does? Who am I to deprive him of his say?
We discuss the Prime Minister for the remainder of the session. In fact our conversation becomes downright eloquent. The dentist is a gentle soul and so I become gentle in turn. We conclude our dialogue in the waiting room on the sorrowful note that there is no hope of removing John Howard because there is no opposition.
I only remember to ask the only question I haven't forgotten as we are leaving. He says her teeth are fine and that she doesn't need braces. Secretly, I whinny with delight; now I can buy that DVD recorder with a whopping big hard disk instead of spending a fortune trying to make her teeth look like living dentures. The dentist agrees that slight anomalies in teeth can be quite attractive. As there are women present, I refrain from giving him a detailed summary of my research into this highly charged subject.
Daughter and I play Frogger with the traffic as we navigate to a Fish and Chippery across the street. She orders chips and a coke and then we go next door where I order a much needed Latte.
We sit staring at each other. In the hope of encouraging this recently turned 15-year-old to engage in human communication, I grasp at a topic which may have already been discussed at the dinner table: "You know, your mother couldn't find a decent latte when she was in Washington DC. And yet every cafe here in Melbourne, with the exception of Starbucks, makes adequate to superior lattes. Aren't we lucky to be living here?"
"Meh," she replies.
"Sorry I talked politics with the dentist," I plead.
"I didn't mind," she says in the English dialect I understand. "None of my friends like John Howard or the Liberal Party. But that's thanks to American Idiot," she adds, using both menacing index fingers to draw an exclamation point in the intimidated air between us.
"But American Idiot refers to George Bush, doesn't it?"
"Well, duhh," she sneers. "They're the same thing, or didn't you know that?"
How is it, I wonder, head slumped as if picadored, that teenagers can so easily make their parents look like imbeciles.
On the way home I get to thinking: I've been raving against John Howard for years, but she only hates him because of a song about his boyfriend. I suppose it all sinks in over time, but it makes a parent feel kind of useless.
I really want to hear the Carter Family but there's no point in trying. Hey, maybe I could pay one of her friends to say she likes the Carter Family. Twenty bucks oughtta do the trick. Nah, wouldn't work; they're all so loyal to each other. If she wasn't so rigid in her positions against this and that, she would easily hear the, er, beauty of the song Single Girl, Married Girl. Granted it sounds pretty raw -- no studio enhancements here -- but it's authentic ethnic folk music, it's history. Where would Reese's performance be without this 1927 recording of the plaintive, downright primitive voice of June Carter's aunt Sara?
Single girl, oh single girl
She goes to the store and buys
Oh goes to the store and buys
Married girl, oh, married girl
She rocks the cradle and cries
Oh, rocks the cradle and cries
On the same CD compilation is Blind Willie Johnson's croaky masterpiece, John the Revelator. Daughter hasn't heard this one yet, heh-heh. I know, I'll put it and the Carter Family tunes on the "Reveille" CD I made, the one I slip in her ghetto blaster in the morning when she refuses to get out of bed. It's across the room so she has to get up to turn it off, hee-hee. Well, she could use the remote, but in the cyclonic aftermath that is her bedroom, she'd never find it. I used to wake her up ringing a small but effective ship's bell, but this is even better. Reveille comprises bits of some of the most weird and cacophonic music I know and is therefore guaranteed to annoy teenagers. There is Diamanda Galas' Wild women with steak knives to scare the hell out of her, and Kate Smith singing God Bless America to bring on a round of gagging. An excerpt from Frank Zappa's Didja get any onya? and a wacky vocal from the Japanese film, Lies, normally sees the covers being flung aside, but if I add Blind Willie and the Carter Family, I'll want to have the camera ready. The face it captures will make Emily Rose look like June Allyson.
Then again, maybe a father shouldn't be so mean. Of course, she could always get up when I give her my jocular morning yoo-hoo. But, no, not her: she's a teenager. Oh well, nothing for it but to make a shiny new copy of Reveille, with those great bonus tracks.
