Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Ice to see you

I was going to blog about Enough Rope last night but it looks as though Johnsy has beaten me to it and I wouldn’t be surprised if Lindsay were far behind. Nevertheless, consider this my two cents.

I’m not particularly a Grinspoon fan but I was hugely impressed with Phil Jamieson’s appearance on Denton’s show last night. It was also probably one of the more effective anti-drug pieces of TV I’ve seen in awhile.

There are so many puff interviews on TV and in the paper these days that it’s refreshing and weirdly affecting to see someone talk so apparently honestly about his addiction to crystal meth, cheating on his wife and a downward spiral that ended in detox and rehab.I won’t step on Lindsay’s blogging toes by musing on the difference between Jamieson and Perth’s apparent favourite junkie son Cousins but the comparison is an obvious one.Unlike certain footballers Jamieson came off as a likeable, confused person who had been severely messed around with drugs and was (slowly) trying to get back on his feet.

Also unlike certain footballers he didn’t come off as trying to restore his public image and his story wasn’t wrapped up with a nice happy ending: he’s probably shitting himself about what a life without drugs will be like; his wife could take months or years to forgive him and I don’t know what his relationship with his bandmates is like but I’d imagine fairly damaged.

Denton’s work really does show the holes in other interviewers and the cheap way in which most media organisations treat stories about drug addiction and ‘celebrities’.

For anyone who missed it, it should be up on the Enough Rope website soon and is well worth a viewing.

3 comments:

Dave said...

I have never watched anyone interview a subject quite so effectively as Denton manages to do week in, week out. He's brilliant.

my name is kate said...

Yeah he makes me feel a bit ashamed of my occasionally very lazy interviews when I really couldn’t give two craps about some stupid local band or an old bint who has won a community service award…

Lindsay said...

Yeah, that was a hard one - credit where credit is due.