Never a True Word

The city’s number one radio prick has used his pudgy little fingers to press the numbers that will bring his voice to my ear.

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

As soon as I step into the shower the phone rings. It’s one of life’s inevitabilities. This is a job where the phone is never far from my grasp. It’s my 11th digit or second brain. With a sigh I turn off the water, reach over to the handbasin and grab the damned implement resting between a tube of toothpaste and a razor. I wonder if there is a proven association between stepping into the shower and mobiles bleating.

As expected it’s the city’s number one radio prick who has used his pudgy little fingers to press the numbers that will bring his voice to my ear. A man who inflicts his loud and often nonsensical opinions on the public each day and who considers each and every utterance to be a veritable nugget of truth.

A man who has confected outrage down to such an art it could be hung in the Louvre. In other words, your bog-standard radio shock jock.

Every city has one these days and this bloke is ours. It pains me more than I can say that I have to be civil to this enormous f..kwit. “Jack, it’s Andrew Caldicott,” he says in that familiar deep and velvet baritone that often makes me think he missed his true calling as the bloke who does voiceovers for Hollywood films.

“Sorry to disturb you so early.” This is a lie. You can tell by his tone that it’s the highlight of his week, he takes pleasure in torturing innocent press secs.

It comes from his innate sense that as a journo and, worse, a media star, he is somehow morally and intellectually superior to a low-rent government spinner such as myself.

Anyway, it’s 7.15, not that early. I am up and conscious, so that's a start. My personal best in the rudely awakened-from-sleep-stakes was 5.40am by an idiot radio reporter who thought I would be rousing my famously grumpy, occasionally hung-over Minister of the Crown, the Honourable Ray Sloan, from his slumber in time for a quote for the 6am news. Oh, how I laughed.

But this is the life. The glamorous world of the hired spin doctor. Standing naked under a leaking tap speaking to a bloke whose ego is so big I’m surprised there’s still room for me in the shower. A bloke who, if he was half as good as he thinks he is, would have won three Pulitzers, eight Walkleys, an Oscar, a Grammy and the Stawell Gift by now.

And it’s all fuelled by the biggest case of small-man syndrome I have ever come across. Here’s another idea for a scientific study. Someone should examine the average height of the nation’s more bombastic radio presenters. I reckon to a man (and there’s not many women) they are all midgets. And not just physically. Still, I’m paid to try and keep these blokes on side to whatever small degree is possible. I have to think though, at this point in my life, acting school would have been a more useful preparation for this job than a journalism degree.

“Hey, no problem, Caldy — (beautiful use of the familiar there, we’re old mates and I want him to know I am the friendly face of government) — I was expecting to hear from you this morning.” (Because you are so predictable.)

Of course, I say all this with a forced cheerfulness that the cast of Friends would have stopped to admire.

“Well, mate, I need to speak to your boss this morning after eight,” he says. Between eight and nine is the golden hour on his radio show. It’s when the ratings are highest, it’s when the big issues are rolled out, it’s when he delights in bringing on politicians with the express intention of f..king them over.

About what? I inquire, although I know exactly what he is about to say

“This blowout, mate. The one on the front page of today's paper.” (The daily rag is where he nicks most of his ideas from.)

“What’s going on? What are you hiding?”

“Mate,” I say. (There’s that word again.) “It’s bullshit. It’s not a blowout, the size of the project just changed. It got bigger so of course it’s going to cost more money. Just basic economics really. It’s a good news story, the project got bigger and better. This is a good news story.”

There’s a brief silence. We both know I’m bullshitting him. The only question really is how deep the pile of bullshit is on this fine morning. Today, it’s only about shin height I reckon. Nothing a good pair of gumboots won’t keep out. I’m not lying to him exactly, but neither am I telling the whole truth. But this is the job. Blame the adversarial nature of media-political relations in the digital age. No one trusts anyone. Although this may just be because truth is a rare commodity these days and it’s not just governments and spin doctors who have a propensity to bullshit.

This morning’s conversation is fairly typical. In this case Side A (Caldicott) claims something is a disaster and the nasty government is engaged in the biggest cover-up this side of Watergate. While Side B (that’s me) says, “No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong. Black is white, up is down.”

Let me give you an example.

The catastrophe I am dealing with this Monday morning is how much money the government is going to spend building a new airport that will be home to the Air Force’s new whiz-bang planes that go very, very fast. See how exciting this world is?

As is often the case with these things, our lot had to beat off competition from many other places to win this supposedly grand prize. There was no science, or even particular brilliance, to winning this bid. We just bribed the federal government with more money and promised to build it a long way from any of their marginal electorates. Especially those ones who could become upset at the thought of screamingly loud aeroplanes flying overhead for much of the day.

Never a True Word by Michael McGuire is published by Wakefield Press, $29.95.

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Opening pages of the 10 best Australian novels this year. Shortlist compiled by literary editor Stephen Romei.