I once knew a girl who liked to pretend her life was a TV show, and all her friends were bit players. I was an A-list friend for a while, but eventually got written off the series. This is an alternative-ending version of the song, which I rewrote specially for my sister’s wedding. I didn’t want to post the video before the wedding, so now that the presents have been opened and the hangover’s almost gone, here it is. Linc.
It’s all finished. Nine cities, ten shows (eighteen for me if you count the solo support slots), couple thousand kilometres, one dirty taco and a handful of parasites down, and we’re about to get on a plane to come home.
Last night’s final show at the Public Bar was pretty good. Since most people we invited to the show said something like “where the hell is the public bar?”, we weren’t expecting much, but a few people came through the door. It was also our second show with Geelong kids The Houses, and these guys sounded much better in a decent venue.
For me, it’s on to planning the next run of Insiders shows. At this stage it’s looking like Melbourne and Geelong one weekend, Sydney and Newcastle with Amy Vee and Jordan Millar on another, and a couple of solo Linc shows in Brisbane, somewhere in the vicinity of March/April. Keep and eye on the shows tab on www.linclefevre.com and join the mailing list if you haven’t already, and I’ll let you know.
We’re all dirty and exhausted, so we’re just gonna hang around and wait for the plane to take us home.
In 1977, scriptwriters from the ABC series Happy Daysincluded a scene where a waterskiing Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli actually jumps over a shark – a feat mimicking that of stuntman Evel Knievel. Such a seemingly proposterous leap from the original tone of the show was considered a futile attempt to breathe life into the show’s ratings, by then in its fourth season.
The phrase ‘jumping the shark’ has since entered the lexicon of TV criticism referring to any series or franchise that has passed it’s useful life, and has turned to unbelievable measures to keep itself alive.
‘Nuking the fridge’ is a similar term, referring to the exact point at which the series breaks the illusion of reality, when the viewer is presented with something just too unbelievable. The phrase is a reference to the nuclear explosion scene in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Whatever, in which our beloved Indy survives by hiding inside a lead-lined fridge.
According to jumptheshark.com, there are seventeen ways that a series can jump the shark, and I’m pretty sure Home and Away has done most of them. They include:
Same character, different actor
Character has a baby
Character dies
Live episode
Two opposite leads get it on
Special guest star
New character
You get the idea. (You’ll also note that The Simpsons, Family Guy, Arrested Development and Scrubs are listed as not having jumped).
homer jumps the shark
So I’m wondering if there are any bands that have committed some kind of act of reviving a failing career so badly that they’ve resorted to some kind of musical equivalent of jumping the shark. ‘Selling out’ doesn’t really cut it, because these kinds of measures are usually so far beyond merely selling out. It’s like they sold out years ago, and now the record label is selling out what’s left of their lifeless husks, and they’re too drugfucked and brainfried to even care, let alone do anything about it.
Certainly Kiss taking off their makeup is a good example. Putting it back on again is another. Putting it back on and playing with a symphony orchestra is again, a good example.
Any other takers? And don’t say going solo, ya dick’eds.
