The prospect of a one on one with Paul McDermott can at the very least be daunting. An ordeal so intimidating that now is almost embarrassing in retrospect. I can't believe that as one my first questions I actually asked the man for etiquette tips on how one should behave in his presence. I mean, do I just sit there and nod sensibly or do I foolishly try to match wits and risk being laconically torn to shreds (as warned by many around me) by a man whose very life is seemingly enriched by just that, at the expense of others. Am I now to be a pawn in his cruel game?
"No, no I'm in a real sort of Christian mood today," he laughs reassuringly and without any trace of deception. "So if you want to be funny go for it. I'm not hypercritical, I don't know why people believe that I am. I'm actually a very generous and giving person." Suspecting that last line to be acerbically brushed a touch too fine for it to be anything but an expert slip of the Freudian kind, I warily continued by futher questioning mostly his private face. "Yeah on and off stage I'm the kindest f#*king fellow you could ever hope to meet. I've got a heart full of happiness, so much I could share it around..."
Enough already, cover blown! So what does happen with those you set out to character destroy, what of your 'Christian generousity'? "Straight out the window," he fires back with a hearty, almost megalomaniacal laugh. "But that's a job you see, and I'm geting paid for that. I've go to be vitriolic, cruel and nasty and bitter and small minded...(all listed with rapid precision), and I can't be myself." Cautiously accepting this reasoning, I thought that maybe he might then feel some regret when he gets home and puts his feet up. "Oh heavens no! It's just like the war, you know, the soldiers had to do what they did, I'm just following orders that's all, I can't do anything about it."
Well if this was the war, then Paul McDermott would be a Lance Corporal - you know the cocky little fellow often depicted as a comic relief in those 50/60s era war movies, the one whose idea of a joke was not always welcome, but strangely nearly always appreciated. I put it to Paul that he does seen to relish in bad taste jokes, especially when celebrity deaths are concerned. "I think comedians are like vultures," he admits. "We're waiting for something to terrible to happen so we then have some material. It's a terrible way to look at it but essentially that's the truth, we're worse than tow truck drivers and ambulance people." Does that mean that there's some degree of hope for a tragedy or personality demise to occur? "No I don't think that you ever hope for it, but if it ever happens you certainly take advantage of it. I mean we're all sort of parasites feeding off the bigger fish and that's how we make our living."
When asked if he has any jokes squirreled aside on the off chance that something should happen to anyone in particular, McDermott was both quick and humble to respond with ... "Just like, um getting ready for Frank Sinatra's death. It's a good thought perhaps, but a a lot of them come from the moment. I do have ideas and thoughts about writing pieces, but not specifically about tragedies that may or may not eventuate. "The thought then occurred to me, that it is usually the suddeness that make such events both catastrophic and hell funny at the same time. "Yeah well they are," agrees McDermott. "You know, no one would have guessed that Mother Teresa would have died, came right out the blue that one, didn't it?"
Which I now suppose brings us to the reason for the chat in the first place, that being the release of his new CD.'Unplugged, The Good News Week Tapes Vol.1': a collection of McDermott's opening monologues lifted from the '97 season of the top rating satricial news show 'Good News Week', and yes if you've have the slightest leaning toward sick humour, this is for you. Seventy-nine(true, count 'em) tracks reviewing the year that was through the eyes of someone who's possibly seen too much. 1997: "The year that Micheal Hutchence didn't leave a suicide note, but Pauline Hanson did." And 1997, the year you could buy a "Stuart Diver action figure, it just lies there for three days" or even at auction, the bumper sticker taken from Di and Dodi's Mercedes which says 'MY OTHER CAR IS A DECOY'. Yes, nothing is sacred and neither is 1998 it seems, as the ABC have annouced yet another forty episodes of the series that has become a Friday night institution. So get in, sit down, shut up and hold on tight.