by Philip Luker
Then this from Jeff, in an email, ‘My brother calls you the conscience of a nation and while I don’t agree with him, I have come to the conclusion that anyone who likes both Voltaire and The Simpsons can’t be all that bad.’
The adoration continues, ‘My name is Anne and I’d like to thank you for hours and hours of stimulating reading. You seem to be a lone, sane, unrelenting voice against a mob of dickheads.’
I laughed at this letter from Tom, of Victor Harbour, South Australia, ‘I have complained to the ABC about the way you use Late Night Live to push your own views and ram down the listeners’ throats your prejudices on religion, politics, homosexuality, etc. The reply I received was that it’s extremely difficult for producers to handle people like you and we have to accept the good with the bad.’
Marjorie, of Monbulk in Victoria, wrote, ‘I am 92 years of age. Although a non-believer in some ways, I do believe in the benefits of starting each day with an optimistic approach. I lost my husband nine years ago and it left a big hole in my life. It is good to hear your voice in the wilderness of pessimism, speaking up loud and clear for optimism.’
And from Molly in Elizabeth, South Australia, ‘You are fortunate in that you do not need the prop of a belief in God and Jesus but there are many people who have such a need.’
But Michael, of Hebersham in New South Wales, said he is a retired minister of religion and told Adams, ‘You are my favourite agnostic. I enjoy the way you so gently take the mickey out of some of my religious friends. Our world needs such insightful and thoughtful people like you to help people like me keep our feet on the ground.’
Michael and all Adams’ tens of thousands of other letter-writers pour their hearts out to a person they will never meet but who they feel will understand their fears, hopes, heights and despairs, loves and hates. He has that kind of relationship with his listeners and readers.
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Graham, of Charters Towers, wrote: ‘The older I become, Phillip, the more I am aware that I know almost nothing about anything that amounts to anything. Holding that belief about myself is, I believe, the pathway to true wisdom.’
Andrew, of Toowoomba, Queensland, wrote: ‘I have found Gladys. She is a Pom and works as an announcer on 4DDB Toowoomba. If you get to hear one of her programs, it is a listening experience you will not forget.’
Leonie, of Seymour, Victoria, wrote: ‘Here is a photo of one of your listeners, not Gladys but Gabrielle. Gabrielle, my mum, will be 86 next Sunday and is avidly interested in life and is still learning. We both want you to keep up the good fight.’
Adam, of Ashfield, Sydney, wrote supporting Adams’ campaign to retain Australianisms and listed these recent conversions to Americanisms (in brackets): ‘Bullshit! (No way!); biscuits (cookies); galah (jerk); bastard (arsehole); g’day! (yo!); pram (stroller); dummy (pacifier); chips (fries); bloke (guy).’
Ron, of Eaglehawk, Victoria, wrote: ‘Michael has freaked out and is upset, crying and suicidal since his bout on the grog and so on. Max has taken him to the mental health centre this arvo, trying to get help. The other day they declared that Michael wasn’t schizophrenic at all but has a mild personality disorder.’
Alan, of Narrikup, Western Australia, wrote: ‘Average Australia, you know, quite likes Pauline Hanson, not because of what she stands for so much that she has the cheek, in these days of correctness, to enunciate the concerns that many feel about the fundamental changes they see around them, which they are downright frightened to talk about in case they are called racist.’
Peter, of Chirnside Park, Victoria, asked Adams, ‘Have you a secret cache of my unanswered letters? I was talking to a retired cleric yesterday and he told me he has written 2,767 letters to God and still awaits a reply.’
Valerie, of Mooroolbark, Victoria, wrote: ‘The Jews, Christians and Muslims have got it all wrong. There are only two types of people in the world, those who have brains and no religion and those who have a religion and no brains.’
Sylvia emailed: ‘I used to teach psychology and my students often asked me (as do others) what causes homosexuality. My inevitable reply is that I will tell them if they can tell me what causes heterosexuality. It fair stops them in their tracks.’
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John, of Chatsworth, NSW, wrote: ‘I’ve worked in abattoirs, mines and picking vegetables and fruit up and down the east coast. I married when I was 41 and I’m still married. My wife Margaret and I are good friends. I drank as well as worked my way around Australia. I’m 47 now and have not had a beer for eight months or so, thanks to my friends at Alcoholics Anonymous. I’ve never officially studied anything since I left my formal schooling after half-completing the Intermediate Certificate at Marist Brothers College, Bendigo. However, I have become aware of the fact that I am no lesser or better person than anyone. My mission in life is to believe in myself and to help others know that they have minds as capable as any academic’s and could do all that clever, famous people can do if they train and believe in themselves.’
Lois, of Braidwood, NSW, wrote chastising Adams, ‘I am not a Gladys, a term I find a little patronising (shades of Barry Humphries’ gladioli) and suggestive of an uncritical species of female fan who is a bit in love with your undoubtedly attractive voice and charming what-the-hell personality. I can’t help thinking that you need better intellectual resources to deal with the charges of bias and that you are to some extent hoist on the petard of your own commitment to objectivism.’
Even a parrot likes Adams’ voice: Val, of Mt Hutton, NSW, wrote, ‘When you talk, my parrot, Billy, sits on top of his cage and whistles so loudly that I can hardly hear you. I’m sure he learns heaps from your programs.’
Joseph, of Darlinghurst, Sydney, wrote, ‘Remember the three murderers of Christ: the Government (rule by propaganda and fear), the Church (rule by superstition, power and confusion), and the Mob (rule by ignorance). Before mankind can live together in harmony and understanding, the Mob’s ignorance must be transmitted into wisdom, the Church’s superstition transmitted into illuminated faith and the state’s fear into love.’
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Some letters are very perceptive: Harold, of Deception Bay, Queensland, wrote, ‘Someone once remembered that, for Westerners, the aim of life is to do and for Easterners it is to be — to be one with entire life, which embraces nature, to be one with the cosmos. This is what has priority in old Chinese thinking.’
Joe, of Casino, NSW, wrote: ‘You have done a fair job of beautifying Gough Whitlam. My favourite joke about the great man runs like this: Gough and Margaret had retired for the night and Margaret threw herself on the bed said, ‘God, I’m tired!’ Gough patiently remonstrated with her, saying, ‘Margaret, when we are alone, do you think you could call me Gough?’
Peter, of Mt Lawley, Western Australia, wrote: ‘Cheer up, old boy. You are not completely to blame for your putrid manners, boofhead appearance and complete lack of any decent behaviour. Your ancestors, if they are identifiable, must share some of the responsibility. Please try harder.’
Lucy, of Cascades in Tasmania, wrote: ‘Your talk on eugenics reminded me of how, a few years ago, a teacher friend of mine was asked by a pupil the meaning of the word. The teacher replied it meant not leaving human reproduction to anything as random as love but instead choosing a partner by what is in his or her genes. As this sounded like “jeans”, you can imagine the hilarity it caused.’
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Even as a schoolboy, Adams admired women: Marie, of Hawthorn, Melbourne, was a young teacher at Eltham High when Adams was there as a student and wrote, ‘I remember you so well, always on the edge of any shenanigans, enjoying to the full but not participating — an admirable but safe position. You made my day on one occasion after a female teachers’ beauty contest at an Open Day or some such event. You said I had the best legs. If it was so then, I wish it were still so!’
Rosemary, of Queanbeyan, NSW, wrote in support of Adams’ campaign over the Stolen Generation. She said she remembe
rs in Alice Springs in 1950, when she was visiting a friend near Heavy Tree Gap, she saw a small group of people walking down the road. Suddenly, a utility appeared. It stopped and two white men jumped out and snatched a small child from the group and drove off again.
Lucy, of Hawthorn, Melbourne, wrote: ‘I wish you would stop suggesting that the net isolates people. I have made contact with three members of my extended family who I had completely lost contact with, thanks to the net.’
Robert, of Charlestown, NSW, wrote: ‘In spite of all your diatribes against God for so many years, about 80 per cent of people still believe in God. How many people have you made happy by destroying their belief in God?’
Norman, of Castlemaine in Victoria, wrote: ‘Lesley’s here, staying for the weekend. Gives her a break from her boyfriend Greg in Bendigo and her ex, Laurie, who boards with her. Apparently Greg has acquired a brain injury and is friends with the bikies that drink at the Victoria Hotel, Bendigo, and even threatened to kill Lesley and Laurie over something. They even blackmailed Greg into getting Lesley stoned for the first time about a month back. Lesley brought me a Christmas present, The Phillip Adams and Patrice Joke Book. Second-hand but okay. I think the last owner (due to the penciled stuff in it) was a name I recognised as a psycho patient.’
Martin, of St Leonards, Sydney, wrote: ‘When I was picking up the kids from school on Tuesday, the usual coven of mums was sheltering under a tree talking about you and LNL. They all knew you had been unwell. They said that you always sound as if you are confiding in just them and ask the questions they would ask. You sound the nearest in Oz to a public moral conscience.’
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R J R, of Adelaide, wrote: ‘I’m disappointed to find you so thin-skinned. You dish it out on a weekly basis, but a minor wrap from Media Watch and you behave like a big girl’s blouse.’
Millie, ‘a worried Gladys’, emailed, ‘Re: $9billion spending on defence. Please tell me why we spend so much on defence when we are not at war with any country that might invade us, nor might any other country threaten us. Please tell me how this amount compares with the budgets for education, health or community services.’
Rosemary, of Jimboomba in Queensland, wrote, ‘The awful subject of child abuse continues to rear its ugly head, but the very worst aspect is the painful spiritual abuse that so many children experience at the hands of a father figure. Mothers can be father figures also. The experience turns children into the agnostics, atheists and god-haters who proliferate in our world. To search for God, Phillip, is the one important thing you will ever do in your life.’
Tony, of Bowden, South Australia, wrote, ‘I have just returned from three months in the UK and Ireland. Daily I have read The Guardian, Independent, Scotsman, Irish Independent, even the Daily Telegraph, and I have watched the BBC, ITV, Channel Four and Five. When I returned to Australia, never have I read so much crap and watched so much shit, especially in The Australian, The Advertiser, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and on ABCTV and SBS. You are a media analyst. Why is there so much childish crap in Australian media? And why, oh why can’t people speak English? Even The South Wales Evening Post is better than The Australian, although it’s gone downhill since Dylan left.’
Pam emailed, ‘You seem to have a finely-tuned bullshit detector. Very handy, as there is a lot of it around.’
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Many letters to Adams talk of tragedy: Jason, of Nakara in the Northern Territory, wrote to him, ‘This note is to tell you that your article in The Weekend Australian on love is helping me a lot as I try to cope with the loss of my beloved and loving wife to cancer at the age of 53. My life went into reverse a month ago. The pain was indescribable. You are probably right: “Love is the triumphant response to life’s inevitable tragedy.” Love is the only thing that makes life worth living.’
Judith emailed, ‘A wealthy friend of mine seduced doctors, barristers, even a judge and was well paid by them. My husband said to me recently, “She must have had something.” I told him, “She talked her men into thinking they were supermen, then she fucked them. They did not fuck her. What extraordinary children you men are on that note.”’
Tony, of Chirnside Park, Melbourne, wrote, ‘As your listener, I have been faithful for many years. So often I have left my couch to let your dulcet tones gently violate my eardrums. Is this oral sex?’
Julie, of ‘The University from Hell’, University of Melbourne, wrote, ‘The university has flung me as from the end of the year. I am not sure what I will do for the rest of my life. The only job in The Age classifieds that appeals to me so far is as a barge attendant in Nauru … Someone on one of your programs reminded me of the lady who, when asked how many husbands she had had, replied, “Including my own?’”
Jock emailed, ‘Dear Phil. Do you want to come to my birthday party? I’ve got a new cook and there will be lots of pink gin, beer, cakes and all sorts of splendid amusements.’
Susan emailed hopefully, ‘I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party where I had unprotected sex with a man I met that night. I do remember the sex was so good that I fainted. If you manage to track down the father, can you send me his phone number?’
Alastair, of Lower Templestowe, Melbourne, wrote, ‘Hello, my name is Adam. I am 26 and currently studying in Melbourne and I enjoy your program very much. In fact, it is one of the very few shows in the whole broadcasting world worth listening to. I look forward very much to the day we meet, perhaps in London, as my folks are very much part of the West End scene and we might bump into each other one sunny day.’
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Many letters criticise Adams: Graham, of Yarralumla, ACT, wrote, ‘I have had less and less enthusiasm for LNL, partly because of the dreary topics covered but mainly because of the way you allow some characters to waffle on without seriously challenging them. You don’t declare yourself as standing for anything (except Egyptian mummies) and seem content to demonstrate your brand of warm, moist empathy as if that’s a substitute for real content. The ABC reeks of it.’
Anne, of Devonport in Tasmania, wrote, ‘I am writing to thank you for my best English teacher. I am 13 years old and in Grade 8. My first eager task every weekend for many years has been to turn to The Weekend Australian and read your column. No-one else I know uses language as you do. I sometimes wet my pants laughing.’
Most letters to Adams are full of slices of life: Kristian, of Junee, NSW, wrote, ‘Genes do play a major part. I have the crankiest sadist as a husband, the living image of his dead sadistic mother, and she could give the Marquis de Sade points. I am told our eldest daughter, who is as sweet as a nut and kindness personified, has this ugly jealousy, too.’
Edward, of Whyalla, South Australia, wrote, ‘I am writing in reply to your letter. So you regard my letter and opinions as disgusting. You got upset, you poor little thing. A large part of the Australian community supports the detention of asylum-seekers. Likewise with Aborigines. I would round them all up, build a large camp capable of holding all 400,000 of them, surround it with 20ft-high cement walls, top it with 2000-volt electric wire and let them cope. If they want food, let them eat each other.’
Leonie emailed, ‘I am a struggling artist. At first I struggled with who I was, then with those around me, who I love. Art at present in Australia seems to be heavily influenced by old-fashioned emus. Surely the Archibald Prize should be more at the cutting edge of art than it is. Or is art such a puzzle that even the judges don’t know what it is about?’
Adams told me nothing causes more angry letters than the Israel-Palestine conflict: John emailed, ‘Israel and Pakistan need to be urgently squashed to death like the cockroaches they are. You are over-influenced — even scared — by the Jewish holocaust. The Jews are the Nazis of today. The holocaust is in Palestine and the jackboots are on Jewish soldiers.’
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Religion causes anger in many letters to Adams: Michael, of Burswood in Perth, wrote, ‘You border on being bl
asphemous with your remarks about the Lord Jesus Christ. Demons come in many shapes and sizes and forms. Some of them are huge and some are so small that you breathe them in and sneeze them out when they want to change house. If you want to see a real live demon, go to the following address on a Saturday morning … The demon goes to town on a Friday night and when it returns in the morning, its wings make a sound like a helicopter. Then it does a U-turn and stops at the corner of the house, lets out a loud squawk and disappears.’
Andrew emailed: ‘There is no doubt that religion is the worst thing that ever happened to God. Doctrines, dogmas and the Bible ask people to park their brains at the door of the church. They have left God with a congregation of scared, weird and little people.’
Horst, of Molendinar, Queensland, wrote, ‘Phillip, you are truly in a mess of your own doing. You have become an emotional wreck. You have capitulated to demon forces who are playing on you and laughing at you for being so vulnerable.’
Steve, of Bellingen, NSW, wrote, ‘I think the Australian media is partly responsible for the people’s sports obsession. The commercial media tend to make more money out of the projection of sport than out of any intellectual forum.’
Letters and emails contained many home truths: Gunnar emailed, ‘I had a discussion recently with a retired major general, who has fought in four wars (World War 11, Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam) and he said war is rarely justified and never achieves anything except mass misery.’
Michael, of Queanbeyan, wrote, ‘It’s time! It’s time you did it again, Phillip — get the Oz film industry re-started. You did it before, almost single-handed. Why not another effort? I’ve just met friends in the film industry and, I tell you, they are worried.’
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Andrew said he was from Perth in Tasmania and emailed, ‘Thank you for your accurate, brutally honest and courageous attack on us, the public, in The Weekend Australian Magazine, “Ignorance is no defence.” Once again, you have hit it (us) right on the head. A dear friend and I are constantly pulling our hair out at the “She’ll be right, mate” attitude of friends, work colleagues, acquaintances and strangers we encounter in our daily lives.’