Media Man Australia - The Online Home of Greg Tingle

Interview: Dane Crandon, Coal Minder, Builder's Labourer, Dietitian, Exercise Consultant and Author of the book everybody wants to read but nobody's got the balls to publish: 14th August 2003

In Your Face

In keeping with Media Man Australia's tradition of tackling any subject, we explore the world of the struggling author.

Dane Crandon has done many things in his life. Dane is now aiming to get his book, The Smile of a Lunatic, published, and his biggest fear is that no one has the balls to publish it!

Listen to an interview with Dane Crandon - 14th August 2003

What's your background?

Born in the coal mining valleys of South Wales (immigrated to Australia at the age of eight), I followed a family tradition and worked in the fossil-fueled black bowels below. Stepping from the subterranean darkness, I've gone from building site labourer to bouncer to full time Uni student to dietitian and exercise consultant, and now, shock horror, a desk job.

How, why and when did you start writing?

Early to mid thirties - the creative voice inside awoke. I'm a late bloomer.

What do you consider your best accomplishment?

Unpublished novel, The Smile of A Lunatic.

Describe your writing style?

I've graduated from the school of coarse writing - colourful and immediate. My novel is a ribald mix of dark and disturbed people and happenings, Aussie larrikinism, sick humour and brutality. Sophisticated finesse, no. Ugly and shocking, I hope so. As Dame Edna Everage once said, "…lesbianism has always left a nasty taste in your mouth." I want to leave a taste, pleasant or otherwise. The less liberal may find my in-your-face coarseness and character unpleasantness unpalatable. So be it.

Where have you been published to date?

None. Cept for a couple dot comms gone bust. Hell, coulda been my fault.

What motivates you?

Giving characters the Frankensteinian "life!" Life I say!

Where do you get your ideas?

Ideas, like opinions, are everywhere. One simply has to look and listen.

What are your influences?

David Lynch. Blue Velvet was a delicious blend of perversion, innocence and the downright bizarre.
Barry Humphries. Anyone unfamiliar with The Traveller's Tool, hunt it down. It's Sir Les at his wonderfully coarse and vulgar best. Boozing, shagging, vomiting. The pinnacles of life! Great stuff!

What are your current projects?

Writing the sequel to The Smile of A Lunatic. Yes, I'm presumptuous!

What media exposure have you received?

None. I'm yet to be exposed. (editors note: you have been now)!

Do you think that some books should be banned?

Sporting autobiography written whilst the athlete is still performing. Celebrity Diet Books. I'd rather be a three-chinned porka than digest the commercial advice of a ghostwritten slab of nonsense that feeds off the fat of the land and hides beneath a cloak of pseudo science.

Has anyone attempted to censor you?

A publisher said The Smile of A Lunatic is too dark and disturbed. Too misogynistic. J K Rowling's publishers got it wrong, too.

What are your aims and objectives?

To smile and continue to enjoy the sound of raindrops on the roof for as long as possible.

Are you controversial?

I'm not mainstream and I'm not willing to comprise my style. If that's controversial then so be it.

What would you like to be known for?

A decent and down-to-earth bloke who can step outside his well-intentioned and good-natured ways and let his dark and twisted self breathe in the world of fiction.

Describe freedom of the press in Australia?

A free press should aim to objectively enlighten and emancipate. Australia's commercial press is compliantly mainstream; genuine investigative reporting is as rare as one-minute steak.

What else should we know about you?

I shun reality TV shows (an oxymoron), shake my head at the enormous pay packets of over-paid corporates (jealousy?), have no faith in a political and corporate world infested with charlatans, sickened by growing greed and pretentious materialism, love the footy (union and league) and cricket, like a cold beer after a day's toil, cringe at tabloid trash journalism, have no time for human resource departments (we are not resources to be exploited and spat out at our use-by date), chuckle at the over-counseling that pervades today's society and pissed off at the nothing punishments handed out to juvenile perpetrators of crime. And I'll do anything for a lady…within reason of course.

...end.

Editors note: A dark, talented man. Perhaps even a kinkster, to use Dane's expression. Something tells me that you will hear a lot more from this talented writer. We are just glad we are in touch with this modern day kinkster, who I think is a cross between David Lynch, Andy Kaufman, Andy Warhol and John Carpentar! You have been published now Dane!

Links:

Articles by Dane Crandon

Two Men and a Coffee Shop, by Dane Cradon - 14th August 2003

Fat Chance

Dial S for Shane

Suburban Bondage

Jesse Ventura: Wrestling with politics, by Greg Tingle & Dane Crandon

Arnold Schwarzenegger: King of bodybuilding, movies, politics and media, by Greg Tingle & Dane Crandon

Arnold Schwarzenegger: King of bodybuilding, movies, politics and media (Another Version), by Greg Tingle & Dane Crandon

Website Review: Universal Online (Universal Music Group B2B website), by Greg Tingle & Dane Crandon

Movie Reviews by Dane Crandon

Blade