GOSH! THAT’S SUPER, SUPERMAN!!

I have 2 superannuation funds.

One is the industry fund I’ve been in the last 8 years (extent of the damage as yet unknown as their annual report has been delayed due to a merger or some such thing).

The other is a fund whose television advertisements feature a bloke who became quite famous for his ability to either throw balls at wooden sticks or hit balls with wooden sticks. Which is quite a talent apparently. In 2001, some old fella whose name escapes me for the moment stated that the greatest living Australian ever was some other fella who used to hit balls with wooden sticks for a living way back in olden times.

Fuck, here I was thinking all I needed in life was a real job when instead I could’ve honed my skills in school hanging about in paddocks belting balls with wooden sticks and making a zillion and gittin’ it on with some blonde chick with big tits like all the other wooden stick-and-ball men seem to do.

Didn’t I tell you I was a loser?

Anyway, I started full-time work in 1976, so I’ve not had the, ahem, “benefit” of compulsory super for a fair whack of my working life. If I retire at 65, that means I’ve now got a bit over 15 years left to rack up some money to live on. The way things are going at the moment, I reckon I might see 3 or 4 decent weeks of living after almost 50 years in the workforce but, after that, it’s dog food and a thatched humpy under a water tower somewhere out Burra way, I guess.

At least it’s shady. And when you look up, there’s water vie- … oh … no, that’s a leak.

So here’s how wooden stick-and-ball-man’s fab fund has worked out for me this year …

Opening Balance at July 1 2007: $67,210.88

Tax Credits Received: $263.09
Change in Market Value: ($11,675.74 )
Add Income: $184.09
Less Ongoing Fees/Expenses: ($1,334.18)

Closing Balance at June 30 2008: $54,648.14

So, I’m down to the tune of $12,562.74. Which is 18.69%.

Twelve and a half grand. Fuck me.

Here’s how the fund is allocated …

Cash: 4.1%
Aust. Shares: 77.2%
Int’l Shares: 17.5%
Property: 1.2%

Now, what shits me is, apart from the “fees” which are ridiculous, is that late last year I was thinking of rolling this fund into my current one. The fees are far lower, for one thing. But if I had chosen to do that, wooden stick-and-ball man’s fund would have charged 15% for the privilege.

Thinking that was a bit rich, I decided to leave it as is.

Whoopsy.

The only reason I had this fund in the first damn place was because I had a bunch of small super balances from casual jobs I’d done, as well as my full-time job at the time (from which I’d just resigned back in 2000 after 10 years) and someone I worked with then recommended I go see his financial advisor to sort it all out and put it all in one basket.

Which I did.

Whoopsy!

And here’s another thing – from 1990 until 2004 I worked for non-profit, non-government agencies which are, traditionally, low-paying. Or, to be a little blunter about it, those cunts pay you shit. It’s only been these last 3, almost 4 years now, that my salary has come to represent what I feel is commensurate remuneration for 25 years in my particular field of “expertise” and my age.

I have no fucking idea what to do. If I rollover this fund, they’ll take another 8 grand in exit fees. And with what’s going on at the moment, it’s probably lost another couple of grand the last month or two.

What’s left would represent what my annual wage was 10 years ago. One year’s worth.

So, if I die when I’m 66, I’m laughing. All the way to the bank!

If there are any left in business, that is.



From 1931, Bing Crosby “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”

OH, NOES!!! DÉJÀ VU’S!!!

I wish David Marr had chosen not to write a book about the so-called “Bill Henson case”, I really do …

Nevertheless, I’ll buy it next week when I’m financial (God, I hate monthly pays. Making 23 bucks last a week is quite a challenge, that’s for fucking sure). My feelings on this matter haven’t changed one jot since it first erupted, and they’re not about to change now.

Accordingly, I read Marr’s piece in the SMH yesterday, avoided Devine’s (you don’t have to click that link to know what you’ll find) and, when it came to reports on the news and those so-called “current affairs” programs (Bwahahahah!), I just punched the mute button.

Fuck ‘em. Far too much time can be wasted listening to the rattlings of imbeciles and, as a result, one’s brain can begin to resemble a coagulant of sticky white noise in a rancid fog. We all have far, far better things to do than pay attention to the addled ravings of Yosemite Sam wannabes like Whoopin’ Bill Heffernan, one of the most thoroughly repulsive strung-out streaks of political pelican shit if ever there was one.

A letter in yesterday’s SMH by Kerrie Pierce caught my attention, especially this bit …

“The question is not whether Henson's image is pornographic.However, there is no question that it is sexual in its portrayal. The question is whether we, as a society, believe a child of that age can truly give informed consent.”

Which prompted my response (unpublished) as below –

“"However, there is no question that it is sexual in its portrayal", writes Kerrie Pierce (Letters, October 6, 2008). Sorry to disappoint you, Kerrie, but I've never seen a 12 year old in life, or a depiction of one in art, either naked or clothed that has ever made me think of sex or sexuality. If there are people who do think like that, I would suggest those individuals have a level of emotional immaturity and sexual infantilism far, far inferior to that of any of the models in Mr. Henson's work.”

And today, in the SMH letters column comes this, from 14 year-old Tran Duong of Bankstown …

“Is Bill Henson really that bad? I'm a 14-year-old. And I say: to hell with all of you making decisions for another child who is not yours. I am happy for N. She is beautiful and innocent and there is nothing wrong with showing that off. Is she being violated or mistreated? No. She has her parents' permission; she understands the consequences of what will happen should any school mates recognise her, and yet she has done it anyway.

The reason Henson's models do not wear clothes is so the audience can see the complete beauty of the person. By wearing clothes, models are selling something else and the whole conception and purpose of the photograph is lost.”

Tran …

Thank you. Thank you so very much.

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

I've recently come into possession of an iPod Shuffle, one of those tiny little player things no bigger than a thumb-joint. I won it in a competition at work, and it's the first such gizmo of its sort I've owned. I’m not really big on gadgets. Mostly, they break down and just piss you off or they sit around in drawers and cupboards for years gathering dust until you need to pack them into a box when you move.

Anyway, a couple days ago, I loaded this gadget with a bunch of cd's and tracks from home and I've been listening to it on my way to and from work.

So far, I've got 227 songs on it and it's only half-full. I've seen cockroaches bigger than this bloody gadget. How do they do that? But I'm convinced. It's a good gadget. And, as I didn't have to pay for it, that makes it even better.

Also, I think it may come in very handy when I'm up the pub trying to have a quiet drink. Strangers may think twice about striking up a conversation about some fucking game or other if they see I'm otherwise plugged in ...

"Who do you think's going to win the big game?"

"What game? Is there a game on? What of? Chess?"

One of the albums I loaded was "La Llorona" by Lhasa De Sela, and this live clip is a stunning version of one of the most beautiful tracks from it ...



From 2006 (?), Lhasa De Sela, “De Cara a la Pared” (Live)

LET GOD SORT 'EM OUT

From the London Review of Books, "Cut, Kill, Dig, Drill", Jonathan Raban writes about Sarah Palin ...

"Like Wally the Green Monster, Baxter the Bobcat, the Mariner Moose and other giant furry creatures who accompany major-league baseball teams from game to game, Palin is the adored mascot of the anti-fiscal crowd. Her actual performance as mayor and governor counts for little beside her capacity to keep the fans happy during the intervals between play, which she does in the style she developed as mayor of Wasilla and then perfected in her triumphant gubernatorial campaign in 2006 ...

... What is most striking about her is that she seems perfectly untroubled by either curiosity or the usual processes of thought. When answering questions, both Obama and Joe Biden have an unfortunate tendency to think on their feet and thereby tie themselves in knots: Palin never thinks. Instead, she relies on a limited stock of facts, bright generalities and pokerwork maxims, all as familiar and well-worn as old pennies. Given any question, she reaches into her bag for the readymade sentence that sounds most nearly proximate to an answer, and, rather than speaking it, recites it, in the upsy-downsy voice of a middle-schooler pronouncing the letters of a word in a spelling bee. She then fixes her lips in a terminal smile. In the televised game shows that pass for political debates in the US, it’s a winning technique: told that she has 15 seconds in which to answer, Palin invariably beats the clock, and her concision and fluency more than compensate for her unrelenting triteness ..."

Read the full article. Palin is spectacularly creepy. She may not be smart, but she appears to have the type of focused rat-cunt cunning so typical of the contemporary political sociopath and aspirant. The type of person who, crashing rather than crashing through, would happily take you with her to the bottom of the wreckage. Raban also looks back at her reign as Mayor of Wasilla ...

"She abolished its building codes and signed a series of ordinances that re-zoned residential property for commercial and industrial use. When the city attorney ordered construction to stop on a house being built by one of her campaign contributors, she sacked him."

And what happened in Wasilla as a result of her fiefdom? Raban observes ...

"Present-day Wasilla is Palin’s lasting monument. It sits in a broad alluvial valley, puddled with lakes, boxed in on three sides by sawtoothed Jurassic mountains, and fringed with woods of spruce and birch. Visitors usually aim their cameras at the town’s natural surroundings, for Wasilla itself – quite unlike its rival and contemporary in the valley, Palmer, 11 miles to the east – is a centreless, sprawling ribbon of deregulated development along a four-lane highway, backed on both sides by subdivisions occupied by trailer-homes, cabins, tract-housing and ranch-style bungalows, most built since 1990. It’s a generic Western settlement, and one sees Wasillas in every state this side of the 100th meridian: the same competing gas stations, fast-food outlets, strip malls and ‘big box’ stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Fred Meyer and Home Depot, each with a vast parking lot out front, on which human figures scuttle with their shopping trolleys like coloured ants, robbed of their proper scale ... Wasilla is what inevitably happens when there are no codes, no civic oversight, no planning, when the only governing principle in a community is a naive and superstitious trust in the benevolent authority of the free market."

And we thought George W. Bush was the worst. If this woman comes to the White House, we're fucked. Frankly, given the way Raban writes about her, if this woman comes to the White House, John McCain won't live to get much older.

CLUSTERFUCK TO THE POOR HOUSE

Jon Stewart from the Daily Show. Sending a message to "belt-bucklehead" via a conk ...

BACK TO THE CHAIN GANG, WITH NO RELEASE IN SIGHT

My published contribution to today’s (October 2nd, 2008) Sydney Morning Herald ...

In future there will be no such thing as full-time retirement, a former treasurer once said. Now there will be no such thing as part-time retirement either, by the look of it. Perhaps as well as maternity leave, the Government could start insisting employers offer staff funeral planning options. We won't be going anywhere in a hurry.

SO, WHO DO WE SHOOT?

From 1940, “The Grapes of Wrath”, directed by John Ford

DUCK DODGERS FOR PRESIDENT. PLEASE.

Sarah Palin.

What on earth was John McCain thinking? The woman might well be able to kill her own food, but outside of that, she's dumber than a box of rocks.

Why can't we have someone with a brain if we're going to have someone at all? I mean, isn't it about time after 8 fucking years? Why do we have to have stupid people trying to run the world all the time? Why do we let them? Why can't they stick to playing sport like the stupid people are supposed to do?

Haven’t we had enough of dumb?

I'm not going to run about beating my chest and banging my head against a wall if McCain's elected President in November. After George W. Bush was installed for a second term in 2004, the futility of that type of response became quickly apparent to me. It hurts for no good reason. To be perfectly honest, after Bush they could make Duck Dodgers President for all I fucking care.

But Sarah Palin?

I'd rather see Britney Spears as V.P. The most damage she could do would be to wobble about the White House lawns drunk and throw up on some bushes.

But Sarah Palin?

She's an intergalactic traveller without a ship. An antler short of a full set. Not only is there nobody at home, the roaches fucked off 'cause they were scared of the dark and the mice have hung themselves by their own tails. There's naught there but dust bunnies now. Dust bunnies and crusty bits of antique snot under the couch cushions.

I'm scared, mummy.

There's a crazy woman on the tee-vee.

She wants to run the world.

And she can see Russia from her house.



From 1963, Matt Monroe “From Russia With Love”

PAUL NEWMAN

Patricia Bosworth looked over some highlights from Paul Newman's life and career in last month's Vanity Fair ...

"There has never been anyone in show business like Paul Newman. He is as famous as Oprah but doesn’t flaunt his celebrity. He has changed the lives of literally thousands of people (among them more than 100,000 children) with his generosity, and he’s entertained us and moved us with his films. He is an honorable man—“a man of conscience,” his friend Gore Vidal said. If Newman doesn’t want to tell us about his cancer (if he has cancer), why should he? As he has said so often about his private life, “It’s nobody’s business.” "

From 1967, "Cool Hand Luke"

WHAT A SURPRISE ...

"Penis amputated without man's consent"

You don't say.

I’M A LOSER, BABY, SO WHY DON’T YOU KILL ME

Some people have seriously fucked up their lives by not choosing to do stuff that other people have done and those people will die.

And I am one of them.

Oh, poo.

Anyway, here’s a few of the things I forgot to do, and, in the forgetting of them did I unwittingly seal my fate forevermore as nothing other than an insubstantial fart of failed fat cells flapping impotently over the face of the planet …

A HOUSE

I forgot to buy a house.

Oh, poo.

I live in a rented flat. I’ve been living in rented flats and houses for the better part of 27 years, ever since I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 22. And half of that time has been spent living in rented flats with other people.

That was called “sharing”. I don’t think “sharing” happens much nowadays as lots of people seem to think they’re far better off living at home with their mums and dads until they’re about 45 years old at which time they just might be able to afford to buy a bedsit up a back alley in King’s Cross just down from where that whacked out crackhead smashed her baby’s brains out on a park bench the week before last until some cops shot her in the kneecaps. It’s only about one and a half million bucks, but it’s close to shops and transport and it’s certainly got character alright, that’s for fucking sure. Where else can you entertain yourself at night when there’s bugger all on the box by peering out the window at the winos underneath beating the crap out of one another and then hoiking up their stomach lining on your front stoop.

But hell, it’s a home, goddammit, and it’s yours and you’re entitled. It’s an Australian right. It oughta be in a constitution somewhere.

Whydonchawritealettertoyalocalmemberofgummentandseeifyacangetitputin? Huh? HUH?

I’ve been perfectly comfortable up to now renting flats and houses and sharing some of them with other people. It meant we had more money for other things. Like going out and seeing bands and movies and shows and buying compact discs and having parties and eating out and drinking and taking drugs and all that stuff I thought people were supposed to do when they were young enough to do it.

But I was wrong. I should have left high school and started to think about planning for my retirement when I turned 18. Apparently, that’s the way to go. Leave school and start preparing for when you’re dead.

I thought renting a place to live in was perfectly acceptable in today’s modern society but according to some people, it’s the utter fucking pits of deprivation and despair and it’s a wonder it hasn’t yet driven me and others like me to fling ourselves off our balconies in foaming fits of self-loathing.

Oh, well.

Some friends of mine just bought themselves a very nice house on the NSW Central Coast.

It cost them about $325,000.

I don’t have $325,000. I pay $1300 a month in rent. If I borrowed $325,000, I’d probably be paying double that in mortgage installments and I’d have to eat wild thistles and lick the cheese off discarded burger wrappers in order to live. I don’t think that would be much fun, but apparently it’s a far better thing to do than living in a rented flat according to all the people who are supposed to know what the better things to do are.

My friends had to borrow some of the deposit for their house from their parents. That’s fair enough, I guess, especially if the parents had it to lend.

My parents can’t afford to lend me money to put a deposit on a house for me to own, though.

They’re on a pension. It’s all they can do from day to day to scrape up enough pennies to buy themselves some new bits of cardboard so they’ve got a clean surface to eat their own poo off of. Or some old bottles that they can keep their urine in for when they need to freshen up with a splash under the armpits before venturing out in public to forage in skip bins for rotting root vegetables and bruised fruits.

Fucking losers.

Which brings me to the next thing …

MARRIAGE

I forgot to get married.

Oh, double poo.

I don’t know why this is, but the concept of marriage never seemed to take a hold on my mind as a thing that desperately needed to, or even should, be done. I could’ve taken the option a few times, really I could have. I just didn’t. If I had taken the option, I’d be part of a “working family” right now and my life would have some sort of validity. According to some it would, anyway.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I grew up with married people. My parents.

As a child, I remember watching as my parents argued, or had a fight about some trifle or other and wondering to myself, “Why do you bother with this? You all seem so fucking miserable”. Sometimes my parents would go visiting other married grown-ups, friends or relatives, and, as is the way of these things, poor fucking Ross would get bundled into the backseat of the car to go visiting too when all poor fucking Ross wanted to do was stay home and get down and dirty with some Lego or paint camouflage stripes on a Tamiya model kit tank.

So I’d wind up sitting in the houses of these married people who mostly seemed to communicate with each other through a series of guttural, monosyllabic grunts and grimaces and, if some sort of conversation ever actually happened to evolve from these primitive beginnings, it was usually about how this or that relative of theirs was fucking hopeless or in trouble with the law or was getting divorced or was having kids or had the shits with them or it was about the dickhead neighbours next door or it was a bit of shocked oohing and aahing over the fact that a Chinese couple had just moved in down the other end of the street which was unusual in those days and did you know the Chinese buried their food in the backyard for 12 days before they ate it and when they did eat it it was made of cat and Mabel three doors down lost her cat last week and it wouldn’t surprise us in the least what happened to it if you know what I mean, you know? Bloody foreigners.

Jesus Christ, the things you have to put up with when you’re a kid.

And through all this, all I could think of was how miserable and “small” everybody seemed to be. It was as if, having exhausted whatever few joys they thought marriage had to offer them, they then settled for a life devoted to giving each other the shits on a regular basis instead.

No thank you.

But, turns out I was wrong again. Finding that someone special to spend the rest of your life with and yell at and be yelled at and get the shits with is supposed to be good for one’s longevity.

Fancy that.

Which brings me to the other thing …

CHILDREN

I forgot to have children.

Oh, poo all over.

I once had some friends who had children and one day, the mother cooed to me, “Oh, Ross, you don’t know what you’re missing”, to which I could only reply, “Yes, I do. I’ve met your kids. They’re fucking horrid.”

Needless to say, that was not a friendship that endured much longer after that. But it was true. Her kids were insufferable little shits. When the family popped over to visit, the kids would run rampant through the house, into any room they wanted, into the fridge, constantly yelling at the top of their fucking lungs about this, that or the other thing until, after an hour or two of this, all I wanted to do was grab them by the scruff of the neck and shove their heads into the toilet bowl and piss on them.

And I was once in a relationship with a woman who had a two year old son. My God, this kid, when he decided to void his bowels, you’d swear the spirit of Jackson Pollock had taken nest in his colon. There wasn’t a Huggie on the planet that could withstand the power of his explosive expulsions of luminescent poo. They could’ve made a Huggie from titanium and vacuum sealed it to his butt and still that stuff would find its way to splashy, smelly freedom. The odds of getting the bond back on that rented flat at the time was a long-shot bet, that’s for damn sure.

But I’m realistic enough to know that not all kids are like this. Many children are utterly delightful, given to refreshingly innocent but honest appraisals of life and the world around them, such as “Look at that old bald man, mummy.”

I’d be a crappy father. I would, I really would. Not deliberately, on-purpose crappy, but crappy nonetheless. I’m bad-tempered, impatient and I need lots of time to myself or else I get really ratty in the head. Having a kid crawling all over me demanding attention to its every action or utterance on a daily, nay, hourly basis would melt my brain.

But I’m wrong. I shoulda had one for the country, one for mum, and one for dad (which would be myself, I guess). We’d send the one for the country off to fight a war somewhere and take a bullet through the head so we could have a parade and some things for the display cabinet at home; the one for mum would take her side during the divorce proceedings and hate my guts for the rest of my life and say nasty things about me on the internet; and the one for dad (which would be myself, I guess) would dutifully and lovingly nurse me in my shriveled dotage, feeding me mushed pears and peas with a spoon, wiping the drool off my chin and making sure I didn’t choke to death on my own dentures if I decided to get adventurous one day and eat some solids.

Talk about fucking everything up in life. Boy, did I take a wrong turn.

I’m sorry.

I shoulda bought a house and I shoulda got married and I shoulda had kids and then I coulda been somebody. Instead of what I am. Which is a bum. I coulda been a contender, Charlie. You was my brother, you was supposed to …

Hang on.

I don’t have a brother called Charlie …

…

Never mind.

Anyway, I see it all now. My whole life before me. Or at least what’s left of it.

Spending the rest of my days living in a rented flat without a wife and a bunch of kidlets to keep me warm and comfy. There to expire one distant day in isolated anonymity with only the stench of my rapidly decomposing corpse to alert the neighbours to my passing. The door smashed down by ambulance officers who, upon entering, will upchuck their lunches and then settle down to the business of scraping my innards off the walls after the build-up of gases in my internal organs made my stomach explode like a red roman candle.

Shit, eh?

I’ll make sure there’s some BAM in the laundry.

At this late stage in the game, it’s the least I can do.

Sorry about that.

THE PITS

OH FOR GOD’S SAKE WOMAN, GIVE IT A FUCKING REST, WILL YOU?!

We’re bloody sick of it.

Do you realise what we all have to go through news-wise when, every second Tuesday, you get a jones on for adding another to your broody pile of cunt nuggets?

Jesus Christ, girl. What do you think you're doing, collecting action figures?

Why don’t you buy yourself a fucking puppy or something?

DEAR MR. COSTELLO ...

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

VIRTUAL PANADOL FRIDAY

I first became aware of the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt when some of his works were used for the soundtrack of the 1996 Canadian adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's "Mother Night" (an excellent film).

I was trying to track down a decent clip for Pärt's "Requiem for Benjamin Britten", but no luck. Instead, this is an interesting visual interpretation of a shorter piece, and quite well done ...

Clip by Cesar Harada

A FACE FOR RADIO

ABC Sydney 702’s afternoon host James Valentine now offers a video stream of his program and it’s a hoot to watch, so if you get a chance check it out.

UPDATE - Appears it's an occasional thing only.

WE’VE GOT BEAM!

It’s not difficult to get caught up in the enthusiasm and excitement of the various boffins and scientists who’ve gone all gooey over this thing even if, like myself, you’re buggered if you know what it all actually means. But, as Dr Karl Kruszelnicki was working himself into a nerdboy lather about it this morning on Channel 7’s “Sunrise” program, I couldn’t help but share a sense of wonder and awe over the achievement …

… Typically however, as the world came to know of the impending experiment and the usual suspects in the foot soldiers of the stupid indulged their penchant for end-of-times panic, many chose to focus on the cost of it all.

$4.75 billion dollars.

“Heavens!” they whined, “Surely we can find better things to spend our money on? Think of the starving millions!”

But as the host of "Sunrise" was about to bring up the cost with Kruszelnicki on the program as if it should be relevant to him (or us), the doctor was quick enough to politely point out that it was equal to “the cost of 3 American bomber planes”.

Which ended that line of inquiry quick smart.

Perspective. The good doctor has it.

“Sunrise” host. Pwned.

JACK KETCHUM

I mentioned this writer briefly just recently. Some of his books have been adapted for films that we have yet to see (and maybe never will), and another one is about to be.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track down his books in any local stores yet, but I may have a bit more luck next week when I hit Sydney for a break.

In the meantime, this interview with Ketchum at Evolver continues to have me intrigued about the man and especially keen to become acquainted with his works. Especially this bit …

“I've never been interested in being politically or socially correct. That's not to say I frequently vomit into someone's lap at parties. It just seems silly to me to abide by any more rules than those you absolutely need in order to get by. I think we've become more and more neurotic in the years since I was in my twenties and thirties. We're afraid of everything. We want to restrict everything and manage it. Well, life isn't terribly manageable. The frequency of natural disasters ought to be enough to tell us that. But somehow we don't get it. When I was a kid the idea of putting on a helmet to ride a bike would have gotten you laughed out of the neighborhood - and rightly so. And I don't remember anybody wearing one against all those riot-sticks during the Vietnam protests either. It would be nice to live long enough to see the world get some guts again - but I don't think it's going to happen, sorry to say.”

Groupthink. I has one.

TRAVIS B. SHOOTS FOR CHUCKLES

Robert De Niro made his feature film debut in 1968 for Brian De Palma's "Greetings". He made a further 8 films prior to 1973's "Mean Streets" from Martin Scorsese. Then he did "The Godfather: Part 2" the year after that, and his next film was "Taxi Driver" in 1976 as Travis Bickle. Before the 70's and 80's were over with, he gave us Jimmy Doyle in "New York, New York", then "The Deer Hunter", "King of Comedy", "Once Upon A Time in America", "Brazil", "The Untouchables", "Midnight Run" and, of course, Jake La Motta in "Raging Bull". In the 90's, we got "Goodfellas", "Cape Fear", "Mad Dog & Glory", "Casino", "Heat", "Wag The Dog", and "Jackie Brown". Among others.

Then, in 2000, he produced and appeared in ... "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle".

Nobody's perfect.

After 40 years in the movie business, De Niro finds himself regularly criticised for the roles he now takes on. As Philip Horne notes in the UK’s Telegraph, according to many De Niro has squandered his talents these last several years in sub-standard vehicles that do him no credit whatsoever. "Analyse That" anyone? "Godsend"? Who’d like to sit through “The Good Shepherd” a second time?

Well, no, but ... Excuuuuuuuuuuuse me …

At 65 years of age and with 78 feature films to his credit, I think De Niro, given all that he has achieved as an actor as I’ve noted above, can do whatever the fuck he feels like until he drops dead.

And who the hell are we to insist he fulfill our ridiculous and unrealistic expectations that he pile on the pounds and powder up to bring us “Raging Bull Pt. 2”? Perhaps he should have a word to Scorsese about reprising his role as Travis Bickle in … let’s see now … “Bus Driver”? Would that help?

For God’s sake, live in the world.

Imagine spending 40 years of your life in the film industry. Liars, thieves, shills and spivs, con-men, bullshit artists and the flat-out deluded and insane – these are the men and women who, if they thought it would help get them an “assistant producer” credit on a flick, any flick, would happily shoot their mothers through the head, pack a bag and grab the first plane, train or automobile to Hollywoodland for a 5 minute meeting and a glass of warm water with someone’s stationary clerk.

The only thing worse than 40 years in the film industry would be spending 40 years in the fucking music industry.

For example, in his recently published diaries, director Bruce Beresford goes through a period of (I think) two years trying to get a couple of projects that he has an interest in off the ground only to be dumped on again and again and again as dodgy finance people (read, “producers”) reveal themselves to be full of it, actors won’t work with him, and various other self-absorbed, talentless shitheads with Patrick Bateman business cards endlessly fuck and fart him about. Eventually, desperate to work simply for the sake of having some work to do to keep him busy, he winds up lumped with a project he thought was crap from the start, but at least has some names attached and a green light, so … we get “The Contract” (Unfortunately (or not), I can’t remember anything about “The Contract” other than John Cusack and Morgan Freeman were in it, and I only watched it about 3 weeks ago).

That’s life in showbiz.

And if you’ve spent 40 years as an actor in it, well over half of that time will have been spent sitting on your arse wondering why you were called at 5am in the morning and it’s now 2pm in the afternoon and all you had to do was a one line reaction shot …

“Fact is, Mr. De Niro, we might have to bring you in tomorrow for the scene as the bombulator we needed for your shot has slipped a snigget and it’s a four-hour drive to the next county to pick up a new one as the snigget manufacturer’s delivery guy went on a cocaine bender last night and shot some fellas in a MacDonald’s after an altercation with a trans-gender lap dancer and the production designer won’t dress the scene until the vintage Pez dispenser he wanted for the bedside table gets here from eBay … Also, someone put superglue in the boom operator’s Fleshlight and he can’t stand up straight right now.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Sorry.”

At which point, one could be excused for thinking, “Maybe I could open a restaurant. Or a bar. Start a film festival, perhaps? Hell, why don’t I produce my own movies and as long as I don’t have to do much or not even be in them, I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit …”

From ?, Robert De Niro “How to Piss Off Robert De Niro in 30 Seconds”

Actors do not act in order to prove they can to an audience. They act in order to prove to themselves that they may achieve what they have set out to achieve to their own satisfaction and to the satisfaction of the director in accordance with the rules of the script. Anyone who does otherwise is not an actor, they are a “celebrity”. De Niro is not a celebrity and he has absolutely nothing he needs to prove anymore as an actor. Having turned himself inside out physically and emotionally for a couple of decades in order to meet the demands of the roles he was fortunate enough to score and subsequently succeed in, he’s well and truly entitled to a nice long fucking rest.

And for anyone who thinks that De Niro has “lost it” – if your video store has one of those 7 rentals for 7 bucks deals, grab any 7 of those movies mentioned in the first paragraph and watch one a night for a week. Then imagine what “Taxi Driver” may have been like if Jeff Bridges or Dustin Hoffman or (God forbid) Neil Diamond had been given the role of Travis Bickle. Bridges and Hoffman are fine actors, but somehow … As for Neil Diamond … truly, the mind not just boggles at the thought, but returns a “file not found” error report.

In the hopefully not so far off future De Niro may come upon a script or a project that fires him up sufficiently to knock us senseless with awe once again. We can only dream.

However, given his choice of roles these last several years, I think it could be reasonable to assume that he really couldn’t give a flying fuck about accumulating Academy Awards and the like just now and has been doing precisely what he feels like when he feels like doing it.

And if that means taking it (relatively) easy in work at an age when most people are expected to retire and eat dog food and whine about the pension, so be it.

From 2007, Robert De Niro in “Extras”

MY FATAL ERROR

I knew it wouldn’t last. Against my better judgement I popped over to Bolt’s blog to have a gander at his rattlings.

Now …

What the fuck does this mean? …

America’s Left clearly doesn’t worship Gough Whitlam the way our own feels he deserves. Here’s The Huffington Post’s Adam McKay in a panic attack:

"This is it folks. If McCain takes power we fade and become Australia in the seventies: a backwoods country with occasional flashes of relevance."

Weird: our Left fears we’re becoming too American; theirs frets the US will become too Australian. It strikes me these folks have a few differences to work through. They should get together and harmonise their lines.

WHAT ON EARTH DOES IT MEAN???!!

That’s the whole post. That’s it.

I haven’t been paying attention to anything Jimmy Olsen has been blathering on about for almost a month now. Honestly, it’s like a multi-vitamin shot to the brain. Now, having spied this one post on this one occasion, I fear all my good work has been for naught …

Brain function = Fatal Error. Fail.

Ctrl+Alt+Del = Restart ...

Brain function = File Not Found. Fatal Error. Fail.

Shutdown.

Send Error Report?

…

?

No, just bring me a beer …

Next time I get the urge to “read” something of Bolt’s, I’ll employ some CBT techniques and pop off to Bloody Disgusting instead.

MEMO TO ALL STAFF

We had previously received a number of comments from staff concerning the general condition and cleanliness of the office toilet facilities and did at that time attempt to convey to staff the need to maintain these facilities in a relatively hygienic fashion for the benefit of us all. However, we really just couldn’t be bothered any more as many of you appear to be thicker than a swimming pool deck and so repellently filthy that the proverbial shithouse rat is beginning to look like June Dally-Watkins in comparison.

So, in future, when using the toilets, by all means please:

1. Go ahead and urinate in the sink.

2. Smear your faeces over the walls. While you’re at it, write a verse or two.

3. Please use your indelible makeup to scribble on the mirror and benchtops.

4. Throw your bloated, befouled tampons wherever. Why not toss them to the ceiling and see if they stick?

5. Don’t use toilet paper! Just drag your saggy arse across the floor and make sure you press your shit into the grouting as you go. The cleaners are grateful for the overtime.

6. If you do use toilet paper, don’t put it in the bowl, the floor’s there for a reason too, you know.

7. Wash your hands? Nah. Go and rub them all over the biscuits in the lunchroom upstairs.

8. Hepatitis is a real buzz if you can get the right drugs, so don’t bother with soap.

9. Hide your discarded syringes in places where other people might sit on them. What a hoot. Whoopsy!

10. Last, but by no means least, don’t flush that big brown thing, you silly nong! The people who come in after you are really keen to have a look-see.

Thank you all.

THE MANAGEMENT

BRIT-NAY'S MAMA (APOCALYPSE REDUX)

I'm currently busier than a maggot on a stackburger so, in view of the news of these "shocking" revelations, and instead of buggering about with something new, the time seems apt for a re-presentation of Rebus Flatbush and "The Tale of Brit-Nay's Mama" ...

From “Rebus Flatbush’s Famous Fables & Folk-Tales of the American Mid-West” ...

“Now ... Feetus, Teetus an’ Meetus, you boys git in here and settle yerselves up for bed cause I’m a gunna speak a story at yer ... This here’s a story ‘bout Brit-nay’s momma ...

Once upon a time Brit-nay’s momma done once lived raht here in this ol’ trailer park, an’ afore she done popped out Brit-nay, she useta set in her trailer a’drinkin’ an’ a cussin’ at herself ‘cause she weren’t a fam-ous person. She’d rub her big bumpy belly and take a big swig a’ corn likker and tell herself, “Mah baby’s gonna be someone one day, yessir she is, I’m a gonna show ever’one I ain’t no common piece ‘a trailer trash, no sirree I ain’t! I gots talents! An’ so will mah chil’, dagnabbit!!”

Then she’d let go of a buncha burps and farts so loud they fair stunned all the woodchucks fer miles aroun’ and set the grizzlies a-runnin’ for higher ground and then she’d fall down lahk a dead person an’ set fire to herself agin an’ we’d all haveta come a-runnin’ with buckets ‘a water and put her out. This useta happen, oh ... ‘bout every day or two.

(Feetus ... stop rubbin’ yerself agin yer’ brothers an’ pay attention, boy ... )

Anyhoo, Brit-nay was popped outta her momma’s belly one afternoon in the toilet block while she wuz givin’ Otis the janitor a seein’ to ‘bout sumfin’ (though why they wuz both nekkid at the time ah ain’t ever been able to figger, but ah guess that’s a’ no mind of mine to think upon), an’ she picked her baby up outta the toilet bowl an’ says “I gots myself a ticket to a fortune at last!”

An’ she taught that chil’ how ta dance an’ swivel her liddle hips an’ poke out her chesty bits and sing into a hairbush, all the time tellin’ her, “You gonna be fam-ous, Brit-nay, yes you are, an’ ah don’ wanna hear any arguments about it, you gonna be someone and ahm gonna be someone too! ... Now you gotsta learn how to poke out yer liddle baby pillows sum more and smile when all those nahce men from the talents agency come ‘round ... Oh!, that reminds me ... we gotsta git yer teeth bleached agin! ... You stay raht there now whiles I git the Persil.”

An’ sure e-nuff, Brit-nay got herself fam-ous an’ made a whole buncha money, an’ her momma made a whole buncha money too coz she done went and made herself Brit-nay’s manager person.

An’ then one day, when Brit-nay was a lot older, she started actin’ jes lahk her momma what with the drinkin’ and the smokin’ an’ cussin’ an’ gettin’ herself tattoos an’ havin’ a baby wif some fella who lahked to wear his pants ‘round his knees so as to show off his unnerwear an’ such ... Yessirree, she was actin’ up sumfin’ feerce all the time, an’ she got herself a dee-vorce an’ lost custody a’ her own l’il baby, an’ on top a’ all that, she went an’ tol’ her ol’ momma to go feck herself, ‘cause she was mahty sick of her.

An’ her poor ol’ momma soon found she had no more money left an’ she weren’t fam-ous no more an’ she had to come back an’ live with Otis the janitor in the toilet agin’.

Now, the moral of the story, boys, is this – no matter how many times you change the size an’ shape of yer trailer, the trash’ll always stay the same ...

(Er, Teetus ... take yer thang outta Meetus’s earhole and git yerself off to sleep, son.)”

I'VE HEARD THAT VOICE BEFORE

Don LaFontaine, 1940-2008

DON'T JUST SIT THERE, GO GET US A STORY!

Lindsay Lohan's DJ girlfriend flew into Sydney this morning and, upon leaving the airport terminal ...

...

LIT. A. CIGARETTE.

...

That's it.

And this has been deemed worthy of (online) reportage by The Sydney Morning Herald.

Jesus wept.

YOU’RE LEAVING US? AWWWWWWW …

The Managing Director of the company I have worked for these last 3 years retired on Friday. A number of functions had been held in the previous couple of weeks to mark the auspicious occasion – after all, he had worked here for over 20 years and an appropriately spiffy series of send-offs seemed well and truly warranted after such a lengthy stint.

So, rather than simply scribble a few inane remarks on the card that came around, I decided instead to send the dear fellow an email with some personal thoughts and observations as to the matter of his departure.

This was it …

Dear Mr. D********,

Even though I am a mere newcomer to this illustrious company (relatively speaking in respect of yourself, that is) I do feel that, in light of the recent comments and speeches and slideshows and spontaneous bursts of politely restrained laughter and applause that have accompanied even the most banal or slightest of enthusiastically intoned anecdotes as regards your impending departure, some things have been left out, and in the leaving of them, a somewhat skewed and unarguably unrealistic portrait has been conveyed ...

So, please indulge me a few final thoughts in order to restore some semblance of truth to the matter ...

Now certainly, while those who have spoken of you have done so fondly, I feel, in all honesty, that it is with a fondness for the man they once knew at his peak rather than the sad and distressing spectacle that so many of us have had the misfortune to witness you become in these, your declining and debilitated years ...

And while it is undoubtedly fair to say that your contribution to the success of this organisation is respectably significant (I mean, let's not so obligingly shoot our heads up our own anus just yet, shall we?), none of us who now remain will feel any sense of loss whatsoever at the recent sightings of you shuffling about the lunch-room in an old pair of fluffy slippers and poo-stained pyjama bottoms, regaling any poor bugger within earshot of the ever-increasing number of ailments with which you have now found yourself afflicted.

Frankly, we'll all be a damn sight better off now that we won't be hearing the gloopy details of your irritable bowel syndrome and erectile dysfunction problems while we're trying to chow down on a bowl of curry or a banana. I mean, for fuck's sake.

And it will certainly be reassuring to know that we will now be able to move freely through the building to go about our business without our senses being shockingly assaulted at every turn by the toxic by-products of your embarrassingly inappropriate occasions of explosive incontinence. Did you know that one of the cleaners was so overwhelmed by the fetid stench from your office that she thought she was Timothy Leary for a week and is now looking at spending the rest of her life in an iron lung? At least we'll be able to attend to meetings from now on without having to bring along our own sponge and bucket and cover our clothes in Glad-Wrap. Thank fuck for that.

Nevertheless, despite these often disturbing aspects of your character and person, may I take this occasion to wish you well for the future. I'm sure that the life you have decided to map for yourself in retirement will be an auspicious one and exactly as you desire. That is to say, spending many a gloriously lazy day at the Golden Years Caravan Park up from the Ipswich Bowls Club, eating sausages and meatballs from a can while sucking VB from a 44-gallon drum through a bendy straw and throwing rocks at any poor pigeons who have the audacity to poop on the heads of your impressive collection of garden gnomes.

Have a nice time.

P.S. I hear Pauline Hanson's looking for a fella. You'll be in the neighbourhood, why not give it some thought? All you'll need do is shove a plug up your butt on the night and who knows what might just happen?

I really do wonder sometimes precisely how I’ve managed to remain employed for the last 30 years …

But then again, why settle for just pushing an envelope when turbo-charging one is so attractive an option?

It also helps if the boss has a sense of humour.

Lucky me.

I SEE “RED” ... NOT.

I was poking about a movie site earlier in the week and came across trailers for 2 films, "The Girl Next Door" and "Red", both based on books of the same name by Jack Ketchum, an author I'd never heard of ...



From 2007, “Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door” Trailer



From 2008, “Red” Trailer

So I did a bit more poking about and, from the looks of it, Ketchum is someone I definitely need to get acquainted with (given the type of things I occasionally like to read, examples of which are here and here) ...

"The Girl Next Door" is based on an actual case from 1966 which was brain-numbingly horrific in nature, and incredibly disturbing. I'm not sure how "satisfying" it would be as a movie but happily, from the tone of the trailer and reviews so far, the makers appear to have decided against churning out another entry in the ghastly "torture-porn" genre, cf the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises, opting instead for a bit of substance over spillage.

Curiously enough, another film, based on the exact same crime, was also made last year starring Ellen Page and Catherine Keener. This one is called "An American Crime", and was made for Showtime. Keener was nominated for an Emmy for her role earlier this year …



From 2007, “An American Crime” Trailer

Neither film has been released in Australia. I can't even find a tentative date for a DVD release.

Why?

Why can I not watch these two fucking films here? Fair enough, "Red" is still doing the rounds of various film markets, so it's a bit early in the day to have a whine about that, but both "The Girl Next Door" and "An American Crime" have been released already and are now on DVD, but as far as Australian moviegoers are concerned, we can just fuck off and go watch crap like "Don't Mess With The Zohan" or "The Love Guru" or fucking "Prom Night" instead.

This just shits me. Also, can you believe that my local Blockbuster hasn't even decided to put "Teeth" on their shelves? What am I supposed to be watching, "Martian Child"?*

Here's another one that, despite excellent reviews, we probably won't be seeing ...



From 2008, “Martyrs” Trailer

Outside of the recent Melbourne Film Festival, no one will probably get a chance to see "Inside" either ...



From 2008, “Inside” Trailer

And the much-admired Spanish horror film "[REC]", while it had a brief run at a couple of film festivals this year, won't make it to cinema or DVD either, I suspect. We may not even get the dubious honour of seeing how the Americans fuck up the remake, of which the original directors had this to say, "I would prefer them to release our movie as an art-house film in the U.S., and not to make a fool of themselves by copying it."

Now, before someone tries to write me off as a sociopathic gore 'n' guts lovin' ghoul, scientific journal "Behavioural Neuroscience" has another explanation that makes a great deal more sense ...

And my favourite film of all time is Bruce Beresford's "Tender Mercies".

Seriously.

So there.

Take your assumptions as to my sanity and sensibilities and … and …

…

Oh, never mind.

…

*Well, I might … John Cusack’s not too bad, I guess.

RETHINKING “CASABLANCA”

- Thing is, people want it to be a period thing … they should think about it now.

- Bring it up to date …

- Yes, bring it up to date, do it now.

- Okay.

- So. Is, then … Is … “Casablanca” “the” place? Or is it “a” place?

- If it’s a place, then it’s a nightclub, right?

- But the nightclub is called “Ricks” …

- So you got a guy called Rick runnin’ a nightclub called “Casablanca” … that works for me …

- But what happens? Where is he that something can happen? … No. It has to be that it’s the place.

- Exotic, like.

- Yes. So stuff can happen. Foreign stuff. Nobody’s gonna give a fuck about some guy runnin’ a bar called “Casablanca” in Pittsburgh. You see, the old one, that’s World War II, for Christ’s sake. No-one’s interested in that stuff anymore. It’s history.

- History. Pfhht. That’s just for dusting.

- You need new foreign stuff … Arabs 'n' shit. There’s Arabs there.

- They can be sneakin’ around …

- Doin’ Arab stuff.

- With guns ‘n’ shit.

- And the letters of transit … from the original …

- I’m trying to think …

- … They can be something else. Something … ancient, yeah? Rare shit. Ancient. Holy. Dangerous shit ... Old, holy, dangerous shit. Huh?

- You get some Dan Brown thing happening there.

- Yes. Some Dan Brown thing … that worked for him. So. We got Ilsa trying to get this ancient, holy hoodoo out of the country …

- It’s cursed. If the hoodoo’s cursed, you could get some “Mummy” action in. Sandstorms, like that. After all, it’s the desert, let’s fuckin’ use it while it’s there.

- I dunno I want a “Mummy” thing goin’ on … Anyway, this old hoodoo don’t belong in Arab land, it was stolen, blah blah blah, has to be returned to its rightful place, blah-de-blah-de-blah, and they gotta smuggle it out, but first they need Rick to pull a few favours with the military, so they can get … you know … the thing out … without, without, er … you know, getting searched and stuff.

- Is it a military hoodoo?

- No, it’s a holy hoodoo.

- Why does the army care?

- Who’s army?

- Theirs.

- They’re Arabs. It’s all the same to them.

- How does he pull favours?

- I don’t fucking know. He just does. Fuck, I mean … they’re fucking Arabs, y’know?

- Fuckin’ way to run a fuckin’ military.

- What can I say? It’s why it works out … if they knew what they were doing, they’d do it, we wouldn’t have a story.

- We wouldn’t have a fuckin’ paycheck.

- They’re Arabs. They fuck it up.

- Our guys win.

- What else? … We get Blanchett for Ilse, Clooney for Rick …

- Clooney’ll wanna have a few pals along.

- I don’t care. We’ll let him have David Strathairn for Captain Renault. Maybe we could get Brad Pitt or Matty D. for the Victor Laszlo part … he’ll go for that. Fuck, maybe he puts some money in. Huh?

- Steve Buscemi does the Peter Lorre part.

- That’s fuckin’ excellent. I like that.

- Thank you.

- No. No, really, that’s good. What about, in that vein, what do you think … John Goodman in Sydney Greenstreet’s role?

- Fuck, yes. I can see that. They’ve both worked together before anyway, haven’t they?

- I dunno. Have they?

- In the … the, the, Coen thing.

- Huh?

- The Coens.

- …

- The Coens.

- Yeah.

- You know.

- Yeah yeah yeah yeah … Yeah … Anyway, if they’ve worked together before, it’s good. They’re already friends. You see?

- Very smooth.

- As it should be.

- …

- …

- “McCasaburger”.

- Huh?

- “McCasaburger”. The burger. Tie-in.

- Nice.

- A true taste of the desert.

- What would that be?

- I dunno. I’ve never eaten a burger in the desert.

- Fuckin’ flies …

- Maybe … I think maybe they can just make it, you know, deserty by putting some fruit on it. …

- Dates with meat … Do dates go with meat? What’s an Arab fruit?

- … An’ a new sauce.

- Hommous!

- Perfect!

- Right …

- Okay …

- …

- …

- Fuck. We’re really good at this, you know?

- Yes. Yes, we are.

REMAKE: REMODEL “SOME LIKE IT HOT.”

Hollywood, have I gotta fucken concept for you ...

A remake. “Some Like It Hot”, the Billy Wilder thing from the 50’s. It’s time is due.

With Adam Sandler and David Spade taking on the Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon roles respectively, Jessica Simpson in the Monroe part and Chevy Chase updating the George Raft role of Spats Colombo.

Bringin’ the story up to date for the kids, Sandler and Spade will now be playing two nightclub DJ's who witness Chase and his mob take out a rival gang over a multi-million dollar ice deal and decide to go into hiding by posing as a couple of female backup dancers in Simpson's teen-sensation electro-pop touring variety show. Much hilarity ensues as our hapless pair of wanted witnesses struggle to maintain their disguises and their dignity as they find themselves sharing tour digs with some smokin'-hot babes who ain't afraid to let it all out whenever the mood takes them! Think of the tittage we can get on the poster! … Sandler and Spade also get the chance to deliriously bust a few moves in some sizzlin' and sexy Simpson routines that'll have audiences howlin' for "Some Like It Hotter" for next summer! … The soundtrack’ll go crazy, we can do a buncha clips. Think of the tittage … We got some cameos, too … Macauley Culkin will be doin' a bit as a hitman in Chevy Chase's gang; Jackie Chan's in it ... he'll do some stuff, you know, that stuff he does; Kirstie Alley's playing the tour manager ... Jim Belushi we got too ... um, people from all over, you know. Jason Alexander ... like that.

Rodney Dangerfield will play the part of Spade's love-blind paramour that was made famous by Joe E. Brown in the orig -

Dangerfield's dead?

...

Oh.

...

Bugger.

...

We'll get John Candy, then.

...

Oh.

...

Bugger.

...

Martin Lawrence?

...

Fuckin' excellent.

Anyway, Lawrence takes Joe E. Brown's part, and Paris, Posh and Rhianna are already lined up to play some of the other girls in the roadshow.

Shawn Levy's directing, Joe Eszterhas is on script.

Good, eh?

What's not to like?

UNCLE JACK FLATBUSH AND THE STRANGE TALE OF THE RETARDED, BILE-SPURTIN’ IDIOT CHICKEN FROM MORON HELL

From “Rebus Flatbush’s Famous Fables & Folk-Tales from the American Mid-West”

“A cautionary fable for chin-dribblin’, crotch-fiddlin’, one-tooth banjo-playin’ retards, imbeciles, idiots, and egg-suckin’, overall-wearin’, straw-chewin’ dumb-ass inbred cretins and backward halfwit morons everywhere.”

Once upon a time, Rebus Flatbush found 'imself with sum important bizness to attend to at Ol' Mammy Wineshack's House a’ Joy up the Ol’ Baccy Road outside a' Dogpile, so he thought to leave the boys at Uncle Jack's place down at Lickass Town fer a few days ...

But what Rebus di'nt know at the time wuz that fer well over a year now, the strangest lookin' idiot creature any man's a'ever set his peepers on either in this lahf or the next had bin wandrin' in an' out of poor ol' Jack's patch a’ turnips with nary as much as a howdy-do or a may-I-please, an' ol' Jack was gittin' a mite itchy in his brain about it ...

And sure ‘nuff, later that very same day, while's Uncle Jack was tendin' to his pint-sized an’ summat sickly lookin’ melons and the boys were messin' about with the hawgs, that damn stupid thang came a’scuttlin' an' a'cluckin' an' a'spurtin' it's way inta the weed bed agin ... an' ol' Jack let fly a series a’ curses an’ ‘jaculations sumfin' evil at the sight a’ that mangy retard afore he whooped at the boys to come an' have a looksee.

"Hey Feetus, Teetus and Meatus! You boys leave that hawg alone for a minute an’ wipe yerselves off an' come have a gander at this goshdarn funny lookin' moron chicken that keeps a flappin' about mah patch a’ dirt!"

"Eeeee-ewwwwwwww", said Feetus, "Wassat thing there thass a' spurtin’ green stuff all over the turnip patch, Unca Jack?"

"Why Feetus", said Uncle Jack, "thass a bahl duck."

"A bahl dick?"

"No boy, a bahl DUCK. A bahl DUCK. (Damn it boy if you ain't ever had nothin' but wood on the brain since you were jest a little fella) ... This 'ere funny lookin' imbecile chicken looks lahk it's been born with it's bahl duck on the outsahd 'stead a' on the insahd!"

"Thass one goshdarn retarded lookin' chicken, Unca Jack", says Meatus.

"Well, boy, 'pearances ain't ever'thing, y'know ... (An' yer momma's plenny a' proof a' that, thass fer sure, boy)."

Uncle Jack cackled a bit at his own li'l joke, 'gratulatin' hisself on his smarts, an’ so he gave 'hisself an' extra large chunk of Jolly Roger chewin' baccy, and then blew off the last remnants a’ that mornin's meal through the hole in his coveralls he'd had made jes fer that very purpose.

"I'm gonna call that chicken George Jnr, Unca Jack", says Meatus.

"You do that, boy, though if I have any sayin' in the matter, that dumb-lookin’ thang ain't gonna 'ave a name fer much longer."

And then, whiles Uncle Jack wuz a musin' on the various ways an' means that he maht use to rid 'imself a’ the curse a’ this dirty ol' spurtin', stupid chicken, Teetus came a scootin' outta the shack yellin', "Uncle Jack!! Uncle Jack!! You gots to come insahd!! Quick!!"

"Wassup, Teetus?"

"Why, Ol' Woman Moses done gone and got herself stuck on the four-poster again! She got the lockjaw sumfin' feerce!"

"Dagnabbit all to heck! ... Ol' Man Moses's bin dead all year now, an' that ol' gal's brain's so rattled she's got to humpin' an' a’suckin' at those bedknobs as if he were still raht there aside her! ... You boys keep an' eye on that spurtin' chicken an' make sure it don't scare the hawgs none whiles I fetch the denture solvent an' pull her off those things afore she sucks all the varnishin' clean off ..."

Anyhoo, after takin' care a’Ol' Woman Moses an' her oral fixations an’ givin’ her dry ol’ lady bits a dustin’, Uncle Jack wandered back outside ta give some thoughts as ta how ta deal with this vexatious tarnation that were the devil's spurtin' imbecile chicken ...

Which is when he noticed sumfin' he ain't a’ever noticed afore ...

When that thang a' spurted its stuff alls over the turnips, the turnips died. But ... when it spurted its stuff over the melon patch, those things thrived. So Uncle Jack got the boys to lasso it's scrawny neck with a buncha ol’ crusty rubbers tied together (he wuz savin’‘em up to use fer Chris’mas stockin’s fer the boys, but danged if this weren’t a mite more ‘portant) an’ then he tied them rubbers 'round a big steel stick and planted that stick raht there in the melon patch an' that ol' devil chicken ran about that stick spurtin' it's bahl all over where the melons were supposed to grow and, lordy lordy, grow they did! Them things got so big, Uncle Jack won hisself firs’ prize in the annual fair up in Frottage County that very year, a first-class ticket on a steamer to Cleveland.

An’ later on, when that ol’ dumb chicken had run out of green stuff to spurt, Uncle Jack took a mahty big mallet an’ mashed it’s mangy ol’ body flat as could be, stuck a coat-hanger up it’s be-hind and used it fer a weather vane.

Yessiree now, Ol' Uncle Jack might not have known all that much 'bout the ways of stupid, spurtin’, dirty ol’ dumb devil chickens, but danged if he didn’t have a magic way about him when it came to tendin’ hisself a fine patch’a melons.

BORN STANDING UP

A couple of weeks ago, deliberately and very much on purpose, I decided to waste 3 bucks and 90 minutes of my life watching Shawn Levy's pointless and unremarkable remake of "The Pink Panther", with Steve Martin starring as Inspector Clouseau.

It was pretty crappy, actually, with Jean Reno wandering around looking thoroughly perplexed and just as equally bemused by the proceedings he's found himself a part of. Perplexed no doubt by the total absence of a reason for his character even existing, and bemused by the sizable stacks of cash he was probably being paid for turning up. However, when you're an actor in such a notoriously volatile and fickle industry and you find yourself confronted with the choice of a quality role at scale or a minor role in a piece of crap for a slice of a squillion ... turn up, take the cash for the crap, and fuck off quietly, I reckon. One of the more tiresomely stupid rhetorical questions often asked by idiot critics of actors is "What on earth was he/she thinking when they did this?" Well, what they were probably thinking was something along the lines of, "I need money for food so that I may live".

According to John Cleese in a Comedy Channel special (6 parts on YouTube), Steve Martin may have been thinking, "I need money to buy some art ... This'll do." Fair enough. Actually, I'm all for Steve Martin making a whole bunch of crap whenever the hell he feels like it as long as he throws in a "Shopgirl" or "Bowfinger" or "L.A. Story" every few years.

Or writes another memoir that's as good as "Born Standing Up".

As some critics have noted, it's easy to forget that Martin has been at his "trade" for over 40 years now. For an entire generation, he's just that white-haired bloke who plays dads in middle-of-the-road light comedies, not the "wild 'n' crazy" guy from the 1970's who used to play to stadium-sized crowds whilst wearing an arrow through his head and making balloon animals and singing stupid songs about dead Egyptian kings. Those days are long past and it is those days Martin's book deals with.

Without getting all sappy about it, he looks back at his youth, his childhood, his early days as a magic and comedy act, his subsequent breakthrough success and his decision to leave stand-up comedy with a warm, clear eye, refreshingly free of the type of impotent nostalgia and dreary sentimentality that so often mar show-business autobiographies with their over-abundance of self-serving schmaltz and who-cares-now apologia. Instead, there's something warmly and appealingly melancholic about the best of Martin's work, and it's a quality apparent here. By melancholic, I do not mean sad or depressed or even kind of blue. It's what happens when you look back at a thing, at a point in your life, regard it with fondness, know that it is gone and feel a sense of wonder at what has been lost and left behind. Even Martin, early on in his book, writes that he regards "Born Standing Up" more a biography than an autobiography as it is about a person "he once knew".

That “person” once worked in a shop at Disneyland. He did stand-up for years and years in all sorts of rickety and subterranean little clubs, often working 5 shows a day, sometimes to no audience (he had to be seen doing an act through a window so people might be encouraged to wander in for a look-see). He wrote for the then cutting-edge television satire of “The Smothers Brothers”. He also wrote for “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour”. Yes, that’s right, Sonny & Cher had a “Comedy Hour”. He hung out with Laurel Canyon hippies. He once opened for a folk-duo who, a few years later, wound up morphing into the Eagles. He did Johnny Carson’s show. He dated Linda Ronstadt, but was so intimidated by her looks and “street-smarts” that on the 8th or 9th date, Ronstadt asked him if he often dated girls and deliberately tried not to get them into bed. He opened for Ann-Margret’s act in Vegas once and met Elvis Presley backstage. Elvis congratulated Martin on his “ob-leek” sense of humour and then proceeded to show him his guns. Elvis had an “ob-leek” sense of humour too, you see.

Then he became a success, playing to stadiums of tens of thousands of people, selling squillions of records. And eventually he realised it was all becoming a bit pointless doing small moments of comic business that would be lost on anyone beyond the second row and that having your own catchphrases hollered at you by a horde of strangers before you’d managed to get a word out yourself wasn’t particularly satisfying.

So, he decided to put it to rest, and went about doing other things.

As Billy Connolly notes in the same Comedy Channel special, it was a brave, some might say foolish, move to make. You’re going from a known quantity at the peak of success in your field to just another face on an 8x10 in the crapshoot of feature filmmaking. Martin could’ve milked his stand-up act for years. He could’ve wound up playing any RSL he felt like. And for a percentage of the door, too. Instead, he threw the world a loop and decided to dance and mime his way through Herbet Ross’s 1981 adaptation of Dennis Potter’s “Pennies From Heaven” for his second feature. Nobody saw that coming, that’s for sure.

“Born Standing Up” is not written as a “comic” book, but it is often laugh out loud funny, especially when Martin describes the evolution and impact of many of his sketches which were not as randomly thrown together as one may think, but were, rather, often painstakingly deliberate in nature, directed and informed by Martin’s early university studies of philosophy. He always seems to know exactly what he’s doing.

I hope he writes another book soon. Or sometime. About films and film-making, perhaps. He’s very good at it.

But he’s not particularly prolific these days, though. At least not to the extent that he was during the 1980’s. It was 8 years between “L.A. Story” and “Bowfinger” and 6 years from that to “Shopgirl”. He’s provided the storyline for a Don Cheadle drama called “Traitor” this year, so that may prove interesting. But he’s only one of three screenwriters on his next feature film, to be released next year, which probably means he just wrote a few gags or a bit or two …

Martin’s next film is “The Pink Panther 2”.

…

Oh, well.

…

That’s a bit of a bugger, eh?

Primary production has been completed. It’s directed by Harald Zwart. Harald made a Norwegian film in 2006 called “Lange flate ballær” which translates as “Long Flat Balls”.

How about that?

Jean Reno’s in it once again, too.

Jeans’ agent is very, very happy.

After all, he eats so that he may live.

From 1981, Steve Martin & Bernadette Peters from “Pennies from Heaven”