"Hard-Boiled Poet"

I was watching a dying fly spinning in the dust on my desktop and taking a shot of rye – me, that is, not the fly. Some people use alcohol as a crutch, but I prefer it as a drink.

I lived in a writer’s block on Narrative Drive. It was just off Memory Lane near the Information Superhighway. My neighbours were Budda, Krishna, Jesus and Mohamed. They lived next door in the Messiah Complex. But that’s not important right now. I looked in the mirror and reflected – I’d grown accustomed to disgrace. My life had been tough - I was born in kitform, but managed to stick myself together to become a model citizen.

There was a knock, and this girl at the door: all coal-black lips and blood-red eyes - obviously dyslexic. She looked the type who liked pulling the wings off angels. She said “what do you do?” I said “me? I’m self-unemployed. What about you?” She said she was a fortune teller. I said “in that case I demand to see my eternity”. She said I looked like a man with a great future behind him. I said “yeah, I wanted to quit when I got to the bottom, go out on a low”.

But she was upwardly nubile and came at me oozing grievous bodily charm.
I said “whoa, doll, I don’t believe in sex on a first date. I believe in getting it out of the way long before that. We should have met last week. You see, I’m a hedonist of my time.” But she just hung around like a regrettable tattoo. She said “you think this has been a mistake?” I said “doctors bury their mistakes, I just sleep with them.” Well then she got mad and said I hadn’t been treating her as an object lately, and that it was lucky my face wasn’t my fortune because I looked like a bum. I said “at least I’m a crackup. You wanna hear another joke? – three guys walk into a bar-mitzvah ….”

She said “stow it, you drink too much.” I said “hey, I don’t need alcohol to be interesting, but if it can discuss a little philosophy that’s fine by me. My life’s an open book.” She said “yeah, it’s just a shame it’s a comic.” I said “orr, don’t get sore sweetie, three bits of advice: never shop when you’re hungry, never propose when you’re horny and never call a dog Lucky – it won’t be.”

She said “you’re so cynical, where’s your optimism?” I said “optimism?
Optimism’s believing your call is important to us. Optimism’s me buying a wine-rack. Optimism’s me believing you walked through that door to offer this hard-boiled poet a job … by the way, my fee is 25 puns a day plus expenses, more if I’m firing blank verse.” She looked at me blankly. I said “you got the picture. So what’s the case doll face?” Well, then she spilt the beans - my breakfast, all over the desk. While I cleaned it up she said her father, this professor, was in trouble …

So that afternoon I found myself at the university outside this door with a sign that read Caution, de-construction in progress. I entered to find the professor being whipped by an obese transexual leprechaun in a jockey uniform. Something didn’t add up, and it wasn’t just my two-dollar Chinese calculator. I said to the prof “you look disturbed”. He took affront and said I looked like poor white trash. I said “strictly speaking I’m more Lower-Middle-Class-Semi-Educated-Slightly-Tainted-Recyclable-Refuse. But I shouldn’t mince words – you end up with syllables All over the floor. Anyway, what’s the problem, Prof, spill the beans ….”

Well, as I was cleaning his beans from my pants, he said I had to help him because his life was trying to kill him. He said he had nothing to lose and then he lost it. He talked about how he’d spent his deformative years as an ambience driver, but that he’d been sacked for disturbing the local resonance. He tried taking a trip down memory lane but got mugged again. I said “nostalgia sure ain’t what it used to be.” He agreed, and said he had a lot of hang-ups and that I could call him well hung. I said I’d rather call him insane, and to quit blubbering and cut to the chase.

Well, turned out he had this fear of inventing new words. I said “how curious, what’s this condition called?” He said “I don’t know, maybe Lexiphobia.” I said “Lexiphobia? It’s not in this dictionary. You must be making it up.” Well he started screaming, “there I go again, there I go again!” before jumping out the window and impaling himself on a gargoyle. One-way ticket to the eternity ward. The guy was an idiot anyway. But hey, I’m not throwing stones ‘coz people who live in glass houses are exhibitionists who attract perverts and get sunburnt.

Case closed. (Ow! My fingers!)

"Bloody Cadel!"

I caught up with a poet mate the other day at a pub performance. He’d just come off stage to a patter of bitter applause after reading a new poem, something along the lines of “the streets are full of bloody Cadels, hell’s bells budding Cadels, packs of peddlers going pell mell, hell’s bell’s bloody Cadels …”. I said “mate, I know Cadel’s got a Welsh name and a weird head, but we’re all Australians now. Isn’t it a bit petty and mean-spirited to begrudge the man his glorious page in history? To have a go at him is as cowardly and un-Australian as it is to attack pokies and smokes”.

He said it wasn’t Cadel himself, but the legions of lycra loonies he’s inspired, and that on a recent drive to Wollongong he’d had to duck and weave through about 6000 of the bastards. “They’re in plague proportions”, he whined, before going into his pet rant about sport-versus-art in this country, blah, blah. He said something about Margaret Olley winning the Tour De France, but I’d switched off by then. I let him froth away for a while, then tried to hose down the hoary old sport/art furphy, and lay to rest the idea of our supposed national obsession with footballer’s gammy groins.

I said “mate, at the end of the day we’re not in the same ballpark. I’m trying to keep the ball in your court but you won’t do the hard yards and stick to the gameplan like a good team-player. You’re always wanting time-out for a spell on the bench when I’m trying to step up to the plate, raise the bar and tee-up a hole in one. I mean, here’s me giving a hundred-and-ten percent, jumping hurdles to make every post a winner, and you won’t run with the ball. You’re always dropping the pass when I’m trying to kick a goal. I mean, I’m not playing hard-ball or calling time out for a line-ball but it’s not a level playing field. If I’m first past the post you have me side-lined in the sin-bin for foul play. I mean to say, everyone gets stumped on a sticky wicket occasionally, but you can’t just throw in the towel when the chips are down. If you win by a nose an inch is as good as a mile in this game, know what I mean?” But I don’t think he did. In fact he was crying. I said “sorry mate, but in my book sooks don’t get a guernsey”.

"Flippin' Evil!"

Dolphins have had a lot of good press. They’re cute, loveable and smart, with complex modes of communication and tightly-knit family units. They’re sleek, playful and human-friendly, and have been known to save people from sharks. They have big brains and large, intelligent eyes. The U.S. Navy train them for complex and often dangerous underwater tasks, such as laying tracking devises and defusing mines. Whenever a dolphin becomes entangled in a driftnet there are howls of outrage.

As far back as the sixties the appeal of the dolphin was being exploited in TV shows like Flipper. Flipper was a kind of aquatic Lassie who effortlessly breezed through a heroic checklist of brave deeds – thwarting villains and greedy property developers and saving children from calamity. At the end of the show everyone always laughed at Flipper’s loveable hi-jinx. Other televised animals such as Gentle Ben, Rin Tin Tin, Mr Ed and Skippy were way down the food chain compared to this fun loving fish.

More recently, tourist meccas have taken to adopting the dolphin as their symbol. Whereas you’ll never see a Cane Toad being flaunted as, say, Townsville’s civic emblem, in Byron Bay the Dolphin is rife. Every hotel, motel, butcher-shop, New-Age Mart, golf club, bowling club, RSL, petrol station and newspaper ad features a dolphin prominently plastered somewhere. This is ironic given that Byron Bay used to be a whaling town.

The community in general has taken the dolphin to its heart. Ask any kid what’s the first thing they want to see at Sea World and invariably it’s the dolphins, leaping through hoops and snapping fish from the trainer’s hands. Images of dolphins feature in countless posters, carvings, photographs and documentaries as shining symbols of peace, and the pinnacle of New-Age dreams and aspirations. The dolphin has long been surfing the crest of a dream PR run and, it seems, can’t put a flipper wrong.

Until now. Yes, the time has come to highlight a darker, hitherto unseen side of our precious little friends, a side that those with vested interests are loathe to reveal. Recent studies suggest that behind that sleek, lovable façade lurks a malevolent, at times vicious beast, only too ready to take full advantage of man’s gullibility.

An extensive two year study of dolphins in the Maldives by a research team working aboard the research vessel SS Bluefin has revealed more about the dolphin than many would care to know. Greed, selfishness and vanity are among its more endearing qualities. Add to this list emotional blackmail, philandering, lying, bullying and cheating and the emerging picture is not pretty.

Contrary to the dolphin’s popular image of being human-friendly, the research team was alarmed to note that on more than on occasion pods of dolphins actually herded Great White Sharks towards divers. Other divers proffering food found themselves rammed by the beasts in vicious and seemingly unprovoked attacks.

But all this barely rates a mention compared to the case of the diver who was systematically pack raped by an entire pod. After his twenty-seventh dive back into the swirling melee of randy mammals he reportedly said “that’s it for me, I’m not going back in.”

The team found the animals to be highly voracious sexual predators who indulged in a smorgasbord of perverse carnal delights. One of the most shocking examples was of dolphins sexually abusing their young in debased paedophilic frenzies. The team reported: “We’d often see males sexually penetrating the blowholes of their young and, because of the phenomenal tantric staying power of the adult male, these young invariably suffocated before the climax of the act, after which their bodies were torn apart and eaten by the pod.”

Further to this, in decoding parts of the highly complex dolphin language, the team from the Bluefin established that dolphins were thugs who ostracised and bullied weaker and less well-developed members of the pod, with the victims often driven to beaching themselves in suicidal despair. Similarly, crippled, lame and aged dolphins were usually abandoned and left to fend for themselves on the high-seas, rarely surviving more than a week.

In fact so obnoxious did the dolphins become to the research team – who, to a man, had previously been totally smitten by the beasts – that they took to shooting them for sport.
I reveal this startling new information on the secret life of the dolphin in the public interest and, I might add, at considerable personal risk. Since going public I have received numerous anonymous threatening phone calls and letter bombs post-marked Byron Bay. But rest assured, as a representative of John West, I vow to strenuously and zealously pursue my campaign until the true facts relating to this scourge of the high sees are fully known.

“What can I do?” you ask. I’ll tell you what you can do. Next time you pick up a tin of dolphin-friendly tuna in the supermarket, do the environment a favour and put it back.

The Arboreal Thing

"The Arboreal Thing"

I think that I shall never see/a poem as lovely as a tree


Me and the boy took a stroll through the Botanic Gardens yesterday – green grass, blue sky, sunshine, sculpture, ducks and botany. Luver-ly! We came to a massive old Moreton Bay Fig, fenced off with a sign: “For your safety keep outside the fence as tree may drop branches without warning”. Hmm, I pondered: what kind of warning might a tree be expected to give - a week’s notice in writing? In triplicate? Or might it bark something more cursory: “Oi, fatso, move your arse, I’m gunna snap a big one!” No, no. That would be the uncouth locution of a loutish eucalypt, or bogan Melaleuca. An elegant old Moreton Bay Fig would surely be better mannered: “Look, I’m awfully sorry about this … it’s all a bit dashed awkward … but you see, the thing is, I’ve got this beastly branch that’s been agitating for some time to part ways with me, and I’m afraid you’re sitting right under it, so, err, [sounds a bit like Hugh Grant] if you wouldn’t mind awfully moving your picnic a few metres to the right … that’s it, that’s it, just the ticket … now ERRRR, [CRASH!], ahh, that’s better. So kind of you. Lovely spot of weather we’re having, isn’t it? …”

No, there’s no malevolence in trees. For all the carnage we’ve inflicted upon them I don’t believe they’ve ever hurt anyone on purpose. In fiction? Okay, there’s Harry Potter’s Whomping Willow; a grouchy orchard of apple trees in The Wizard of Oz and grumpy Ents in Lord of the Rings. And, I suppose, you could argue for some ambivalence with Jack’s beanstalk, a tree-like monster that helps Jack facilitate the death of an innocent giant, who, as far as I can tell was hurting no-one, just minding his own business in his cloud castle when Jack rocks up to thieve his property and bring about his brutal death. At a stretch you could argue that the apple (or olive, or fig) tree in the Garden of Eden left a fairly nasty taste, but that wasn’t an act of malevolence on the tree’s part, per se, but an engineered outcome by the Master of Puppets to set the Bible in train. And these dark fictions can be balanced against the fiction of Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree, a benign portal to a land of wonder and delight.

One of my favourite trees is the Liquid Amber. They look great, are a cicada mecca in Summer, colourful Autumnal wonders and the big ones are brilliant to climb. You have to love the name for a start – Liquid Amber – it just flows. Same as the Camphor Laurel, which I’m fond of too. Okay, I know the Camphor Laurel is introduced and considered a pest by many, but, like coral trees, I think they add character and charm to a farm. (These trees would also make great names for twin daughters: “Liquid Amber, Camphor Laurel, your Aunt Petunia and Uncle Russell are here!”)

Other fave trees? – oaks, elms, beeches, poplars … spot the pattern here? Yep. I’m afraid most of them were introduced to Australia. But then again, who wasn’t? I know it’s unpatriotic of me, but I’m a shameless Anglophile in many regards, including matters arboreal. I’m a dyed in the wool Wind-In-The-Willows-Alice-In-Wonderland-Pooh-Bear-English-Garden-Woodland fantasist. There, I’ve said it. Gums are okay, in their place, which is mostly in the mouth. But compared to English trees they’re bland as batshit. (Is batshit actually bland? Anyone?). If I must have Australian Wild give me rainforest. The really old primeval kind, thick with creepers and vines and massive mossy fungi-studded boles, twenty metres in circumference, with big veins creeping down into the forest floor like the necks of old people; the kind of rainforest with deep, clear creeks and trickling icy streams replete with Platypi and Yabi, the kind of deep terrain to give Bob Brown a woody, with hobbits, and Ents, and trees with doors that lead to fairyland, and …

Err, sorry. Where were we?

That’s right, pointless, dumb signs about trees not giving due warning of impending falling branches. It puts me in mind of those roadside signs along steep embankments: “Warning, Falling Rocks”. Hmm. Okay. Fair enough. But what the fuck are you going to do about it?: “Hey kids, keep your eyes peeled for any five ton boulders hurtling from the cliff up there that are about to crush the car. I want plenty of time to take evasive action.”

Nah. Trees are prettier and smarter than us.

"The Jackpot and the Damage Done"

I’m an unprincipled, unscrupulous, amoral, hypocrite with less integrity than Colonel Gadaffi. And that’s just what my friends are saying. See, I’m the cad who did the Clubs Australia ad, the one designed to fight the government’s plan to introduce a pre-commitment plan to play pokies. It’s a hard rap to defend, but let me have a crack at putting my side and trying to set a couple of things straight, at least as far as the charge of hypocrisy goes.

Case for the prosecution: “It’s wrong for an actor to do an ad supporting an industry whose machines cause misery and hardship for gambling addicts and their families. More damning is the defendant’s double-standard in doing such an ad, given that in the past he has written and spoken out against poker machines”. Fair enough, to a degree. But to describe me as a “strident anti-pokies campaigner”, as Crikey’s Andrew Crook* has, is a bit of a stretch. As evidence of my anti-gambling stridency, Crook sites a Heckler column I wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald a few years ago which was principally about how businesses are morphing into other businesses^ – i.e. post offices have become tacky two-dollar shops; newsagents flog Lotto and Scratchies to such an extent it’s hard to buy a bloody paper. I ended the piece by envisaging Centrelink offices morphing into a Centrelink Bar and Pokies chain where punters could have their welfare direct debited straight into their favourite machine. A satirical jape stretched for comic effect, yes, but hardly evidence of a red-ragging “anti-pokies campaigner”.

To be fair, I don’t doubt I’ve written and said other negative things about pokies in the past. It would be surprising if I hadn’t. Over ten years of doing radio, first on Triple-J, then ABC 702 , I wrote and performed hundreds of poems, rants, monologues and sketches lampooning pollies of every stripe, as well as every other target under the sun ripe for a satiric salvo, including that hoary old cliché “Ordinary Australians”, a phrase which I once dissected in a poem, and now utter, without irony, as an actor in the Clubs Australia ad.

As further evidence of my nefarious double standards, Crook points out that I myself have a gambling history and quotes me talking about it in a Radio National program, “The Deal”, broadcast in March this year, which was about the very same time I was shooting the Clubs Australia ad. Oh, damnable villain! Yet Crook neglects to point out that the program was a repeat, and that “The Deal” was originally broadcast in November 2005. Sure, at the time I was going through a phase of blowing too much on pokies, but I’ve been pretty much untroubled by them ever since.

The late American comic Bill Hicks is dear to me. As well savaging Republicans, shock jocks and the religious right, he vented spleen upon anyone who would stoop to do a tv commercial, particularly rich celebrities who didn’t need the money. But he did make an exception for struggling young actors. Sorry Bill, I’m not young. But my living is pretty much a peripatetic hand-to-mouth affair (violins please, folks). I’d love to say I’ve nobly dedicated my life to working in disaster zones, and in a way I have. I perform in schools, as well as doing the occasional ad. Any peak of recognition I had was a blip on the radio radar years ago. If I’m still known and remembered it’s in a circle the size of a dot. The point being: I’m not famous. I was a voice on radio, not a face on tv. I’m not recognisable and I’m not a big name lending credence to a product, and if I was a big name why the hell would I bother doing ads? I’m an anonymous actor, a cipher, a blank slate, and as an actor I’m under no more obligation to believe in what I’m plugging in an ad than I would be to condone the behaviour I portrayed in the role of a wife-beater or rapist.

Okay, call my arguments sophistry and decry my lack of integrity. Yes, credibility would be nice, but it’s a luxury a self-unemployed performer with a family can’t afford.






*Crikey piece
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/04/15/star-of-the-clubs-campaign-is-a-strident-anti-pokies-campaigner/

^Heckler piece
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/well-rieu-the-day-of-weird-sales-matches-20090520-bfpr.html

Daily Telegraph piece
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/tug-dumbly-star-of-tv-ad-against-poker-machine-cap-is-a-pokie-gambler-himself/story-e6freuy9-1226040548469

"Prawno"

Me and my old mate A.J. cooked up this little gumbo of a script a decade or so ago. From memory it was intended to be part of some aborted comedy project of ours involving sketches and other stuff to showcase our genius. I'm sure you'll agree it's actually quite brilliant. Channel Nine has the vision of a mole in a badger's belly up Kyle Sandiland's bum! Maybe part of the problem was finding a seafood wrangler willing and able to stop/start animate prawns for hours on end in the midday sun in our backyard in Stanmore on a hot Sydney Summer's afternoon. WARNING: contains traces of pun. Do not consume too soon before or after eating.


Stephen Eelberg presents
"SEAWHORES: THE PRAWNO"

Staring Mussell Crowe, Cray West, Salmon L. Jackson, Barramundi White, Prawn Connery, Joan Crawfish, Dory Smelling, Killpatrick Swayzee, Tuna Turner, Cod Stewart, Marlin Brando, Clamela Anderson, Mackerel Bolton, Blowfish, Octopussy … and introducing Marilyn Fishroe.

The opening shot is an aquarium over which credits roll to a funky wucka-wucka porn soundtrack. As a voice-over reels off actor’s names they are shown in various attitudes of repose, in deck chairs, lounging at the bar, in their trailers etc.


SCENE 1.

Prawn Connery, as Bond, writhes in deckchair in passionate embrace with Cray West. Bond theme music.

Prawn: I’d always hoped we’d meet like this, salmon-chanted evening.
Cray West: Oh James, I’ve felt so abalone.

As they grunt and groan to climax a big dollop of mayonnaise splats onto them. Cut to Larry Lobster, the director.

Larry: Cut. That was great Prawn, beautiful work Cray. Go and get yourselves cleaned up. Okay people, moving right along to the Dory Smelling close-ups. Okay Dory, get your shell off honey.

Cut to Dory Smelling on waterbed in pool.

Dory: My What?
Larry: You heard sugar, get raw. It’s time for some clam cam.
Dory: But the script says this is the Hillary Clinton Story!
Larry: Oh it is, babe, believe me it is. Now come on and quit being so precious. Get shelled, get wet, it’s show and tell time!
Dory: I will not. This film is disgusting and so are you. If you want me I’ll be in my trawler.

She storms off and Larry confers with Sam Squid.

Larry: Jeez, the bait I gotta work with! Can we get a replacement Sam? What about Tuna Turner?
Sam: She’s got crabs.
Larry: Joan Crawfish?
Sam: Sea-philous.
Larry: Clamela Anderson?
Sam: She died of Cod-oreah. She stank anyway.
Larry: Hey! Don’t speak eel of the dead. Okay then, go and see what you can do about little Miss Smelling.

As Sam heads off to Dory’s trawler Larry addresses cast and crew.

Larry: But in the meantime we got a picture to make, so let’s move it. What’s the next scene?
Assistant: Err, seduction of Marilyn Fishroe by Salmon L. Jackson and Barramundi White.
Larry: Okay people let’s go. Either this picture comes in under budget and oversexed or you’re all fried! Aaand action!'


SCENE 2.

Marilyn Fishroe on bed. She is a pile of caviar with a blonde wig. Salmon L. Jackson enters room.

Salmon: Mmm mmm, now what have we here? Looks like one tasty little fishcake, and my friend and I are mighty hungry. Hope you don’t mind if he joins us, mam?
Marilyn: Well, I don’t know …

Barramundi White enters room to slick soul soundtrack, giving smooooth Barry spiel.

Barramundi: Don’t fight it babe, just come and embrace something that is beautiful, you are my golden, glimmering portal of light, my cascading champagne chandelier of sweetness and goodness…

Marilyn sighs with pleasure.

Marilyn: Oh Barramundi, do you really mean that?
Salmon: Like the man says babe, you got the goods.

Marilyn squeals with delight as Salmon and Barramundi get down to business.


SCENE 3.

Sam Squid knocks at door of Dory Smelling’s trawler.

Sam: Dory, oh Dory, I know you’re in there.
Dory: Go away, I’m not coming out. You’re sickos, all of you. I can’t believe I got hooked into this.
Sam: Oh come on honey, we promise there won’t be any more dirty stuff. We know you got class. Larry says he’s real sorry and that it won’t happen again. You know what these Lobsters are like, all hot under the collar. But he’s cooled off now and wants to make up by giving you a present.

Trawler-door opens a crack.

Dory: A present?
Sam: Yeah babe, a pearl necklace!

Dory fully opens door.

Dory: A pearl necklace?
Sam: Yeah, a big one, but only if you come now.
Dory: Oh, alright. But only if he promises to be nice. No dirty stuff, okay?
Sam: Oh, he’ll be nice, baby, we’ll all be nice.


SCENE 4.

Cut back to Salmon and Barramundi’s bed scene with Marilyn Fishroe. The caviar is almost entirely eaten and only a blonde wig remains. Music is slick soul. Salmon and Barramundi grunt away for a bit longer before the mayonnaise arrives. Marilyn sighs and sings:

Marilyn: Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me …
Salmon: Mmm mmm, you sure was tasty Miss Fishroe. But I’ll be damned if I ain’t got a hankering for a second course!
Barramundi: You said it bro, let’s go and find us some more tasty vitals!


SCENE 5.

Larry lobster is making sleazy moves on a giggling seahorse starlet as Sam approaches.

Larry: Well, did she swallow the bait?
Sam: Hook, line and sinker.

They both snigger evilly. Cut to Dory poolside, peeled, with her shell beside her.

Dory: Now are you sure nothing’s showing?
Larry: Trust me baby, like I said it’s real tasteful (heh heh)
Dory: Well, when am I going to get my pearl necklace?
Larry: Real soon sugar, real soon. Aaand Action!

Soul soundtrack starts. Salmon and Barramundi jive into scene.

Salmon: Mmm mmm, Well lookee what we have here - sweetmeats! Doll if you don’t mind I think it’s high time my friend and I dined.

Dory screams as Salmon and Barramundi sidle up to her.

Dory: (To director Larry Lobster) But you said no dirty stuff, you promised…!

Seductive wucka-wucka soul track amps up, as Barramundi White starts his spiel:

Barramundi: Don’t fight it babe, you are my Cleopatra, my Godiva, my Joan of Arc, my Shiva, why you are every woman in the world to me.

Dory sighs, won over by Barramundi’s charms, as both he and Salmon assume the position.

Dory: Oh, that’s beautiful. But I still want my pearl necklace.
Larry: Oh it’s coming baby, it’s coming, any minute now, special delivery.

A squirt-gun of special sauce sprays the prawns to end the scene.


SCENE 6.

Prawn Connery is tied to a bed, as Cray West in bondage gear whips him. Blowfish (a lacquered Pufferfish) reclines smugly in chair near bed.

Prawn: I suppose you think you’re pretty smart Blowfish, planting this poison little double-crossing anemone?
Blowfish: Yes, she’s a lovely specimen, isn’t she Mr Bond? She usually gets what she wants.
Prawn: You’re wasting your time Blowfish. Fishfinger couldn’t extract the secret cod and neither will you. Torture me all you like, grill me, braze me and baste me, but I’ll not tell.
Blowfish: Ah, but I think you will, Mr Bond. I have a very persuasive, shall we say, friend. Perhaps you’ve heard of him, Dr Wasabi?

Dramatic music - Da da da da! - as Blowfish holds up tube of Wasabi sauce. Prawn struggles
desperately at his bonds. Blowfish and Cray West laugh evilly at his discomfort.

Prawn: You’re an animal, Blowfish, that’s inhumane. Wasabi Sauce was outlawed in the Geneva Codvention!
Blowfish: Geneva Codvention? I don’t think I’ve heard of it. But then I have such a bad memory for details. Perhaps your memory will improve with a little stimulation to the nether regions?

Prawn screams as Cray West starts rubbing Wasabi into his genitals (where is that on prawns?). But gradually the screams turn to moans of pleasure as he starts getting off on the pain.

Blowfish: You may never spawn again, Mr Bond, had enough?
Prawn: No, more please, more, lots more!
Blowfish: What’s this?
Cray West: I, I think he's actually enjoying it!
Blowfish: But that’s impossible! What’s going on here?
Prawn: Come on Blowfish, don't be a fool. You know as well as I do what’s going on. You want me, you’ve always wanted me, and I’ve always wanted you. Screw the Cod War and the arms race, kiss me Blowfish, kiss me now!
Blowfish: Damn it you’re right, Mr Bond, of course you’re right. What a fool I’ve been. What fools we’ve both been. I surrender, I surrender to you utterly.

Sweet romantic strings well up as Blowfish, in slow-mo, approaches bed to embrace Bond. Blowfish and Cray West mount Prawn and they all begin making mad love. Larry, excited, directs cameraman.

Larry: Oh this is gold, pure gold. Is he hard yet? Are they hard yet? Get in close for the woodshot, I want the woodshot now!

Cut to image of chopstick.

Larry: More wood, I want lots more wood!

Cut to massive tree being felled.

Cut back to frantic orgy of Prawn, Cray West and Blowfish, just as Barramundi White, Salmon L. Jackson and Dory Smelling enter the scene.

Salmon: Mmm mmm, this sho looks mighty tasty!
Barramundi: Don’t fight it babe
Dory: I want another pearl necklace!
Salmon: Mmm mmm, I think that can be arranged!
Prawn: Oh, Blowfish!
Blowfish: Oh, Mr Bond.

All the prawns pile into one rampantly rooting, writhing heap as the music climaxes.

Larry: Oh, this is gold, solid gold, now get ready for the money shot!

Several quick cuts back and forth between Larry and cast, in time to fucking, as excitement mounts. Finally as the music, grunting, panting and squealing reach a crescendo, a bucket of mayonnaise is poured over the cast, who writhe and moan in orgasmic ecstasy.

Larry: Genius, pure godamn, solid-state, bona-fide genius. Okay people, that’s a wrap, get yourselves cleaned up, I think we’ve earned ourselves a drink.

Whoops, cheers and applause from cast and crew, high-fives, sounds of celebration, congratulation, elation etc.

Camera pans back from Prawno set to reveal it has been staged on a table at a backyard barbie. Real people stand near the table casually talking. Two people approach the table of the prawno set, dip a couple of prawns into the mayo and bite into them. As they bite there are piercing screams. Screen fades to black. Music, Credits, the end ...

(well, I did warn you ...)

"Sin City"

There was an utterly redundant article in this morning’s Silly Boring Herald on the way Melbourne has it all over Sydney for the yartz, vigour, zest, transport, etc. Apparently Sydney’s getting too costly, congested and mean spirited. Sydney’s an ageing Liz Taylor, compared to which Melbourne is a vivacious, energised Helen Mirren. What does that make Nowra? Amy Winehouse? No cliché left unturned. You know the drill: Sydney’s a mindless, hedonistic sun and surf worshipping bogan, Melbourne a philosopher in a beret writing poetry in a coffee shop, Kulcha coming out its bum. (Oh, the writer forgot to mention it’s also the gangland murder capital of Oz. Maybe they’re kulchured gangsters who take in Romanian arthouse films before doing hits). Why bother endlessly regurgitating this kind of crap? Then again, why not? If the Herald can do it so can I. So here to perpetuate that farrago of clichés is a monologue I wrote a few years back (with a slightly freshened ending):

Sin City

After being voted the city with the World’s best
Restaurants, location and lifestyle
Sydney had a quiet drink and
gave itself a modest pat on the back.

Then after a few more beers
Sydney loosened up and made a
rude little joke about Brisbane.
Adelaide and Perth smiled nervously
while Canberra said it was tired and going home.

But Sydney kicked on with some Martinis and Margaritas,
before heading off to snort coke in the dunny.
Sydney swaggered out and started doing tequila shots
and wolf-whistling at waitresses.

Then Sydney saw Melbourne quietly reading in a corner
And yelled across the bar:
hey Mel, ya big poof, ya readin’ ‘bout
how to pick up a root, or what?
Melbourne just gave a disdainful look
and went back to its book.

But Sydney continued: Hey Mel,
did you know the sun shines out my harbour?
Here, cop a look at Godzone!
At which Sydney leapt on a table
dropped its daks and flashed Melbourne a
blazing bright yellow eye.
Then Sydney started dancing on the table,
lewdly gyrating with its pants around its ankles
taunting Melbourne, saying
na na na na na! Sucked in Melbourne
you old drizzle-bound Goth
you Camus-cuddling wanker
you fossilised pile of snob dung.
You’re just jealous of my beautiful sun
and my beautiful harbour
and my beautiful bridge
and my big silicon hills
and botoxed beaches
and pectoral-pumped horizons
and the Sydney Swans beating you at your own stupid game …

All you got’s your poxy trams and flat-chested streets
and pigeon-shitty monuments to crumbling colonial boredom …
What’s that? Oh!, You had the Commonwealth Games?
Oooh, how Maaarvellous, darling!! …
Yeah, good on ya,
must have been fun watching that piss-poor flea-circus
huddled in your anorak-clad igloo
trying to warm yourself with your own pathetic
moussaka flavoured farts …
Oh, by the way, did you know that I, Sydney,
had the OLYMPIC GAMES –
GREATEST GAMES EVER! OI! OI! OI!…

Well, Melbourne just shook its head
finished its macchiato
and quietly got up and left.
And by now all the other towns had gone home as well,
even hardcore party towns like San Fransisco and Acapulco.
So the manager came over
and politely asked Sydney to please leave.
But Sydney just snarled ah, get fucked!
and had the manager re-developed.

Sydney used the manager’s blood to paint itself red -
drank more, smoked more, snorted more
dropped more pills
Went clubbing till six
then had an orgy with itself
before crashing round ten.
Sydney woke up pregnant
reproduced and became the World’s first
truly hermaphroditic city.
But then Sydney got too big and old and tired and fat
with constipation, bad circulation and blocked arteries.
Sydney de-hydrated, got asthmatic, obese
and finally collapsed in a blubbering, wheezing heap.

Sydney got carted off to re-hab
where they said: what seems to be the problem sir?
And Sydney screamed:
look, stop personifying me!
I’m not a person, okay!
I’m just a city with faults like anyone, okay!
So stop stretching this stupid bloody metaphor anymore, okay!
… but there is one little favour ya could do for me ...
reckon ya could hire Melbourne to do a hit on Keneally and O'Farrell
and feed their guts to the Greens?