And what’s a few lousy months between friends?
I’ve been with my bank for about 20 years. But they send letters and more letters.
And you get dragged in to see the bank manager which always reminds me of being paraded in front of the headmaster at school for a lecture and six of the best and don’t be a naughty boy in future.
Then they send some bloke around, a bank agent, to spy on you and annoy you.
When I first saw the bank agent I thought he was collecting for the Smith Family.
His car was as daggy as mine. He had on a pair of pants with such a shiny backside that if he fell over he’d get seven years bad luck.
I told him to piss off.
In fact, I was that pissed off with the bank in general after 20 years, I thought I’d write them a letter — the one reprinted at the end of this story.
You must remember this was during a building boom on the Central Coast and I was feeling a bit cocky at the time.
About a month after I sent the letter Talking Books folded, I fell out with the film company and the property boom went bust.
Then I got a card in my letter-box saying there was a registered letter waiting for me at the post office.
I had a pretty good idea who it was from and I left it as long as I could.
Sure enough it was from my happy, friendly bank manager saying they wanted THE LOT in three weeks or they’d foreclose. Bastards. I may have had my one small moment but they had the last laugh.
I was once again forced to grovel.
And after grovelling and prostrating myself at my smiling, rotten bank manager’s feet I was told, and I quote, ‘I can put a lid on it for the time being’.
Worse. Not only was I made to grovel, I was forced to scrub pots in the stinkiest, hottest, smelliest kitchens on the Central Coast where no-one else would work.
This after my loyalty to the bank for 20 years. Bastards.
But I’ve got a feeling I’m going to kick on somehow and finish my mortgage in one go. Then revenge shall be mine.
I wonder what they give in the state of NSW for defecating on a bank manager’s desk?
See if he can put a lid on that for the time being.
Dear Mr.........
Firstly, thank you for your kind, warm-hearted letters. It’s always nice to know that your bank is still altruistic and you personally have my wellbeing and financial situation at heart. I appreciate it sincerely.
Now, as to my immediate financial situation. Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news.
The bad news is I’m stone motherless broke and back on the dole. In fact I’m going that bad at the moment I was thinking of snipping you for a few bucks. Also my accountant has disappeared with all my receipts and this year’s taxation return.
The good news is, my latest book made it to the best-selling list: 15,000 sold since November. And even though publishers in this country are almost on a par with banks for being miserable, parsimonious rapacious skinflints, I will still get a reasonable royalties cheque the first week in April.
I have also got rid of a shonky film producer who has been holding me up and I am about to sign up with PML Productions to make a movie out of my first book. The Recorded Book Company wants me to put my books down on cassette for the cretins in this country who are too lazy to read so some more money will be coming in there.
There could even be an earn for you.
I sold a story to a glossy magazine called So You Want To Be An Awther.
It comes out in June I think.
In it I have rubbished the Australian literary scene and the publishers and I referred to my bank manager as Snidely Von Bloodstone so you could have a chance to sue. That is if you can get through my lawyer who I referred to as Carnivore T. Funnelweb.
Apart from that nothing much else except that they sold the house three doors down from me for $280,000 about six weeks ago. Which is really disgusting when you think of the young couples trying to buy homes these days. And the houses in this street will probably go up again when they finish that Peppers On The Sea.
So in conclusion if your bank can struggle on until the first or second week in April I will catch up with whatever money I owe and this will save you the trouble of having to send the sheriff and a mob of thugs round to boot me out of my joint.
Yours faithfully
Robert G. Barrett
I was having a drink with some blokes the other night waiting for a band to come on and we were talking about rock’n’roll, venues, bands, etc.
Then we got magging about law and order, the police and naturally enough in the light of things the subject got around to the TRG and SWOS units.
You reckon these blokes didn’t have some rotten things to say about what I always thought were a number of dedicated and courageous members of the NSW Police Force?
Gun-crazy yobbos and would-be Rambos they called them.
Trigger-happy psychopaths and misfits who shouldn’t even be in the police force let alone be allowed to run around with powerful, dangerous weapons.
Irresponsible bully-boys who get around like they’re storm-troopers in a country of occupation. All they’re good for is terrorising hippies and greenies because they’re easy marks and they can squeeze the girls’ tits when they throw them in the back of the police wagon.
Quite frankly, I was amazed. I always thought people had more respect for the TRG boys.
Now there’s talk of disbanding the TRG and taking away all their nice, new shotguns with the pistol grips. Well, I disagree with this.
We’re talking about a bunch of dedicated men here who have cost the NSW taxpayer a fortune to arm and train, not to mention the effort they have put in on their own unpaid time.
Do you think the curve in the peak of those American-style baseball caps they wear comes made like that? It takes hours to get the right curve in the peaks of those caps like Howard, the lieutenant in Hill Street Blues.
How long do you think it takes to be able to fold those blue overalls into those combat boots with the regulation tuck, same as the US Special Forces had in Vietnam?
And what about perfecting that TRG walk after operations? The kevlar helmet in one hand, the shotgun in the other, yet able to conceal your face from the TV cameras and still show enough so the boys will know who it is at the piss-up back at HQ after the latest raid.
Countless nights would have been spent clomping up and down the hallway at home in those combat boots while wives and children tried to get to sleep. It’s mental strain all around and they don’t get paid for this.
These men go in and do their duty, and now politicians and the media want to crucify them.
No wonder their morale is shattered and they want to go on strike. And some smarties say ‘good’. At least a few innocent people will be safe in their homes for a while.
All these blokes really need is a bit of good PR and some proper marketing.
I used to write a bit of copy on radio and a few ads. If they want to be like the Yanks, why not go for it all the way?
The first thing I’d piss off is those names. TRG — that always reminds me of Roy Rogers calling for his horse. And SWOS — fair dinkum, who thought that up? It could stand for Sewerage, Waste, Offal and Sludge and sounds like something you clean bathrooms with.
How about: The NSW Police Force Death’s Head Commando Battalion? The NSW Police Force Ranger Attack Unit? The Red Scorpions? Black Tigers? Blue Panthers? Delta Force Blue Mobile Killer Elite? Death From The Doorway … ?
But how can I fool my readers? You’ve probably seen through me already. One week I’m bagging the cops, next thing I’m sucking up to them trying to curry favour. Just another media sycophant. And you’re half-right too.
It’s just that I saw a way to commit the perfect murder. Kill someone and get off scot-free. Say there was some bastard out there you didn’t like: a bank manager or someone who owes you money and won’t settle; a panelbeater, a builder or a drug dealer who’
s ripped you off.
You ring up the TRG. Some constable answers the phone.
You say: ‘There’s a bloke out there, Charlie Dunk of such and such a street, so and so. He’s a drug dealer, he’s got a gun, he’s a gibbering psychopath who hates cops and he reckons all TRG blokes sit down to piss. He’s a menace to society, he’s half-Abo and he’s out on bail. Go get the mother. Do it, do it, go, go, go. Yay team!’
The following night sit back, relax, watch a bit of TV. Make a nice toasted cheese sandwich and a mug of Ovaltine.
Then go to bed and get a good night’s sleep happy in the knowledge that at 2.30 a.m. the Tactical Response Group’s gonna smash the bastard’s door down, thunder up the stairs in combat boots armed with shotguns, kick his bedroom door in and scream, ‘You on the #%*@!% bed. Don’t move or … BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BANG! KA-BLAM! POW! We’ll blow your #@*%!% head off!’
There are a number of problems facing Australia today, two of which are drugs and Aboriginal drinking.
As soon as you mention ‘Aboriginal drinking problem’ the Kooris get the hump.
But if you saw 60 Minutes a few weeks ago, the evidence was there in graphic and horrifying detail.
There was an Aboriginal woman in hospital for the umpteenth time getting her head stitched. She’d previously been in with broken arms and legs and assorted injuries her husband inflicted on her when he was drunk.
There was film of an Aboriginal man bashing his wife in a riverbed with a piece of wood. When he got sick of hitting her he started throwing rocks at her. He was drunk, too.
Several Aboriginal men got up on camera and admitted they bashed their wives because they went mad on the drink.
Then there was a moving scene of Aboriginal women from all over the NT, in body paint, marching down the main street of Alice Springs protesting about the bashings and growing alcoholism.
So the Kooris can get the hump all they want but the proof was there. And the bottom line is, they can’t handle booze; it’s not in their nature.
They got on quite well for scores of thousands of years before the whites introduced them to it.
Now on to the drug problem. Where do you start and what drug? Heroin addicts robbing banks and breaking into houses?
People shoving cars, houses and bank accounts up their nose to support a cocaine habit?
Kids, 16, shooting speed and getting free needles to do so from their nearest drug counselling centre? Schoolkids getting out of it on Rohypnol and Serepax?
Weightlifters shooting anabolic steroids? People popping ecstasy at dance parties and discos?
LSD, peyote, mescaline, boiled cane toads, angel’s trumpets, magic mushrooms? Cough medicine, aeroplane glue? Cigarettes, alcohol? The new ones — ice and crack? And, of course, the old favourite, marijuana?
Where do you start? We’re definitely a drug-prone society and it’s increasing. I’m convinced of one thing — the lesser of all the drug evils is pot. Not that filling your lungs with smoke can be any good for you.
But I’ve still never heard of anyone dying from an overdose of smoking pot. You can only take so much.
King Kong couldn’t smoke four Buddha sticks and half a bag of Queensland heads. He’d end up looking like 20 tonnes of Scottish haddock, waking up every couple of hours saying, ‘Hey man, play the other side of that album.’
When Sydney footballers were drug-tested and registered positive to pot, the furore and breast-beating from the league and a few holier-than-thou sports commentators was unbelievable.
As Sydney solicitor Chris Murphy succinctly put it: ‘The league is sponsored by beer and cigarettes. I challenge any doctor to tell me pot is any worse.’ Not a bad point, Chris.
They can fill the gaols to bursting point like they’re doing but they’re not going to stop people scrounging up a smoke. And as for gaol and rehabilitation — a mate of mine did three years for pot and the first thing he did on release was buy a bag of pot with his gaol money. He did it deliberately.
There was a photo in the local rag of the NSW Police Commissioner under the heading, ‘Police Commissioner With Drug Haul’. There he was, po-faced, holding a plastic bag with about half-a-dozen foils in it. A few lousy grams of crappy leaf.
And while he was posing for the cameras with this massive drug haul, about another 20kg of heroin lobbed into the country.
The speed and ecstasy factories are going into overtime. Kids are dying and some high-flyer probably brings in another 5kg of coke under diplomatic immunity.
Judges argue about lessening the penalties for pot but politicians can’t make up their minds, only because they’d put their grandmothers in gaol if they thought there was a vote in it.
So, as a concerned citizen and taxpayer, I thought I might take a punt and put up a suggestion to ease both the drug and the Aboriginal drinking problems.
Why not let the Aborigines, if they wish to, run the marijuana industry?
Now before the zealots surround my house with burning torches and wooden stakes, let’s have a look at this radical and outrageous proposition purely from a financial point of view.
I don’t know how much pot is sold in NSW. With all these sensational, multi-million-dollar drug crops it’s impossible to tell. But let’s settle on a nice round sum, say $20 million a year. Let the Kooris grow pot out in the country under strict supervision and sell it at a regulated price.
They cop half the $20 million. The rest is a two-way whack-up between the State and Federal Governments.
Why don’t we give it a trial run for two years?
Throw in plenty of bureaucratic red tape, like you have to be 21 and working to buy a bag and you can’t buy more than two ounces at a time. And if anybody apart from a Koori is caught selling pot, then it’s off to the pokey for some severe questioning.
Besides the money, look at the other benefits. The poor old smoker would be happy and have a much better rapport with the police. I’m sure the cops must be sick of arresting and alienating people who would prefer to be on their side, just so they can win votes for their political masters.
And with the extra $10 million a year going towards the police and customs, they could concentrate on the heroin and cocaine trade and jump on the importers, instead of a few hippies and ordinary working people.
The Kooris would have to be happy. They’d be $10 million in front, off welfare and off the piss.
And what are Aborigines, especially the elders, good at? Painting. And what’s pot good for? Enhancing creativity in the arts.
Imagine all those Kooris cashed up and not getting so drunk, doing beautiful bark paintings of Thugine the rainbow snake, Mulloka the water devil, Bohrah the kangaroo. Churning them out, happy as clams. Another million-dollar spin-off industry.
I discussed this with a couple of other drunks in a pub and they looked at me through bleary eyes and hailed the idea as genius. I don’t know about that.
But, after watching 60 Minutes, it just struck me as a much nicer and more profitable way for the Aboriginal men to stone their wives.
In the time I’ve been writing this column I doubt if anyone can say I’ve used it to score freebies.
The old payola. You know — eat at so-and-so’s restaurant, buy a car from such-and-such motors, drink brand X bourbon.
When it comes to scoring freebies I’m a failure. In fact, the only things I’ve rapped have been two Australian books — which I set out to roast and it backfired on me. And I gave a nudist resort a rap because it backfired on the editor.
Apart from that and Greenpeace I don’t think I’ve had a kind word to say about anything or anybody.
But this week’s column is going to be a walking, talking, non-stop free advertisement for a book. A blatant and outrageous free plug. Ah-ha, you say. He’s finally succumbed. What’s the miserable bastard getting out of this?
The answer is: nothing. Zilch. Not a cracker. I didn’t write the book. It wasn’t even written by an Australian – two Americans wrote it. Worst of
all, I actually forked out $9.95 for it.
So what’s in it for yours truly? I’m doing it because of my feelings for my lovely readers.
I doubt if there are many people out there who don’t have a bit of a weight problem.
Fair enough, all the girls can’t look like Elle Macpherson and the blokes can’t look like Jimmy Thunder.
But there aren’t too many around who wouldn’t miss a few kilos. And I’m no exception.
I’m telling you I’ve tried everything to lose weight. I’ve run, swum, paddled skis, surfed.
I’ve worked out in gyms till I’ve almost collapsed. Gone to aerobics classes and farted in front of twenty housewives.
I’ve tried the Israeli army diet, the Pritikin diet, the Auschwitz rotten cabbage diet. I’ve lived on speed for days at a time till I ended up talking like Donald Duck and watched the furniture grow legs and chase me around the loungeroom.
I’d lose weight, then put it all back on a week later. I was fit enough with a good heartbeat and low blood pressure, but I still looked like a walrus.
Then one day I bumped into two old mates who’d been living in the country for a while and who I barely recognised when I did. And they tipped me to this book. They said it would change my life.
And believe me, baby, it has. It’s called Fit for Life. It’s written by two Seppos, Harley and Marilyn Diamond. It’s published by Angus&Robertson and it’s ten bucks, less a zack, so there.
It’s not a diet book and it’s not an exercise book. It’s a book of plain common-bloody-sense, plus a few discoveries. Yet it’s that simple you wonder why somebody didn’t twig to it before.
There are twenty-four hours in a day, which breaks down to eight three-hour periods. The book more or less explains what you can and what you can’t do in those eight-hour periods.
And it’s also based on a thing called ‘personal hygiene’. Which I might add has nothing to do with my rotten breath, cheesy toes or woofy armpits.
The first week I started on this thing I thought I’d gained five kilograms and caught pneumonia. My stomach bloated up, my nose was running like a tap, my eyes were sore and my ears rang. Some #@%*%! book, I thought.
So What Do You Reckon? Page 8