Still Riding on the Storm

by Robert G. Barrett

  I wasn’t required again until the following Monday for the big fight scene with Hardy at the old Macarthur mansion at Camden, where I drag him out of the car, kick him in the guts a couple of times and throw him into a wine cellar and lock the door. We come back later and Hardy flattens my offsider with a snooker ball in a sock, then Hardy and I get stuck into it and Hardy, being the hero, ultimately punches the piss out of poor Johnno.

  I got the Kingswood to Camden okay — by now the kid next door’s petrol tank was dryer than a Pommy’s towel — and bundied on ready to go.

  We got the interior shots out of the way, then just hung around in the heat and the flies waiting to do the night shots. However, there were a couple of things to brighten up the new location. Firstly, the food had improved out of sight. Maybe the cook was going through a bit of male menopause down at Bondi, I don’t know, but now it wasn’t only edible, it was delicious. And secondly, Bryan Brown had brought his wife, Rachel Ward, along to the shoot. You reckon this Rachel Ward’s not a good sort? She’s got a face like an angel and a figure that makes you want to start barking at the moon; besides this, she just oozes old-fashioned English style and grace. I know Allah laid it down in the Koran that thou shalt not covet thy brother’s wife, but by the living Harry, he didn’t say anything about not having a look.

  The next thing it was night-time and after a gutful of Mexican for lunch and crispy roast pork for tea it was time for me to do my scene where I drag Hardy out of the car and kick him in the guts. So we did some more rehearsing. I gave the stand-in a few kicks, then the director gave him a few, the first assistant director gave him a few, plus the sound man, cameraman and location manager all gave him a kick. Anybody else want a go? Yeah, why not. So the wardrobe lady and the make-up girl come over and put the boot in, plus the cook and the old bloke that owned the house and his wife and kids. And a jolly good time was had by all — except of course the stand-in, but bugger him.

  Anyway, we handcuff Bryan Brown, throw him in the back of the Mercedes and away we go. We were able to get it done in two takes again and it looked all right so we were wrapped early. I bludged half a dozen cans off the film-crew, went back to the motel and had a yarn to Bob Alexander, who plays my offsider in the movie, and then hit the blurt bag.

  I was up fairly early the next morning, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so I laced on the K26s, went for a bit of a wheezy jog and did some exercises to make sure I was in reasonable shape for the fight scene. Then it was off to the Macarthur mansion to do battle. I got there at 10 to be told they weren’t going to do my scene till after lunch as they had to establish something for another scene out in one of the fields so I established that I could sleep quite easily on a rubber mat till they woke me for lunch. After a delightful repast of spaghetti marinara it was time to gear up and duel on.

  Now I’ve done a bit of boxing and all that rattle and Bryan was a bit of a lad from the suburbs before he hit the big time so we decided we would work something out between us.

  The fight scene was to go like this: after Hardy flattens my offsider with the snooker ball, he takes a swing at me and misses. I belt him with a short right, knocking him up against the far wall. I follow through with a left hook, miss and hit the other wall. Hardy counters with a snap right to the short-loin and another on the jaw. I shake my big boofhead and go after him only to be met by two straight lefts. Screaming with rage and pain I grab Hardy in a bear-hug and try to bash his brains out against the low ceiling in the old wine cellar, but Hardy, being an old streetfighter, gouges both my eyes and head butts me. I go back against the wall holding my eyes and bellowing like a bad mug, only to cop a kick in the nuts followed by another big right. I make a desperate claw at Hardy’s already bandaged face and cop another big one on the ‘Gilbeys Gin’. As I slide down the wall with my legs apart Hardy gives me a final kick in the ‘Frank Packers’ that puts them up under my ears and has me talking like Tiny Tim for the next six months. Then it’s exit stage right for Hardy, accompanied by much moaning and groaning from the vanquished Johnno. Okay, let’s do it.

  We all trooped down into the wine cellar, got everything set up, then it was roll film, roll sound and — action. We got stuck into it but somehow it just didn’t seem to be working. I was keen, Bryan seemed a little bit lethargic, but every time we did look like getting it together something would go wrong and we would have to stop. The director decided to give it a rest for a bit and pick up on the scene where Hardy knocks out my offsider with the snooker ball in the sock.

  The special effects department had made a fake snooker ball out of a squash ball wrapped in tissue paper. But somebody in the crew must have been playing around with it because somehow it got a bit condensed and went a little hard. The stunt co-ordinator got Bob Alexander to demonstrate it was safe by getting him to give him a rap on the head with it. Bob, who weighs about six stone in a wet army great-coat, swung the squash ball against the side of the stunt co-ordinator’s face and knocked him flatter than a blob of cow shit. No one could believe it. He was out colder than a bank manager’s heart and though I know you’re not supposed to laugh at other people’s misfortunes the whole place cracked up.

  Then it was back to me and Bryan.

  All right, I thought to myself, it was time to use a bit of the old Bondi savvy. Or as Bugs Bunny would say, ‘Time to use a little stradgidee.’ As we shaped up and they were about to roll the film I caught Bryan’s eye.

  ‘Hey, Brian,’ I said. ‘Is that right Rachel Ward buys her clothes off the rack at Kmart?’ Bryan looked at me for a second and his eyes narrowed: he didn’t quite know what I was on about.

  ‘I also heard,’ I said, ‘that she takes speech therapy lessons from Jeanne Little and goes to the same hairdresser.’ Now there was a distinct scowl on old chisel chin’s face. He was not amused.

  No sooner had the director called action than Bryan tore into me like a man possessed. Punches and kicks came from everywhere. Eye gouges, head butts, knees in the balls, elbow shots, you name it, I was on the receiving end. Blood, torn clothing and bits of scalp went everywhere as I was belted from one side of the wine cellar to the other. The camera kept rolling, the sound man kept recording. They were all mesmerised. No one could believe such realism. Finally Bryan wore himself out so he gave me two last kicks in the nuts to finish the scene. The crew were ecstatic.

  ‘Fantastic,’ said the director.

  ‘Great stuff,’ said the cameraman.

  ‘Print that. Bandage Barrett,’ said the assistant director.

  Poor overweight, balding Bobby Barrett, the writer and part-time ham actor. They carried me moaning up to the dressing-room, cleaned me up and helped me to get changed. I’m telling you, Bryan Brown’s no slouch in the fighting department, you should have seen the mess he made of me. I looked like I’d been trying to steal meat out of the lion’s den. There were lumps on my head big enough to sell advertising on and I had bruises all over me so black you could’ve written on them with chalk. But the directors were stoked — they said it was the best fight scene they’d ever filmed; then they all went over and congratulated the stunt co-ordinator for his great work. I just crawled to the Kingswood, started it and went home.

  So there I was, back at my Terrigal mansion, half zonked, watching the sun go down, hardly a care in the world (except for my lumps and bruises) when up pulls this grey Ford Gemini with ‘Gosford Council — Sheriff’s Department’ on the door and out climb these two blokes. One looked like Killer Kowalski, the other had a face like Jed Clampett’s dog.

  ‘Are you Robert George Barrett?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘We’re from the Sheriff’s Office.’

  ‘The Sheriff’s Office?’

  ‘You’re $850 behind with your rates and if we don’t get $185 immediately we have a warrant to confiscate goods to that amount.’ He had a look at my humble digs, then settled on the car. ‘That vehicle will do.’

  I just sat there with my mouth open, completely gab
berflasted. They don’t really still send sheriff out to harass citizens these days, do they? I don’t live in Sherwood Forest. But the sheriff was adamant; 185 gold splonders or I would lose my trusty steed. I was dumbfounded: completely speechless. But what could I do — I had to come out with that grouse line.

  ‘You’re not taking the bloody Kingswood,’ I said.

  So I gave them my last $200, got $15 change and a receipt, and stood there watching as the sheriff and Deputy Dawg or whatever his name was rode off into the sunset. I still couldn’t believe this had really happened to me. Over the past two and a half weeks I’d been beaten up, bruised and abused. Made to look like an idiot, compelled to eat shit bloody food and forced to put up with imbeciles who shouldn’t have been allowed out in public. In a fortnight I’d averaged about three hours sleep a night, giving myself spinal adhesive arachnoiditis in the process. And what did I have to show for it? Fifteen dollars, an empty stomach and no food in the fridge.

  It’s a great country, Australia. I put the $15 in my kick and drove round to this pub I know to see a certain barmaid and buy myself a foil. At least when you’re stoned, being hungry’s not such a drag.

  SO, YOU WANT TO BE A RIGHTER WRITER?

  So there I was, sitting outside my humble digs at Terrigal, listening to my stomach rumbling and wondering why, even though I was an established Australian author with three bestsellers out that had sold 10,000 copies in Europe and had written feature articles for some of the best magazines in Australia, I was back on the dole and still driving a $400 car from the wreckers. I was always under the impression authors lived a jet-setting, romantic lifestyle and gained respect and admiration from all members of the community. I’ll bet Sidney Sheldon isn’t on the jam-roll and driving an old banger. Harold Robbins is married to an ex-Miss World and lives on a luxury cruiser in Monte Carlo. Even Colleen McCullough owns a huge home on Norfolk Island and drinks Chivas Regal by the case. They’re all millionaires. But the esteemed Robert G. Barrett? I’m flat out keeping the payments up on a weekender on the senile coast and I live a lifestyle equivalent to someone changing tyres at a bus-depot in Calcutta. Yet all my mates think I’m rich, got sheilas hurling pussy at me like javelins and I drive an old bomb for taxation purposes. Hah!

  Which is probably why I get people coming up to see me all the time, telling me they’re going to write a book. Surfies, bikies, advertising people, musicians. Ex-cons, coppers, drug dealers, housewives, pimply faced wombats just out of school. All types. And they all want to get in on the ‘awthering’ rort. So, even though I don’t really know where to start, I thought I’d try and put this thing together so any budding Frederick Forsyths or Jackie Collinses out there will know just what to expect from writing in Australia.

  In essence, the literary scene in Australia is one monstrous great wank. You reckon you’ve met some drop kicks? Write a book, get it published, sell the rights for a movie and you’ll meet drop kicks in technicolour, cinemascope and stereophonic sound, their heads that far up their arses, they’re watching TV through their ribs. They’ll rob you blind and use you up and they’ve got egos bigger than the left tit on the Statue of Liberty. I’m convinced if you took a sandwich into some publishers’ offices they’d take the filling, scrape off the butter and leave you with the dry bread. And the average Australian film producer would dump on your head and tell you it’s snowing, then act as if they’re doing you a favour by dumping on you. And before the crap had a chance to dry your publisher would be in wanting ten per cent of what the flies hadn’t eaten off your face.

  As a profession, writing in Oz is more like a sideline, or something else to do instead of filling out the crossword puzzle in the Tele when you’re sitting on the brascoe.

  Let’s have a look at the wanking side of it. Snobbery and elitism abound among authors and publishers in this country. There’s writers in Australia flat out selling 2000 books a year, yet they live quite comfortably on handouts from the Arts Council or literary grants: a glorified writer’s dole. They’ve got their little airy-fairy friends in the Arts Council wine-and-cheese set and they write the kind of Double Bay coffee shop crud these people like. They receive grant after grant to pen this shit so literary elitists can gush over it in front of the fire with their King Island brie and chardonnay and read things into it that the serfs can’t. And while these fatarsed Wallys and Wallerinas are hogging all the chops, up-and-coming writers with a bit more in their balls and ovaries than flat lemonade are being forced to give the game away.

  In my opinion, you should, if you merit it, receive one grant. If you can’t hack it after that, piss your typewriter off and get a job driving a cab or working in a paint factory out at Toongabbie.

  I applied for and received a literary grant of $8500, only because a mate of mine’s wife used to work in the department and told me how to word the application form. And I’d already had two books published.

  Publishers love to wank even more than the authors. As much as they like getting the stuff out on the bookshelves and turning a dollar, they’re more interested in scoring points and showing their piddling little bit of authority and, of course, impressing the wine-and-cheese set.

  I know my writing limitations. James Michener or Emile Zola I’m not. Who the best writer is in Australia I don’t know, but it’s definitely not me. But I’m the best thing that’s happened to Australian writing in 20 years, one interviewer told me. When it comes to writing ballsy, contemporary stories that tell it like it is with street humour, I can write rings around half these so-called Australian authors with their tweed coats and briar pipes in the top pocket.

  And these ponces can’t get within streets of me for dialogue. Henry Lawson was the master of writing Australian dialogue and I’ve read and studied and maybe purloined enough of his style, the poor old bugger must roll over in his grave every time I have a new book or a short story out.

  So I reckon I’ve got half an idea of what I’m doing, and seeing as my first book is in its fourth print you would think the publishers would leave well enough alone. But oh no. They hire these ponces called sub-editors to vet your stuff. Now I know every writer needs editing and all these dills are supposed to do is fix up any spelling, grammatical errors and punctuation and maybe make a suggestion or rearrange a word or two here and there. Maybe. But not these jerks in Australia. They’re all frustrated writers, hovering on the social scale somewhere between heroin dealers and parking police. They can’t for the life of them write a book themselves and they’re going to make sure nobody else can.

  Then there’s the cultural cringe you have to put up with. I write contemporary Australiana. I’m certain that’s the country I’m living in and the people I meet talk that language. To the yuppies in the publishing game, however, this is referred to as ‘ocker’, the most detestable word I know. To them, anyone who doesn’t talk like Stuart Wagstaff and dress like Trent Nathan is an ocker.

  Also, when I say my style of writing is off the wall and tells it like it is, it’s another way of saying it’s crude, racist and offensive. But I look at it this way: if you’re white, Australian and have an Anglo-Saxon name, you’re automatically branded a racist and are expected to appease and kiss the arse of every non-white in the world. And if you like to play a bit of hide-the-sausage with members of the opposite sex, it’s worse again. You’re a straight, a square or a chauvinist and should be castrated.

  So seeing as you can’t win, why not lower your sights and give the lot a serve: poofs, dykes, wogs, reffos, dingbats, abos, yobbos. Fire from the hip, just keep the humour up and blow the lot out of the water. And if it offends, stiff shit. At least if you insult the lot of them, they can’t accuse you of being discriminatory.

  It puts the publishers in a quandary though. They’ve got a bestselling writer on their hands, yet to keep in sweet with the wine-and-cheese set they’ve got to try and dissociate themselves from me and somehow, discreetly, publish my stuff at the same time. Which is why you never see a Les Norton
book launch or too many posters around. It may possibly dawn on the publishers, next time they have to reprint one of my books, that there are a lot more people out there eating blade steak and drinking beer than what there are nibbling Danish blue vein and sipping chardonnay.

  I wonder how many people out there have met a living, breathing Australian author. Apart from Colleen McCullough and Frank Hardy they’re about the most boring, self-opinionated people on God’s earth. They pontificate, strike poses and give away words like gold watches. If you asked an Australian author the time he/she would give you a philosophy on time, space and the universe. Time is of the essence. A clock ticks. A sun dial throws a shadow. Why? Sort of: I think, therefore I am. I strop myself, therefore I blow in my hand would be more like it.

  Anyway, I imagine by now you’re starting to think, Christ! Can’t this fuckin’ Barrett whinge. He hates publishers, despises sub-editors and other writers give him the shits; as do film producers. He’s bleating about not making any money, his hair’s falling out and he can’t get a root. The literary scene’s one great lemon in general. Well, why bother? Is there anything about writing in Australia that has anything going for it?

  Yes. It does have its moments.

  When it finally dawns on you you’re not going to make any money and pea-brained yuppies are going to try and treat you like shit for your efforts, you have to find a laugh or some gratification somewhere or you’ll finish up either in Morisset or on an assault charge. It’s a good feeling when you’re sitting on the beach and you see someone reading one of your books and they’re laughing. You watch them for a while and when they’re about to leave you go up and ask them what they think of the book. They generally say, ‘It’s the grouse’ or, ‘Pretty good. Why?’ Then you tell them you’re the nut that wrote it. The initial look on their faces is worth a year’s royalties. Then you have a bit of a nag before writing something nice or funny in the front of the book. It’s a good vibe all round.