PASS MY LINES PLEASE

I figured out why movie stars generally are young these days. It's not just because they look good naked. It's also because their brains still work.
I learned this recently when I became an ``actor'' in a movie being made in Manly based on an item I wrote about blokes. I put ``actor'' in inverted commas because real actors can, you know, act. Whereas my job in this movie was to walk into the scene where the real actors were acting, and say a line like: ``Now, that's a good example of what I'm talking about!''
Sounds simple, right? You just walk confidently in there and blurt out that one sentence! What kind of moron would have trouble with that? An older moron. Me, for example. Oh, I'd memorize my line all right. I'd say it over and over, walking around the set like a deranged person, muttering inanely under my breath:
``Now, that's a good example of what I'm talking about!
``Now, that's a good example of what I'm talking about!
``Now, that's a good example of what I'm talking about!''
After maybe 600 repetitions, I was pretty convinced that I was ready to go. The problem was that the movie crew was never ready when I was. Movie crews are, basically, never ready to go. There's always a problem. Sometimes the light is too bright; sometimes it's too dark; sometimes a key actor develops a flagrant and visible guest in one nostril. It's always something . . .
And on those rare occasions when everything is perfect and you're set to go, suddenly, out of nowhere, a council guy will appear about 50m away and fire up a bloody leaf-blower. It seems to be the same bloke every time, no matter where you go. You could be filming a scene at the North Pole, and just when the director called ``Action'': Bla-a-a-a-a-a-a-arrrgh . . . there would be your council leaf-blower guy.
The point is that there are endless delays on the movie set while the crew scurries around changing the lighting, wiping the actor’s nose, firing off tranquilizer darts at the leaf-blower lunatic . . . whatever.
During these delays, I would strive to keep my solitary little line - ``Now, that's a good example of what I'm talking about!'' - at the forefront of my consciousness. But mine is an older brain, already crammed to capacity with vital information, and soon other thoughts would start seeping, like rising damp in an old cellar, into the lobotomy lobe. For example, my brain would decide, for reasons of its own, that now - right this very moment on the movie set, when I was poised to do a scene - would be an ideal time to review the song ``Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life'' sung in that John Cleese movie The Life of Brian. You know the one: Always look on the bri-i-i-ght side o' life, da dum, da-da da-da da-dum ...
So I'd be walking around, with my mouth muttering, ``Now, that's a good example of what I'm talking about! Now, that's a good example of what I'm talking about!'' But my cerebellum, in an assertive brain voice, would be singing, ``da dum, da-da da-da da-dum!'' over and over again until this was all I could think about, and just then the director, Grant Turner, would yell: ``Action'', and ... with the camera and that big fluffy microphone-on-stick thing pointed at me, and everybody watching me intently ... I would mutter: ``Now, that's an example of a good thing I am talking about!'' ... Or: ``I am talking about a good example of a thing now!'' ... Or: ``It's a good thing I have been talking now, about that example!''
And Grant would clench his teeth and purse his thin lips and say: ``Cut''. Then we'd have to do it again, and then again, until it became clear to everyone that, dialogue-wise, the scene might actually work a whole lot better with just the leaf-blower.
Later I had to do another scene with - and you won't believe this, but it's the absolute gospel truth - a trained kelpie named Kylie. I was supposed to pick Kylie up off the ground and, while walking directly towards the camera, speak three simple sentences. Now many of you will be familiar with that famous old saying: ``He can't walk and talk and carry a trained kelpie at the same time'' ... yeah? Well that describes my predicament perfectly. I'm clutching this squirming dog, striding forward, staring straight into the camera, sweat spurting from my armpits exactly like in that deodorant ad, and the boombox of my brain is locked in Replay, going: ``da dum, da-da da-da da-dum!'' So we did it over and over, me picking up this poor pathetic pooch, utterly unable to utter my lines. I bet when Kylie finally got home, she really went for her agent, fangs bared and snarling, foam flying as she locked onto his calf as he made for the door.
Anyway, we finally got through it, even my scenes. If you go see it (``Steve Stickney's Complete Guide to Blokes''), I hope you enjoy it. And if you notice that, at times, I appear to be distracted, that's a good example of what I'm talking about ... ``da dum, da-da da-da da-dum!''

EVIL EASTER BUNNY

THE EASTER BUNNY

Easter is just around the corner again and we’re just hoping to come through unscathed.

The annual egg-fest was never the same for me and my little sister Judy after Rosie bit into my cheek when I was a wide-eyed four-year-old, drawing blood and sending me screaming into my mother's apron.

Rosie was a fluffy white rabbit, given to me by Grandma Bourke in the vain hope it would make me sit still long enough for her to tell me the REAL story of Easter.

Grandma was a pious woman with a passionate belief in the Good Book. She has a penchant for delivering sermons in a voice hushed with holiness, reminding us that we were put here for a reason - and we must never, ever reject God's plan for us.

Her zeal for spreading the word made me believe God's task for Grandma involved her personally saving at least 3000 heathens from the smouldering maw of Hell and, at the age of 78, she was acutely aware she was still well short of her target.

Surely that was the only reason she'd bother spending an hour or more every weekend chiding our shapely baby-sitter, Miss Beryl, for reading trashy Barbara Cartland novels and not wearing gloves on Sundays as she filed into St Marks at Ermington.

I discovered a bit later, after Miss Beryl met our paperboy Jimmy, that our buxom baby-sitter was never even the remotest chance of becoming one of those blessed 3000.

But back to Rosie. Far from being a compliant, child-loving bundle of soft fur, Rosie turned out to be a neurotic beast whose beady red eyes used to gleam with malice whenever a child wandered within striking distance. Any effort to pat her or, Heaven forbid, to pick her up for a cuddle, was greeted with the same kind of welcome a mailman gets from a mastiff.

Rosie mysteriously disappeared from her hutch shortly after the biting incident and, I must confess, my grieving period was almost indecently brief.

A few years later, the Easter spirit took another pasting at our place. Grandma Bourke was feeding me chunks of chocolate Easter egg, sandwiched between parables from God's Word and admonishments for squishing wads of Juicy Fruit into my sister's long, golden hair.

All the while, grandma held the partly-dispensed Easter egg in her uplifted left hand, out of my reach and my line of sight. I guess she sensed I'd make a lunge for it before Nicodemus had finished helping Joseph of Arimathea to bury the crucified Son of God if she didn't keep that egg at arm's length.

That's probably why I didn't notice the skerrick of metallic foil stuck to the wedge of chocolate grandma thrust at her captive potential convert. My first realisation of this oversight was a searing, scarlet-coloured pain which circumnavigated my skull when that tiny piece of silver wrapper touched an albumen filling.

I thought grandma had stabbed me in the chops with a chocolate-covered knitting needle; grandma thought I was possessed and started praying furiously with her grey head tilted back and her eyes half-closed.

That scared me even  more than the pain in my tooth so I again took off for the safety of mum's apron. Trouble was, mum was in the middle of making a batch of hot-crossed buns and those clumps of spotty dough went flying. Mum began yelling and that interrupted my father's sacred hour of The Goon Show on the wireless. When he came to investigate, my old man's face was the colour of tomato sauce.

So, grandma was wailing for God's forgiveness, mum was glaring at me, Judy was trying tearfully to pull clumps of chewing gum from her hair, dad was ready to wring my neck and my tooth felt like a lava flow. I was grounded, there were no hot-crossed buns, and Miss Beryl and Jimmy were the only one who got to go to the Royal Easter Show that year.

It was their first date and they became ``an item’'. Grandma offered frosty congratulations but, deep inside, was scandalised by Beryl's betrayal. Nevertheless, the old dear bought them a gift: a fluffy little white rabbit - which she named Rosie. 

FLU IN FOCUS

WINTER is just around the corner, and you know what that means: flu, colds, spluttering, sneezing and mucus, lots of mucus.

Flu (the microbial world's version of leprosy) is taken so seriously around here that doctors inject you with it to prevent you from becoming as sick as a hound. The injection itself will make you as sick as a hound, but you won't get the flu.

Our doctor runs a practice in the heart of Newtown, but we are not allowed to name him for moral reasons. The main one being that there is only so much money you can cram into one bank account without it becoming indecently overcrowded in there and it would be embarrassing if everybody in town knew how ridiculously rich you were (only joking Doc).

So they go by pseudonyms like Dr Wright. But that one's already taken . . . and so's Dr Death (only joking again, Doc) . . . so we'll call our family medicator Dr Dinosaur. We'll call him that not because of his age or appearance, but because of the way he explained what causes the flu.

It is caused by millions of microscopic viruses which, under a microscope, look just like itsy-bitsy dinosaurs. Some have claws, some have spikes and others have long tails which ``flagellate''. Fancy that!

Inside our sinuses these little critters build colonies attached to our nasal hairs (the scientific term for this is ``snot''), from which they attack. They rip and tear and cavort about, which causes us to feel as sick as all get-out and to sneeze repeatedly in an effort to dislodge them.

By the way, scientists have discovered that when you sneeze, tiny particles - including miniature dinosaurs - come hurtling out of your nostrils at speeds exceeding 600km/hr. (So it is pointless trying to duck when one of your workmates starts ah-tishu-ing all over the place).

Colds and flus have plagued humanity for eons, but until recently, nobody knew what to do. According to Dr Dinosaur, streptococcus pyogenes (common name: ``inflammation-causing nano-stegosaurus'') and staphylococcus aureus (``phlegm-generating micro-tyrannosaurus'') were two particularly nasty little bugs which reproduced so rapidly that there were soon enough cells to clump themselves into life-forms known as lawyers and parking police.

Then, in 1928, Alexander Fleming, a bacteriologist at London's St Mary's Hospital, discovered that by stuffing mouldy oranges into patients' mouths, most of these little dinocrobes died or fled, leaving the patients nauseated to the point of vomiting blood for weeks - but not coughing and sneezing. The era of antibiotics had arrived.

We had identified how bacteria and viruses operate, and, although we couldn't entirely vanquish them, we continued to refine our research until we stumbled upon vaccinations, a technical term for experimentally injecting people with substances like Vegemite and Listerene in order to protect them from viruses and bacteria - even if it killed them.

Years of pain-staking research followed (PAIN-staking for the subjects, not the researchers . . . that's where we got the medical word staph, which is actually a corruption of the workplace term STAFF).

Scientists eventually discovered that by injecting people with a diluted dose of flu, their symptoms

would completely disappear after four or five days. Whereas, without a flu shot, the illness could linger for anything up to three, or even four, days.

Dr Dinosaur makes no bones about the fact that he is pro-vaccination. He also recommends cold and flu medications which are available from companies like Cumberland Newspapers or even over-the-counter. You know the ones, encased in safety packaging so microbe-resistant, you have to spear them with a kitchen knife to prise them open. Some people have severed limbs trying to find a way into these products.

But the best tactic, he says, is to avoid getting infected altogether. In the workplace there is a

foolproof method of avoiding cross-infection from ailing colleagues.

Simply clamp your eyes and mouth shut, stuff wads of scrunched-up paper in your nose and ears - and you'll live happily ever arf-ah-arrgh-TISH-u.

WHY SKIING SHOULD BE ILLEGAL

LET'S GO (SHIVER) SKIING

WELL the leaves are falling off all the trees again, signalling an end to that quirky ``daylight saving'' summer season and heralding the arrival of ``winter'' (an Aboriginal word meaning ``set fire to some wood'').

And while most sensible people follow the accepted survival logic of considering a sojourn somewhere warm and safe, my dearest pals here in the inner west will take the contrary option of heading to the High Country so they can risk their lives hurtling down steep snow-covered hills on skinny little sticks of plastic. Yep, for a holiday idea which weaves the prospect of outdoor fun with the possibility of knocking over a snowgum with your chin, you can't go past snow skiing.

Last year we went on a ski trip to Thredbo (an Aboriginal word meaning ``sticks with no brakes''), and it was an adventure we will remember fondly for many years while our fractures knit. Now my masochistic mates plan to do it again!

If you want a successful trip to the Snow Country, you must have a plan, by which I mean: piles of money. For starters, you'll need a special outfit approved by SCFP (Snow Country Fashion Police). In order to get the SCFP tick of approval, your clobber must: (a) cost as much as a small family sedan, and (b) make you look like a fat, fluorescent alien.

Next you'll need ski goggles, which cost a minimum $80 per eyeball and are scientifically designed to avoid fogging up  unless, of course, you wear them. Then they provide about the same transparency as a lump of snowgum, so don't pull them down over your eyes until just before you hit something.

You'll also require ski boots, insulated clogs made from melted bowling balls, whose main role is to stop you from realising your feet are so cold they will snap off at the ankles if you try to take your boots off before you put your legs up to your knees in a microwave oven. Finally, you should rent your skis, unless you care to sell one of your kidneys to get enough dough to buy new ones.

Now for the slopes. Experts say it's wise to join a ski class first  to postpone the inevitable injuries you'll suffer, and also so there'll be someone you know in the osseo-reconstructive ward at the hospital. Instructors are always Scandinavian teenagers named ``Sven'', who will make you walk like a crab to a steep spot on the side of the mountain. He will then ski gracefully down to the tree-line, swooshing to an elegant, arcing halt, leaving you feeling bewildered and deficient back at the summit.

Sven then turns and beckons to the first L-plater. This is the funny bit. Hibernating animals often dig their way out of snow drifts just to watch this bit because they get an endorphin rush out of watching the novices almost instantly hit Mach III as they hurtle past Sven in a blur on their way into the snowgums, flailing away like entrants in an outback fly-swatting contest.

``Mor-vellous!'' shouts Sven, clenching his fluorescent buttocks tightly together to stop himself wetting his waterproof pants. One by one, the students ski into the undergrowth, before clawing their way into a clearing, bristling with embedded twigs and swathed in paperbark, at which point Sven calls out: ``Let's try again . th. th. and bend those knees!'' He knows that this will actually make them go faster.

Sven gets such a kick out of his job.