The last slice of the pie?

Nothing makes you feel older than a reunion movie where the characters are still younger than you were when the original film was released (1999).

Then throw in a line from one of the characters describing a Spice Girls hit as "classic rock" and I'm one step away from setting up home in a 'Lifestyle Retirement Village' to while away my remaining days in a Jason Recliner.

But hey, as The Stiffmeister might say, you're only as old as the woman you're feeling. Oh dear...

Yep, it's 'American Pie: Reunion' - park your political correctness at the ticket counter, set the humour dial to 'juvenile' and prepare yourself for 100 minutes of sheer good fun. More fun than a sock full of KY Jelly, where this (probably) final slice of the American Pie juggernaught begins.

American Reunion isn't a particularly well crafted film and plot is just a four letter word that doesn't rhyme with dick, but it's the dialogue that keeps this pie cooking.

And most of the outrageously non-PC lines are straight out of the mouth of Steve Stifler (Seann William Scott). "He might be a dick, but he's our dick", according to Jim (Jason Biggs), the original perforator of pie who spawned the film's title.

While it's Stifler who keeps this tale ticking along, the other characters provide the perfect comedic foil. In particular Jim's Dad (Eugene Levy) who shares a particularly memorable scene with Stifler's Mom (Jennifer Coolidge) that will have you choking on your popcorn. Some advice - don't get up and leave as soon as the credits roll, or you'll miss out!

If this is the last slice of the pie, then rest assured, the last bite tastes as good as the first.

And while you won't walk away from the cinema reflecting on the meaning of life, this film will leave you a wiser human being - you will never again reach into an esky without looking and you'll discover there really is an erotic side to lacross. In more ways than one.

American Pie: Reunion - in cinemas from today, April 5

Synopsis:
In the comedy American Reunion, all the American Pie characters we met a little more than a decade ago are returning to East Great Falls for their high-school reunion. In one long-overdue weekend, they will discover what has changed, who hasn't and that time and distance can't break the bonds of friendship. It was summer 1999 when four small-town Michigan boys began a quest to lose their virginity. In the years that have passed, Jim and Michelle married while Kevin and Vicky said goodbye. Oz and Heather grew apart, but Finch still longs for Stifler's mom. Now these lifelong friends have come home as adults to reminisce about-and get inspired by-the hormonal teens who launched a comedy legend.

Classified MA

Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Tara Reid,
Seann William Scott, Mena Suvari, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Jennifer Coolidge and Eugene Levy. Directed by Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg

1979 part II

Some more gems from the Daily News 1979...

1979 - perms, vinyl and disco rules yeah?

The Smashing Pumpkins got it, "Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time..."

The end of the seventies was the end of a golden time. I was one year shy of becoming a teen and occupied my time feeding 20 cent coins into the pinball machines at Minder Binders and Gay Gordon's down on Scarborough Beach and getting burnt like a Samboy chip in the surf off Trigg Point.

When I wasn't mastering the psychadelic deck of my Len Dibben, I was fighting the speed wobbles on my Trax skateboard down stupidly steep hills like Pearl Parade. Somehow I almost always found a soft landing place - I lost plenty of bark, but never broke a bone, even when I rode the BMX flat out into a brick wall at the bottom of my treacherous driveway (brake failure).

It was the year I fell asleep on the toilet facing the wrong way after staying up all night watching a monster movie marathon. And the year I got dobbed in for smoking a ciggie at one of the aforementioned pinball parlours.

I was there when Premier Charlie Court opened the space age Clock Tower at Scarborough Beach (no ciggies) and spent many a day and night gazing skyward wondering if Skylab would come crashing down on my head.

So, when I came across this old copy of the Daily News - yes, Perth had its own afternoon newspaper - I thought I'd share.

There was Pinnochios and Beethovens for the disco set and plenty of places you could get a perm and blow dry... men too!

Sexist advertising was rampant and cigarettes, at less than a dollar a pack, were openly promoted in full page ad slots.

Stay cool Perth...

Books, bucket bongs & randy snails...

I love books. I love the covers, the smell and feel of the paper and the way they all interact as one big literary organism in my cubist Ikea bookshelf.

And as a lover of books I have my favourite authors, many of whom are Australian. Among them are Nick Earls, John Birmingham, Andrew McGahan, Shane Maloney and Robert Drewe.

So when I scanned the list of Perth Writers Festival drawcards for 2012, I was chuffed to see Nick Earls and John Birmingham joining WA's own Stephen Scourfield for a discussion about Bromance in the modern fiction novel.

I was even more chuffed when Nick Earls tweeted to see if I was up to join them afterwards for drinks and, perchance, wax lyrical. Even better, JB offered up four free tickets, so I was able to bring along some fabulous Perth tweeps: @epigrammist @kitta and @theflyingdamsel.

I'm still unclear as to who came up with a concept of a literary panel discussion on the theme of Bromance, but it soon opened up into a wider discussion fueled by robot sex, bucket bongs and lewd acts involving glass-topped coffee tables. And let's not forget the 'luther' and Stephen Scourfield's moderno-Italian accent that for some reason left me with the Dolmio theme in my head.

Post-Bromance we all headed down to that most curious of writers festival phenomenons, the book tent and signing table. The punters file in one end of the tent, purchase their selected paperbacks and then shuffle back out again to have them signed by one of the authors.

JB and NE took their seats on the table, but something was horribly askew. Of the eight or so authors at the table, only one grey haired bloke in a navy blazer was managing to draw a crowd - in fact he was in danger of a carpal tunnel injury.

The bloke in question was the Hon Michael Kirby AC, CMG. Fair enough.

I'm sure there would have been more signings all round, but the one cash register inside the book tent was having issues coping with the long line of people now snaking out the door.

So we left Michael to his legion of fans, picked up a sprightly Frank Moorhouse on our travels and went in search of red wine. Talk soon moved on the the affects of gastroenteritis, how Nick and I share an unhealthy fascination with fortune cookies (read his latest book The Fix) and Krissy Kneen's use of snails in erotica - you had to be there for the context.

A thoroughly enjoyable night that ended up over free drinks at the Boulevard Hotel's 1st Birthday party and way too much leftover food. JB will forever associate me with wastage of gourmet sausage rolls.

The TOP 10 social media trends for 2012

This is the real deal... for everyone who's over the 2012 predictions already :)

1. Porn bots will continue to be potty mouthed tramps who can't type and refuse to follow.
2. Augmented reality implants recalled after a spate of brain explosions.
3. Retro will roll on - all the cool kids will carry note pads (and biros).
4. Scratch and sniff tweets to be launched in July.
5. Scratch & sniff facebook status updates to be launched in August (but only to people prepared to sell their souls).
6. Australian man with 1.75million followers dies but is not discovered for six months (chokes on spam).
7. A lucrative trade to open in mail order porn bots.
8. iPhone 5 to be released mid-August with a built-in nasal hair trimmer.
9. K Rudd starts his own social networking platform and declares himself King.
10. Gen-Y crisis as young people realise that time lines are for life and exist in the REAL world too!

Need Someone Who Bats (Cool for Cats)

To the tune of Cool For Cats by The Squeeze (with apologies)

The Indians send signals
From the Narrows overpass
The WACA groundstaff drinking
On the pitch and on the grass

Sharma's with the captain
Munching lamb chops with Dhoni
He doesn't mind the curry
It's the media he don't need

He likes to ride on go karts
When the coach is fast asleep
He wakes to find the spirit's dead
And arrows in their backs
And Bradley Haddin rides around
And says 'you need someone who bats, someone who bats...'

Hilfy’s bowling ninety
'Cos he's got the word to go
They've got a gang of pacemen
In the sheds ready to go
They're throwing down the bouncers
The openers choke again
In and out the changerooms
Single numbers on their names
It's funny how their scorecards
Always look the bleedin' same
And meanwhile in the nets
There's a couple of Aussie lads
Who swear like Rodney Marsh
That they're very keen to bat
They're keen to bat

To change the mood a little
Tendulkar's bought in some flash grub
Cooked by Gogo Govardham
Lamb chops fat and plump
They fancy this, they fancy that
They wanna have a dash
They do a bit of sledging
Bout the grass that's on the track
All they get is caught behind and stumped behind their back
And by the time last drinks are called
They’re miserable and sad
And ev'rybody tells them that they need someone who bats
Someone who bats

Shake up at selection
And they think they've got Pup's mark
They fire down the short balls
And he nails them to the wall
He misses for the first time
And then they drop a catch
He notches up a triple ton
They choke on lamb chop bones
He likes to go the tonk you see
But he's not on his own

He said I'll see you later
And sends them in to bat
But it's not happy in Chennai
They want someone who bats
Someone who bats

The Great White Shark Hunt

Apologies to Hunter S. Thompson.

Don’t ask me how, but I did the impossible and wangled a CHOGM media pass not only for myself, but for my outrageously loud Fijian lawyer who I’d bought with me on this gig to handle ‘supplies’. And the way things were shaping up, we were going to need all the supplies we could lay our greedy hands on if we were to maintain some semblance of sanity and avoid having our skulls cracked by the trigger itchy security goons on every street corner.

Welcome to Perth, home of the all mighty mining dollar where everything’s fast, shiny and shuts at six. As all good gigs go, this one had taken a sharp turn to the left and was fast sliding into the realms of absurdity – a place where only the most drug addled of minds can operate successfully without succumbing to crippling, eye gouging paranoia.

It was not a place to be without a high powered weapon. I had been here before and I would be here again, but first something had to die.

Lazlo and I found ourselves riding high on the fly-bridge of the FarQ II heading out of Fremantle towards Rottnest Island. We had intended to spend the day running amok on a Captain Cook winery cruise, but that was until shark frenzy took a choker hold on Perth City and every redneck who owned a tinny suddenly morphed into a wild-eyed cross between Captain Nemo and Crocodile Dundee.

Another week, another shark death. It was all too much for a town on the verge of CHOGM glory, so the call went out to ‘shoot to kill’ and the race was on to see who would string this monster of the deep up by its murderous tail and bring justice to the land once again.

We’d packed lightly for this trip. An esky full of dark rum, three sheets of blotter acid and enough cocaine to keep the Bolivian Army marching for a year. We also had two high tensile trolling rods baited with whole pig’s heads, 120 litres of sheep blood, a pump action Ruger shotgun, a .45 Colt and an Alaskan pick axe just in case the fight came to close quarters.

We were half way across ‘Stragglers’ when the drugs began to take hold and the shit began to go down. Captain Jack had been busy ladelling bucket-loads of gore into our wake, when suddenly line started screaming off one of the trolling rods, as the water exploded about 100m off the starboard bow.

The whole boat lurched and I spilled most of my rum down Lazlo’s shirt as he scrambled around on deck like a ludicrous, hairy crab trying to find its footing. “Stay still, you fool. You’ll get us all killed carrying on like that.” I pushed him back into his chair and stood back to take stock of the situation.

Line continued to burn off the smoking reel and it was obvious that we’d hooked into something huge and terrifying that would drag us all to our death, boat and all. “There’s only one thing for it, we’ll have to shoot the fucker!” I screamed grappling for the shot gun and taking the steps to the deck three at a time. “Stand back Captain Jack, this one’s mine!”

The crew cowered in the bulk-head fearing the worst as I surveyed the broiling, inky waters before me. Shapes loomed from the deep, bats screeched from the heavens... yes, there are ALWAYS bats... as I took my bead on one evil murderous eye that gleamed from the head of a white pointer bigger than a Kombi Van and now only metres from where I stood. One, two...

‘BARPPPPP!’ The sound caught me like a punch in the face as a fast moving ferry cut across our bow and a single figure leapt gracefully from the deck clutching a spear in one hand and a Swiss Army Knife in the other. In a second the hunt was over and my final moment of glory snatched cruelly from my grasp.

I reached for the rum and chuckled quietly under my breath. “We meet again Freocookster... we meet again.”

When pranks go wrong...

Listening to a commercial radio station today they were talking about how the condom full of icecream prank at McDonald's Geraldton went so horribly wrong. They asked listeners to share their examples of when seemingly hilarious pranks went wrong.

Now those who know me will understand that I'm a keen prankster who would lie to his own Mum for the chance to get a laugh at someone else's expense. Generally these pranks involve a small white lie that I put right before the whole thing goes pear shaped and the poo hits the proverbial.

But sometimes time gets away from me and I forget the seed I've sown until it blooms into something way beyond a simple joke and threatens the balance of peace in the free world... or in my world at least.

Here's a great case in point...

Back in the 90s I worked at the POST Newspaper group where we put out a half dozen papers covering Melbourne's outer eastern suburbs. At the time I was working as editor of the Whitehorse POST covering the Box Hill area and surrounds, but had until recently edited the Maroondah POST which takes in Ringwood and Croydon.

So, I'm digging through my in-tray one morning and come across a police media alert about two men who had been arrested and charged with grievous bodily harm after assaulting a man at Jooce Nightclub (yep, as bogan as the name sounds).

The report was from a year earlier, but I thought it'd be rib ticklingly funny to white out the dates and change it to the current day, then photocopy it and slide it into my mate Peter's tray who was now editing the Maroondah POST.

Of course, he pulls it out, we have a quick yarn about the story and then I promptly forget all about it and start work on my front page story about poison dim sims in a suburban supermarket (seriously).

Fast forward two days later and the whole office is in a deadline frenzy. I wander past Peter's desk where he's hunkered over his screen with our editor in chief Mal, working on his front page story - both are in a lather to get it right, given it has serious legalities about what can and can't go to print.

That's when the 72pt headline jumps off the screen and rabbit punches me between the eyes: MEN CHARGED WITH JOOCE BASHING

And that's when I had to explain why it would be a very bad idea to run with that story and how very sorry I was to have left them stranded on deadline day without a front page yarn.

I think the C word may have come into play that afternoon.

The upside for Peter was that a few weeks later he convinced me that I'd gone to print with a headline talking about the Mininster for the Farts. Touche!

When has one of your pranks turned around and savaged you in the backside?