Chopper Unchopped (193 page)

Tina was concerned for my state and alerted the ABC staff that Chopper looked a bit pissed to her. Don’t tell me that no-one told Elle that there was a pissed out-off-his-head, no-eared bloke backstage. Elle gambled that a drunken Chopper Read would be more fun than a sober one.

Elle didn’t want to put her little Jewish girl university undergraduate sense of humour up against mine unless I was drunk to the point of not being able to speak. It was the same in the crime world. I always dealt with people who had more to lose than me.

Having said that, it was my own fault. I didn’t have to drink as much as I did and I could have just continued to lay on the floor of the Green room and refused to walk on stage. It wasn’t Elle’s fault.

Most guests are given a few quiet wines to mellow them out before they go on.

I’m sure that is all Elle wanted. I don’t think she believed that I was as drunk as she was told I was. The point was that Elle was told. Tina Arena was concerned enough about me to speak up and say something a good hour before I went on, but that’s show business. I went on and made an idiot of myself and Elle and the ABC allowed me to do so, claiming they had no idea that I was drunk till I walked out on to the set. Libby then realised I was so pissed I could hardly speak.

Mellow is one thing, but her staff had allowed me to get into a near coma. Not that it would be that easy to stop me. After the show Elle ran up to me in the street outside the studio as I was leaving and with her dressing gown flapping in the breeze threw herself into my drunken arms.

‘Thanks, Chopper.’

‘I’m a bit pissed, Elle. I’m sorry,’ I slurred.

She laughed. ‘I was thinking of going into another line of work anyway. Ha ha.’

She knew I’d just fucked up her television career, but she thanked me for coming on her show and ordered two security blokes to drive me to my hotel. Libby had overplayed her hand. I had nothing to lose. She had everything. She gambled and she lost but she did it with charm, dignity, a smile, good humour and grace.

But, Elle, don’t you ever tell anyone that you didn’t know that I was just a little bit tipsy before the show.

You’ll come back, baby, and I hope your live TV days are more promising than mine are. Ha ha.

Postscript: when I got back to my hotel I began some serious drinking.

LET’S kill all the lawyers. A wealthy man called his three best friends to his death bed. They were a doctor, a politician and a lawyer. He told each man he wanted to take his money with him when he died. He then gave each man a million dollars and made each man swear to toss the money into his grave after the funeral.

Afterwards, the doctor asked the politician ‘did you toss in all the money?

‘Well, not quite,’ replied the politician. ‘I needed half a million for my re-election campaign and a further two hundred thousand for home renovations and another two hundred thousand for the new medical wing that is being named after me but I did toss in a hundred thousand. I’m sure the good Lord and the dear departed will understand.’

‘Yes,’ said the doctor. ‘Speaking of medical wings, I donated half a million to the medical research unit being named after me and I’m afraid I bought a new car and a new house.’

‘So how much did you toss into the grave?’ asked the politician. The doctor, looking embarrassed, said, ‘seventy-five thousand.’

The lawyer, listening in silence, shook his head in disgust.

‘Gentlemen, I’m ashamed of the both of you. I simply cannot believe what I’m hearing,’ said the lawyer.

The doctor and politician both looked at the lawyer and spoke at once.

‘How much did you toss in, then?’ they asked.

The lawyer held his head up and with a note of pride in his voice ‘Needless to say, gentlemen, I tossed in a cheque for the full amount.’ It’s an old joke but it holds true today. When a lawyer does you a favour look close, count all your fingers after shaking his hand and kiss your money goodbye. Oh, and don’t forget to thank him afterwards. I’ve sat in a lot of court rooms and I’ve had meetings with a lot of lawyers and I still haven’t met one lawyer who hasn’t tried to talk to me like I’m a mental retard. Criminal lawyers spend most of their time talking to criminals and most criminals are mental retards, therefore the lawyer does develop a superiority complex. It’s an occupational hazard, I suppose.

Lawyers in civil and family law spend most of their time with clients who haven’t got a legal clue. Again, this only feeds the ego of the monster — the lawyer, that is. And then we come to the Queen’s Counsel, and what a yellow brick road we then proceed to skip up. Ha ha.

Female lawyers can have a great bedside manner but are prone to losing cases. Never allow the charms of a lady lawyer to sway you from common sense. I’d love to tell some stories but the thought of being sued prevents me, not to mention my publishers. Let’s just say I knew of one lady lawyer who wore stockings and suspender belt, stiletto high heels and the works under her black dress and robe and would allow a certain client to run his hand up her leg in the Supreme Court interview room. She would be explaining why the case was hopeless and the client was telling her not to worry about it as he pumped half his hand into her.

When a guy is locked up in prison the mind can play tricks.

When a lady lawyer pops into the prison on a Sunday wearing runners and a baggy track suit and the poor prisoner is called up to the professional visit area to see his lawyer and the track suit pants come down and she invites the client to hump the arse off her it tends to soften the word guilty.

Of course when all is legally lost and the inmate hears tall tales about some bloke in the remand yard getting a blow job from his lady lawyer whenever she visits him, commonsense finally hits home and it’s ‘you’re sacked time’ and ‘has anyone got the phone number of a good QC’.

Let’s face it, knob polishers don’t win court cases. Of course, none of this ever happened to me and I’ve never met such a woman but I have heard some wild yarns, believe it or not. But if your lawyer shows close and personal how she can suck the chrome off a tow ball and you’re paying her from your own funds it’s hard to accuse her of robbing you — by such tricks as wiping the whole firm’s phone account off on to your bill and having large slabs of money held in trust spent on mindless nonsense — when you’re about to shoot your bolt.

No bloke wants to argue about money, but as I said none of this ever happened to me, perish the thought.

There was one high-flying lawyer who wanted me to do a certain media interview. I then find out that the female reporter in question has the lawyer on a promise. If Chopper does the interview the lawyer gets to play sink the sausage with said reporter.

Needless to say I didn’t do the interview and I fell out with the lawyer. After all, this lady reporter was all tits and legs, so why should some lawyer get all the goodies? He was getting her and I’d earn his undying gratitude. This isn’t some legal aid hack, mind you. This prick earns top dollar and he still wants me to get him laid. Legally, it made no sense at all to me.

There was a faggot lawyer in Melbourne who got caught in an extremely compromising position with a client in Pentridge, which proves there is something for everyone in this field. I know lawyers love a brief but this is ridiculous.

There was one lady lawyer in Melbourne who openly told clients that she worked her way through uni doing escort work Friday and Saturday nights for a good four years solid — and she still put in the odd night or two once a month, having bought her own escort agency. She would visit Pentridge regularly and I’d bump into her now and again, so to speak. I’d never hired her legally — or professionally, for that matter — but I knew her history. I mean, this was an open secret. She socialised with criminals and lawyers after hours and from all accounts was a nice lady to know. There was another girl working in a strip club in Melbourne after she finished her law degree. A couple of pissed partners of a major law firm were examining her while she did the splits on a table and ended up giving her a job in the firm. What is Latin for ‘show us your tits,’ I wonder?

But again I return to the QC. Mental illness or alcoholism must come with the territory.

One QC I knew who later became a Supreme Court justice spent several hours in the Supreme Court cells telling me about him seeing a UFO while travelling across the Nullabor Plain. That was fine, compared with the rest of the conversation …  when he told me he was a member of an organisation that believed Jesus Christ, Mohammad, Buddha and Adolf Hitler were, in fact, visitors from outer space sent to correct human history. This bloke was dead set insane, certifiable.

We have had paedophile judges. In fact shirt lifters and paedophiles in the judiciary are common place. The more prominent of these have taken their own lives.

I’ve seen one QC who would ask for an adjournment so he could polish off a quarter bottle of vodka in the toilet. Then he’d come back and win the case.

All I can say about lawyers is that criminals are the only people desperate enough and dumb enough to hire the turds.

MICHELE Bennett the producer of the Chopper movie rang to say it’s a goer. I suspect that she is quite mad but I admire her dash. She has been knocked back and knocked back, she’s had doors shut in her face and she’s kept going. We all said sorry for previous cross words and kissed and made up as people in the arts do.

Art is a three letter word for bullshit in my opinion but the movie has finally begun. It only took them nearly seven years.

I should be plonked up the bottom with a large rubber gumboot for doubting the buggers in the first place. Shame on me. Speaking of Shane, I got mad drunk again the other night at the Richmond Arms Hotel.

Evidently, so I’m told, I picked Stacy the barmaid up and gave her a shoulder ride around the bar. Maybe I’m part elephant. I’ll leave you to imagine which part.

I don’t recall any of this, mind you. Mary-Ann had to come and collect me yet again. Maybe I should get her an ambulance. She was not pleased. If I don’t tone my drunken conduct down divorce is in the air. Mary-Ann will stand for no more and I will have to go and live above a pub.

That didn’t sound too bad but then again I don’t want to lose my wife, home, child, cats, chooks, dog and all I’ve worked for just because of the demon drink, so I must sober myself and conduct myself in a manner befitting a best-selling author and landed gentry chicken farmer.

At long last I’ve encountered a person I’m quite fearful of …  my wife. And there’ll be no ha ha about that. It’s no laughing matter.

ALISON Downes and Shane Farmer came around the other day. They have turned out to be quite good friends. Miss Nude Australia and my wife get along quite well, which proves that it is an odd world we live in. Whenever I walk into the Richmond Arms with Alison you can hear a pin, or a prick, drop. I mean the lady is built like a blow-up doll and Shane has a voice louder than mine.

‘Hey Chopper, you drinking?’ he yells at the top of his lungs. What a stupid question, would you yell, ‘Hey Linda, you swallowing?’ or ‘Hey fish, you swimming?’

He then proceeds to tell people with great comedy what an arsehole I am. Complaining that whenever I come to his nightclub I cause trouble and play up.

I drink my beer in silence then mutter: ‘Shut up, Shane. You’re red lighting me you air-raiding bastard.’

But I deserve to be the butt of comic jest at the hands of mates and anger at the hands of my wife. My conduct after partaking of drink is getting quite out of hand. The trouble is that when you’ve been inside for so long there is a natural desire to catch up for lost time. When you know you should go home, you still fear you may miss out on some adventure. It’s just not in my nature to say, ‘no thanks, I must go home because there’s a good documentary on penguin mating on the ABC and the video’s broken.’

SADNESS and much tears befell our happy household a while ago. Mary-Ann was heartbroken. Our two dogs, Ronnie and Reggie, had to be shot, or put to sleep as they say. They were named after the Pommy gangsters, the Kray Brothers, only they were marginally more dangerous.

Ronnie (aka Master Splinter) had previously killed sheep with Reggie egging him on or was that Reggie with Ronnie egging him on? They worked as a team. Fox terrier, Jack Russell cross breeds, with a touch, I think, of wolverine.

They both went in for the kill but to Mary-Ann they were her most loyal and faithful little friends and she doted on them. I covered for them the last time they killed a sheep. On a property there is no court of appeal for a farm dog with a taste for warm mutton, but when they killed a sheep I would go into a cover-up mode quicker than Richard Nixon. I suppose my experience in getting rid of corpses and cleaning up bloodstains in a former life came in handy when trying to save the dogs from themselves.

Mary-Ann remained staunch to the dogs even when she knew they were killers. But then again, she’s married me so I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

But the beginning of the end came when Mary-Ann bought me a giant pure bred Sussex Fowl, a hen with thirteen chicks. We named her Gloria Swanson. She was the biggest, most magnificent chook you ever saw. A giant of a bird that looked more like an emu than a chook and within moments of her arrival Gloria Swanson took over the barn yard. She was a proud mother and her thirteen little yellow chicks followed her about all over the place. Any attempt to get near would have Gloria Swanson flying at you in a wild rage. She was not to be taken lightly.

Even the African guinea fowls, who are no chickens, ran when the great Gloria Swanson came near. Big deal, you poultry illiterates cry. Well, let me tell you the guinea fowls can slice human flesh with their beaks and are indeed a vicious, ill-tempered bird but no match for this mother Sussex hen.

Then came the day. I was having my afternoon nap, as creative writing and a bottle of bourbon can take it out of you, when I was woken up by Mary-Ann’s screams.