G’day readers.
Once again I have to apologise for not updating my website. I‘m getting a bit slack, but again, I do have a feeble excuse. I just finished another book, Rosa-Marie’s Baby. And it’s not a bad one. It’s set in Victoria this time. In Melbourne, Lorne and Apollo Bay. I don’t know if any of you have heard of a woman called Rosaleen Norton. She was a notorious artist from Kings Cross in Sydney and was known as the Witch of Kings Cross back in the forties and fifties. The police and the government used to hound her, and the Customs Department actually burnt her paintings on the grounds of obscenity. I changed the names around a bit and built a story around Les getting a letter addressed to her after being lost in the Dead Letter Office for fifty years from a friend saying he’d saved some of her paintings from burning and they were hidden in an old church in Lorne. Naturally, money-hungry Les decides to go looking for her paintings saying she was his mother and cash them in, after he and Eddie Salita do a hit in Melbourne. There’s heaps of rampant sex and gratuitous violence; I reckon you’ll dig this one. It’s worth getting just for the cover. We got the rights to use one of Rosaleen Norton’s paintings. Despite all the weird, satanistic themes of Rosaleen Norton’s works, she was a great artist. Her only problem was, she was about fifty years ahead of her time. If she was around now, she’d be on par with any famous Australian artists and just as rich. She died in 1979 pretty well broke.
I had a good time in Melbourne and cruising along the Great Ocean Road researching the book, met a few readers and other nice people and got drunk with them. Lorne’s a good place. There’s some top pubs, bars and restaurants there; I got thrown out of all of them.
My other travels have taken me to the Norfolk Island Writers and Readers Festival. That was a hoot. I met up with Colleen McCullough and she invited me out to her place for baked dinner. You should see her house. It’s amazing what you can do if you’ve got millions in the bank and good taste. And talking about good taste, Col’s a bloody good cook. But the thing that blew me on Norfolk, was all the older women reading my books. The festival was very blue rinse and kind of conservative and I didn’t think I’d have a prayer of finding a punter. Yet there were all these sweethearts in their golden years reading my books. ‘Oh yes, Mr. Barrett. Your books are a little risqué, and Les Norton is a bit of a devil. But they’re really quite good, once you get into them.’ I couldn’t argue with that. And they were wrapt in The Ultimate Aphrodisiac. Anyway, I signed heaps of books, smiled away while they took photos with me and doled out plenty of cuddles and kisses on the cheek. I know half my readers are women. But all the golden girls took me by surprise. I was absolutely stoked.
When I got back from Norfolk, the Army asked me would I come down and say a few words to the DFSU – the Deployed Forces Support Unit. This is the team that briefs the troops before they leave for the Middle East, the Solomons, wherever. Along with my publicist, Mel Cain, I did. It was a great day and I was only too happy to meet the troops and give them my support. I’ve got a big following through the Australian Armed Forces. Whenever they get posted somewhere, I bundle up a box of books, make sure I sign each one, and send them off. Being a long way from home and having to put up with flies, heat, shit and people taking shots at them, the troops really appreciate this and I get some great letters from everyone to fighter pilots to cooks. But for me it’s an honour to do it. Compared to the rest, I reckon our military does a sensational job and they make me proud to be an Australian.
Coming up I’ve got the Spikefest in Woy Woy, a festival about Spike Milligan which I’ve been asked to put my head into on behalf of the Australian Cartoonists Association. Then the Kings Cross Writers Festival, where I’ve got to put my melon in again. And shortly I’m off back to Narooma, where I wrote Mystery Bay Blues, for the Great Southern Blues Festival. Then I have to get more skin cancers cut out because I like to sit on my arse down the beach all day in the summer and after that I’ve got a hernia operation to look forward to. You won’t believe this, but I bought a video on special called Denise Austin Super Stomachs. Guaranteed to give you an ironclad six-pack. So I started doing this aerobics princesses’s workout watching TV. It nearly killed me. Instead of a six-pack I finished with a hernia. Now I’ve got to get the thing cut and a mesh sewn in so I don’t look like I’m twelve months pregnant with quintuplets. Then when I get it done I’ll be completely rooted and in all sorts of pain for two months. I wish Denise Austin would stick her abdominal workout in her blurter. I was happier when I was getting round looking like the Shrek.
Now about the Team Norton T-shirts. There’s still plenty there, but I’ve given a lot away and we’re slowly whittling them down, plus we haven’t got the CD-Rom things to renew some of the old ones, like Day of the Gecko and Boys from Binjiwunyawunya. So check which ones are available on the website before you order. When you do, it’s best if you include your phone number so we can get back in case the one you want isn’t available. But no one’s been robbed or disappointed yet and we’ll have plenty for Christmas.
Anyway, that’s about it for the moment. Check out all the new photos on the website. You might even see yourself in there. I’ll do another update shortly and put in some more photos. Thanks for all your letters and thanks for buying my books. Like those two dudes said in that movie, ‘I’m not worthy enough. I’m not worthy enough.’
All the best.
Bob Barrett.
November, 2003