Having forged a career as a comedian and appeared in various television roles as an actor as well as a comic, one day whilst watching the footy with my brother, he asked whether any film roles might be in the offing. To be honest to that point it hadn’t really crossed my mind.

On the train trip home his question began to play on my mind … ‘Wow maybe I could be in an actual fillum that got showed in the fancy picture theatres!’ … My mind raced over the possibilities of what my first feature film role would be … Perhaps the next ‘Bond’ to redeem the work of compatriot George Lazenby who stank it up in the 60’s … Maybe I’d be cast as Mr Bruce Darcy in an antipodean version of ‘Pride & Prejudice’ … or as a German submarine commander who leads an amphibious raid on Broome in Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Australia 2.’

As my TV appearances continued to grow the question raised by my brother popped up more often. Not from him … he’d moved back to … ‘do I want another beer?’ … as his standard question at the footy.

But the offers didn’t come. I did some short films … an over aged trolley boy and an over sexed fox to name just a two of my turns in the shortened version.

Then it happened! After auditioning for a locally produced but international release film by the reputable Tass Parker Production company, I was offered a role.

I had actually auditioned for the role of ‘Wacky Anaesthetist.’ To be honest it didn’t read well and when my agent told me they had passed I wasn’t in the least bit concerned.

‘But’ she said. ‘They have ear marked for another role.’

What could it ‘Jovial Radiologist’ or even ‘Nutty Neurosurgeon?’

‘A racist guy in vehicle … have a read it looks fun … and we are pushing them to give you a character name.’

While it wasn’t the next ‘Bond’ she was right, it was fun. I might not get to drive an Astin Martin under water and shag the next Ursula Andress, but I did with got to hang out of a car window and unleash a racial tirade at an international movie star and an Asian tram driver.

Irishman James Nesbitt was the focus of my abuse and politely walked up to the car window from which I was about to unload my bigoted invective

“Hi I’m Jimmy … I’m playing Liam”

He shook my hand

“Gidday I’m Damian … I’m Racist Guy in the Vehicle”

He smiled and walked away and for the next hour I abused the shit out of him. Nadia the director kept making me get angrier and nastier and by the end I was finding it difficult to not unload on anyone who remotely looked foreign.

We finished shooting and shook hands and made up.

I thought my agent had never followed up on … ‘getting your character name’ … but later I glanced at the call sheet and next to Damian Callinan it said character name … ‘Guy’

They’re back!!! … I suppose it’s like any fad. It’s happened with flares … it used to happen with yo-yos … still happens with mullets. We humans are easily convinced … One day you see someone driving a Volvo and you think it’s OK again.

That is the only explanation I can deduce for the sudden re-emergence of the kiddy leash. Marketing types have softened their appeal by calling them ‘child restraints’ or ‘harnesses’ but that doesn’t change what they are – A gun doesn’t become less lethal by calling it a ‘bang bang stick’

I have vague memories of seeing some of my 80cm peers pulling at the bit around Northland Shopping Centre – lunging to smear the hands on the shop window of Tim The Toyman or clutching helplessly at cinnamon donuts well out the reach of the 2 metre radius that was their world. I felt sorry for those kids. Not that Mum let me wantonly smear shop windows and pilfer donuts at will but at least I knew that I could if I wanted. I think the saddest thing I ever saw as a child, was a boy whose harness matched his sandals.

But how have they re emerged in this seemingly more enlightened era of parenting? Did someone keep theirs as an heirloom and one day after their toddler had put toast in the dvd for the 3rd time suddenly went scavenging in the boxes in the garage? Maybe an over tired dad went to take the family for a morning walk to give mum a rest and ended up with the King Charles Cavalier in the stroller and junior on a choker?

Is this going to lead to kids sniffing each others arses and crapping on your nature strip? Will we see toddlers running around wearing plastic Elizabethan collars after being desexed? Why not muzzle the little bastards while we’re at it.

Whatever the cause of their return they are back with a vengeance. Some of them have been dressed up as novelty animal backpacks to make the kid feeling like they are being given a treat, but I think if you told the inmates of Guantanomo Bay that soft toys would enhance their miserable existence they wouldn’t have been rushing to line up for Tickle Me Osama Dolls.

There’s lots or reasons why people have decided to use them, from the extreme fear of abduction to the lazy dad who wants to read his paper and drink his latte without paying any attention to his kid. There’s probably even some valid ones but regardless of that I have made a decision. The next kid I see on a leash, I am going to cut free … run little one … run … run free and smear toy shop windows … steal donuts … and … umm … don’t go that way … that’s a road … hey kid … really some parents!! … keep that kid on a leash would you?

The taxi driver didn’t know where the Tiger Terminal was which was more a reflection on him as it’s right next to the taxi holding area in which he would have presumably spent countless hours. As he had to key Melbourne Airport into his GPS system that presumption may have been unfounded. After seeing his actual driving skills once we were under way, it was also indeed overly presumptuous to contend that he had ever driven before. Let’s put it this way – he didn’t observe such fundamentals of driving as using in a lane or using the instruments at his disposal. He had to be woken up … and I mean woken up to take the turn to the terminal. I was running late other wise I would have tucked him in before I left.

As it turned out I wasn’t running late or anything like running late. We could have rolled the car in a ditch on the side of the road and both had a nap.

It’s never a good sign to see only one person in the check in queue particularly if that person is in tears. The check in girl called me up and into the midst of this poor woman’s hysteria to ask what flight I was on.

“Adelaide.”

“That’s been cancelled. You should have been notified.”

“So is this me being notified?”

“Looks that way? You will be on the 7 o’clock flight.”

“That would be the one that leaves in 5 and half hours?”

“That would be the one.”

As I left the distraught woman continued her histrionics. I’d seen people that upset about going to Adelaide, but never for being denied.

Tiger airways are cheap. Very cheap! Like ‘just more than my near death experience taxi fare’ cheap but you don’t have to wake the pilot up to land. He sets an alarm. When you drink cheap wine you get hangover; when you opt for a discount hooker you get itchy and when you fly Tiger airways they leave whenever they fuck they want.

I spent the 5 hours spending the money I had saved by flying Tiger. The departure lounge looked, felt and smelt like a year 12 common room with its own tuckshop. This theme was assisted by the age of the staff. The terminal looked like it had been taken over by the cast of The OC. Even the baggage handlers looked like they still possibly slept in bunks. I kept expecting to see the pilot get dropped off by his mum. Apologizing to everyone that the cancelled flight was his fault because he was on a detention.

They finally called the flight and we walked several kilometres to the plane through a graveyard of broken airport stuff that included a number mobile aircraft stairs leading to what I presume to be more cancelled flights.

The flight attendants were the old school quite hot type but where Virgin pride themselves on a sense of fun, Tiger go for the ‘jaded, surly rather be somewhere else’ look. Even the safety demonstration seemed to convey the message… ‘don’t bother looking cos if we crash you’re fucked.”

I had few complaints after that. Mind you after being trapped in a giant school canteen for half a day, there wouldn’t want to be too much more go wrong. Sure the plane landed in Adelaide, but that was my choice.

Writing a blog has never been high on my priorities. I often can’t fit into my day such basic things as meals or hygiene rituals so adding the task of writing a couple of hundred words seems a little ambitious. I also harbour the slight misgiving that the act seems a little pointless if no-one reads it. Sure I’ll read it … actually maybe I’ll read it … just to make sure there are no typos … but beyond that, I have no way of guaranteeing this blog has been blogged.

To accentuate this feeling rather than eradicate it, I am writing this blog in the forest … on my own … whilst screaming. If you have indeed read this, could you do me a favour and go into a forest. It doesn’t have to be the same one. In fact that would be awkward because I just said I was on my own. So go to any other forest and scream out … ‘I read your blog’

They say that if you sit down and write down your dreams first thing in the morning it will help you make sense of what your unconscious self is trying to say to you so I’m going to give it a try.

‘I’m dressed as a matador in a supermarket but my trolley is a lawn mower and the shelves are angled towards me and tins of fruit keeps falling off and as I pick up the tins I realise that the aisle is made of grass and as I look up I realise I am at the MCG but I’m in the nude. It must be a cricket match because there are stumps in the ground but they are made of licorice all sorts. The crowd is doing a Mexican wave but from the front row back wards and the last row start flying and I realise they are angels … but kind of hot, slutty angels in short denim skirts and boob tubes and one of them flies down and gives me a towel to wear but the towel is see through and then Winston Churchill drives out in the drinks cart and gives me a martini and I get in with him but he’s turned into the Paddle Pop Lion. We drive through a gate and a guy in a pith helmet shoots the paddle pop lion with a tranquilizer gun and I start running through the jungle but I try not to spill my coffee. I stop in the doorway of a laundromat and try to have sip of the mango daquiri but I can’t because I’m still wearing my astronaut helmet. Then Drew Barrymore offers to clean my oven so I go back into the Musee D’Orsay and play squash with Darth Vader again but the ball goes down the stairs and I chase it on a pony called Allan who can recite all of Shakespeare’s sonnets in Arabic but he gets hit in the head with a can of peaches which I put on my lawn mower and go to the checkout …’

They’re right … it works. I feel like licorice!!