Show me a person that DOESN’T – at least partially – judge a book by its cover and I’ll show you a person who doesn’t read books.

Yes shacksters – (if I may be so bold as to use this wacked-out and possibly stylish honourific in your… er, honour) it’s time again to celebrate the best the year had to offer in book cover eye candy. And there’s a lot to celebrate.

(A) Royally weird and wonderful, your Majesty.

(B) Waaah

(A) So many interesting trains of thought with this one.

(B) Pink Splendor! You can just about hear the squeak.

(A) Nice balance (sorry!) between image and text.

(B) Now that’s a button!

(A) Clever and more than a little bit frightening.

(B) Is that tomato aimed at the reader or the guy in the brown suit? The red splatters already there might help you decide.

(A) My nomination for Book Cover of the Year. Nicknamed ‘Death by Lolly’.

(B) Love, love the LOST IN SPACE (1960’s) vibe to this cover.

(A) So vampy! If ever a cover deserved the red-carpet treatment, this is it. The spelling of ritual is pretty special too.

(B) It’s the phallic-shaped blood drip from the nose that really seals it for me.

(A) Another BOOK COVER OF THE YEAR nomination. Those car headlights are indeed next-level illuminating!

(B) One supremely kissable cover.

(A) You want clever text placement? We give you clever text placement.

(B) I’m so mutts about this cover! (again, sorry). What a Fire-God brilliant interpretation of the book’s title.

Two hot-in-different ways beguiling book covers.

(A) “A two-year-old could do better than this cover” I hear you say. Actually, it looks like a two-year-old DID this cover.

(B) Oh my! Green is most certainly the new black.

(A) Inhale on this smokin’ hot bit of eye trickery, if you will.

(B) Love how the text gradually morphs from FEAR to LESS.

This post has been brought to you by the new (old) movie KILL BILL : THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR

To get HAPPY (DAYS) – click HERE

Last week I was harking back to my days as a film, theatre and music reviewer for the University Student Newspaper. I ommitted one little yarn that still brings a smile to my face.

A posse of the reviewing staff had been summoned to a meeting inside the ragtag, poster-strewn and dimly-lit cave interior of the student newspaper office.

There we all were, in various reclining poses gathered on the stained red carpet floor that smelled of cigarrettes and booze, when the Editor – a guy I only ever knew as ‘Ed’ – never being certain if it was short for ‘Edward’ or ‘Editor’ – strode in barefoot wearing his faded blue skinny jeans with holes in them (before ripped jeans were a thing), stroking his Fu-Manchu-styled goatee and announced in his most earnest politicians-address-tone, “The record company is complaining about all the bad reviews we’ve been writing”.

At the speed of thought and with not even the flutter of an eyelid, one of our poison pen hacks – a clever wit named Scooter Patterson, who would go on to become a lawyer but not before being arrested and thrown into a McDonalds backroom cold storage freezer for staging a mock hold-up of the restaurant during Prank Week – shot back, ” Tell ’em then WE’RE complaining about all the sh-t records they’re sending us!”

Another thing from this time was the big-time like I had going for one of the celebrity film critics of the day, Pauline Kael (1919 – 2001). She began writing movie reviews for THE NEW YORKER in the late 60’s and continued up until 1991. She published more than a dozen books of film criticism as well during these years.

Such was her influence in the 1970’s, some U.S. film distributors introduced individual press screenings for each critic because her remarks in joint press screenings were thought to be influencing her fellow critics.

Director Quentin Tarrantino grew up reading Kael’s criticism voraciously. He’s been quoted as saying she was as influential as any director was in helping him evolve his own cinematic style.

I so loved the charm, wit and insight – the sheer ‘penmanship magic’ if you will – she brought to all of her reviews (which in the hands of others amounted to little more than glorified plot synopses) I reckon for a time I wanted to BE her, at least in the writing sense. No less than a writing superstar hero was what she was to me.

In 2018 a documentary celebrating her life was released with Sarah Jessica Parker (SEX & THE CITY) narrating.

How I got onto this topic in the first place was checking out a 1963 movie called CRITICS CHOICE. Lucille Ball plays a woman who has always wanted to write a play. Her husband (Bob Hope) who is an acid-tongued newspaper theatre critic is less than encouraging.

In a movie full of funny lines, Lucille Ball’s character knows too well the downside of being married to a paid opinion giver –

Born critics just can’t help themselves it seems…

Everyone, critics included, used to love this show – for the first five seasons anyway. Get your critical hit of HAPPY DAYS –HERE.

A thousand years ago – give or take a decade – I was a movie critic.

In my madcap and untethered University days, I used to wield the poison pen regular-as-you-like for the University Student Newspaper. Not just film reviews, but music and live theatre as well. If it sang, danced or tried doing anything resembling entertainment, I happily cast judgement.

I remember thinking I’d near won the life lottery every time I got to take home a bunch of free (vinyl) albums from the record company. Same with getting sent along to one of those ‘Press only’ film screenings or scoring complimentary tickets to the latest play showing about town.

Yep, living the life on the fringes of glamour, celebrity and popping ‘Opening Night’ champagne corks I most definitely was. For a while. Or so my nineteen-year-old brain thought.

Slowly however, a sinking realization as heavy and dark as a ready-to-pop rain cloud came floating into view. There was a price to be paid for being showered in entertainment freebies.

That price came in the form of having to sit through, listen through and, towards the end, sleep through literally hour-upon-hour, bucketload upon bucketload of what I would sniffily refer to back then as ‘mediocrity’.

You realize eventually that though you may live in hope for it to be otherwise, masterpieces don’t come along very often. I mean, why would they?

The ‘really goods’ and even just plain ‘ol garden-variety ‘goods’ also, it turns out, manage to stay hidden for long stretches of time.

If you’re seeing lots of ‘entertainments’ – in their great many forms – it’s easy to develop a type of numbness or what could be termed ‘repelling shield’.

You become, in the words of my old mustache-twirling advertising copywriter teacher, ‘hard to impress’.

And when that happens, and you start mistaking your own tastes for some objective, Godly yardstick for quality and what’s worth people’s attention, well… you may very well be on the sunken, sad road to self-deception on the grandest of scales.

That and the fatiguing chore of having to wade through and think up creative ways to talk about just so, so, soooooo much featureless chaff to get to the golden, life-giving wheat, were the reasons I walked away from the life of a critic.

These memories came flooding back to me the other night as I watched an ol’ time Bob Hope movie CRITIC’S CHOICE (1963).

Hope plays a caustic theatre critic whose wife (played by Lucille Ball) decides to write a play. Reviewing his wife’s play on opening night in his usual fault-finding manner leads naturally to all manner of marital strife. Here’s a taste –

Log on next week for…

Critics loved HAPPY DAYS – for the first five seasons anyway. Tune in HERE to get your HAPPY DAYS hit.

On the eve of the Paris Para Olympics, I’m going to tell you about a book I read recently.

BOYCOTT is the story of Australia’s controversial participation in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

66 countries, led by the United States, boycotted these Olympic games in protest of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, which commenced on Christmas Eve 1979.

Australia ended up sending a scaled back team of just 123 athletes (218 were originally selected to go) who marched in the Opening Ceremony carrying not the Australian flag but the Olympic flag.

BOYCOTT author Lisa Forest today is a tv commentator, actor, writer and media personality. Back in 1980, she was the 16-year-old captain of the Australian swim team.

In her book she writes how those Australian athletes who competed at the Russian games were viewed by many people back home as traitors to their country and ‘communist sympathisers’.

Forest talks about the death threats she received by telephone, including one answered by her then 11-year-old sister.

To her way of thinking, NOT attending the games would have sent the wrong message. She quotes a fellow Olympic team member at the time telling a journalist –

And for a little comparison, the Top Ten medal countries from the last Olympics in 2021 –

I always liked Lisa Forest, back in the day. I think it was that smile. She was two years older than me, so in the right range for a sporting ‘crush’, I guess you could say.

Her nickname around that time used to be ‘smiley’, so a positive, chlorine-scented vibe was definitely a large part of who she was. And I’m guessing still is. Though maybe not the chlorine-scented part so much these days.

Time for a HAPPY DAYS hit? Then click HERE.

In this week’s concluding chapter, we witness the amazing end to Onoda’s 30 years in hiding. If you missed the previous three installments, you can catch up HERE – HERE – and HERE.

A Japanese explorer by the name of Norio Suzuki (1949 – 1986) located Onada in the jungle on Lubang island in 1974. Onada refused to end his wartime mission however until he received official orders from his former commanding officer.

The Japanese government organised for Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, Onada’s former war-time commander and by that time an old man working in a Japanese bookstore, to fly to Lubang and officially relieve Hiroo Onada. It was only then, after 30 years of hiding away in the jungle after WW2 had ended, did Onada ‘surrender’.

Upon his arrival back in Japan, Onada was hailed a hero. The Japanese government offered him a large sum of money in back pay, which he refused. When money was pressed on him by well-wishers, he donated it to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. 

In later years, he followed the lead of his brother and moved to Brazil. His wife, who he married in 1976, became head of the Japan Women’s Association (JWA). Hioo Onada lived to the age of 91.

Only one other Japanese soldier held out after the war ended longer than Onada. Private Teruo Nakamura emerged from his hiding place on Morotai Island (Indonesia) only a few months after Hiroo Onada.

And don’t forget…

What could be happier than Hiroo returning a hero (I liked it too) to Japan after 30 years in the jungle?

Click HERE to find out.

In this week’s chapter we look at attempts by the Japanese government to convince Onada that the war was over and his one-man-mission should end. If you missed previous installments you can catch them HERE and HERE.

A great many attempts were made over the years to communicate to Onada and his three fellow-hold-out soldiers (the last of whom stayed hiding with him up until just two years before he was finally rescued).

The first of these occured just a month after Japan surrended in September 1945. Onada found a leaflet that had been dropped on Lubang Island by a plane. It read “The war ended on 15 August. Come down from the mountains!” They distrusted the leaflet and concluded that it was Allied propaganda.

Toward the end of 1945, leaflets were again dropped by air, this time with a surrender order printed on them from General Tomoyuki Yamashita of the Fourteenth Area Army. Onoda and his three fellow soldiers studied the leaflet closely to determine whether it was genuine, and decided it was not.

In 1952, letters and family pictures were dropped from a plane urging them to surrender, but the by then three soldiers concluded that this was also a trick.

Onada writes in NO SURRENDER – “My reaction was that the Yankees had outdone themselves this time. I wondered how on Earth they had obtained the photographs. That there was something fishy about the whole thing was beyond doubt, but I could not figure out exactly how the trick had been carried out.”

Onoda had been trained as an intelligence officer, so was naturally suspicious of any communications. One of the search parties that landed on Lubang Island included Hiroo Onada’s own brother, who took to the jungle with a megaphone calling Hiroo’s name.

Onada’s reaction was to think to himself, “That’s really something. They’ve found a prisoner who looks at a distance like my brother, and he’s learned to imitate my brother’s voice perfectly.”

In late 1965, Onada and his (by then) one fellow hold-out had acquired a transistor radio, stolen from one of the local islander’s huts.

Onada writes “What pretended to be a broadcast from Japan or Australia was, to our way of thinking, a tape prepared by the enemy and rebroadcast with suitable changes. We read into the broadcasts the meanings we wanted them to have.”

Next week, in our final instalment, we witness Hiroo Onada finally emerge from the jungle and resume civilian life.

What’s happier than Hiroo Onada taking his first hot shower in 30 years? Click HERE to find out.

The story of WW2 Japanese soldier Hiroo Onada is one of the most armor-piercingly incredible true stories I’ve ever come across amongst a lifetime of reading.

In today’s 2nd installment, we document some of the daily challenges encountered by Hiroo Onada during his three decades living in the Phillipine jungle after WW2 ended. We also reveal some of the survival hacks that kept him alive.

If you missed the previous chapter you can catch it HERE

For 28 of the 30 years Lieutenant Onada remained in hiding on Lubang Island, he had company. Three fellow soldiers also took to the jungle with Onada following the end of WW2.

Private Akatsu lasted five years before he surrended to local police on the island.Corporal Shimada died in a gunfight with local police in 1954. Private Kozuka lasted until 1972, also finally succumbing in a gunfight with local police.

In NO SURRENDER, Hiroo Onada talks about some of the quarrels he had over the years with his fellow hold-outs. Some of them came to blows.

“Life in the jungle was never easy,” writes Onada, “but so far as food, clothing and utensils were concerned, it was far easier in the later years than in the first five or ten.”

Hiroo mentions problems with ants and rats during his time in the jungle. He recounts being stung by bees, bitten by centipedes and seeing snakes as thick and wide as a man’s thigh.

Having no toilet paper, he used palm leaves instead. His clothes were always rotting due to the extended rainy season on Lubang. Onada writes that during his 30 years on the island, he was sick with fever only twice.

Onada and his three fellow soldiers cut each others hair with improvised scissors. For 30 years he never saw his own face as anything other than a reflection in a river.

After fifeteen years of surviving on coconuts, bananas and cow meat, Onada and his (by then) one fellow soldier, managed to obtain coffee and a few canned goods pilferred from the local islander’s huts.

In Part 3 next week, we look at the rescue attempts and search parties launched to bring Onada out of the jungle, all of which he dismissed as enemy tricks.

What could be happier than Hiroo Onada with a handful of freshly dropped coconuts?

GO HERE to find out.

The story of WW2 Japanese soldier Hiroo Onada is one of the most armor-piercingly incredible true stories I’ve ever come across amongst a lifetime of reading.

NO SURRENDER is a self-penned, first person account of Onada’s 29 years spent hiding in the jungle after WW2 ended in 1945. Putting it mildly, it can be considered an all-powerful, uplifting and swashbuckling celebration of the human spirit. NEXT NEXT LEVEL.

I remember becoming engrossed in another tale of survival back when I read the 2006 book MIRACLE IN THE ANDES. Also a first-person memoir, it was written by one of the survivors of the 1972 light plane crash in the Andes mountains.

That account spanned 72 days, from the day of the crash to the day of rescue. Hiroo Onada’s tale of beyond superhuman endurance and ‘survivorship’ spans three decades.

During WW2 in 1942, Japan captured the Phillipines. It was to this country that a 23-year-old Japanese Intelligence Officer by the name of Hiroo Onada would be sent. When Japan finally surrended to the Western Allied forces in September of 1945, word of the end of the war did eventually reach the Phillipines.

However Onada and three other Japanese commandos he was with refused to believe it. They lived on in the mountains for decades, with Onada the last to emerge from his jungle hideaway.

To grasp the degree of fanaticism and devotion to duty that kept Onada sustained for all those years, one must take into account the thinking and codes of conduct that governed some of the more extreme units of the Japanese military at the time.

Onada writes in his book that the brutal guerrilla warfare training he received in Kyushu before being dispatched to the Philippines emphasised the importance of staying alive and continuing to fight as long as possible. He adds this ideology perfectly suited his personality at the time.

Shame was used as a powerful enforcer of such impossibly high standards. If a soldier who had been taken prisoner later managed to return to Japan he was subject to a court martial and a possible death penalty. Onada mentions that even if the penalty was not carried out, the soldier upon returning would be so thoroughly ostracised by others that he may as well have been dead.

Against the backdrop of this cultural brainwashing, Onada pledged to carry out his orders on the Island of Lubang in the Phillipines with the devout fanaticism and ‘never say die’ mindset that was expected of him.

He recalled the exact words of his commanding officer who handed him his orders before leaving Japan – “You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. So long as you have one soldier left you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. You may have to eat grass and weeds. Under no circumstances are you to give up your life voluntarily.”

Next time, we check out the literally death-defying tricks and ‘hacks’ Hiroo Onada used to stay alive for three decades in the Phillipines jungle.

It was happy days when Hiroo decided to ‘come out’ (of the jungle). Your HAPPY DAYS is just a click away HERE

History is about moments. Special moments. Moments like these…

To conclude this week’s no-holes-barred historical romp we return to 1989, when this song was entertaining lots…

READ IT HERE

Mission Control we have launch sequence in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

What you’re looking at is the cover of my just released short story collection.

And yep, it has got a deliberately long title.

Am I excited? Am I pumped? Am I in writing heaven? Yes, yes, yes! And let me add – you don’t know how much!

The day my author’s copy from the publisher arrived in the mail was a day to behold – literally!

With no one looking, I spent what no doubt amounted to a quite shameful length of time caressing the smooth-as-wax cover (over and over), smelling it’s pages with every nostril muscle I could command and staring long-fully, lovingly and smoochfully into ‘it’s’ dreamy, hardcover eyes.

No denying this was a forbidden, unholy love that, in a previous time, dare not have spoken it’s name. Would it be too unhinged of me to admit I slept with ‘it’ that first night under my pillow?

I’d been hit hard with first-time author’s lovey-dove goo-goo eyes for my new book and I was determined to make the honeymoon last as long as possible.

Now that that magical time is a week past, I can say I don’t think I’ll ever forget that first, memorable night alone. Just the two of us... beautiful new book and I.

Before the story continues, would you like a taste? Maybe a little rude of me not to have offered before now? Ok then. Don’t waist it – taste it – HERE.

Anyways, with the infatuation-phase drawing to a close, it was time to get down to business. The promotion business, that is. I’d organised a 10 000 flyer letterbox drop of my local neighbourhood. Time to get that underway.

The thought did occur to me how much easier and quicker it might be to just hire a helicopter and drop the whole damn heaving paper mass of promotional codswallop in one go on the unsuspecting folk in my local surrounding suburbs.

Apart from the expense of that I also figured I might cop a littering fine from council, so thought the better of it.

Promotion-wise, I also managed to reign in a couple of favours from ‘celeb’ mates of mine I’ve rubbed shoulders with – Walter-Mitty style – along the way of my ‘authors journey’, as they say.

Jack Black’s reaction to the book, for example, was impressive to say the least –

This book features 87 (’cause 87 is one helluva magic number – just ask any cricketer!) completely whacked-out short stories written by me. They range in length from 30-second to ten-minute reads.

You can buy it or browse it –

HERE

HERE

HERE

Thanks for attending my book launch. I do hope you enjoyed the complementary glass of champagne on the way in (apologies if we’d run out by the time you arrived).

To celebrate the sheer austerity, sophistication and class – the ‘front-of-the-plane’ kind – of this occasion and leave you in no doubt as to the fully-fledged highbrow-ness of the company you’ve been in while here, I leave you with this –

Just for laughs of the ironic kind, here’s a flashback to 2021 when I penned a genuine hand-on-my-heart blog post entitled REASONS WHY I’LL NEVER – AND I MEAN NEVER – WRITE A NOVEL. Well, I did say novel.

So what’s next on the SWS drawing writing board? Would it surprise anyone to know that SHACK is currently hard at work on a script for the live, one-man-show version of THE HIGH-FIVEABLE, FIRE-GOD BRILLIANT, CLEVER-IN-SPADES AND UTTERLY RIPSNITIOUS SHORT STORY COLLECTION? You heard it here first.

What’s happier than a writer with a new book? Try full-on HAPPY DAYS HERE