12 September

Episode 2

How am I expected to run a business under these circumstances? Thanks to the actions of the uber-cow Draska Doslic and her pointless quest for revenge just ‘cause I liberated a few thousand dollars she should never have had in the first place – suddenly I’ve got the whole world (read: Mum and Dad) watching my every move, forcing me to go through the pointless charade of secondary school education.

Things have got so bad I’ve been forced to hire Pascalle to staff the Video Hut. Of course, about the first thing she did was to completely abuse my trust (and her position) to stalk some guy – Hayden something or other. Saw him briefly at some Hoochie Mama thing Mum forced me to work at (for ‘pocket money’ – oh, if she only knew), while Pascalle simpered over him. He’s a bit of a poseur by the look of it – perfect for Pascalle. I wish them every happiness.

Happiness is definitely not something Mum and Dad are big on right now. To say they have ‘issues’ is the understatement of the year. Dad’s not dealing with this whole home detention thing well, while Mum’s all paranoid about what Dad’s up to when she goes off to work – and how he’s going to drag us all back to our wicked, wicked ways. (Again, if she only knew.)

Highlight of the week was Draska’s attempt to fool Van into thinking that she was pregnant – and then to get him to actually get her pregnant. Turned out she was buying pee (the bodily excretion, not the drug) off Super-ho Corrina Balani, who is pregnant yet again, so that she could pass Mum’s pregnancy kit tests. All this over Van? She needs psychological assistance, a.s.a.p. if you ask me.

Grudgingly, I’d have to give Draska full marks for inventiveness but if even Munter can figure out the scam, then it’s time to give up, girl. Step away from the moron.

I have to go to school now. That is just so wrong and not the way the universe should work.

Arrrrrgggggggghhhhhh!

12 September

The Secrets of my Prison House

Someone has tagged the West house with “The Phat Hard Crew” – little prick boy-racers who’ve recently taken to cruising past the house with loud thumping music booming out of their car while giving Wolf the finger. Home detention is wearing thin for Wolf.

Evidently one of the boy racers is a police informant and Judd has let him off about a trillion dollars in potential traffic fines – in return for tormenting Wolf.

You just mimed rooting your sister. You have to think about these things.Munter

The boy racers taunt Wolf again – running off with the West’s rubbish bin, right before Wolf’s eyes; daring him to stop them. Of course Wolf can’t step beyond the boundary of the house but he notes the licence plate of their car.

Jethro, meanwhile, is tackling the option of getting Wolf out of the house by arranging a job for him. But Brian, Wolf’s new parole officer, shoots down every one of Jethro’s suggestions on the grounds that they’re unsuitable people for Wolf to be hanging with.

Later that night, a boy racer steals Cheryl’s car from the driveway.

Judd gives the boy racer a bollocking and demands he recover Cheryl’s car.

Jethro finds a name and phone number from the licence plate Wolf took down. Wolf dials and tells the car owner he wants an end to this harassment and has a deal to propose. The Phat crew arrives, but much to the boys’ chagrin, Wolf makes off with their car.

Van, Jethro, Munter and the large Tongan gentlemen from Episode 1 emerge from their hiding places. Whoops. Take a seat boys.

Wolf sells the boy racer’s car to Falani. Judd and Hickey arrive at the West house having been alerted to Wolf’s break of parole.

Wolf arrives shortly, with Eric in tow – on crutches, his foot bandaged. Wolf explains that he and Eric were doing a spot of gardening – and, blow me down, if Eric didn’t go and drop this humungous great rock on his foot. Wolf tried calling 111 but there must have been something wrong with the phone so he had no choice but to take him to hospital. His parole officer was very sympathetic. Wolf is untouchable.

Meanwhile, Pascalle is, for once in her life, happy. She’s got a cool boyfriend Hayden. But Daddy doesn’t seem to approve…

After a memory jog, Wolf recalls that he used to know Hayden’s father Danny. He was a pimp who wanted to be a player and he ran a string of suburban knock shops. Classy stuff.

It is only after Wolf has seen off the boy racers that Hayden finds the key to winning Wolf’s trust – by offering him a “legitimate” job. Brian the parole officer is very impressed.

Jethro shows off his impressive new office to Grandpa and Loretta. They soon find a safe behind a painting. They have no idea what’s in the safe but eventually, after some haggling, a deal is struck – there’ll be a three-way split between Loretta, Jethro, Grandpa once they manage to crack the safe.

Grandpa teaches Loretta some of the finer points of safe-cracking – and thoroughly enjoys being back in the saddle himself.

Eventually, Grandpa manages to open the safe – while Loretta’s not watching – and pockets the contents before alerting her to the “empty” safe. They decide to leave a fragrant present inside for Jethro.

What’s that fishy smell?

  • Gutter Black

    (David McArtney)
    Southern Music Publ. Co. (A’Asia) Pty. Ltd

    Performed by Hello Sailor

    Licensed courtesy of Zodiac

  • The Best For You

    (A Pryor)
    Control

    Performed by Age Pryor

    Courtesy of Loop Recordings Aot(ear)oa

  • Titirangi Thugs

    (D McDermott, D Judd, B Dayal)
    Control

    Performed by Dogs of War

    Courtesy of Tony Segedin Recordings

7 September

Think yourself a baby

Ooonst oonnst oonst!!! Everyone in the house is suffering through yet another Hoochie Mama lingerie party – the second one this week. The family demands Cheryl find a new venue for the Hoochie parties.

Hoochie Mama – despite being a success – isn’t making anyone any cash. An unlikely fairy godmother steps up to the plate: Mrs Doslic wants to invest in the company.

You’re a hard woman Cheryl West.Wolf

Cheryl is reluctant to get financially involved with a bunch of mad Dalmatians and tries to secure a legitimate bank loan. The meeting with the bank ends badly thanks to Wolf parading around the house complaining about how bloody uncomfortable the home detention ankle bracelet is.

A new potential investor turns up in the form of Tracy Hong. After a trial run with some company samples, Tracy is keen to become Hoochie Mama’s new partner.

On another front, Cheryl is highly dubious that Draska is actually pregnant (heaven help Van if she is) and pops her a surprise pregnancy test. Lo and behold, a positive result.

Van swears that (except for blow-jobs, obviously) he always sheathed it when rooting Draska. Draska meanwhile is using the baby as an excuse to get close to Van again. She only targeted his family and friends who scorned her and hurt her, she would never do anything to hurt Van. Indeed, it seems that she’s all loved up when it comes to her man.

Munter gets onto the case. He and Cheryl divine Draska’s plan must be to root Van without protection until she gets actually pregnant, thereby trapping Van forever. Munter’s investigations uncover the fact that Draska has been buying urine from the very pregnant Corinna Balani, a notorious West Auckland slut.

Cheryl produces another pregnancy test for Draska and – in front of the assembled families – the result comes up negative! Munter had paid Corinna Balani to swap her next pee sample with his.

Munter has saved his mate from a fate worse than sex.

Jethro has left Trapman Stierson to set up his own firm. Is it his own though? Wolf feels like he’s just set up in business, having provided the funds for his son’s move.

Meanwhile, Loretta’s DVD operation is in danger. She’s had to turn to Pascalle to sit behind the counter of the Video Hut.

With her modelling career bottomed out, Pascalle idly turns to bullying the geeks and people who don’t pay their late fines. She thinks it’s kind of fun.

She soon discovers Hayden Peters. Well, she notices that he has the most unpaid fines of any person in the Video Hut data base. When she turns up at his home to collect the cash, Hayden turns out to be charming and dead gorgeous. Pascalle reckons he’s the perfect man – except…

He doesn’t seem to be the slightest bit interested in her. After he realises Pascalle’s family connections, however, Hayden turns up the charm and it appears that Pascalle has just landed herself a new man.

Or has she?

  • Gutter Black

    (David McArtney)
    Southern Music Publ. Co. (A’Asia) Pty. Ltd

    Performed by Hello Sailor

    Licensed courtesy of Zodiac

  • Dancing Shoes

    (A Coddington)
    Control

    Performed by Duchess

    Courtesy of Tea Set Records

  • Best Friend Envy

    (J Bree)
    Control

    Performed by The Brunettes

    Courtesy of EMI Music NZ

  • One Red Morning

    (B Saunders)
    Native Tongue Music Publishing

    Performed by Barry Saunders

    Courtesy of Mana Music/Barry Saunders

5 September

Episode 1

I have to be very careful what I say because you never know who reads these things. (Do cops read blogs?) (Do cops read?)

Anyway, there are certain legal issues, as yet not fully resolved, that have totally screwed with my life lately. Now, in no way am I admitting guilt in anything, but what is it with the huge double standard here? Once upon a time no-one gave much of a stuff about video piracy. Sure they had those lame “you wouldn’t steal a car� ads on at the pictures, but did anyone ever take them seriously? Certainly not in family.

Then one blimmin’ Kiwi film gets ripped off and suddenly if you happen to make a few copies of something and sell it to friends and friends of friends of friends, then you’re bloody public enemy #1. What about fighting real crime, police people? Who cares if some movie producer can’t afford a new Lexus this year?

The worst thing about my whole “Loretta gets arrested� experience was that I now owe my brother Jethro. For once in his life he was almost useful, getting all lawyerly on the cops when it mattered and keeping me out of jail. Still, the thing about some debts is they never get re-paid – just a fact of life, Jethro.

Actually, I suppose I should say that the worst thing about it was that Kurt, my flunky at the Video Hut (and, I suppose, my only friend) ended up getting blamed for something he didn’t actually really even do (not that I’m saying I did, you understand). I felt kinda bad about that for a while, but maybe the whole experience will teach Kurt some valuable lessons – like not to dob me in to the cops.

My little troubles were just part of a whole heap of shit that rained down on my family – like Van getting these heavy Tongan dudes set on him. Turned out that the whole mastermind (if you can call someone as stupid as her a ‘mastermind’) behind the shit-storm was Draska Doslic, who was kinda pissed off with my family for a whole bunch of reasons – some of which sort of had something to do with a large sum of money she felt I had embezzled from her (not that it was hers in the first place).

So that led to the other crap thing that happened to me – Grandpa guilting me into handing the money to Dad just to stop Van getting done over by these Tongans. Where do emotions like guilt come from? Can I have them surgically removed? They suck and leave you poor.

So, all in all, not a great week for me. Mind you, Van is now going to be a daddy ‘cause Draska got up at this mega-family conference thing Dad organised and announced that she’s pregnant so I guess his ended up being worse. The look on Van’s face was complete horror and very funny. Guess this means I’ll have to call Draska Aunty Bitch.

Must go and be a good girl, so ka kite for now,

Loretta of the West

PS: Don’t copy films – it’s a bad thing to do, apparently.

31 August

Award-winning Outrageous Fortune is back on NZ screens

South Pacific Pictures’ acclaimed drama series OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE returns to TV3 on Tuesday September 5 at 9.30pm.

Since premiering in July 2005, the show has been consistently recognized as New Zealand’s stand-out drama. At the recent Air NZ Screen Awards, OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE was named Best Drama Series and Best Drama Programme and last year the show won six Qantas Awards including Best Drama, Best Actress (Robyn Malcolm) and Best Actor (Antony Starr).

The Wests are a one-family crime wave with a proud tradition in thievery, larceny and petty crime. Or at least they used to be. During the first series, family matriarch Cheryl West (Robyn Malcolm) decided enough is enough – the family must clean up their act and go straight.

While her husband, Wolf (Grant Bowler) was in prison, Cheryl took control of the family and led by example. Sure, there were a few laws broken along the way in the name of the greater good…and she did end up falling in love with a policeman – but even Cheryl is not perfect.

The second series of OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE picks up the story of the West family and their attempts to stay out of trouble. But one major thing has changed: Wolf is out of prison and on home detention. Now there is a power struggle as Cheryl, still determined to save her brood from following in their father’s fingerprints, must contend with Wolf who does not intend to take his wife’s sudden wave of righteousness lying down.

Cheryl also has the issue of juggling the two men in her life, after her affair with Detective Sergeant Wayne Judd (who was once the West family’s nemesis), while Wolf was in prison.

The second series of OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE is comprised of 16 one-hour episodes as well as a 90-minute Christmas telefeature which is currently being shot out of Auckland.

Created by James Griffin (Sione’s Wedding, Serial Killers) and Rachel Lang (Mercy Peak, Maddigan’s Quest), OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE stars Robyn Malcolm as Cheryl West, Grant Bowler as Wolfgang West, Antony Starr as twins Jethro and Van West, Siobhan Marshall as Pascalle West, Antonia Prebble as Loretta West and Frank Whitten as Grandpa Ted West. Regular guest cast also include Kirk Torrance as Det. Sgt Wayne Judd, Tammy Davis as Munter, Brian Sergent as Eric and two new but familiar faces: Shane Cortese (as Hayden Parker) and Claire Chitham (as Aurora Bay).