NEWS LITE : MUSICIAN PAINTS IT LIKE IT IS.

Hey, hey, he's a Monet,

People say he's brushin' around.

But he's too busy painting

To put anybody down. . . . Maybe Micky Dolenz hasn't quite the eye of the French impressionist, though he asks proportionately more than Monet did for his early works: up to $9,500 for each of eight paintings.

But you didn't hear a cross word Monday afternoon from fans who approached the autograph table where he sat. He and fellow Monkees Peter Tork and Davy Jones, now on a 30th-anniversary tour, had performed for a crowd of 5,500-plus Sunday night in Charlotte, N.C. Fourteen hours later, the 51-year-old Dolenz was amiable and quietly energetic.

``I'm trying to paint things you can't see,'' he explained, referring to his acrylic depictions of a neural network or the AIDS virus attacking a cell. He pointed to the lithograph ``Oh-No Zone,'' a set of concentric rings in green, blue and purple against a star-pocked sky. ``If you were in outer space and had infrared eyes, this is what you'd find.''

That print ($225 unframed, $325 framed) was probably the only thing most passers-by could afford, though three of the acrylics bore red ``sold'' stickers. That didn't matter to the six dozen fans, most of them female, who had ambled by to check out an idol from their youth - or, maybe, their parents'.

His shirt, big squares of blue, tan and gray, hung outside black jeans.

The California native lived in Britain as a boy and eventually attended its Open University, a correspondence school that would have led to a formal college degree.

``I'm a physics groupie - all the sciences, really,'' he said. ``I regret not getting a degree. I was two years into an architecture degree when The Monkees came along.'' He laughed. ``To this day, I wonder if I made the right decision.''

Fabio to be Disney-ish not Van Damme-ish

Fabio is going from fantasy hunk to fairy-tale hero.

The romance-novel cover boy will be the voice of the hunter in a Disney cartoon version of ``Little Red Riding Hood.''

Fabio said he is ready to broaden his career but doesn't want to be just another Jean Claude Van Damme.

``They keep offering me stuff like Van Damme, but I don't want to get into that kind of movie. I want to get in good stuff,'' he said Friday at a charity bachelor auction for which he single-handedly raised $12,000.

It's crawfish gumbo time

for Sweden

With beady eyes and fearsome claws, crayfish could hardly be uglier, but every August they become beautiful to Swedes.

The nation is now in the grips of its annual crayfishmania, when Swedes drop some of their usual reserve to put on silly conical hats and gobble up the crustaceans, washing them down with schnapps until their faces turn as red as the crayfish themselves.

The fact that there aren't many crayfish in Sweden's waters anymore hasn't put a damper on the festivities. If anything, it has made appetites all the stronger.

Sweden's 100,000 lakes and rivers once crawled with crayfish, but disease nearly wiped them out in the 1950s and '60s.

Importers scoured the planet to find enough crayfish to feed Swedes who still wanted to eat them in August, when they're at their best because they've had time to fatten up after the rigors of the mating season.

The crayfish came from all over Europe, from Romania and Greece and as far away as Turkey. It was such a bounty that people were able to indulge to their hearts' content.

Now the nation of 8 million consumes about 60 million crayfish a year, from ever-more-remote parts of the globe. Most crayfish in Sweden come from Louisiana and China.

Big little man tips the scale

To call Zack Strenkert a big kid is an understatement.

At 17 months old, Zack weighs nearly 68 pounds, as much as an 8- or 9-year-old. He's 3 feet tall and nearly as big around. His T-shirts are size 14. His ankles won't fit into shoes, so he goes barefoot. On hot days, he wears nothing but a diaper, in the largest adult size.

``There are a lot of chubby kids around,'' said Dr. Mary Horlick, a pediatric endocrinologist in New York City. ``But he's quite unusual.''

Zack's regular pediatrician said the boy just needed to be put on a diet. Fearing her son had a rare disease instead, Laurie Strenkert of Bloomingburg, N.Y., took Zack to Horlick, a specialist. But so far, there's no evidence of a glandular disorder.

Zack is something of a celebrity in this rural town of about 300, situated 60 miles north of New York City. When she struggles to lift Zack into a shopping cart, Strenkert said, folks stop and stare.

``People say he looks like Andre the Giant's baby,'' she said with a laugh. ``He's like a big teddy bear.''

Being big runs in the family. The mother is 5-foot-10 and 220 pounds; her husband, Chris, is 6-foot-3 and weighs 265. Her 7-year-old son Andrew weighs 121 pounds, twice the normal size. Only 4-year-old Summer is slender.

Zack weighed 10 pounds, 12 ounces when he was born by Caesarean section. When he was 8 months old, he had grown so big that his mother asked his pediatrician to take X-rays and conduct blood tests to see if something was wrong.

Tests for thyroid problems, diabetes and other disorders all were negative. The diagnosis: morbid obesity. The doctor recommended a diet.

``He's never been a big eater,'' his mother said. ``He'll have a quarter-cup of cereal for breakfast, crackers for a snack, a half a sandwich for lunch.''

Zack's weight gain has slowed in recent months. He has become more active and recently started walking. Doctors hope he will grow into his weight as he gets taller.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Micky Dolenz: Monkee Monet

(2) Zack Strenkert , age 17 months, and his mom.

Associated Press