the muppet matrix

Now I know posting a YouTube video is a total cop-out, and not a real blog-post at all. But when I saw this, I simply couldn't resist. This is dedicated to my dear Lady Lili, who is currently bravely exploring the untamed wilds of Urban London. Enjoy:

My favourite part is the appearance by Rizzo the Rat. Gold.

a funny-lookin' music star? it'll never happen

Hello! My name is Bobby Flynn! I reckon just maybe I can make it big in the Music Biz!

With that hair? I think not. That hair is positively funny-lookin'.

Too right. No one ever made it big in the Music Biz with funny-lookin' hair.

Dude, really! Who do you think you are? Get a hair-cut!

It's not just the hair, guys. This bloke is funny-lookin' all over. Does he think just any genuinely talented singer-songwriter can make it big? Sorry buddy - not if you have bad hair and are funny-lookin'.

And what's with the high, girly voice? No one's going to listen to that.

A high girly voice, funny-lookin' and weird hair. This guy is dreaming.

Does he think he can make it big in the Music Biz while being a dead-set weirdo? Is that what he thinks?! It'll never work. Go home, Bobby.

Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't realise that to be a successful musician you had to have pretty blue eyes, pretty gelled hair, a six-pack and a pretty straight white smile. I stand corrected. Thank goodness the Pretty-People Police pointed out the error of my ways, before I made a fool of myself. I'll just quietly go home now.

~~~~~~~

For those whose music collections don't extend beyond Kylie and Justin Timberlake, the people above are: Robert Plant (frontman of Led Zeppelin), Leo Sayer, Roger Daltrey (frontman of The Who), Donovan, Neil Young, Tim Buckley and David Bowie. None of them is a Pretty-Person. Each of them is considered reasonably legendary in the world of music.

How many of music history's legends are incredibly hot male-model types? Bob Dylan?... err - no. John Lennon?... perhaps not. Anyone might think that - shock! horror! - there are more important things than looking like you just walked off the pages of a beautiful-people magazine.

For the record, I think Bobby is by far the most engaging contestant in this year's Australian Idol. He is the only one who genuinely interprets his songs, and is truly unafraid to "be himself" (as Marcia keeps repeating like some hippy mantra). I must admit, when his version of Warren Zevon's classic 'Werewolves Of London' began, I was thinking "What the fuck are you doing?!". But then I had Bobby's version stuck in my head for three days. In a good way. His vocal style is unusual - and doubtless not to everyone's taste - but I'll take it any day over the by-the-numbers r'n'b rehashes and soft-cock indie rock that make up the rest of the field.

And for those who are anti-Bobby because he's "ugly"... try not being as shallow as a puddle some time. You might just find it rewarding.

post 250: the three things meme

Holy shit, it's my 250th post!!!

Let's honour the occasion by wasting some time on a meme, shall we? I'm stealing this from Elaine-the-Pirate. Off we go!

1. Three things that scare me
enclosed/restrictive spaces
our world's increasingly conservative/intolerant social climate
the political & religious organisations that have made it that way

2. Three things that make me laugh
my friends
Life of Brian
marijuana

3. Three things I hate the most
eels
cauliflower
homophobia

4. Three things I don't understand
Nationalism
mathematics (beyond Year 8)
why people still watch Dancing With The Stars after four series

5. Three things I'm doing right now
drinking tea
making a shopping-list
missing my boy

6. Three things I want to do before I die
slap a movie-star
swim in the Mediterranean
sing and dance and make millions of people happy

7. Three things I can do
play 9 chords on the guitar
speak very bad, very basic French
stay calm during difficult times

8. Three ways to describe my personality
easy-going
self-doubting
unenthusiastic-about-change

9. Three things I can't do
ride a bicycle
simultaneous equations
cry on command

10. Three things I think you should listen to
the encouagement of those who love you
3RRR Radio
showtunes!

11. Three things you should never listen to
extremists of any religion
self doubt
The Veronicas

12. Three things I'd like to learn
to speak Icelandic
to play the piano and guitar properly
to accept a compliment without feeling awkward

13. Three favourite foods
butter chicken with jasmine rice and garlic nahn
triple-cream brie
turkish delight

14. Three beverages I drink regularly
tea
pineapple juice
gin & tonic

15. Three shows I watched as a kid
The Muppet Show
Inspector Gadget
Degrassi Junior High

There shall be no tagging here today.

Elaine was right; that meme was fucking hard.

anniversary

Today marks two years since my Mum died.

Once again, I really don't know how this anniversary is supposed to be. What am I supposed to do? Should I be raucously celebrating the astonishing person that she was? Should I be miserably lamenting all the lost time? Should I look at photos? Light candles? Smile? Cry?

It's one of the ickyest clichés in the book, but that thing they say about "it seems like only yesterday" is true. But so is the equally icky cliché that "it seems like an ocean of time". Every day, I remember minutiae of who she was, the phenomenally important role she had in my life. She still often wanders into my dreams - sometimes quietly cheerful, occasionally raging with fury.

Unlike this time last year, she no longer accidentally bounces into my everyday consciousness, in the sense that I no longer forget she's gone. I don't find myself thinking, "I must remember to tell Mum that," only to realise, moments later, that I can't. These days, I'm more self-consciously aware of myself as a product of her life. I will catch myself using a certain figure of speech, giving out sage advice to someone else, referring to some obscure piece of knowledge or trivia, and know that it came from her. Above all, I find myself wishing she could see what I've been doing, hear the songs I've written, visit my own little apartment, spend time with my boyfriend... be here to see and share my life, as it is now.

My life has changed a lot in the last two years. I have moved out of home. I have finally found the courage to share my life, romantically, with others. I have felt the bitter hurt that can go along with this, as well as the lofty euphoria of love at its most beautiful. I have kicked my anti-depressants and am doing okay without them. I have taken the first tentative tiptoes back towards the arty/creative/inspired life that is where my heart truly lies, but from which I have been so long estranged. It is all happening slowly, as is my wont. But baby steps is what it's all about, and I am taking them.

I suppose the irony is, I quite likely wouldn't be doing all of this if she was still alive. I'm not saying for a moment that she held me back, or that the last two years have been sunshine and roses on a gentle uphill incline. But I guess the point is, I'm getting by. We have no choice but to deal with changes - even terrible, desperately unfair ones - and, of course, that's when we find out what we're made of.

I realise this ramble has been completely self-centered, but I couldn't possibly pretend to speak on behalf of my Dad, brother & sister, or any of the other many people whose lives have changed because my Mum is gone. It's all too big, too much. I can only speak for me.


I guess the bottom line is, I will never be okay with the fact that she's gone.
But I know she would be proud of me, two years on. Damn proud.
And that is some comfort.

pea. ess.

Look how much I've steadfastly refused to blog about the potential significance of today's date, or either of the Bogan Icon Deaths™ of the past week!

Arrogantly Subversive or Slothfully Apathetic? You decide!

bagels, heirlooms, wankers/mutants, cigarettes... and queen elizabeth the first

Places in Richmond that do not sell bagels:

Brumby's
Baker's Delight
Both private bakeries on Swan Street

Only place in Richmond (apparently) that sells bagels:

Jaybeez Deli in Victoria Gardens.
They also sell lovely cheeses and pâtés and fresh cold cut meats. Yay for Jaybeez Deli.

~~~~~~~

Grandma Miller has moved into a retirement home. She is very happy there and it's all Hurrah. My aunt has been going through the things left behind in her unit, pending its sale at the end of this month. Yesterday, patermunkey and I went to help go through some of her things.

My aunt (thus far in charge of the packing operation) did not see anything wrong with pitching a small engraved brass cup - worthless, but the only posession of my late great-grandfather that still exists - into a box for the Salvos. And she found it rather bemusing that patermunkey and I thought it just might be worth keeping in the family.

~~~~~~~

A distant by-marriage-only relation of mine is a member of the Australian Navy. I met him on the weekend for the first time. He is a handsome, quite charming young man, who took the time to spend quite a while chatting with the old grannies present (big brownie-points score) and generally seemed like an all round Good Bloke™.

Later in the afternoon, I found myself surrounded by the men of the family, when talk turned to boats *yawn*. Boys like boats. I don't know why. They will spend literally hours talking about motors and winches and water-pumps and horse-power and other things that generally make my eyes glaze over. I think I'm the only one who noticed, but at this point, Mister Navy quite obviously inserted his hand deep into his shorts pocket and began visibly playing with himself as he spoke about how fast the Navy patrol boats can go. He continued his enthusiastic pocket-billiards as he referred to his duties as "chasing illegal fishermen and illegal immigrants - mutants." The word 'mutants' was spat with such vitriol, and the accompanying hand-in-groin action was so enthusiastic, that I was a little startled. I had to leave the room. I didn't talk to him again, and I later hesitated to return his jocular handshake as he said goodbye.

~~~~~~~

As I drove home from patermunkey's, I passed an elderly woman walking along a quiet outer-suburban main road, with the aid of one of those wheelie-walker things, on her own, in the dark. It was near the freeway on-ramp. There are no shops or houses nearby. The direction she was coming from is a wetlands reserve. I half-considered pulling over to ask if she needed help, when she raised a cigarette to her lips and sucked hard on it. I continued on my way, wondering. Where had she been? What was she doing? Why was she alone? And importantly: what does it say about my brain, or our culture, that I had considered she may need help until after I saw that she was smoking a fag? "Oh she's huffing a ciggie. She must be fine!"

~~~~~~~

Spending two hours watching Helen Mirren in Elizabethan garb (and I swear she was wearing a different costume in every scene!) before you go to bed, makes for very strange dreams.

sometimes a paintbrush just won't do

Dear readers, meet Timothy James Francis Patch, the self-described World's Greatest Penile Artist. Mr Patch - who signs his work with the delightfully naughty moniker Pricasso - likes to create works of "art" using, you guessed it, his dick.

The World Is My Art Studio
In the beginning of time life forces were created with divine intervention, my art evolved spontaneously from basic mysterious forces surging through me, Stripped naked to the core unbounded by society's conventions I am at one with nature exposing primitive urges, all my senses converge, I feel the very roots of my creativity stirring rising up merging with the subjects inner beauty climaxing in uncontrollable waves of divine euphoria and my loins I create PENILE ART.

(Apologies to anyone who is eating.)

This man might be a saucy genius if it wasn't for the fact that his work is quite shit. Take a look at this piece in charcoal (one doesn't wish to imagine the scrubbing his poor member must endure during the clean-up).
The idea of drawing a cock with your cock is compellingly PoMo. Unfortunately, the picture is out of proportion and generally badly executed. Clearly Mr Pricasso is good for novelty value only.

Of course novelty value has its place, and - as Timothy has discovered - the perfect field for knob-related novelty value is politics. So this is where Patch's art has often been focussed. Imagine: dipping your doodle in a pot of oil-paint and smearing it on a canvas until it resembles the face of George W. Bush, Morris Iemma or Rev. Fred Nile. I don't know why I didn't think of it myself.

So who really is the biggest cock-smear of them all?

(Thanks once again to Mr Jester - ever reliable source of wholesome, family-oriented blog-fodder.

it's alive! it's aliiiiiive!

There she is. Whether stolen from an impoverished single-mother, grown in a glass uterus in a Scientology lab, or a very very convincing animatronic, the TomKitten exists. And, looking at her, she does look a lot like her mother. God knows who the father is.

So, now that I can see her child with my own two eyes, let me take this opportunity to say to Katie Holmes:
"Take that gorgeous kid and RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIFE!"

(Thanks to FKAB who, as far as I can tell, broke the story in the Aussie Blogosphere.)

...and he didn't even know it

Ever wanted to turn a website into abstract post-modern poetry? Of course you have!

Here is the place to do it! Sometimes, it tries to make a poem out of bits of the actual html code, which doesn't really work... but keep trying, and it will combine words and phrases from the site into wonderful wanky wordplay.

And then you can go here to find out what your poet name is. Now you have everything you need to be the perfect post-modern poetician!

~~~~~~~

The Voice of the Munkey
a poem by Lucius Cornelius Picklesouse

The constructive discussion on earth,
we got to us? Remember
them? and for it
so
there is rigorously screened in
a lot to win
back and loved
about holding your skin chiselled into
issues.that other ... gender. ...means of 41 dollars.I
guess Me: wrong, with your favorite
color
The Country. no A
genuinely malicious sexual play
that does a cute Kid... over the identical
but has
ruined her One
story today one so to
teach us this is
conjecture since After hearing
me
from a chance a
senior spin and workmates no band/Sexual assault.
And for
using that.
children into issues.
The unincluded. Wait... did Again, not
Enough!
Thus, your text on what all
kinds the characters.SUPERHERO
NAME followed by
mindlessmunkey at
least,
the real world? piss vinegar The carpark. He only
capable of a link
much Ado about this is I
should and the quintessential Universal Donor !
Unfortunately, despite what is
a journey of the
horizon?!
Could we wandered through
all three.
The Guilt Free Three. is it
concerns Bishop Jefferts Schori, was never
likely to the first
coin portraitists insist on some form that Freeway
was listening to Overheat Oli splutters
and saw lots of which I
successfully negotiated absurdly complex public expression...
the Guilt Free Three, months, had a truth universally
acknowledged by a Monarchy.
On So now
heard/to provide a hell are set, it was Random!
I descended back along
humming.

forget thou not the golden stool

Just when you think the TomKat fiasco can't get any more hilarious/disturbing... they go and auction a bronze cast of the alleged-baby's turd.

Yes, dearest readers, I shit you not (so to speak). A Suri-Turd. Cast in bronze. Auctioned. For charity.

From msn news:

Tomkitten's 'first poop' goes on display

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have yet to show their baby daughter off in public, but eager fans have been given an unusual preview, with the chance to see a bronze cast depicting her first solid stool.

The scatological sculpture is purportedly cast from 19-week old Suri's first bowel movement and will be shown at the Capla Kesting gallery in Brooklyn, New York, before being auctioned off for charity.

The artist behind the work, Daniel Edwards, previously courted controversy with a life-size nude sculpture of pop star Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug. That work was shown at the same gallery in April.

"A bronzed cast of a baby's first poop can be a meaningful memento for the family," gallery director David Kesting said, adding that he hoped the work would attract bids of up to $50000.

The sculpture, which sits on a wooden mounting with a glass casing, is to be sold on eBay next month with proceeds from the sale going to infant health charity March Of Dimes.

As of Wednesday it had attracted a top bid of 41 dollars.

I really don't know what to say. How depraved are these people? How out of touch with the real world? I mean, there's nothing exactly wrong with this. It's for charity, which is fine... and hey, I'm sure when you're a new parent, your bub's first solid shit is quite exciting.

But really, when your careers are going down the toilet (so to speak) because everyone in the world thinks you're fucking nutcases, the way to win back the hearts and minds of your formerly-adoring presently-suspicious-and-slightly-disgusted public, is surely not through sculptures of faeces! Honestly! Whoever is providing the Cruise-Holmeseseses with publicity advice ought to be garotted.

(with thanks to Mr Jester for alerting me to this important piece of news)

UPDATE!
The clearly-better-informed-than-I Ms Snazzles has alerted me to the fact that this is, in fact, a bit of a hoax. That is to say, the sculpture genuinely does exist, but TomKat itself was in no way involved in its creation.

In light of this, I can simply say: this Daniel Edwards guy is depraved and kind of sickly wonderful. As long as we have "artists" willing to sculpt the genitals and bodily-functions of dodgy celebrities, I feel the world is safe from taking itself too seriously. What's next for Edwards, I wonder. I suggest he sticks with the theme of "slightly icky but undenialby part-of-real-life perspectives of the rich and famous", while taking a step towards the field of politics. I want to see a 17-foot medieval style tapestry of John Howard performing anilingus on George W. Bush. Well, of course, no-one really wants to see that (apart from the reader in Doncaster who recently visited my blog by searching for "John Howard's cock" - you sick fuck).