Lost: One Mojo

"I have of late - but wherefore I know not - lost all my mirth"
Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2

So, understatement of the year - it's been an odd few months. And blogging - even from this quiet corner of the net - requires confidence; instinctively it seems to me that posts should leap from a position of, if not authority as such, at least the sense of being authored, from somewhere even marginally together, integrated. And I have felt neither together nor integrated for a while ...

But, onward/upward/jedward! Today is the first day of the rest of my wife! (Did I say 'wife'?! Oops, Freud! Your field day beckons ...) One of my mentors once admonished me for not writing, by saying that it was selfish that I was denying the world of my work (ego-boost much?) and one of my recent blog-crushes urged me to relocate my aforementioned MIA mojo and return to the plog. So it is with utmost tentativity (not a word, I realise, but it should be) that I dip my unlikeley (see previous parentheses) pedicured toe back into the www-world. In the process of trying to locate my outer adult, I have been forced into uncomfortable small talk with my inner child. It's time to welcome her back into the fold.

As I welcome you, dear patient reader. This could just be a temporary relapse, all sound and fury signifying nothing. Then again, maybe it won't ...

Thank you for your indulgence.

xxx

Redundant

"Think of the amount of print that would have been saved if I had removed the double slash. But there you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time"

Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the world wide web, regretting the // at the start of every website address.

Nina. Milk. Honey.

Mr P and I were in San Francisco earlier this year and visited an exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum titled "And You Shall Know Us By The Trail Of Our Vinyl" based on this book. One of the highlights was discovering the myriad non-Jewish artists who have covered Jewish classics: The Temptations, Connie Francis, Arlo Guthrie, Johnny Cash and Pat Boone amongst them. But I really think Nina kills this. Enjoy!

Emmy And Me

If you are an idiot box addict like myself, or just not immune from the barrage of light "infotainment" that has - without apparent opposition - replaced actual news of late, you may know that the Emmy Awards took place in Los Angeles last weekend.

Why is this award show different from all other award shows? Well, it is the only one that has personal resonance for me.

It is the only one I have ever attended.

See, I have always loved TV. I know that makes me way-less than cool. After all the idiot box is just that, requiring little imagination, agency, activism. It breeds that most dreaded of all root vegetables: the couch potato. But - thank you Dr. Freud! - I have just learnt that there is an actual psychological basis to my dependency. My mum told me only recently that from the age of three, I would wake up early in the mornings and instead of waking my parents, I'd switch on the tube, nestle in the couch and indulge. Games I played, stories I wrote as a child (and, yes, there is evidence): both integrated themes and characters from (in no particular order) Welcome Back Kotter, Gilligan's Island, The Love Boat, Diff'rent Strokes and Love Thy Neighbour, amongst others (don't worry,the last of the list left an impression about sex rather than race but that's another post altogether ...). I know every word to every theme song. I know the names of guest stars on particular episodes of shows which spun off from spin-offs. I am, in short, a receptacle of a lot of shit. But it is my shit: shit that makes me happy, shit that is far less problematic than a lot of my other shit.

Picture it: August 2003, Melbourne. A young girl, a tad depressed, had JUST discovered the internet (yes I was a latecomer, yes, it was deliberate at the time, no, I am not proud now). Up late one night, she googled "Emmy Nominees" to see who had been thusly honoured when an option popped up on the award show's website:

Would I like to be a seat-filler? (Definition #2 at the link)

Would I Fuck?! Me, with no plan to travel to the US (as every Australian knows, the land called Overseas is a massive undertaking, requiring months of forethought and planning, unlike the hop-skip-jump triathalon from the UK). I eagerly rang the number, began the registration process (loooooooove American customer service! It is I who is always right!) until I revealed I wasn't a US citizen.

"I'm sorry, ma'am."

"B-b-but" I spluttered, "I'm Australian. We're allies. We just followed you into a war!!!", which was only a teensy bit shameless seeing as I'd protested in tears against the fucking mess the day of the invasion.

"You can buy a ticket, ma'am".

What? The? ... Really?

So US$200 later I had a ticket to the ceremony. All I needed was a ticket to LA.

(CUE: lots of mishegas, but)

Reader, I Got There!

And clichedly, it was one of the

Bestest. Days. Of. My. Life.

Maybe if only just because it represented the realisation of the seemingly impossible. Like the first time I went to New York and my friend Nan wrote in an inscription in my notebook that she'd lose faith in humanity if I didn't meet Woody Allen. I have the photo and autograph and as far as I know she still has faith. I'll get back to you on that one.

Top Emmy Moments included: my subterfuge on the red carpet. They ferry in the plebs as quickly as possible, only I kept hiding amongst groups of press, wearing my disgustingly hot, heavy wrap to obscure the fact I had no press badge! I scribbled "notes" in a pad, basically a list of every person who passed by. The only ones who spring to mind now are the cast of CSI and Everybody Loves Raymond and Dakota Fanning. Odd dinner party potential. I only chatted to one celeb, though. He was LOVELY: David Hyde Pierce (Frasier's Niles). I was surprised he was gay. No-one else ever is.

Also, the Ego had landed and was gloriously fed! Some very glamorous girls overheard me talking, sussed the accent, and asked if I was wearing Colette Dinnigan! (I was not. Not even in the same stratosphere of price range.) Then I met the two girls seated next to me, who were both so unimpressed by the whole thing, having only found out that morning they'd be attending: they were the nannies of Lorne Michaels' kids (he's the creator/ producer of Saturday Night Live). They told me I looked liked Kristin Davis (Charlotte from Sex and the City)!!!!!!! I have never forgotten that. For the record: I don't. Not one iota. But since the last celeb I was compared to was Roseanne (ok, it was a little shit of a kid and I was in one of my heavier stages), I kind of really absolutely, thoroughly love that memory. Flattery will get you everywhere.

In short, superficiality aside (or is it maybe at the centre?), that Emmy week kicked off a new phase of Anythingissototallypossible that led to six months as a resident of West Hollywood which in turn brought me, here, to London. But that is so another story.

I now have to wait another entire year for that red carpet to unfurl.

Addiction. It's a bitch.

A Plea From Dr. Plog

You may have noticed that I give bad header, pictorially/designwise.

Also: I can't insert text between photos and videos, nor control where on the post anything appears.

In short: I am a technological loser and this blog sux.

Can anyone help? Explanations need to be at kindergarten level.

"I Can See London From My House!"

Reason #306,904,227 To Be Grateful.

But I do have to summons them sometimes. I am a creature who vacillates between the highest of highs and the depths of meh: things can weigh heavily, or merely appear to ...

Probably the latter informing the former.

A good read always helps. At the moment it takes the form of Amy Hempel's collected short stories. (If sentences turn you on - read her writing.) I was instantly drawn to its title - The Dog Of Marriage - and ultimately convinced by this cover review -

"If there's a funnier, smarter, or richer book published this year, I will eat my shoes".

Courtesy of my longterm read, The Guardian, noch! I love the visual. It almost inspires me to write and publish that book! Chew your platforms, beyotch!

Bedtime, she wrote.

Hugs to all.


**** Also Picture A may be blurrier but it's sunnier. If you're a local you'll get why that makes it a much better shot.

Florence Et Machine

Last night, Shepherds Bush Empire.

Power, thy name is Florence.

Today

Please note that the "Banksy" (Fig.1) that I gleefully spotted around the corner from my pad is actually a fakey copy cat (provenance of artist unknown although likely to be in the Ballarat region).

Also congratulations, Eddie (Fig.2)! What a momentous achievement, along side the honour of being Dr Plog's all-time best live stand-up comedy experience! Sir - I doff my (animal-themed) cap ...

Pause

No, not the bar that sprung up in Carlisle Street circa la millenium: merely an acknowledgement that I am taking some time out

but I will be back shortly ...

Hope y'all are well. A big juicy slice o' apple and a sticky drizzle shel honig for those of you so inclined ...

Il Dottore

Pneumatic Number

09-09-09

I would wear this as a hemline.

The World According To Mork

"Sometimes you’ve got to specifically go out of your way to get into trouble. It’s called fun."

-Robin Williams

Happy Birthday, Judy Reynolds!

I can't get you on the phone so here's a little song for my Judy, from your Barbra.



May all your days be happy. Shkoyakh! x

Dr Plog's One Hundredth Post

To my eleven followers and countless readers ("countless" in the literal sense of the word as I appear to have no way of gauging, or am I merely as uninternetty as I've long suspected?) - I THANK YOU! I have reached my century and now I must retire this experiment, this ill-advised ... folly!

Just kidding, folks!

It's actually been great doing this, being here: far, far less scaryintimidating than I'd imagined. I am not a Child of the Web (oooh, free horror film title for any would-be Wes Cravens amongst you) and although I've been known to exhibit exhibitionistic tendencies (wee early century swing phase), this is on a much larger, unpoliced scale. Less sexy too. Unless ... hmmm ...

(DOCTOR PLOG then bursts into Halle x Gwyneth-sized tears and runs up to the podium, the delicate fringe of her emerald-green, slit to the j-lo buttcheek dress swishing glamorously around those red-soled shoes that all those lemming-stars ponificate about - you don't see Tilda Swinton and Fiona Shaw waxing lyrical, just sayin'... )

DOCTOR PLOG: (Melodramatically, between tears, yet actually genuine, heartfelt. I just have impulse control issues) I'd like to thank Meg, without whom I wouldn't be here - no, really! Girlfriend bullied me into it! I'd like to thank the blogs that have inspired me and the commenters who bring the funny and the insightful. And I'd like to thank the LA City Bus Company for taking a chance on an unknown kid ...

END SCENE

Blogging has helped my confidence, given me an outlet for all that goes in (not a euphemism) and shaped the way I literally "see" things (Lady Camera accompanies me on a lot more adventures these days). I am having more adventures these days: being braver about approaching new people and seeking out different things, ostensibly for "the blog" but really for me. And finally, FINALLY - after years and years of the most painful writers' blockage caused by Theo (Mr P's name for my thesis = the root cause of my ph.depression, my ph.dystopia, my ph.dysfunction, helped along by my "frenemy" Mary J) - I am remembering how the act of writing itself is so deeply gratifying even if the end result is messy, misspelt, misshapen: full of tangents, full of non-sequitirs, full o' shite. In other words: all one hundred posts, present crapola included, which makes me even more appreciative of your indulgences. Mille grazie!

x x x

Frances "Baby" Gumm

Frances was only seven years old when she recorded this song in 1929.

You may know her by the stage name she later adopted: Judy Garland.

Love Letters Of 1939

"One kiss would, I think, help to reassure me that there are some lovely things left in the world, that there is some good besides the monstrous evil into which we are plunging."

If you love history, or if you love the (lost? losing?) art of letter-writing or even if you just love love, you will adore this series of correspondence between Gwynne and Winnie Meara, an English couple like many separated at the outbreak of the Second World War. Just published in the Times by their son David, they "paint a vivid picture of the hope and despair of so many people at the time, as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made his fateful declaration on September 3, 1939."

(Image from here)

"Has The Metric System Given Your House Cancer?"

Some bright spark has come up with the "Daily Mail-o-matic", a headline generator for the British newspaper that makes me proud to be Australian.

Click "refresh" for the following gems:

"IS NEW LABOUR STEALING FROM YOUR HOUSE?"
"HAS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IMPREGNATED THE MIDDLE CLASS?"
"IS THE BBC GIVING THE COUNTRYSIDE CANCER?"
"WILL TEENAGE SEX MAKE PENSIONERS OBESE?"

I laugh, but through gritted teeth, with a sad, heavy heart. I get a chance to flick through The Daily Fail at Friday night dinners (that and The Jewish Chronicle: I love MamaInLawlessness Plog but we damn well don't share literary tastes) and those headlines could be - to paraphrase every lazy description of Law and Order - ripped from the headlines.

Shpil, Balalaika, Shpil!

For Digger and Roni - freilich zol zayn.
xxx

Happy Carnival Day!

A shout out to Mr P and our pals - Risa, Dustin, Madeline, Cyn and Dash amongst them - and all other souls brave enough to face the crowds to fight for our (collective, inalienable) right to part-ay ...

all the way from this northeasterly couch, lazily dotted by the speckled sunlight, with The Street's Dry Your Eyes Mate quietly, LDNly, emoting in the background,

happier, she wrote, than I've been in days.

Happy Carnival, y'all, no matter where you are and what floats your proverbial. Different strokes for drummond folks, vive la difference, yadda*

(*to the power of 3)

Last Night I Watched "27 Dresses" ...

... (the last hour of it, anyway) and realised why suicide is triggering for me.

I'm not sure how, or indeed if , the two are related.

My Cousin

I just got in to London this morning to find out that my cousin died last week. He was 32.

I haven't seen him for years - that branch of the tree became frail and withered. He was orphaned in a way, years ago: his mum died and his dad may as well have as far as he any use he has ever been to any of his four kids. How any woman can love a man who abandons/ wilfully fucks up his kids is beyond me. He will apparently not be at his son's funeral/memorial. I feel I now want to free him of the burden of schlepping out to my wedding later this year. But what would my dad want?

Yeah. The irony is my cousin's dad (let's call him "Shit Dad") is the brother of my late (as in dead, not tardy) father (aka as "Best Dad Who Ever Lived"TM). Or is that not irony? Bloody Alanis.

RIP B. I am so sorry that I didn't reach across broken adult messiness and try and maintain a relationship with you and my other cousins. I am sorry that that generation was so fucked and that you are yet another casualty of all that preceded you; the sins of the fathers and all that. My heart aches for old memories and what seemed like simpler times but probably weren't so idyllic for the adult characters in the piece. Whatever G-d you ended up following - your mother's Catholic or dad's Jewish - or indeed none at all, may She/He/It/Something bring you peace. And lots of love from your cousin who wishes she had have done ... something. It is making me a bit sick that I believe myself to be this "right on" community-minded person ("I give to charities and I am soooo great!") and yet I don't know most of my relatives because I've at worst bought into, at best not challenged narratives of inane, insane family feuds, fracas and fuck-ups.

xxx

23:50 Sleeper To Scotland

Tonight we are taking a sleeper train (which I have of course already over-romanticised a la Murder on the Orient Express when it will doubtlessly be more On The Buses on rails)

... from London --
Sunny, 29 degrees

... to Edinburgh --
Windy, Rainy, 20 degrees, which, granted,doesn't sound so bad but definitely a trade down in this current ... uh ... climate (climatic, not economic)

But it will be so worth it!, even from this sun-starved Antipodean perspective: Mr P's cousin is getting married in a Scottish castle (how very Madonna!, given that neither he nor his partner hail from that particular neck o' woods) on the weekend, so we have cleverly shoehorned in what is sure to be a very hectic day/ night at the Edinburgh festival. I've been once before, in 2004, when I was but a tourist in this hemisphere. I took the bus from Golders Green station (big mistake! It was a Friday night and before we'd even begun our journey, a drunk Amereican girl threw up all over herself and her co-passenger behind me and then proceeded to apologise for it for the next twelve long, stench-filled hours!) to meet my friend Kobi, also visiting the British Isles from Melbourne. We crashed on her friend's friend's friend's (to the power of ten) couch and tried to make our pennies stretch from alcohol to food to entertainment. This time - as is much of life AMP (After Mr Plog: The Era) is much more adult and organised. He even - gasp! - prebooked shows! Don't you just stand in the Pleasance Courtyard and get swayed by the loudest spruiker?!

Will check in from the road, inner-net excess permitting ...

Anarchy In The UK

On Sunday I went along to a radical ramble in SE1.

Five Things I Loved About It:
1. Feeling of doing something mildly subversive. I'm such a middle class pretender!
2. Hearing stories of the past that aren't the Grand Master Narrative kinda "Histories" taught at school (big wars, great men, small peenii).
3. Seeing bits of London I otherwise never see. It's a good day when I leave N19.
4. Recalling for the zillionth time the beats that this city PULSATES. I am an expat in lurrve!
5. I saw Mary Wollstonecraft's house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Five Things I Loathed About It:
1. I go to these lefty things to feel kinship. I therefore don't fully get how these supposed right-on humanists can justify not mustering even the slightest bit of warmth towards, er, me. But you know what I mean: that holier-than-thou, judgey mcjudgerson type. I kind of think that most radicals regardless of whatever spectrum they sit at share a personality trait, ie, not having much of one. That's why that feminist=humourless trope fucks me off. Maybe Dworkin wasn't much of a smiler but put me in a room with Jo Brand, Germaine Greer, Janeane Garofolo, Gloria Steinem, Tina Fey, Dawn French, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Margaret Cho and I betcha there'd be laughs a'plenty.
2.The commemorative stone for Percy Shelley. Now obscured by the directives of a Death to Aesthetics! estate. (See pics for travesty)
3.The unshakeable sense that I was a hypocritical middle class JAP because I'm neither a vegan nor a squatter.
4.The fact that these alternative stories which are rich and dynamic have, like their protagonists, been marginalised to the degree that they are rarely shared outside the few that actively seek them out.
5. The utter arrogance/ historical blindness of the guide who felt the need to highlight Wollstonecraft's "contradictions" in that she advocated for women's rights but not for those working women. Way to project your contemporary agenda onto a brave, progressive thinking historical heroine, dude! While you're at it, wanna slam for Martin Luther King jr for not protesting for gay rights or Gandhi for not having a Twitter account?

Hmmmmm. WWGT? (What Would Gandhi Tweet?)

I Swear It's Healthy!

Fuck me! It turns out that expletives are good for you.

This is good news in my household. I live with a man who has the face of a boy bander and the vocabulary of a sailor (a heavy-drinking, heavy-cussing one, not the slightly camp, Donald O'Connoresque type he more closely resembles). I'm no scientist but I'm hoping that if I drop a few f-bombs before my next blow out, I may be able to save a few brain cells/ a liver or two.

Like I said, I'm no scientist.

Mama Plog's Special Delivery

Surprise!!!

Hats for me and April and Taryn and Coren and baby Harry!

Thank You

Creepy Jello

One of my favourite writers at Jezebel, Sadie Stein, reposted this ad from Boing Boing. (I've been enchanted by her blog The Petite Sophisticate - it's worth reading in its entirety, she has such a good eye and good heart.)



The word "dark" doesn't do it justice. I've got chills who have got chills who are multiplying!

"The Big Chill" at The Big Chill

Have you seen the '80s film "The Big Chill" (Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, Jeff Goldblum)? It centres on a group of friends going through all this heavy psychoshit over a weekend? Well Team Chill - members of the April and Oscar Send Off posse - had many, many memorable moments but instead of angst and drama, we had crazy giggles, messy debauchery and the bloodiest best. time. evah!!!! In fact, from now on, I shall refer to it as Bestival - 'cos it's the best (fest)ival I've ever been to!

The following videos are a bit dumb. Should I remove them? Vote "yes" or "no" in the comment section.

Mom, Meet Emoticon ...

I think I'm going to call my mum.

From here.

Gather Your Tribe

If there is one area in life that I feel blessed - blessed - better than blessed (sorry, still in stuttermode), as though by some miracle I've been magically placed in the uppermost echelons of beaming, inexplicably bountiful fortune - it is in the realm of friendship. At every stage of my life - from my first social memory (sandpit with Dewi, digging "down" to Cassie in Papua New Guinea) to the last text ("One of the loveliest texts I've ever received ... Love you so much"), no matter where I am, I always find the good 'uns. The realm of the kindred has been very kind to me.

I am, therefore, a most unlikely expatriate. My home, my heart = my Melbourne (co-opted by a bloody campaign, noch!) is where my friends are at. Alas, life led Londonwards and even though the quantity is paltry, comparatively, the stars have shone again, and deigned to befriend me.

So it is with a heavy heart that I have to fare well April and Oscar (and their beautiful wee PB) who collectively make up a massive chunk of my local mishpokha. Ironically the buggers are relocating to my hometown (or is it ironic? Alanis has made us all fearful now!) ... The silver lining is that we are having a send off at the Big Chill this weekend! So it's after midnight, bags are half-packed and fully-strewn and I need to know how Law and Order, Season 18: Episode 2, ends. (You'd think by now I'd have realised with a court-case. Duh!)

May you all chill, supersizedly

Dr P
x

Eat Your Heart Out, Ally McBeal ...

Spotted on the Embankment, Monday July 27th 2009.

Happy Birthday Mr Plog

If I ever give you the impression that Mr P is anything less than perfect, it's because well he is. Who isn't? But he is a mensch-and-a-half, and that, my friends (and internet strangers), is all that matters when it comes down to it. We bitch and moan, kvetch and stir, niggle and nudge (not you, Mz. K), but transcending everything is a set of shared values and beliefs, a consensus about the world, and an appreciation of each other that will set us in good stead for, at the very least, forever (one should hope given all the zillions people are shelling out for the Wedding Of the Year TM at the end of the year TM.)

Happy Birthday, my love. I am sorry if my rejection of the cultural script makes me seem like an ungrateful bitch at times. I am sorry that I am a bitch at times. But I love you and I'm so glad neither of us are passive aggressive birthday monsters! (Click the link for a WTF?!)

Dr P xxx

Sit, Ubu, Sit!

I so want this as my "walking down the aisle" song (if we have half as strong a relationship as Elyse and Steven we will be blessed) but Mr P has put a blanket veto on all TV theme tunes, which sadly includes Angry Anderson's Suddenly because of its association with you-know-what.*

*Charlene EDNA? Who knew?

Celebrity Swine

Only in the UK where "celebrity" is a broad, inclusive umbrella term encompassing people famous for all manner of things including (but not limited to) wanking livestock; sleeping with a footballer once (and having him throw up on? in? you); self-penetrating with a wine bottle; having a lot of boob jobs and "dogging".

(The "K" in UK stands for "Keeping it Klassy" ...)

Doctor Plog Is Fast Losing Faith In Humanity

(How's *that* for a Status Report?)

1. Click here to see why.

2. Post comment to EXPLAIN why, if you could venture to guess. I mean, really?! Give me an oy! OY! Give me a vey! VEY! ...

Banksy Vs The Bristol Museum, Part Deux

Some more of the work that you wanted ... Apologies again for the poor quality of the photographs ( = no flash allowed + nisht my forte)

Love, your reader-responsive Dr P xxx

ps. I wish I could caption them but my blogger does not seem to allow me to vary the text/ image combo. The fact that it allows me to type at all is a modern miracle: most technology is stubbornly plogphobic ... :(

pps. Whenever I express 'emoticon' I feel about twelve. Do you know what I mean?

ppps. Whenever I multiple p-s, I feel about eight. And then the sudden desire to use acronyms like TFNE or whatever we used to use way back when overcomes me ... or was it TTFNY? Does anyone know what I'm talking about?