RIP La Liz

I know it's not a skill much prized these days, but there was a time I could name all of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands - from Nicky "Conrad" Hilton to Larry Fortensky, not forgetting Richard Burton twice (!). As a child, I was an oddity, obsessed with Old Hollywood, and no-one represented the glitz, the glamour; the ups, the downs; the sex, drama, and myriad hospitalisations like La Liz.

So even though I'm older, wiser (debatable) and hopefully less myopic - and certainly more jaded thanks to other movie goddesses who shall remain nameless - it is with tender nostalgia that I just learnt of her death.

(ps. All is forgiven re: the debacle of 1959, seeing as Debbie has outlived both you and EF.)

RIP xx

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.

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" ...)

"Cher Is On The Airwaves Talking To The DJ"

To Larry King, actually. About Michael's sweetness as a young man.

About Bob Mackie and beaded socks and Val Kilmer and stuff.

So surreal.

And I'm a tad inder the unfluence. And thinking about Chas, the daughter formerly known as Chastity. Who calls a child Chastity? The least sexy of all of the virtues, majorly trumped by Faith, see Paloma.

I'm a bit names-obsessed. The mister chastises me about it daily.

Cheers!

Angel Ascending

She was always secretly my favourite, despite the fact that my innate feminist instincts instructed me to always say that Kate Jackson, bookish brunette, precursor to Mirandadyke trope, was the Angel for me.

RIP Farrah. Your name* is Persian (Iranian) for "beauty". How accurate (yours brought you fame) and timely (genuine beauty of humanity currently under attack in Iran). Thankfully you are released from the pain of cancer and the indignity afforded you by modern menaces ("the tabloids", "TMfuckingZ"-grade reportage, a sick, sad, avoid-reality public), especially the series of you suffering that was officially "In Production".

People are sick fucking bastards.

*One of my hypothetical daughter's names was Farrah but I knew I'd have to partner it with a name like "Sage", meaning wisdom, as a middle name. Beauty is SOOOOOOOOOOoverrated in this world while intellect/insight/sensitivity/ordinariness/reality as opposed to "reality" are given the old STFU.

It is so past my bedtime.
Time to board the express to Bedfordshire before backpedalling to Black ...

The "Little Jew"

I came across this footnote in a book I am reviewing:

"According to Ann Pellegrini, the slang for clitoris in Vienna in the 1890s was the "little Jew," and female masturbation was commonly referred to as "playing with the Jew." Pellegrini, Performance Anxieties, 29.

Apologies to Bob Balaban (above), a brilliant actor (Seinfeld) but he was the first person to spring to mind as physically embodying said little Jew (not that he looks like mine one bit!).

BB was followed swiftly into my brain by Ron Rifkin but that's probably only because Brothers and Sisters has been playing on a loop at Casa del Plog. Mr P lasts longer in those marathons than I do (TV tantra?) because the combination of Walker melodrama and my crying quickly wears me out. It's one of the shows we really love watching together, though (others include Damages, Life On Mars, The Daily Show, ... Jonathon Ross) as opposed to those we can't watch together (his: 24, Doctor Who, documentaries about gross physical/ deeply depressing things; and mine: Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order Criminal Intent, Monk, Psych, et al).

I so love TV. I was reared by it and I continue to nuzzle on its sweet narrative-driven nectar. mmmmmmMMMMNNNNnnnnnnn TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Time to play with my little Jew ...

(Kidding!)

Friday Night With ... Mr Sheen

I really like Martin Sheen (born Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez, but more on that later). Tonight he ROCKED (yes, I am almost middle-aged and oh-so-fricking SAD) on Jonathan Ross. (I like the J.Ro even if I am slightly suspect of his politics/ feminism ... although his wife seems pretty cool.) Anyway, back to Charlie & Emilio's Dad ... I love people who integrate their identities with their politics, ie, those whose philosophies are indivisible from their most authentic selves, their most fundamental principles. I don't just mean hard-core ideologues: not necessarily tent-dwelling, gender non-specific, vegan, freegan, anti-globalisation, pro-choicey, pacifistic, post-colonial, deconstructionist hermits. Just people whose politics (translation: caring about the world, community, society, how people think/ act/ are, what ideals are promoted over which ones that should be) are part of them, rather than a separate entity: a self-conscious, artificial "accessory" adopted for social reasons or in order to maintain "polite fictions". I know that I can be annoying with my Feminist, Anti-Racist, Anti-Heterosexist rhetoric. But you know what? In the scheme of things, I'd prefer to be mildly (even majorly) annoying if it means I were even marginally proactive, useful.

Just like Martin Sheen.

Keeping Up With The Stereotypes

I watched this today, for research purposes only, expecting to hate it. Not only did I find it oddly moving (and cry) but it was also one of the only "Jewish" movies that comes to mind where someone is asked "What do you like about being Jewish?". "Jewish" in this context is not just a punchline, shorthand for signifying "wealthy" or "greedy" or whatever ("Choose Your Own Assumption!") but an actual, lived identity explored as deeply as possible within the limitations of a little comedy, which is very sweet, if not a bit too obviously chasing the Little Miss Sunshine mantle.

And although the stereotypes are there and women are paid scant attention, there is a warmth in large part due to its phenomenal cast: Cheryl Hines, Larry Miller, Jami Gertz (yay! childhood girlcrush! so pretty!), Garry Marshall and Doris Roberts (who both play very convincing Jews), Jeremy Piven. I do like the Pivs onscreen, in spite of the anti-himness on the interwebz -- but who ever knows anything really, right? It's so childish, this hegemonic consensus on who it's cool to like and who it's cool to bag. It sometimes shocks me how much hostility and anger people direct at strangers, especially in the case of one blog I read where a bunch of otherwise savvy, intelligent commentators who seem to GET the role of the media in creating these false contrived personae, weigh in so vehemently on people and relationships we know nothing really about.

So, yeah. For defying expectations:

Keeping Up With The Steins (2006) *** (3 Plogs)

Wanda Sykes For Next President?

I wouldn't want my kids getting into Dick Cheney's car either.

Bitched Out By Bacall

Growing up I had pictures of her on my wall, Betty Jane Perske that was, a fatherless child with a smouldering stare: "The Look".



Years later I spent approximately a week's wages to attend a function at the Dorchester Hotel in London to hear her speak. I approached her at an appropriate moment, then timidly said "Ms. Bacall, I don't mean to bother you ...", to which she retorted "Well, DON'T then!" before imperiously sweeping past me. Which sounds all rather grand in retrospect but I was in tears. (That said, I was younger than anyone there by about half a century and she had just bitched in her address about "the younger generation" AND it was just after that panel at Cannes where she objected to Nicole Kidman being deemed a legend, so maybe it was all just down to unfortunate timing!) But still, Lauren?!? Oh, how I loved you! You hurt me more than any man ever has!

Have you ever been dissed by someone you've adored from afar?