nouvelle vague

The reason I wish I lived in Paris in the 60's:

Muse of French director Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina...

mmm coke zero...

Gaga at Vancouver airport looking very Amy Winehouse (plus latex).

They should probably use the metal-detector on her beehive, or if she's really taken a leaf out of Winehouse's book - the sniffer-dog.

And according to Gagadaily.com, she "enjoyed a Coke Zero" in the terminal. Gosh, even news about her is filled with product placements.

no, i'm not a neo-nazi

In another implusive, hair-related act of madness (let's remember that I bleached my hair blonde a few months ago), I shaved my head last week.

Whether it was for a yet another new beginning, or just due to a chemical imbalance in my brain, I now have very little hair.

Just as I paid homage to influential blondes in my post-peroxide blog post several months ago (http://teddypickle.blogspot.com/2010/05/blonde.html), i'll now give you a collage of skinhead infamy for your viewing pleasure...

At least I have a nose, Voldemort...

teddy pickle vs the world

I recently did myself a favour and saw Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. In short, it's fantastic and you MUST see it. And for those who've seen it - it made me want to turn Vegan (giving up meat, eggs, dairy, etc. in exchange for rad psychic powers? I'm in!)

But i'll avoid turning this post into a big gushing ramble about how much I loved it. Instead, let's get conceptual, baby.

In the film, Scott has to defeat his new love interest's "seven evil ex's", in thrilling comic-book style. Between geekin'-out about the cool cartoonish fight scenes, I got thinking about the nature of relationships and the idea of the "evil ex".

 

Relationships sure are fun at the time, but once the shit inevitably hits the fan (once again, i'm a child of divorce - let me be cynical of relationships) it's hard not to join the ranks of the "evil ex's". The mutual, unmessy break-up is just about as rare as an unembarrassing Tony Abbott TV appearance. It's pretty inevitable that at some point, we'll adopt the role of the spurned lover. And me being my easily-jealous self (I almost stabbed a person on a neighbouring table in a restaurant with a fork because I liked the look of their linguine), I know that one day i'll be that sad, ugly, vengeful ex-boyfriend.

So watch out.

moving forward

I can officially say that tomorrow my vote will be going to Julia Gillard, provided I can actually fill out the ballot paper correctly (i'm not so good with numbers and instructions and the like).

Why will I be voting Labor, you ask?

My hot little vote will be going to the party that is apparently putting us into national debt for the sole reason that Julia Gillard is an absolutely fucking hilarious human.

 (Jules workin' the crowd at her weekly spot in a smoky little comedy club)

I love to laugh with her, at her, around her. In no way am I criticising her abilities as a politician, but I can't lie - she's like a one-woman comedy show. Her Kath & Kim accent, her little hand gestures, her "Westie" (Western suburbs) pride, her mannish power-attire... everything about her is a endearingly daggy.

And this golden nugget of a quip on Q&A just sealed the deal for me:



I'm not at all a politically-savvy person. I haven't done my election homework (or any kind of homework, for that matter - probably should get onto that...), so I realise my vote isn't going to change the world. As long as the Nazis don't decide to make a ruckus or North Korea decides to branch out, we'll be relatively fine regardless of who's running the show.

So if it doesn't make a massive difference whether it's Jules or Tony, we might as well have a leader that makes us laugh.

want fame? just have a lie down

Ah Google... you all-seeing, omnipresent Orwellian creature...

This image, of a girl "playing dead" on a street in England, was found on Google Maps Street View.


"The photos of Azura Beebeejaun's body so alarmed residents that they called the internet giant and a newspaper to report it, the Daily Mail said.
Azura said she was "chuffed" her image was on the internet.
"I didn't know anything about the Google Street View car [recording me]. I fell over while I was playing with my friend and thought it would be funny to play dead," she told the Mail.
"I'm quite chuffed I'm on the internet. It is quite funny and I can't wait to tell my classmates when I go back to school."
(The Age, August 13, 2010) 


So now I know what that strange feeling of being watched is (hooray, i'm not schizophrenic!). It's the ever-growing, many-tentacled Google watching over me. Let's just hope he's more "Octopus's Garden" than Kraken.

mr and mrs degeneres?

Okay, I'm all for equal rights to same-sex couples, let me just be very clear about that.

But Portia de Rossi wanting to take on the surname of her partner Ellen Degeneres? Strange.

Why do gay people want to take on all the crappy trappings of conventional marriage? Sure, it means legal and financial security, but it also brings a whole shitbag of other things with it (okay, i'm a child of divorce, don't expect this argument to be an unbiased one).

Portia changing her last name to Degeneres also brings a sense of old-fashioned dominance and power into the mix. I'm no expert, but wouldn't same-sex couples aspire to modern, equal relationships rather than ones tied-up with male-dominated, patriarchal values?

By her taking on Ellen's surname, doesn't that make her the "wife" and Ellen the "husband" figure?

I love Ellen (watching her talk show is a secret indulgence of mine from time to time) but this just strikes me as odd and unnecessary. Then again, i'm probably just looking too deeply into it.

Let's just hope Ellen's trademark dance-break at the beginning of her shows doesn't turn into a militant, goose-step as a result.

pop hero

You don't see many pop-stars these days getting down and dirty in the mosh like Gaga.

The singer/songwriter/fashion icon/creature from another dimension fought off security guards trying to yank her back on stage and became one with the Lollapalooza crowd in Chicago last week, a pretty brave move really.

Thank God there weren't any religious fundamentals within wig-grabbing proximity.

Photo-credits: http://www.lady-gaga.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=626

mono or poly?

University lecturers and teachers are left-wing, opinionated, political and use a lot of big fancy words - that's how the stereoptype goes.
And if you choose to judge the whole lot of them based solely on my current Comm tutor, then the gap between stereotype and reality is very narrow.

He's so left-wing he's practically flying around in circles, more opinionated than Germaine Greer, more political than the entirety of the 2010 election (which isn't really saying much) and when it comes to using big, fancy words - he spews them out as liberally as a kid who's just eaten too much Alphabetti-Spaghetti.

That said, I like the guy. He's a lot more inetresting to listen to than your crusty, dried-up old Geography teacher from year 9. The stuff that spouts forth from his mouth is both cringe-worthy and fascinating. From his belief that skyscrapers represent gigantic symbolic penises to his Orwellian views on how humans are under constant surveillance, from both outside and within ourselves, his little sppeches are not your usual tutorial fodder.

But there's a particular view of his that grabs me by the balls the most - his belief in "polyamory". Basically, he follows the idea that people shouldn't have to be tied down, emotionally or sexually, to just one partner. He has a "primary partner", but then several other lovers orbiting about, and so does his "primary partner". It's a big ol' web of love and everyone involved is cool with it.

It's a fascinating idea (and let's face it, preferable to the insanity of marriage), but would it work in the long-run? It could be a bit of fun, but at what point does our natural possessiveness and jealously kick in and rain on the parade? But, as my polyamorous teacher preaches, this possessive nature is the very opposite of "nature" - it's been bred unnaturally into us from birth.

According to him, our "love" isn't a thing to be saved just for one person at a time. It's a morphous, ever-growing thing capable of increasing in size according to how many people we choose to share it with. It's radical, but I kinda like this idea. Perhaps instead of guarding our "love" as if it were a precious chihuaha, we should just keep feeding it and feeding it like an unstoppable, monstrous mutant blob creature.

What a lovely notion.