Such Is Life

Madonna and Baby Jesus

Panda B. (Bandit)'s brush with modeling!

It was not for him.

Express Yourself

A Night on the Town

The HIStory of punk & blanket: A Gift Circle

In case you haven't heard, Michael Jackson has died. Cause of death is unknown but he basically expired. We have always loved Mike. It's time to tell how much.

Back in 2003, unsated after throwing Lady Di down the stairs, a villain named Martin Bashir, set upon Michael and a lot of people believed the filth he cast. We were killing time in a fashion forum, reading skin care product reviews and hunting for bargains in the swap shop when the witch hunt for Michael and then Debbie Rowe kicked in. We leapt to their defence and were surprised at how many young ladies were so prudish and old fashioned. The ferocity of their disdain seemed maladaptive. Our battle raged after Deb talked about her Gift to Michael in his response doco. They just didn't get it, didn't get Deb.

It was around this time that blanket's name changed from NatalieJohns to blanket, not realising what this simple act had set in motion. Shortly after, we built a virtual altar to Debbie Rowe in an effort to give back something to this woman who had given so much. A few people heard the call, others maintained their narrow views and eventually we were expelled, blocked, banned. We had run out of aliases and left as punk and blanket to go it alone.

We have always believed in Debbie and now that she's back in focus we'd like to remind everyone: she's just another surrogate. A surrogate with a Gift. She gave Michael the gift of Paris and Prince 1 and she gave us the gift of our identity. Today, we give her our support once again.

It's a circle of gifts.

Poem For David Carradine

walk on rice paper
leave no trace

climb in closet
to a higher place

Making Sure No-one Gets Hurt

A lot has happened since our last entry. We ended up taking the spooky poppets with us, wrapping them in aluminium foil so that they wouldn’t reflect any bad energy in the direction of the targets. We stared at them night after night, though we didn’t dare unwrap them, so really we were just staring at our own reflections. The answer was written all over our faces; we needed the relief only an intervention could bring.

Last Thursday, when we knew Claire would be out all day doing readings in the regions, we let ourselves into her house to prepare a comfortable and non-judgemental environment. We started burning some calming oils, strategically scattered some boxes of tissues, pre-chilled her Baileys and set up her foot spa. We didn’t bother getting a support person in for Claire because she’s got her guides.

Claire got home around six and asked us why the TV wasn’t on. We just came right out and told her she was party to an intervention, by us. She sat down, we put the poppets on the table and asked her if there was anything else she’d like us to see. Claire sat there silently for quite some time looking from one poppet to the other, it was hard to guess what she might be thinking. Then she got up and we followed her out the back to the bins. She stuck her hand in the bin (not the one for paper) and untaped a miniature version of Charmaine, Australia’s Most Gifted Psychic. She handed it to us and led us to the bathroom where John Butler’s little plastic legs were jutting out of the toilet covered in dirty rusting pins. She was about to hand it to us but we told her not to worry about that one. We walked back to the loungeroom and Claire seemed hesitant for a moment before she reached into her handbag and pulled out what appeared to be a ball of pins. She whispered, “It’s Nicholas Sarkosy”. We asked her if she thought there were any more. Claire shook her head.

After some extensive workshopping we were all in agreeance that the main problem is Grayam, and in a broader sense, all male models and the male modelling industry. Grayam is the only factor we can control in this dreadful scene so we have arranged through some Masonic contacts for Grayam to be fastracked into the Buttery to get off modelling. We hear he’s been attending songwriting workshops with Rick Grossman and that guy who used to be in Goanna.

Suspect Dolls in the Deep Freeze

Yesterday was 47 degrees. The hottest day ever and Melbourne was like hell. What went down could have been a result of the extreme conditions so at this stage we're prepared to have an open mind, but the evidence is pretty compelling that Claire's disdain for male models is becoming unhealthy.

Anyway, we are cooling off, dangling our feet in Claire's backyard deep freeze and we thought we might dig up some of Claire's homemade Baileys Gelato. Underneath the Patties Party Packs we uncovered three frozen poppets in the likeness of The Saddest Male Models In The World, some of them with pins stuck in them. We do not condone males becoming models but Claire's suburban voodoo practice is out of control and puts her at risk of karmic retribution.

As yet we haven't said anything to Claire because this could just be the tip of the iceberg, she may have poppets of us mocked up and ready to go. We're gonna be quiet on this one for a bit.

Claire, Grayam and the Dark Prince of the Rockocracy

Claire came over the other day in a flap about Grayam. His house burnt down last week when he was watching Make Me A Supermodel. The TV went up in flames just as Jennifer Hawkins opened her mouth. He asked his Granny if he could stay at her place and Claire said he could on the strict proviso he give up modelling. Desperately he swore he would never do it again. Things are already wearing thin. Claire says Grayam lies on the couch all day long with the blinds drawn and reeks of vomit and sunscreen. He's obsessed with making ice cubes and she has found sunflower seeds stuffed under his pillow along with a well worn copy of Karl Lagerfeld's Diet Book. At meal times Clarie watches Grayam eat his food and wonders if she'll see it again later. And the worst thing happened this morning when she was tidying his scrapbooking mess and found this photo, clearly taken by Grayam, of new friend Jethro Lazenby playing dress ups with his Dad's old clothes.

Winner - Turkey Of The Year 2008

Last year's winning turkey comes from a very very tight field but never has the vote been so definite, our winner is the treacherous turkey, Baz Luhrmann. The gobbler tells New Zealand's Richard Wilkins that his movie is not about our land but about a state of mind. We are Australians but 'australia' plays no role in our cognitive awareness. And it seems many other Australians agree as we have been inundated with votes for Baz.

Turkey Of The Year 2008

And the nominees are........

Carved Turkey - Sam Newman - for his operating theatre performance featuring Turkey Spotter Eddie Maguire in a shower cap.

Turkey Spotter - Eddie Maguire - so proud of his (un)dressed turkey's 60 minutes.

Crack Turkey - Wayne Carey

Turkey Disney - Terri 'themepark' Irwin

Bad Turkey - Brendan Nelson on Sorry Day

Flaming Turkeys - Text Publishing, David Marr & Bill Henson

Treacherous Turkey - Baz Luhrmann

Turkey In The Headlights - Jodhi Meares

Dressed Turkey - Sarah Palin

Crumbed Turkey - Gordon Ramsay

Baz Luhrmann auditioning the part of Leading Lady in His movie He called Australia.

What About David?

Well there's a little boy waiting in the shadows of the Kabbalah

He's been waiting down there, waiting like a prayer

He never ever goes to the milk bar

He gets flown around, bought by the pound

He's not allowed to eat meat and he thinks

What about me, it isn't fair

I can't stand my nannies' stare

Can't you see I wanna live

But you just take more than you give

Well there's a strange lady dancing wildly in the stadium

He's been waiting back there, waiting for his beans

Nannies walk in and out, they're not his mum

Well we're not too proud to cry out loud

We watch the tv and we ask

What about Dave? It isn't fair

We can't stand the Granny's stare

Can't you see he wants to live

But she just takes more than she gives

Stolen

We are the victims of identity theft. Recently it has come to light that two people are posing as punk & blanket in order to judge a local poetry competition. Apparently, this had been going on for two years. They have even hacked into our site and planted the competition under our 'Gigs' section. They have done something to it that stops us from deleting it. These rumours sent us into a spin so we decided to stalk the imposters. We researched them on myspace and facebook and even went to the poetry competition's grand final to see them in real life. We were unimpressed; they're not our kind of people. Our sartorial integrity was at stake. We didn't know what to do. How could we stop this ongoing theft when no-one knows who we are? In order to stop them we would be forced to reveal our true identities. Then what kind of superheroes would we be?

As always in times of trouble, we sought an audience with Claire. She's been a bit withdrawn lately. Ever since her arch nemesis Charmaine won The One: The Search for Australia's Most Gifted Psychic, Claire has been pale, withdrawn and insecure about her Gift. Luckily, practical advice was all we were after. Claire's had some experience dealing with identity theft when an impersonator was draining Dodi al Fayad's credit card. We explained our predicament and initially Claire looked aprehensive and took a deep look into the fridge door. Then she said "Well, what is identity?" She entered into a full examination of what identity means. A lot of it we didn't understand as it was pretty technical stuff. We drifted off and settled into our listening faces. Our ears pricked up when Bill Henson's name was mentioned in connection with Grayam. According to Claire, Grayam got really messed up with identity issues after posing topless for Bill in the eighties. When the picture's became really expensive, Grayam told everyone that Bill had stolen his identity. Claire said that even to this day, the Henson affair has damaged Grayam as he is supremely narcissistic and unable to differentiate image from reality.

This was all very well for Grayam, but we're under threat here. Our's is a different polemic. It is not imagined identity theft, it's real. Saying all this to Claire, she peered over her magnifiers and wide-eyed sans blinking, and goes "Yeah but, who are punk and blanket anyway?"

SORRY

The Evolution of Karl Lagerfeld

Disturbing Moments In Popular Culture

1. Troubled West Australian Liberal Leader sniffing a female colleague's recently vacated chair.

2. The aforementioned Liberal under suspicion of doing 'something inappropriate' to a quokka.



3. The front cover of Madonna's Hard Candy.

4. The sad eyes of the unsmiling Suri Cruise.

5. Heather Mills.

6. The 60 Minutes vision of Sam Newman's diseased prostate on the end of a surgical implement.

7. Gender is no barrier for Thomas Beatie and Nicole Kidman who against all odds and nature fall pregnant.

8. Mick Gatto in the boxing ring with the guy who played him in Underbelly.

9. Yoko Ono's breast pride.

10. Nicole Kidman winning an Oscar for best 'actress'.

Seven Children's Wear Boutiques In One Strip

Yesterday in the Hawksburn Village, Toorak, we were victims of parent rage. Talking on our phones we didn't notice that our Staffordshire Terrier familiar was sniffing the heels of a small child dressed in a tutu and carrying a wand. Our conversations were interrupted by the penetrating shrillness of a South Eastern Suburb's Mother shielding her young. "That dog needs training" "That dog needs training". We told her to chill. He doesn't bite. Then she screeched, "If my child squeals he'll kill her". We said no he won't. She said,

"He will, I can see it in his eyes".



Panda B. (bandit) is a darling and a gangsta rapper but he is so not a killer. Then she starts on about reporting us to the council. We try to avert her procedural gaze but everywhere we turn we see children in designer fancy dress. Spooky girls holding red devil umbrellas and little boys dressed as Fiona Scanlan's 'big' sailors. We didn't mean to hurt her but we snapped and slapped her clean across the snout.

Panda B. (Bandit) in an Onion Trance