You know, if they told me I was going to appear so much I would have charged more…
Foodge Escapes from Buntings
Written by Mark
Foodge was sitting in the foyer of the court house rolling a durry, well with tobacco and some other funny green stuff. O’Hoo was busy talking to some official over at the counter. Foodge was in deep thought mode, why am I here, why was I born, what is my first name and you know all those things that race through you mind in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep.
“O’Hoo, hoo were you talking two” speaking phonetically so O’Hoo wouldn’t understand, asks Foodge as he deeply inhales on his durry.
“Clark, I think his name was, no Clark Cell, a standard primary cell producing 1.4328 volts at 15 degrees C which consists of a mercury cathode and a zinc amalgam anode both dipping into a saturated solution of zinc sulphate” says O’Hoo.
Oh fuck off thinks Foodge. Never ask a simpleton a question that you don’t know the answer too. “Anyway pass us the scotch”. Foodge is discombobulated now(thanks Gerard, my spell checker doesn’t know it still, after all this time).
Come here lad, have a whiskey…
“Where’s the press throng?” asks Foodge as he inhales deeply on his durry. Oh yes, South Sea Islands Scotch sure does taste good in the morning.
O’Hoo runs out of the foyer onto the front steps of the court house and spy’s a group of school kids passing by on an excursion or just running away from their teachers. O’Hoo approaches them and says “Look kids, I understand that this is a kid friendly web page but can you pretend to be from the media, you know asking questions, pointing microphones and taking pictures when my mate come out from the court?”
“Um, yeah, um, yeah, okay mate! Wot’s in it for us?” says a little smart arse in the front row.
“Sausage sizzle, with fried onions and tomato sauce, all round at Buntings, oh on white bread, nothing healthy” blurts O’Hoo relating to the inner psyche of the modern generation.
“Yep, wheeze in” says the smart arse.
Foodge stumbles out of the court to face the “media throng”.
“Mr Foodge, what have you got to say about the court case?” says the smart arse kid who is getting way too much media attention.
“Well” replies Foodge “ I can’t say anything while the case is in front of the court”
“Well that’s only literally, not metaphorically”. The smart arse kid is really stating to grate and you can fucking well spell that how you want to and I’m the author.
“No more comments from me except to say the chicken schnitzel on Monday night with mushroom gravy is to die for.”
Hmm, Tastes like chicken…
O’Hoo pulls up in the Zephyr. “You drive Foodge. We are being followed. I’ve read the script”
“But I’m pissed and stoned”
“Doesn’t matter we’re fictional and anyway Gordon will get us off any charges.”
Foodge accerlates the Zephyr down the boulevard. O’Hoo jumps into the back seat and smashes out the back window.
“Why did you do that for? Emmjay will be really pissed that we went over budget.”
“I’ll get a better shot this way. Keep speeding, we are being followed by the FBI, the CIA, ASIO and worst of all the CWA” cried O’Hoo as he lets fly a few salvo’s out of the recently renovated rear window.
Foodge dodges and swerves through the back streets of Inner Cyberia as O’Hoo fires indiscriminately out the back window, trying to take care to hit any one at any time.
The FBI and ASIO cars go down when the CIA call O’Hoo on a two way radio that he didn’t know he was carrying up until now.
“Wheeze hungry” says the CIA goon.
Stop, I’m from the CIA, no the CIB, no the CIC, no the CID…
“Take the next left and into the McJacks drive through” says O’Hoo thinking he should have added and extra T and said thought. So many questions so little time.
Everyone is going through the drive through, try saying that after a few drinks but the CWA ladies want a Fillet-O-Fish so wheeze is all held up. Wears the pleece when yous want them. Don’t you just love phonetics.
The race continues but O’Hoo is a bit too sharp for his opposition and quickly takes out the CIA car as they munch on their McJacks. The CWA are a different story. O’Hoo fires another round of high powered tracer bullets into their car from loaded magazines thanks to granny, an eternal pacifist. Don’t you love her. Peace man.
O’Hoo and Foodge drive into the car park at the Pigs Arms with the Zephyr looking in bad shape with bullet holes and smashed windows, however Foodge won’t budge until he has finished his Big McWhopper, fries and slushie. “Let’s get the fuck out of here” screams O’Hoo as he finishes his chicken burger and Coke drink.
Apparently it’s a restaurant
Foodge and O’Hoo run into the bar avoiding eye contact with Emmjay. Big M and Algernon cock there weapons and the three sisters, Yvonne, Barbara and Shoe just keep studying the form guide, totally disinterested in the shenanigans. The CWA drive straight through the front doors and get out of their car opening fire with their weapons. Big M, Algernon and O’Hoo return fire and bullets are flying everywhere.
Meanwhile back in the kitchen granny is really peeved. Emmjay walks through the fire fight into the kitchen and says to granny “Lets have a bake off so we can stop this madness.”
Granny walks into the bar and yells “Stop. Stop now.” Funnily enough everyone stops. “Lets have a scone bake off to sort this out.”
All the cooks head out to the kitchen and start cooking. Scones, cream and jam are served to everyone. Hmm, all taste great. Granny says “Well, what was this agro all about?”
Written by Shoe – Direction and Photography by Mark.
“Granny can’t be all that deaf,” Mark was remarking.
“I’m not going as Death,” Granny hollered. The cellar’s a long way. From is even longer by the time Granny climbs the stairs after a few quiet ones.
“Fancy dress,” Algy explained to Big M, “They’re holding an Allusion to celebrate we’re all in a better place.
“There’s a row of them in a big wooden box,” Foodge heard Granny screech as he walked in.
“I’m all done in, Uncle Merv.”
Merv set down a steaming cup of milo on the bar. Foodge expelled the breath of a man of all reason. Foodge was a season of reason. No-one dared ask. Foodge was likely to recount. He might recount his entire latest judgement. Foodge never came away from any trial without a good 40-minute obiter.
“Come to think of it,” Shoe said aloud. She thought she was only thinking it. “Foodge comes away from every trial like a man glued to postal mail.”
She wrote it down. Benj, new proprietor of the bookshop suggested, “Like a George the Fifth?”
Benj in better times…
So unnecessary. Overstatement of an adhesive. Strictly speaking, it had been used before.
“If we could make them a little less corny.”
Mark was remarking.
“Not again,” Yvonne groaned. Yvonne could barely breathe for fear if she stopped holding her breath in anticipation, Shoe would say nothing more, write nothing, least of all think.
“Breathe, Yvonne.”
Mark had it in hand. He placed the bar bill down on the, well, bar.
“I can’t read all these zeroes,” Shoe animated. “You can’t expect me to pay this as penalty. Three quadrillion billion five thousand and thirty two million…”
“That’s a heart starter,” sibilanted Big M. Big sibilanted in the face of all emergencies. He knew where to toss a vowel in for good effect when needed.
Ms Lake shouts the next round…
“Here’s a how-de-do,” Veronica Lake said. Ms Lake is new to that beer-soaked chook-squirt-stained establisment. Everyone remembers the Mexican chooks imported from, well, close to the truth.
“This is what comes of putting drinks on tick in an ever-expanding consciousness series sense,” Foodge interrupted, “I’ll take the case.”
Yes, I know, ee eagle Emm sea dared. Bloody dentures…
Gordon and The Bish Go On Holiday: Part Two
by Shoe
Continued…
“Zarks and Constantine,” the Bish says. “It’s Algernon.”
“More than that. It’s Emm and Big M and Mark. It’s… Shoe and Viv and Yvonne and Helvi. Nev and Manne, Merv. I can see Gregor, Ricardo, Gez, Rosemary… Our mates. On an excursion. Didn’t ask us.”
Photo of the crew arriving at Space World. From Back L to R: 1,2,3,4,5 Front row:6,7,8
Gordon O’Donnell feels indignity as rough as a pineapple. The tequila is fuel to a fire lit by a surround of carousing patrons du porc. “How did you get here,” Gordon demands to know.
“I came straight off the Flyer,” says Algernon as cheerful as a bird singing in a tree top.
“I caught the bus home. The Zephyr’s in for mechanicin’.”. It’s Foodge.
He’s fucked Merv, Trotters all round fanks
Others’ voices add ‘walked’, caught the bus’, ‘the other half dropped me off’, ‘me too’ and such like.
“Granny’s latest batch of Trotters,” whispers the Bish to Gordon. Words are a hurdle. “Don’t say anything about Space World, Gordy.”
“No fear,” Gordon whispers back. He is in the same quadrant on their dial. “Don’t mention the toad, Bish, I think.”
“What if he wakes up?” the Bish whispers, nervous, glances at the Pig’s Arms Sports Bar pedal bin.
Warning: Some viewers may be offended as the following contains laptopothansia
“Goose!” Gordon answers in a snapped whisper at the Bish, “He won’t wake up. He can’t. He’s not real. Deny we know him anyway. We’ve done it once. We can do it again.”
“Why?” the Bish whispers back.
“Frogs are popular. Toads bring … opprobrium. They’re … a menace. We’ll get the blame. Anyway, if the toad is in the bin he’ll expire in Trotters’ slops.”
“Leave sleeping toads lie,” the Bish whispers as a cant.
“Good scheme. Say he’s a liar if he wakes up, escapes and says anything,” Gordon commands.
“Don’tmention the toad in the room,” the Bish cants.
“Someone’s got to get you blokes tucked up in your cots,” Merv announces. He slides a tray of freshly washed and polished new knives and forks the length of the new stainless steel serving bench and walks to its other end.
Merv and Foodge stare each other down
“Foodge?” He beckons. “Can you walk these blokes home?”
“Uncle Merv,” says Foodge, “Don’t want to. They should … should be made to pay their slate getting the way they are.”
“We spent all the coin we too… ” Gordon applies a hurtful kick to the Bish’s dangling shins. “Nexsht week, we promise,” the pair says half in unison as they slide unsteadily onto their feet off the new bar stools covered in shining new clear plastic.
“See, Uncle Merv. They’re all good for that.” Foodge is his ever trusting sheltered self and he relents. “We’re scootin’. Gettin’ on the frog and toad now.” Foodge nudges Gordon whose face has gone from pale to deathly white. “Come on, Gordon O’Donnell. Fresh air do you some good” he says, playful. “Come on, Bish. Uncle Merv, I’ll empty the pedal bin on our way out.”
Unashamedly yours
“Good work. Place smells like a dead toad,” Big M gives a thumbs up. Merv feels a glow of Uncle pride to see Foodge recognised for domestic initiative after all these years.
The patrons du porc cheer.
“Be careful with that pedal bin,” Viv warns as Foodge grasps it, nonchalant, naïve of the skill it takes to empty a pedal bin holus bolus without liquid content dribbling at best off the rim of the bucket and around the lid hinge down his arm.
Gordon and the Bish stagger back and veer towards the door in a half run between them as Foodge throws the bin onto one shoulder. The patrons du porc gasp. The weight of the sliding bucket jams the lid of the pedal bin open. Rotting Trotters’ slops propel an arc in the air of liquid silage dotted with discernible strands of coleslaw and mayo.
Nev gets the message
“Surreal,” Nev says. Nev writes restaurant reviews and scores the pub with a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the best.
“I think that’s him,” whines the Bish to Gordon and points to a crumpled black mass of oozing slime on the plastic cover of a table near the door.
“Don’t point!” orders Gordon from somewhere on high, “It’s Schticky Date Pudding.”
The Bish doubles over puking a splendid Inner Cyberian chunder on a new hessian and rag coiled rug at the door. “Lesh get out of here.”
“Where’zh our luggage, Gord,” the Bish asks as they step into night. The air is freezing. They walk along the pavement arm-in-arm to steady themselves
Look, a suppository
and for warmth. They have on Hawaiian shirts that smell bad and knee length shorts with plastic sandals.
“Dunno, I dunno,” says Gordon in reflection apparently on their luggage. His pondering might be on cold.
“Gord, I’m f’r shewer not shewer how much of our shtory’s true this time.” Gordon can see by a glimmer of a lone roadside lamp the Bish looks deep in thought.
“Bish, the toad’s closhest to trew truth.”
“That no-hoper, Gord. Couldn’t walk a straight line if he tried.”
I’m shitting bricks and farting pebbles waiting for the next exciting episode, brought to you by Red Donkey.
Yep, G’day eh I’m Hon Shades. I was Sandshoe. Dinkum.
Awesome enough.
I saw Merv by the way pushing a brand spanking new lawnmower in through the front door of the pub. Make of that what you will and he’s now got his name up in big lettering on the facade of the Pig’s Arms Two-Up School out back.
Merv readies the bar for business
“Two. Two naming rights,” Merv over a drinkie winkie retorted to a journalist from the Pigs Herald daily [advertisement. Pigs-Fly-Buys. Claim Them Now. Only 4 Million left.*] “not one you know and two in the hand. Just from wheelin’ and dealin’.”
Merv looked as if he’d come into a bit of money.
M E R V
About who I am in my no-names on buildings insignificance eh, what happened when I commented at the pub as Sandshoe was the pub bounce let me in no worries. No gravatar ever popped up but. No mug shot’s a concerning thing when you’re seeking fame.
WordPress wouldn’t have a bar of me lol.
True. I couldn’t crack into my WordPress account to get my old gravatar up. No amount of money.
Least work begging scenario, I needed to open a new account. I had to have a new name.
Good fortune. Mark a.k.a Hung One On nick-named me Hon Shades.
Hung and family
Great name.
I’ve taken the name I hope graciously and these words from the bish. The bish himself over a drinkie winkie or two tells Gordon he did, even the greatest physicist in Cyberia, the fame is only a name. It’s not everywhere either fame, Gord. Be glad of a great name.
Youse know the pub’s a blog right eh. The pub’s an imaginative construct assembled by a crowd of people over a number of years. It’s not real even if it does seem real to the gifted.
The Management Team from the PA”S from left Emmjay, Hung, Gez.
I had short back and sides before I read this article…
Now it’s Stress.
Story by Mark.
Merv stands behind the bar, erect and proud, [Mark here Hung, steady now] surveying the ambience of the Pigs Arms, you know stale cigarettes, spilt beer, those unique fruity flavours however there was something worrying him.
“Granny, I’m worried and stressed” he cries.
“Oh for fuck sake Merv, what’s wrong now. Are you having another shitbox moment?”
Granny in her PJ’s
For those who failed to read the last highly stimulating, drama packed episode, and you know who you are, yes I see a few hands, you can find out what a shitbox is here.
“Here, have a pill, works for me, just happened to have a sleeeevvveee, hehehe hahaha” crows Sister Yvonne.
“Nah, 50 ml eucalyptus oil, 500 ml normal saline, rubber tube up the arse, works every time and wait till the koalas start humping you” interjects Nurse Barbara as she puffs on a fag, sips a pint, reads the form guide and takes part in conversations. Womanhood, wonderful to watch. “Anyway if enemas aren’t your thing ask Hon, she’s a survivor.”
“Yeah mate” says Hon using Cyberian vernacular “wot’s the problem Merv, car won’t start, fingernail broken, kicked ya toe. I can deal with it mate, been there done that.”
Merv in the PA XI
“Well, I read that I’m going to be replaced by Aut O’Mation, some Irish bloke apparently. And I’m getting pressure from my agent who thinks I signed up for too many episodes at the Pigs Arms.”
“So who’s your agent?” asks Hon.
“Emmjay”
“Hmm…”
“Hmm…”
“So what is the most pressing issue?”
“Well I signed up for 20 episodes per year at the Pigs Arms and I’m finding it way too much work.”
“Hey I only got 10” pipes in Angler.
Yeah, us too, come the calls from the crew. “What about you Hon? How many did ewe
The Crew
getz?” asks Gib W who suddenly appears at the bar. Must let him know that this magic stuff can scare kiddies as you never know they may be watching.
“Er, um, yeah, like, you know, sort of maybe 15…”
Angler calls the crew together. “What do we want?? ” he cries.
“Um, dunno, wot do wheeze want Angler?” says Gib.
“Um, I know EFFALL and we want it now.”
“EFFALL? Nah mate we don’t want eff all, this is for us fellow space travellers, we make a stand together, yeah, another round.”
“No EFFALL(Equally Fair Fiction for All Languishing Linguists).”
So the chant followed four hours after with many a Trotter’s consumed and a happy night had by all. As the crowd faded the chant still echoes.”Wadda we want, eff all, when da we want it, now”, think about it.
Hung and the boys
Breaking News: Gordon has sent Hung to the scene of a meeting between the management of the Pigs Arms and the Fictional Characters Association. Hung can you hear us,
Yes, look, I’m just going to interview some of the key players as they come out of the building here at Cyberia Central, this is quite a revolt, the characters are threatening strike action if their demands aren’t met. Here’s what Merv had to say,
“…bloody terrible, never knowing one day to the next, ever playing the goon…”
then Granny
“… shocking. It’s either me or Sister Yvonne in the black underwear, must give Hung a chubbie…”
and Foodge
“…the matter is before the court therefore I am unable to say anything however it’s a fit up…”
No other reason why I titled this satirical line drawing ‘Ciccente’ than liking the name when I heard it. A friend who was a traveller, a singer-composer-songwriter, jack-of-all-trades really told me about his impressions on meeting Ciccente, a co-worker in New York who washed dishes to contribute to the support of his wife and extended family. We exchanged stories.
In a patisserie where I worked in Auckland, a giant of a man who was a Pacific Islander immigrant and sole support of his family washed dishes with water running off his giant arms and giant elbows making the floor slippery (although no-one said). I didn’t know his name. He didn’t speak. I started work at 6 a.m. without question.
In the same year I lived at an address behind a rambling wooden boarding house of lodgers and my visitors were street people. I converted the walls of the shed into a display of art and writing-Primus. Audience genuinely enjoyed their viewing. I served hot tea and a steaming bowl of whole oat porridge at any time of the day when I was home. The rent I paid was a pittance. The unit was a converted claptrap of a shed formerly used for garaging a household car.
Sometimes I visited premises up along the ridge of a decaying High Street where a coterie of youthful designers and musicians lived in vacant warehouses. They worked in menial occupations. A close friend was waiting to hear about an application for admission into an Art College. I had never thought of that. One shop front vendor I identified with because he too had worked at premises in the city where I did. I saw style reflected and recognised my own.
Meanwhile, the cost of living was soaring, yet these were heady days, made so by glimpsed roses in inner city straggling gardens and the rush of the traffic even on the overpass over Newton Gully. These are places in the city to-from where we do not usually stop a car and can barely look. I was one with knowing the city around me and sense of rush under me, walking with abandonment and abandoning a preconception given me I could not survive without support. We do generally survive arduous emotional events that we experience when we are parents. I had separated from my family to survive. We have to survive and find a way back.
I was visiting within clear sight of Mt Taranaki and the closest township to there is Inglewood, the regional centre Mt Plymouth.
One version of Maori history claims Te Maunga o Taranaki (Mount Taranaki) once lived in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island with the mountain gods: Tongariro, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe.
Pihanga, another mountain, is incriminated at this other location, called ‘a lovely maid’ who was desirable to all the mountain gods.
A great conflict arose with geophysical consequences.
The face of the earth was pretty well re-arranged and changed.
There be dragons. Watch a dynamic skyline day and night and the centricity to culture of mythological creatures that appear in transitional forms. I knew of the taniwha from previous experience living in New Zealand where its importance as a powerful element to maintain order is paramount in children’s literature and written in the history of the British invaders who were told of of places of its alleged presence by Maoris exploiting superstition.
I became childish and disingenuous intellectual texts had ever been published in my excitement observing these beasts and faces of leering gods as if they were entirely a matter of my new discovery.
Pihanga gathers her mists and veils around her and I observed that occurs in many forms. Taranaki is veiled and weeps.
Taranaki is cast as masculine gender.
Taranaki seems all things rather than an imagined monotheme and masculine.
Taranaki, a living god but the mountain as a natural phenomenon of geoscience has been made by subsequent explosions each separated by many years, but a great upheaval that fell into itself and caused a depression before it rose again on its momentum. I looked out to the saucer-like rim caused at its surround when I walked across farmland made available to my use and to not be conscious of the living god, Taranaki, is to be unaware.
The story of the mountain is displayed in the museum in New Plymouth, Puke Ariki, where nothing else was I found other than the local dilemma of the Occupation. The attempt by the British to degrade the Maori and Maori history is its story.
Around this corner of Marsland Hill once a British garrison I have walked to by a bitumen road, now descending in the footsteps of the redcoats I eerily recognise, I find Charles Brown, mentor and friend of Keats laid to rest in this perfect place.
New Plymouth was once gated. The view of the White Hart Hotel is taken from the base of the New Plymouth clock tower.
I visit places, see sculptures New Plymouth seems practised at installing as if possessed of infinite will to display sculpture or perhaps the environment with its blue sea not far from any point is ideal.
The façade of the City Council is magnificent stainless steel.
I return to where I was living to reach again to the mountain. It was hard to concentrate on anything in its vicinity, but the interrelationship of clouds and light through them and on the peak of the cone that begs the story of a dramatic yearning for unity and rejection. The lyrical balletic dancing of clouds that scud and their shade come from the mountain; it governs weather.
A blue sky and a hot day and I went walking to the mountain.
This dinner trout seems fierce, menacing. It was fished from the stream that sourced in Mount Taranaki flowed through the property where I stayed.
I photographed on a day Taranaki was crying creeks with dark places I could look into over their bridges and coils of the great fern, the cyathea dealbata, the ponga; it is the silver fern in pockets of sunshine and its full shine that causes a characteristic shimmer of silver in roadside verges and fields it has hold over. Everywhere I look I see Taranaki, the living god of an ancient regime of story telling.
I saw the foregoing image through the window on my way from New Plymouth to Auckland on an early morning bus. The bus slowed to accommodate traffic and the corridor of the mist – as I saw it – was Pihanga whose presence between the mountains of Taranaki and Tongariro is still said to dissuade people from the locale lest the rumble start up between these jealous and aggrieved suitors.
I supposed conflict between the environment and dairy farming.
The image (above) is a photo of the wire of an iron frame wire gate, modified by intensifying the colours, by cloning and re-pasteing onto it selected areas of the view through the wire to highlight the wire and converting the resultant image into interpretive forms using Photoshop.
In other words, folks who don’t know, I altered the original photo until I stopped on an image that ‘pleased’ me insofar as it illustrates the meaning (for me) in an abstract form that I derive out of the photo I started with.
Only short of the conversion of it into a kaleidoscopic form, I posted the photo of the gate wire this morning on a social network site I recently began to contribute to, blipfoto. For those who do not know about ‘blipping’, blipfoto allows a subscriber one photo a day. ‘Blippers’ sift through a daily diet of individual’s photos as they choose and comment in return. Try to upload a photo that was not taken within a recent time frame and the blipfoto programme will deny it entry. Assume a photograph from a few days ago will ‘do’ for today and the programme allocates it a position if you have one available on the calendar day the photo was taken, if you hadn’t already uploaded one that day, and labels it ‘backdated’.
You cannot on any given day qualify for that day if you did not take a photo and you are asked to not fudge it.
Instructions are easy enough to follow, uploading a photo takes no time, the level of my subscription attracts no charge and some people write text to go with their photo.
Not very different from the pub really in some ways, blipfoto, except emphasis on the Pig’s here is not exclusively photography, does not ask for anything that is an identifier other than an email address, lacks some discipline as any self respecting pub does in Australia packed with writers and artists, the inspiration of causal and casual cooks and chefs and totally, talk.
Sometimes we turn up and sometimes we do not, who knows turn tail for a while or forever, barrack for the proprietor.
Writing and posting contributions on the wall of the front bar, the Pigs Arms, The Window Dresser’s Arms, Pig & Whistle does best. This ever changing exhibition happens according to how fast the next person’s expression of their eccentric inner self gets posted and the list of contributors cycles. That’s valuable work alongside, leastwise, housing Granny and her dubious brewing equipment, Foodge, Merv the Barman and the twins and their mother, the characters all who have developed within the walls – and allegedly leasing commercial space that is at present always available in the vacant rooms of the pub, its outlier buildings for more characters if they are thought of, more mythology such as has grown around the carpark and when the plumbing blocks ,the emergency long drop left over from when the night truck collected the excreta and council workers clanged cans on purpose underneath the guest wing.
The Hell’s Angles keep an eye on security, although Foodge is a Private Dick.
The older the history of the Pig’s Arms the more layers of the story are told,.
The contributions of the barflies and casual contributors are inside the folders on the RHS of the page. A commenter can jump in anywhere but if they want and comment and contribute to the story of the bar itself without following the trail. Gosh, it doesn’t take Einstein to understand the premise keeping these premises open 24/7 is home spun, feet on the ground brawlin’ and fightin’ and spittin’ and… wrong story line, sorry, I was reading the wrong instructions. I’m a copywriter. They paid me to…
They didn’t!
Sorry. I maintain a dedicated loose grip on the truth. No-one gets paid.
Truth, honest, Mike Jones regardless hasn’t been awarded the Order of Australia yet for the Pig’s Arms even though he made it to the cover of Rolling Stone …
He didn’t! That was Seniors magazine!
… sent me an email a while back and suggested I send in a piece for the birthday party. I’m onto it.
Happy Fourth Birthday, Pig’s Arms at The Window Dresser’s Arms, Pig & Whistle.
Editors Note: Many moons ago, ‘Shoe and I discussed the story behind the story of the making of a now famous (some might say infamous) shaggy frog joke about a frog going into a bank and asking for a loan. I first heard the joke told on radio by none other than Kerry O’Keefe as an alternative to commentating on a major cricket match played at the Gabba.
By way of introduction to this major work, proudly published by the Pig’s Arms, here is Kerry O’Keefe’s retelling of the joke – the joke that was written by Christina Binning Wilson (Sandshoe to the interweb tubalists or ‘Shoe to her mates at th Pig’s Arms).
So get yourself some pleasing refreshments and a comfortable chair, settle back and begin our odyssey …
Part 1 –Owning (up)
Story and photo by Sandshoe
Acknowledgements
It is not easy being pink. Yet fortune itself I threw in my lot with the Pigs Arms and became a piglet. Thank you,Mike Jones, proprietor and editor-blogger for your kind encouragement responding to my enquiry you are happy to publish this Special Feature at the Arms.
To Astyages, the troubadour who posted the shaggy dog ‘Herbal T for Two’ at the Pigs’ Arms.1
That was a while ago. I was living in Adelaide. I said I wrote one of those. I said I would post it. This is its story.
I do really get the joke
The half-a-dozen perhaps people who I originally read my joke to laughed. I had supposed they thought I gave it my best shot.
Now, when I find a version of it again to send it off to the Pigs Arms, I get it. My friend, Wojciech, comes by. Now, convulsed with laughter I read it to Wojciech.
Wojciech laughed and laughed, possibly at my laughing.
I rewrote and wrote it again, teased at it to make it topical and meander, wrote an introductory reference given it was address to astyages, his “shaggy dog” and I chortled. The pseudo-truth tickling my funny bone no end was that soon it would be revealed “a shaggy frog”.
Before mailing finished copy to Mike Jones, illustrations, and a link to information about the natural history of a local frog I chose to promote, I settled to search online might anyone by an incident of synchronicity have spun a yarn like it and I supposed–surely–I would find “a shaggy frog”.
I grouped and googled key words out of the text:
frog
bank
loan
My blood ran cold. I added:
shaggy frog
rolling stone
It is an extreme sensation feeling mortified.
When I found its original replicated near faithful word for word online, bloody icicles instantly formed in my veins I swear and began to counteract immediately–somewhere in the pit of my stomach– an inferno of heat I felt drain from my brain. Blood coursed the extent of my body from my head to my toes and back again. A WHOOOOOSHHHHHHH.
I read it first on Page 9 of Charismatics, Articles of Spiritual Enlightenment for Christians, Charismatics, the Halo on the Internet, at http://www.sfSpirit.com, San Francisco, Volume 9, Number 6 June 2002
The Golden Gate Breakfast Club newsletter in San Francisco – ‘the nicest people in the world meeting each week for breakfast, friendship and enlightenment. Since 1946!’ –reported (link archived):
‘Marty Mijalski was able to deliver his joke postponed from last week this morning. It was the frog applies for a loan joke. The punch line: knick-knack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a rolling stone. Alan Garber told that joke five years ago.’
FIVE YEARS AGO!
My stomach knotted.
Self conscious anxiety is a debilitating condition.
Three failed and abandoned computers with files I hauled around until I could afford to no longer are scattered. I saw in the bowels of the world’s computer parts dumps or reassembled into recycled metal toys for small and larger boys and girls. I do have Apple floppy disks that might have on them a file of the original text. I have the rudiments only of the vintage Apple computer and software in unsealed packaging I bought on eBay in the last year attempting to put together another system.
I have not got in my possession any of the original email or files–and no original hard copy.
I did write one comment only on a website, Author Culture, and not hearing a word from that site I felt embarrassed at my naivety and little did I know how naïve, not even half. I shelved all thought about it as best as I could and didn’t search it in detail any further beyond recognising it was feral. I felt overwhelmed with a sense of loss. Astyages asked once how I was doing with it and when would I present it. I think I mumbled ‘Tell you soon’. I confided in no-one other than Wojciech.
Having moved from Adelaide to accommodation in Bordertown last year, I was ill from overwork and circumstances previous to my deciding to move from Adelaide to housing I could afford, from the hardship of moving house and home and having to abandon possessions to do that. In retrospect I can see a complex set of circumstances not overlooking I dealt with a struggle to rebuild an existence in Bordertown on my own. I was in hospital for a while and recovering and I took a case to the Tenancy Tribunal as the piglets will recall. I was busy as people get. I eventually confided over a shared meal with a newly-met local friend I had written a joke. I was flattered yes, but acutely self conscious and I showed her online.
Christine was empathetic. In a matter of days, I heard the news from her I would, she said, never believe, but she “heard thejoke on the radio” and that she yelped in recognition, “That’s Christina’s joke!”
RADIO!
Over my head.
I missed who exactly the fellow was, although I was entreated he is famous. Something something you know the cricket. He travels all over the world doing his thing, she said, looking a little disconcerted I did not seem to understand her meaning.
I was–instead–in shock again. I begin feeling excruciated. Isolated, particularly isolated.
I do not have ABC Radio National reception, neither local ABC radio reception that is reliable, but neither can I use my online download internet quota playing radio all day and meanwhile, not a hint even of the NBN. No SBS reception. Media is a sensitive issue for me out of all life’s niceties I do not have living in Bordertown and I’ve a list.
Fancy excruciated. I have never used the word, but I vacillated between the healthy stirring of curiosity, feeling tickled pink and miserable.
Jim came down to potter around the cottage doing odd jobs and I referred the matter to Jim. Jim is my landlord. Jim knows about stuff. He might know about cricket. I braced myself.
“I wrote a joke a few years ago.”
“U…huh.”
I describe the gist…a frog…um…he goes for a loan and that I am ridden with guilt…because I owe the joke to the Pigs Arms…but…online…multiplying…like rabbits. I hang my head on the inside.
Jim and I had never exchanged an opinion about joke telling. Neither had ever told the other a joke.
“Oh,” says Jim, as he worked, “I know that one. Is that the one…
THE ONE!
…about a frog who goes into… I start to feel hysterical… a bank and wants a loan?”
“Yes.”
“My son has it on his phone.”
PHONE!
“He’s been carrying it around for a while now–PAUSE–That’s an old joke.”
I have an ear for nuance. I sat up out of the mud of embarrassment.
“It’s a fair age now,” I agree to showI appreciate a duty of care.
“O, yes, it is” Jim says, glad we agree on that.
“I wrote it,” I say as calmly as possible. I saw consideration I wrote it dawn.
I mumble and dash off, “I remember the day I wrote it… formula… can’t find the original… sigh… never mind… I wrote it.”
I did ask Jim who ‘the cricket chap’ is. I find a recording of Kerry O’Keefe, broadcaster and the commenter lisabella’s reference added at 10PM AEST on March 12, 2006 on the whirlpool forum online where she posts a link to a recording–
‘When Kerry first told it, the joke took nearly 3 overs of cricket before he finally got to the punchline!!!’
If lisabella is right, putting to the universe a month earlier, on 19 Feb 2006 at 11AM she was hoping for ‘an audio link or does some one have it on their hard disk’ to provide her for her brother, the broadcast by Kerry was at the Brisbane Cricket Ground at Woolloongabba (the gabba) during the ABC’s cricket coverage Tuesday 14 February 2006 at approx. 2pm on the 3rd One Day final between Australia & Sri Lanka.
Of all the versions, Kerry O’Keefe’s meticulous reading is as close to the original as any. The ironies are out of sight. No irony as mind bending that it was not unlike from my viewpoint as a former facilitator of a writers’ group listening to a writer read to an audience in a community centre (cfThe Making of that Joke. Part 6 – Creative Writers) except they’re reading my stuff.
fstx posts on the same forum as lisabella at 11AM on Feb 20 AEST, before saying ‘Not that it makes the joke any better!’:
‘I’ve heard a version where it’s a chocolate bar and the banker’s name is Caddyshack, so the punchline is…
“It’s a Kit-Kat, Caddyshack…” ‘
It was kicking around as it turns out well before Kerry’s choice to broadcast the joke at the cricket in 2006, not intending to detract from Kerry’s choice or performance of it–to the contrary.
On the forum of DFWStangs.net selling Mustang Fords, where the page loading near rolls over from the weight of flickering animation and advertisements reckoned to disappear out of sight were I to become a registered user, it is called ‘The Frog and the Elephant’ uploaded 05-30-2002, 03:58 PM by the contributor whose location is listed as Las Colinas (Texas I assume). A commenter, lilgeezy, at Irving in New Brunswick, Canada writes 07-06-2002, 02:11 AM–in reply to a query ‘were its origins Sesame Street’:
‘that WAS on the disney channel when those lil kids go out and tell their favorite jokes… not that i was watching it or nething, i just … heard….
The Independent Daily is the English language newspaper of the Island of Mauritius. The joke is published in Vol. 1, No.250, Port Louis, Thursday September 2, 2010, Section 4>‘Listings’ viewable through the website of Stanford University, headed with the caption ‘J USTINJEST BY HILAMA’ and illustrated with a cartoon frog.
I feel substantially queasy about my impoverished status when I view in a bottom left hand quadrant the glossy colour ad for ‘LM Live Jokes in your Daily Life’ in which a beautiful young woman naturally laughs at her mobile phone in hand. The contrast between the status of her clothing and the implied delight the lovely lass is provided by her subscription is in marked contrast to my own circumstances when I imagine a customer’s laughter may conceivably be at my feral.
I wonder, I cannot help but, that the $50,000 amount the frog asks for, and not the original $30,000, might inspire enhanced donation to the church building fund where, for the pastor at Willingham Church, Cambridgeshire, UK it fits illustration of ‘a case of mistaken identity’.
Harry Mooring of Leeds submitted it to The Parishioner magazine of the Kiltarlity Church and Kirkhill Church where it is published on P 17 of The Parishioner Newsletter Issue 57 – November 2012 alongside The Moosie’s Prayer’ described, ironically, as ‘This anonymous, humorous poem…clearly aimed at children …lends yet another twist to the story of the “poor church mouse” –
Greg Jones, a pastor at the Church of Brethren, at Bunkertown, McAlisterville, in Pennsylvania, USA published the joke and the comment Dialegomai (see below) in the Bunkertown COB newsletter. The analytical method of Dialegomai interested me considered from the viewpoint of the method I used to construct the joke (cf. The Making of That Joke. Part 2 –Building the Joke)
Dialegomai
By Pastor Greg
1 Corinthians 7:1-11 April 11, 2010 Bunkertown COB
Chances are that your mind was racing ahead trying to figure out how all the things in that story would fit together. Why a frog? Is Patty’s name significant?
What’s up with the little pink elephant? The answer came when we viewed the whole story, not just the little bits and pieces along the way. I want you to keep this in mind as we turn once again to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Church.
My best advice to you continues Pastor Greg, is to keep your eyes focused on the whole story. Look at the big picture. Don’t get hung up on the individual events that are happening in your life right now. Think and reason.
The Pope features alongside in the adjoining column on P 4 of The Knight Register of the Newsletter of Knights of Columbus Council No. 13072, St. Mary Parish, Vancouver, BC, Canada
The member pladecalvo in Valencia, Spain posted the joke on the July 2007 at 09:31 AM in the City Data-Com Religion and Spirituality Forum that demands Let’s Hear Some Nice Clean Jokes!
Received by the MoonlightBlue blogger from Ricky in Salò in the Province of Brescia, Lombardy in Italy and so they seem to know it in in Pembroke Dock in Pembrokeshire in the UK in 2007.
Recreation and hobby clubs have adopted it including have called it their own from hunting and fishing to flying and service clubs among which is Probus in Deloraine in Tasmania and from Rotarians in America to Kent in the UK to ‘Snippets’ (from club bulletins) at the Rotary Club at Diamond Creek (Melbourne, Victoria) where its contribution is attributed December 5th 2012 to the Rotary Club of Rosanna (Melbourne).
Just to give you the idea: the Tourist Information Centre website of Yea, ‘situated at the junction of the Melba Highway and Goulburn Valley highways approximately 100 kms from Melbourne’. includes the joke in The Humour File.
How did I not guess it would be recounted by the Queensland Frog Society. O course I had supposed it would appeal to environmentalists who love frogs. They were my main target group. It is introduced by the editor as follows: Oldies are the best.. I think we have had this before but for anyone who has not heard it here it is again. Thanks Trish (I love it).
Tombro at Lake Macquarie, New South Wales said on the Glasgow (Scotland, UK) Guide Board on 31st Aug 2009, 10:03am thank you to Brian of Maitland, New South Wales for posting it (the day before) because [Tombro] ‘had a bloody great laugh and…sang it out loud. Whoops, he said, now the neighbours know I’m an absolute nutcase ! http://discuss.glasgowguide.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=17189
Bozo in Perth who was met with enthusiasm by GSX in Shed has uploaded it rightly or wrongly on a site called ‘a Dad joke’ on January 3 last, claiming the frog hopped into the new HSBC Bank Branch in Subiaco
September 2005 in Darwin it was enjoyed by a commenter who thought it was very funny when it was posted on the Gold Coast and Milano in Kiev, Ukraine, said ‘Witty, witty stuff’.
Oldershaw and Co Chartered Accountants Newsletter in NZ March 2005 published it on Page 3 under the title ‘Smiley Bit’ above an article on ‘Spicers Wealth Management’ promoting the availability of a review report generated on reccommending finance company debentures.
I couldn’t resist this lesson in choosing character names. I’m serious here. Really. Use care when naming the folks who populate your stories or your masterpiece may become just a bad joke . . .
Linda Yezak May 28, 2010 11:55 AM
I got a kick out of it myself. Of course, I had to stretch to make it fit into a writing site!
Why did someone make up ‘nick nak patty whack, give the frog a loan, his old mans a rolling stone’? don’t ask me why I want to know, I have no clue. But, if anyone has any Ideas, just type them here please
LiveJournal Inc denounces it as an an unwanted house guest under ‘punnybusiness’:
Please don’t post the story that ends in “It’s a knick-knack, Patti Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone.” – we’ve seen it way too many times. If you post it, I’ll delete it.
If it is published in the volume quoted (please see link below) using the language represented on the webpage, I would be plain disappointed. I know beyond any question of doubt the mother of the frog did not ‘croak’ as is suggested. My research of variations so far of the joke shows this one is unique that extraneous information has been written into it couched in language generally considered by English language speakers sensitive to the language of death and dying across the board of different cultures to be unsafe language to use, disrespectful, rough. The context is made sad. I think a child will identify it is not a joke made happy by introducing the death of the frog’s mother and will fix that.
You cannot believe everything anyway. Neither did the bank manager ‘scowl’ at the teller. Neither does Patty roll her eyes in any version I had read. Elaborating details of body language as well robs the audience of their individual interpretation which is an element of the humour and the strength of the writing.
Christine on 7 November 2011 on the BB Fans (Big Brother) forum says: This is a joke, which was on one of my Birthday cards. It’s a bit corny though I’m afraid:-
The joke is #7 of 7 chosen for publication by the columnist, Greg Heberlein for the Seattle Times article ‘Who’s Standing Next to Bubba’ Sunday, December 19, 1999 under Wall Street Recap. Consider it [the column] suggests the journalist a holiday gift for putting up with the conventional ramblings. This intro is already too long – our joke cup runneth over. But we must thank all the sources: Steve Leuthold’s clients, who submit jokes for his monthly investment newsletter; Eric Miller of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, who collects witty stuff for the company’s semi-monthly publication; Don Gher of Bellevue’s Coldstream Capital, who missed his calling as a comic; and, your loyal scribe’s firstborn son Tom, who scoured the Web for every funny story it had.
Sent in an email it seems originally by Personal Growth Concepts which included the following disclaimer:
The information provided in this email is presented for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for the advice and treatment of a licensed professional clinician, doctor, coach or pastoral counselor.
…and uploaded by blogger mom at frog parenting blogspot who posted the joke on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 under ‘Frog Humour and today’s stuff…Not for Profit but for JOY!’ and her baby born on April 29, 2009 ‘at about 8Amish’.
Earliest References
While one earlier may still be found, the earliest reference I have found is on the website of ‘Silicon Investor’ where it was uploaded on 6/24/1998 8:12:00 AM by Henry Volquardsen. Note the date reads 24 June, 1998 because the date sequence is m/d/y. No, I do not know Henry as far as I am aware, regardless Henry may have known my name at one moment in history in 1987 and I his by sheerest chance just by it passing in front of his or my eyes in a fax or other document, but lucky I am to have a beautifully written text online on Silicon Investor that recalls a Henry Volquardsen from the memory of a colleague.
His friend writing in 2008 says of Henry:
‘And then, of course Henry Volquardsen, was a very dear friend who was on the long dated FX desk in NY. He was a big guy (like me) who started out as a file clerk and was on Citibank NY’s long dated FX desk at 55 Water street I believe. He would hang around in the New York evening to watch our currency and interest rate markets open, some days it was slow and he would talk to the bond dealers the AUD dealer and me as he was trying to get indications in to local market sentiment. Henry and I talked for hours on end about history, he was then studying the 100 year war in Europe, mass psychology, Ownership of central banks…. etc.’
Unmistakeable I am sure, the same. And I might as well have known Henry given insight and experience of the finance industry I have when I based my own methodology as an accounts executive on my training in History and Politics, primarily choosing to telephone dealers and traders I could engage in conversation to appreciate different points of view, and always an AUD dealer. I trained and listened intently and learned and understood the market in this window of time watching trading lights skipping across and up and down in heart stopping patterns on a Reuters screen. Thus far remarkable enough.
The joke was, remarkably, posted on the site Roots Web Ancestry on Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:51:04 EST
As follows without prejudice the discussion ‘Donna Richoux’ provides her associates in apparent good faith (please see the link below).
‘Donna Richoux:
[nq:2]”It’s a knick-knack, Patty Black, give the frog a loan.”(snip)[/nq]
[nq:1]It’s a knick-knack, Patty Black, give the frog a loan; His old man’s a Rolling Stone![/nq]
That’s lovely but the version I learned didn’t have it. Now I’m wondering whether it was part of a strain that lost the Rolling Stone line, or whether it never had it, and Rolling Stone was added later.
A Google on “give the frog a loan” plus “rolling stone” gives 553. The same phrase with a minus -stone gives 291. So it’s not just me that stops at “loan.”
Okay, here we go. The Google Groups archives show the “Rolling Stone” version only back 1998, with several references to it having been on the Muppets with Kermit the Frog (long before?). I can’t call up the entire posts because of a technical glitch. But the version minus “stone” shows up in posts each year from 1982 to 1986. So I think the very appropriate addition of “Rolling Stone” was a professional addition from the Muppet crew.
Patty Black sure gets a lot of variation.
I appreciate the energy and attention given the frog goes to a bank for a loan joke by Donna Richoux and her associates (please see link above).
The content of the text written by Donna is speculative and based on then incomplete research result of a failed internet connection – as can be derived as was clearly intended by its author, but the speculation is inaccurate that the Rolling Stone addition online is a professional addition by the Muppets team and the content is inaccurate ‘that it shows up in posts between 1982 and 1986’.
Only researching what Donna advises concerning the Muppets did I know the Muppets had a story line in one of their early films that refers to a bank, which might be the source of confusion. I have not seen the films.
I am sure however the Muppets research facility may accord me, as I do the Muppets equal respect if question arises by referring to their archival record of published material to identify the frog goes to a bank for a loan joke is not in their archives as a published article of theirs.
Patty Black I knew nothing of until my recent discovery of the reference only as result of researching the frog goes to a bank for a loan joke; ‘Patty Black’ as a play on ‘Paddy Whack’ is not as far as I can determine in popular ascendance over my original adaptation of ‘Paddy Whack’ that was ‘Patricia Whack’ aka ‘Ms Whack’ and ‘Patti Whack’. I do have a fictional character whose name is ‘Black’ which is coincidence.
Again remarkably posted in rj-jokers Teresa’s Jokers RJ List on Sep 15, 1998 at 1:51 pm
As a source of interest, I note amiright.com makes no claims to copyright of jokes permitted, only their presentation. All jokes are assumed [by amiright] to be public domain.
Preben Ormen telling the joke on Thursday, September 8th, 2011 at 14:14 under the heading ‘Give the Frog a Loan’ prefaced it as follows:
Apropos nothing, I just remembered a cute joke that riffed on a nursery rhyme. What made it all the more funny at the time, was the fact it was told by a biker on the run from the California cops that we met while swinging at anchor in our 32 foot Westsail cutter “Ibis” in Mazatlan, Mexico. He arrived late one afternoon in a terrific downpour in a beat up old Columbia 29 sloop. I watched him anchor and silently reassured myself he had just the right scope out so he wouldn’t swing into us when the tide or weather changed.
When done, he sat under the main hatch and lit up a smoke. We exchanged hand waves in greeting and a short hello and welcome, but the rain was so heavy and noisy we couldn’t really have a conversation. You got to see a tropical downpour to believe it.
We got to know each other better and one day the story rolled around.
…please see the heart these children invest in the acting including a fabulous frog costume and support actors. This is such a lovely video and I hope the children and their responsible adults are happy I post this link here:
Small variations occur telling the joke from only recall, but the adherent loyalty shown the story line is indication of the genuine fondness people feel for the joke.
Variations include the delightful and delightfully satirical and fans have made changes to the name of the teller and frog by way of personal preference and innovation.
The frog has been variously named by his fans Kermit the Frog, Kermit Jagger, Wally… while the inclination seems obvious I had no intention to name the frog Kermit which was to avoid potential copyright infraction although in an edited version I do have the teller, Patricia Whack, refer to the frog with a note of derision as follows, once, when she addresses the bank manager that the frog wants a loan.
‘Kermitt out here…”
The frog has been overly called Kermit, and he truly did not ever say to the teller his surname was Jagger as occurs in the re-telling, but there you are, and that’s I suppose society too, running along on assumptions and getting stuck on earworms, but in this case a fond one. However, just because a frog can talk and goes to a bank to raise a loan is no reason to assume his name is Kermit. Neither because he claims falsely his identity is Mick Jagger’s son is it a logical conclusion he will claim his name is Kermit Jagger.
A frog is neither automatically a Muppet. Frog mothers have been around. They know the score. The kid probably won’t like the attention.
Anyone whose work uploading and adapting the joke as a genuine contribution to joke sites is not included by a link I regret in almost all cases that has to have been the case and I apologise I cannot individually acknowledge it.
I could not include every link to the friends and included a representation of the foes of the frog who goes to a bank for a loan joke.
In one case I did not link very purposefully because the material that is revealed is not suitable for a general audience and younger children supervised by their parents.
I admire the odds have fallen very much in favour in this regard of the frog who goes to the bank for a loan joke that it seems the frog somehow speaks to beused for ends that are good; leastwise has been treated kindly, whimsically and generously. The popular, regardless flawed frog is a phenomenon and the philosophers of all sorts who got and get the joke and have run with it have paid the frog – and the teller and the bank manager– a great compliment.
The trinity is in the wings as I write. When we create with a healthy perspective we invest magic and our creations become themselves. Take a bow: the frog, the teller and the bank manager.
To the people who don’t yet and might never know or understand or even accept this is true that the pleasure they have found in this joke and the frustration of its detractors are directly proportional to the affection I feel for the fans, the kind loyalty and controversy shown the frog goes to a bank for a loan joke, sincerely, thank you.
(Continued Part 2 –Building The Joke)
FOOTNOTE:
1. the wildly wonderful shaggy dog written by astyages that sent me in 2011 on this journey finding my frog.
