jogsblog

10:52 pm: Forgiving and Fables
One of the things about life I find the most difficult – and I think that goes for many people – is to forgive myself. I feel almost guilty that I’m starting to blog again, two days after my whole ‘I’m going to stop blogging’ rant. (Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t do that to pray for attention from you who read this. I treat all my journals and diaries like this.)
I heard my Live Journal yell at me. Something about it being fun to share little stories and anecdotes, and hey, maybe you could try to take yourself a little less serious. Write in me! You can still be your true self with that little bit of humor you used to blend in. It’s not all black and white, like your hair... You can do it! And I said, okay.
So please, people who read this, and mostly me: forgive my occasional emotional outbursts, forgive my clumsiness and indecisiveness, forgive my seriousness and forgive my harness of humor. I’m going to try it again and have fun. For who knows how long!

Most of you know me as a Muppet lover, but there is one other puppet show that I am a huge fan of. Every now and then, I get into a collecting mode, and I look for vintage merchandize, soundtracks and episodes of this show. Right now is one of those periods.
It’s a Dutch show called De Fabeltjeskrant. In English, The Daily Fable. I was heavily exposed to Daily Fable when I was younger, mostly because my mother wrote books based on the show, including three albums with collectable stickers.

The Daily Fable was a daily five minute children’s show that ran from 1968 to 1974 and made a comeback in the mid-eighties. With a total of 1640 episodes, it was extremely popular among children and adults, and is still considered a milestone in Dutch television.

The idea of the show is as follows. A blue owl sits on a branch and reads stories from his newspaper, the Daily Fable, reporting on all the recent happenings in the Great Animal Forest.

At first, these stories were based on the moralistic fables by Aesop and Fontaine, but when writer Leen Valkenier began to turn the forest – and its animal inhabitants – into a reflection of the Dutch society, so that the viewers could relate to the characters, it became an immediate success. It was an all-puppet soap series. The scripts were cleverly written, with prose-like dialogues that kept the kids challenged and adults entertained. Despite their poor movements, the abstracted animal puppets were very cleverly designed and built, and brought to life by three brilliant voicepeople.

Every child was fond of Mr. Owl with his rich, yet confused vocabulary. The opening and closing sequences featured a stop-motion puppet of Mr. Owl, with the ability to pull a newspaper out from under his wing (‘how does he do that?!’) and to wink to the audience at the end (‘No, I don’t wanna go to bed! Mr. Owl hasn’t winked yet!’).
Whenever a contest or election took place in the forest, thousands of kids sent in their votes; and when Mr. Owl was sick in bed and had to be replaced by Mr. Raven for a couple of episodes, the studio received hundreds of worried letters.

Each animal had its own stereotypical dialect, catchphrase and personality. Among them were Ed and Willem Beaver, the middle-class craftsmen who were responsible for all the architecture, repairs and industrial revolutions; Ms. Storch, a distinguished arrogant lady who considered herself the leader; Lowieke the Fox, a sleazy character who enjoyed the good life and was fond of snacking; and Chico Llama, a newcomer from the Third Forest (as a nudge towards the Third World) who stole everyone's hearts with his happy songs.
And my personal favorite, Bor the Wolf, whom I consider a beautiful character.

Bor was the bartender at Het Praathuis (The Talkhouse, the local ‘pub’ where the animals got together for a chat and a bite). He spoke with a high, almost apologetic voice, and started his sentences with a howl: “OHOEEEEEE!!!” Although he was a wolf on the outside, he was too sweet and emotional to be the predator everyone expected him to be. Whenever someone hurt his feelings, he angrily picked up his accordeon and ran away to his favorite place, the Scary Forest. There, he would howl sad songs and feel miserable about himself, until his friends would come to cheer him up.

Brilliant, isn’t it? I mean, don’t we all know that feeling of wanting to hide whenever we’re sad? Haven’t you ever had the urge to howl out all your sorrows as loudly and as sadly as possible? Don’t we all feel like people expect us to be something we’re not? I sure do. I can relate to poor ol’ Bor whenever I’m down or alone. At times like those, I lock myself up in my apartment where nobody can see me, pick up the banjo or the harmonica and sing about whatever I think is wrong with me. And every now and then, it helps...

Anyway, if you’re interested in the show, here is a fanmade website: http://www.fabeltjesweb.nl. And look for Fabeltjeskrant on Youtube. I think there’s a few episodes on there, too.

07:10 pm: Okay, so those few weeks? Make em a few days.
I won't write here anymore. Blogging isn't my thing. I lost the spark somehow. Oh well, you can't expect every experiment to work out.

I will keep this account open so I can read my friends' blogs.

It's been nice being back for, like, three days!

12:20 am: Thoughts on inner children
Have you ever walked down a street and gotten that crazy feeling that there’s a voice inside you, telling you not to take the shortcut because the other direction may be much more interesting…?
What did you do? Did you take the shortcut because it was the sensible, efficient, adult thing to do? Or did you listen to the voice and end up seeing all those memorable little things?

One of the things spirituality has taught me is to use my intuition as a sixth sense, and to be inspired by the things I find beautiful, things I enjoy. When I’m in the right mood, I listen to the voice and walk an extra mile.
I think it’s my inner child.

Now, I noticed that people have very mixed feelings about inner children. They usually see them from an adult point of view. In a negative way.
They associate children with materialism: “Children always need to have a toy or ice cream to be kept happy. Is that what you mean?”
They associate children with seeking attention: “Children always nag and cry to get their way. Is that what you mean?”
They associate children with unreasonable behavior: “President Soekarno of Indonesia was a grownup child. He killed hundreds of people. Is that what you mean?”

Sure I had my bad sides when I was a little boy. I was a spoiled brat. I drove my parents crazy, I cried if I didn’t get a certain toy or a snack, I said dirty words, I fought with younger kids just to be sure that I was the strongest.
But it's not that I want to idolize THAT part of childhood. It's about the way I looked at the world. How my imagination worked back then, and why I enjoyed certain things. I could lie down in the grass and look at moss for hours, or play with funnylooking twigs. I could see things in the sidewalk and I believed that there were little creatures hiding in flowerbeds. We've all been there, right?
Those moments were magical, and we all have good memories like that. And we lose a big part of those qualities, somewhere along the road in today’s society.
I learned to get back in touch with my inner child. Now I use that point of view to keep me enthusiastic about life, and to keep me inspired as an artist. My puppets, drawings and music are all there for my inner child’s entertainment.

Life is difficult, especially when you’ve grown up. Life is not fun, society is not fun, responsibilities are not fun. We’re dealing with death, disease, financial problems, sex, violence and religious wars. Too many people feel they have the right to be assholes. I can’t hide from all that. I can’t run away. I have to be strong, because otherwise I’d make a lousy adult.
But there is also a lot of beauty going on around us, and I find it very important not to ignore it. I’m not sure what my raison d’etre would be if it weren’t for that beauty.

06:18 pm: Dug-a-dun, dug-a-dun
What are my plans for this blog?
I want to write about my life these days. About the things that touch me and inspire me, about my worries and the solutions I found, about the way I think and the way I look at the world.
Maybe a public blog is not the right medium for these things. Maybe I’m better off writing them down with a fountain pen in my real journal, rather than bothering you guys with my personal philosophies.
But one of the things I’m learning now is not to judge myself too quickly. I talk freely about such things with my Dutch friends when they come over to my place for coffee, and they don’t seem to mind. Usually they talk back, about what touches and inspires them and how they think and look at the world and find solutions, and those are memorable conversations. Writing it down here is not too different.
In addition to that, one purpose of this blog is to give you updates. Here is one.

Last week, I bought a banjo.

I’ve always been a pianist. I took eight years of lessons, I’ve performed on stage with my own songs accompanied on the piano, and I compose synthesizer music. I also like to jam on blues harmonica, and every now and then I like to have fun with a kazoo or jaw harp.
But my real favorite instrument is the banjo.

I don't really know when my banjo obsession started. Maybe when I saw Kermit the Frog play his banjo in the swamp in The Muppet Movie. Or maybe when I was thirteen and started to listen to Dixieland jazz. (I seem to be one of a few people in the world who like Dixieland. People often say, ‘I’m into every kind of music!’ and scrunch their noses when I ask if that includes Dixie.)

I dreamed of someday being able to sing silly songs and accompany myself on a banjo of my very own. I designed banjo strumming characters. I collected cool banjo tunes to play air banjo to.

But I never bothered trying to play one.
I always thought I wouldn’t be able to do it.
After all, playing the guitar wasn’t exactly my talent, either. When my grandmother died, my father gave me his old guitar that she kept in the guest room. I experimented with it and managed to find a few chords, and now it just stands there in the corner, with a few broken strings, collecting dust.

Two weeks ago I was at a friend’s house and noticed he had a banjo-mandoline. (That’s a small banjo with eight strings.)
While the other guys were talking about video games, I picked it up and started to strum. I found a chord. And another one. And then I managed to play a song I wrote.
Wow, I thought. Guess I can play this thing after all.
I asked one of the girls to take a picture of me playing. I looked at that picture for a long time before I went to bed. Me with a banjo. It made perfect sense. I had to have one myself.

The next day, I did some research about the different kinds of banjos. I found out that the banjo I was looking for was a tenor banjo. The kind that plays the ‘dug-a-dun, dug-a-dun’ rhythm. The tenor banjo has four strings and it’s mostly used in Dixieland bands.
The local music store turned out to have one in their collection.
My mother immediately offered to help me pay for it. She had just gotten a heritage from a longtime friend who passed away, Paula. Paula was always interested in how I was doing. She would have loved the idea of me trying out a new instrument. That way, my new banjo would have a bit of a meaning as well. It would be the best present I’ve ever had.

I went back to the music store and asked if I could try it. The storekeeper gave me the banjo and a pick and led me to a private corner, between the pianos, where I could practice without bothering the customers.
I had never touched a tenor banjo before, but when I strummed my very first perfect chord (C major) at the first attempt, I knew that this banjo and I were made for eachother. It felt so easy and natural.

Of course I’m planning to take banjo lessons in order to get all the techniques down, but I’m surprised at how quickly I am teaching myself to play. In one week I discovered how to play a whole lot of chords, how to do chord changes, how to do a ‘barre’, how to make that ‘dug-a-dun’ rhythm. I can play and sing silly songs at the same time, just like I dreamed of.
My banjo works like a kind of therapy. When I'm stressed, all I have to do is reach for my banjo. When I play, or even when I walk down the street and carry it on my back in its backpack, I feel a power that I haven’t felt for a long time.
I think it has something to do with the fact that it’s an instrument I’m very fond of. Despite my insecurities, I took the initiative to buy it, and set a goal to play it really well. It feels wonderful to be good at something I always loved, and to discover a new talent.

03:25 pm: Introduction
Sometimes I find it difficult to keep myself motivated. I spend a lot of time on my own, composing music, designing puppets, or doing homework for my writing workshops. I felt I needed to make something for other people; and I figured, why not my diary?
So I decided to bring my blog back for a few weeks.

It will be a little different than before. My first blog was written by Jog. This time, despite the discrete username, I want the real me to do the writing. It's more personal this way.

I am a bit of a loner. I easily get scared of ‘other people’ and it takes me some courage to walk up to them. I have many insecurities; most of them coming from my earliest history with hospitals and quarantaines, some of them from my strange looks that were caused by this history. I have white hair with a black tuft in the middle and a white skin full of pigment spots. My experience has taught me that most people don’t judge the book by its cover and consider me goodlooking; nevertheless, I do look different, and I have to be used to people noticing this when they first meet me.
Jog was my cool alter ego. I took personality traits from all my favorite characters from TV and literature and made them my own, in order to be liked. Hidden behind a character, I could cover up my vulnerable side with silliness, hyperactivity and endless generosity.

A while ago it started to hurt. It’s not healthy having to keep all your feelings to yourself and not knowing how to deal with them in front of other people, or pleasing others without treating yourself well. I became stressed and a little depressed.

Thanks to all the beautiful people at a Spiritual Intensive that I attended one year ago, I discovered how to live my life without Jog for the first time in years.
In five days, I changed completely as a person. I have become calmer and more vulnerable. I learned to listen to my inner child, to act through my deeper emotions, to trust my intuition, to be inspired by the world around me, and to look at myself in a positive way. I still feel my fears and pains, but I try and deal with them every day in order to get stronger.

It was time for me to grow up, focus on my real life and let Jog go. I deleted the blog and became less active on the Internet, which was Jog’s territory. (Since you never get to see the real person behind the avatars, it’s easy to turn yourself into someone you’re not, or for your friends to create a false version of you based on the way they fill in the blanks. That didn' fit with the real person I was trying to be. And I still feel that typing LOL or :) doesn't compare to a real smile.)
Nowadays, the Internet has a healthier place in my life. I use it to keep up with the people I consider my friends, and to check out the Muppet fansites. I can’t share my obsessive love for Jim Henson’s Muppets with the people in my everyday life.

Jog's Blog was a special document of my life - I still have the printed version lying around somewhere – that I always enjoyed working on. I think it’ll be fun to do it again for a few weeks. What happens after those weeks, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll delete it again, or maybe I’ll have so much fun that I just keep on typing.

To quote me in my very first blog entry from 2004: ‘It feels good to have a space to talk about myself; not just for my own sake, but for the sake of entertainment as well. I hope you’ll like it here.’