You know that bit in the song One Less Thing when she's like: "now i'm dogless and loveless..." well I was wondering if anyone knows if she even had a dog. I mean, to me she just doesn't seem like an animal person..

yeah, seems like at the time she can't bother to have to take care of another creature.

I'm not sure whether or not she had a dog, but my guess is that for her to write and release a song about soley about taking a dog to a dog park (Dogs of L.A.), she must be an "animal person".

I think it was her friend Nora who had the dog(s) in "Dogs of L.A." -- Liz was just visiting.

She had pets growing up, I know. "One Less Thing" came from real life experience. Here's a section from an interview conducted in 1993:

Ohhh, I have a wonderful cat who a lot of my family members tend to think is really cranky and annoying. She's half Siamese, she looks like a tabby. We're extremely close, as I was with my dog who is now dead. I'm a big animal lover. I love my cat. I love her to the extent that I'm convinced that we have telepathy going on. It's like I have telepathy going on with her, but like telepathy with an animal is really not that deep because our telepathy is comfort oriented or displeasured or something. It's not like you're suddenly learning secrets about the universe. You're mostly just understanding "Hey, pay attention," or you know, whatever it is.

Oh God! Animals, ahhhhh. I spent my life like...ahhh, animals are my favorite thing. Really, truly. I'm not just gushing for no reason. Great affinity I feel for the whole world of every animal. I think lizards are adorable. I was just down in Florida this spring and I'm 26 now as I keep saying, and I was still chasing lizards around and poking underneath the cacti. (laughs) And we were identifying all the birds. We went on this nature canoeing trip on (?) island, really woodsy. It was this little tiny creek but I pretended I was in the Amazon and I had my bird book and we just identified them all.


In the late 90s, when she & Jim lived in their 3-story house in Chicago, she had 3 cats. One of them was named Poe, I remember. I can't find the article that mentions this, but I think all 3 cats are mentioned by name in the piece.

I wonder if she has any pets in California. I wish Ken from Mesmerizing could do more interviews with her.

So you were wrong if you think she isn't an animal type person. She had a kid after all, and that's much worse. Anyway, I think her interest in different animals is another way of her branching out in terms of interests & hobbies; she's pretty much all over the place. Video games, boogie-boarding, hiking, archery, guitar/piano, astrophysics, billiards, swimming -- Liz Phair does it all (which is what you'd expect a person to do when they've never worked a day in their life).

Who knew..!
thank you for that information. quite interesting...

never worked a day in their life, lol! What video games has she played?

I remember reading about the three cats that JE's talking about in Chicago - I think they may have lived specifically in her home studio. Their names were PING PONG, PINKERTON, & HOT SAUCE. It was a year before Whitechocolatespaceegg came out, cuz she had been describing her son and how the album was going. It was Option magazine, July/Aug '97, just a one page update inside the very back cover. It didn't have a picture but a small cartoon

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/2471/00000033.html