Friday, November 9, 2007

Cut, sprout, colour or shave?

It is such a fucking beautiful day outside I just can't make myself do it. I can't sit down and write another report.
So I'm blogging instead.
I've got the stereo up REALLY loud and I'm sitting right in front of the fucker playing my totally awesome music collection that no one else really understands. Or at least understands why it needs to be so loud. The reason it needs this particular volume is that I'm going slowly deaf. And the reason for that is because I'm one of those tough guys who has always liked incredibly bassy music and appreciated the need for high-quality speakers with decent low end response to fill out the musician's intended sound design. You know: a dickhead!
So today's puzzle for all you wonderful readers to decide on is quite a treat: How should Franzy deal with his hair? There are a few options and I will illustrate them with various photos:

1. The haircut. A fairly popular option, considering that's the one I've chosen for most of my life:



















2. Let it grow! Less popular, to be honest. Especially at home. Mele doesn't really relish the thought of combing her fingers through my silky locks.



























3. Dye, Muthafukka! It has never been a secret that my mother loves me better as a blond. So the few times I've dyed my hair she goes weak at the knees and asks me why on earth I don't dye it blond all the time. The thing is, when she sees me with blond hair, she is probably seeing this:
















When she is actually looking at this:




4. I believe the expression is ... shaved? Obviously the one I'm aiming for here, but I've only ever done it once before and that was when I was a) 19 and b) travelling around Germany and Austria. Those Germans love a shaved head. Sort of. I remember getting all sorts of disapproving looks from people who would never have looked at me twice, scared looks from people would normally have smiled at me and nods of comradeship from people who scared the shit out of me. It was obviously a confusing time in my life.
The pros stand thus:
1) Cooler for summer
2) It's free!
3) No maintenance.
4) Lots of people touching my noggin.
The cons weigh in with:
1) I have a double-pointy head. One point on top like a dunce's cap and one behind like a speed cyclist's helmet. I don't know what the hell I got up to during the brief period of my life when my skull bones were still knitting, but it must have been EXTREME.
2) Another perhaps even more embarrassing head trait, one which is at this stage an unknown. It's actually a bit embarrassing to even think about typing, but here it is: head scabs. When I get into a period of concentration, creativity, mental stress or (frequently) all three I scratch at my head. Not in a "thinking hard" scratch your head, but an unconscious tick that I never realise I'm doing until I stop concentrating, creating, stressing or Mele yells 'Head!'. I'm a little concerned that if I shave my head then it will be covered with scars and pits.
3) I could look balder than I need to.
4) Lots of people touching my noggin.
And so, for you consideration, I provide you with the only clear pictures taken of me as a fuzz-nut. The first is kind of cool, I feel. A good, comfortable look suited to an Australian summer in the early throes of global warming:
























The second is more of an indication of how I will look for at least 60% of the time. And you can't even see the pointy bits.


What do I do team? Cut, grow, dye or shave? Keep in mind that shaved it has the potential to look like this.



***
GTH

The Other, other Sam takes out the honours this time, with his concise information, his astute guessing and his sly knowledge of where I probably would have taken my photos. It is indeed The IR Rally. The one that I feel started it all; unionists, workers and pissed off voters alike.

9 comments:

  1. Hmmm...anything would be better than the first 'cut' picture - it reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where he has to fire his barber!

    Love Chunks has clippers and gives himself a number 3 - it does look appealing and yes, you're right - he does get folk (including me) wanting to touch his mouse fur-like follicles!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stuff your haircut - WTF is up with that hypnotic dog??

    ReplyDelete
  3. Go with the shave, just don't do the really close shave. Or get creative and shave patterns into the hair like my youngest son sometimes does. He has curly hair and hates it, so started shaving his head when about 13 or so. so I bought him a pair of clippers for christmas one year and he's had fun with his hair ever since.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Why limit yourself to only one option? Shave the parts on the side, grow the bit down the middle, colour it neon green and spike it up into a post-punk mohawk.

    Just don't shave it all, you'll look like a thug.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's a pretty header this week. Unfortunately I don't have a clue as to what or where.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Clue?
    Hmm. It was taken this year. By me, of course.
    ENOUGH CLUES!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. It is an illuminated fountain.

    P.S. I just bought an X-box 360!! What more excuse do you need to come to Singapore for a week?

    ReplyDelete
  8. You will find various brands of shaving brushes. However, not all of them will provide you maximum satisfaction. Therefore, choose the one that your friends and experts recommend. best trimmers under 1500

    ReplyDelete

An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test

Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.

Have you heard of the band Joy Division?

Chinese food, not Chinese Internet!

Champions of Guess The Header

  • What is Guess The Header about? Let’s ask regular “Writing” reader, Shippy: "Anyway, after Franzy's stunning September, and having a crack at 'Guess The Header' for the first time - without truly knowing what I was doing mind you - I think I finally understand what 'GTH' is all about. At first I thought you needed to actually know what it was. Don't get me wrong — if you know what it is, it may help you. I now realise that it's more Franzy's way of invoking thought around an image or, more often than not, part of an image. If you dissect slightly the GTH explanatory sentence at the bottom of his blog you come up with this: “The photo is always taken by me and always connects in some way to the topic of the blog entry it heads up.” When the header is put up, the blog below it will in some obscure way have something to do with it. “Interesting comments are judged and scored arbitrarily and the process is open to corruption and bribery with all correspondence being entered into after the fact and on into eternity, ad infinitum amen.” Franzy judges it, but it's not always the GTH that describes the place perfectly that gets it. “The frequent commenters, the wits, the wags and the outright smartarses who, each entry, engage to both guess the origin and relevance of the strip of photo at the top (or “head”) of each new blog and also who leave what I deem the most interesting comment.” It generally helps if you're a complete smartarse and can twist things to mean whatever you feel they should mean - exactly the way Franzy would like things to be twisted." - Shippy Blogger and GTH point scorer.
  • Nai - 1
  • Lion Kinsman - 2
  • Will - 2
  • Brocky - 2
  • Andy Pants - 2
  • The 327th Male - 3
  • Mad Cat Lady - 3
  • Miles McClagen - 4
  • Myninjacockle - 4
  • Asheligh - 5
  • Neil - 5
  • Third Cat - 5
  • Adam Y - 6
  • Squib - 6
  • Mele - 6
  • Moifey - 7
  • Jono - 8
  • The Other, other Sam - 14
  • Kath Lockett - 15
  • Shippy - 19
  • River - 32