Monday, March 3, 2008

Franzy's Advice for The Ill-Advised

I've decided to start up an advice column. You don't write to me asking for advice, I just tell you. Unwanted, unsolicited factoids about What To Do. I considered making it an advice column for dudes about how to treat chicks, and it may well turn out to be that, but I decided that it should be made clear that, if you're a bloke, you are receiving advice from someone who does refer to women as 'chicks'.
Sometimes.
Not constantly, but often. This could actually be a positive in your eyes, and could well be a positive in general, but I'll leave it to you to decide.

Let us kick it off with Franzy's Piece of Wisdom About Women #1:
Always notice her hair and say it looks great.
Whatever it looks like. Lie if necessary. She won't know. And, if she finds out that you don't actually think it looks great, she won't care, she didn't do it for you anyway, you fool. If she's shaved it of, tell her she's got a great head! (Quips about giving great head will achieve the opposite effect). If she's rolling on the floor screaming about how much she hates it, be a little less forthcoming. If she has scissors, be more judicious still.



Ladies, am I full of shit? Or do you like it when a fella tells you, apropos of nothing, that your current style is smashing? Leave a comment please - ladies only for this one (Moify, you are, of course, excepted).

***

GTH - Ah, River. You tenacious little go-getter, the points are of course yours. This is part of a sculpture from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It is there to commemorate one of the earthquakes that seriously tore apart the city. It was as close to a picture of Judgement Day as I could get. Are we a little angry now? Sorry about that. I was trying to return to the roots of Guess The Header where I was trying to entice readers to come up with their own connections and meanings that linked the strange sliver of photograph to the stranger sliver of writing beneath it.

***
And in other news ... Bloggers enjoy blogging who would have thought.
Bloggers only for this one - do you feel happier after you've blogged? Or do you feel more anxious about your connections because you wonder if this blog will be as well-liked as your other one about travelling to Prague or your old boss?

14 comments:

  1. Oh. My. GOD, that video makes me want to take a faceful of valium and hide in the wardrobe... I kept hoping that she'd start smiling, reveal her 'bad hair' to be a wig and 'punk' them all...

    You are indeed correct with your first rule. The most important aspect is to NOTICE IT FIRST. If she has to wait a minute or two and then say, "Haven't you noticed I've had my hair done?" then you are way too late and will be f***ed whatever you do or say.

    Bloggers are happy - we have our own forum to witter on about whatever the hell we feel like. We can rant, mock, insult and pass judgments on others in the comfort of our spare rooms wearing trakkie daks and crocs. Worth every penny of monthly internet time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Question doesn't really apply to me.
    a) I don't really have a style, just a greying ponytail.
    b) no one ever comments on my hair
    apart from mentioning how long it's getting.
    c) the last time I had it cut several people thought I "looked different" but couldn't pick why

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kath - I know, she's pretty crazy, eh? She will be okay though ...
    My advice doesn't require actually noticing the hair, just saying that it looks great. It must be re-stated that this advice is for dudes only. Sort of like an etiquette lesson for boys on meeting women: 1) Say hello 2) Hair looks great.

    River - EXACTLY! Wouldn't you FEEL better if someone actually said 'Your hair looks great!', even if you couldn't understand why?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice macrame by the way. Did you knot that yourself?
    Hmmm. Pot hanger.....worn on the head........oh my god, you're a pothead!

    ReplyDelete
  5. So funny hats are the flavour of the month huh?

    Does Mele know you have her noggin on your page?

    ReplyDelete
  6. The video is a fake:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdbrVhwNCKg

    ReplyDelete
  7. GTH: Great new hairdo Franzy, did you style it yourself? Love the colour............
    Heh.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Shee - thanks Lion. I was saving that little revelation up ...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Actually the other, other sam spoiled it first. Check the URL if you click on their name.
    Who is the other, other sam anyway?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lion,

    The Other, OTHER Sam is an Enigma, shrouded in a myth, wrapped in a secret and shoved in a dark corner with his head up his arse - from where he makes jokes that cause him to laugh uncontrollably and others to wonder if he doesn't have some kind of learning disability.

    Actually Lion, I greatly respect your noticing of my diabolically hidden spoiler and will definitely buy you an Okonomiyaki and a beer next time I am over your way.

    …Oh, also - The Other, OTHER Sam has an unnatural hatred of “Crocs”.


    Clue 1.
    The Other, OTHER Sam’s name is… Sam.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Cuts both ways too... tell your man you like his hair, even if he's losing it and you'll score brownie points.

    As for the blogging thing, when people aren't watching me, I'm watching them.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Just tell me that, if that crocheted thingy in the GTH is Mele's hat, that it doesn't have beer can logos crocheted in it as well?

    Separate note - you're tagged Croc boy. See 11/3 post to see what the frig I'm wittering on about

    ReplyDelete
  13. Croc Boy?
    Perhaps you believe that I comment my own blog as an alter ego? No, T.O.o. Sam is an entirely separate, Croc-Hatin' entity...

    Challenge accepted.
    Soon.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I was reminded of this post today when a friend came back to work this morning after some time off. She had a new hairstyle, cut and coloured and she looked really nice. so i called out to her, Great haircut, you look really nice,(not that she didn't before). I tell you she smiled soooo wide, and it made me feel good too.

    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