I've just received a new comment on my Tony Smith series (the comments page of which has become quite lively). I don't have the information to hand, so I'll throw it open to you, oh valuable, intelligent readers. Can you help anonymous?
"my partner is in yatala labour prison and i believe he has become a better person in the last few months. anyways, my question is, does yatala still allow conjugal visits? if so what nights and for how long??"
Any ideas or advice would be most helpful.
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
I'll teach them to disable the comments page ...
Dear Leslie,
I imagine you've probably received a fair bit of email about your article, so I'll try to keep this brief and let you know from the outset that this one falls into the "appreciative but critical" camp.
I applaud the thought that you put into this matter and I agree with your friend about the positives of having any sexual activity conducted in a friendly environment, rather than a dangerous one (I'm not really entering into the complimentary stage yet, am I?). I don't envy the conundrum set you, as a mother of boys, who knows what it's like to grow up as a girl with boys around.
But (there it is!) I think your friend is right. I think that in wanting to protect these girls from their own indecision or loss of control, you're also protecting them from their own decisions and any semblance of mature control they might finally have wrestled back from society. It might have taken a great moving of internal mountains for these girls to finally be able to make the decision to accept an invitation to stay over at a boy friend's (note the space) house. Just walking through your front door (rather than clambering through your son's darkened bedroom window) might be the finishing line for them. They are probably prepared to walk through the front door in the first place because your sons are the kinds of young men they are (young men who know that "no" means "no", but who also understand that lots of other things also mean "No", like "I don't know", "Um", "" and complete silence), raised by the kind of mother you are (the woman who would be Switzerland).
Enough about these girls. Onto the boys.
"There is a relatively straightforward relationship for boys between what they want, what they say they want and what they pursue – with sex, and everything else."
I think you're wrong about this. I've been a boy. I've been excellent friends with boys. It is not straight forward. Relative to girls, relative to anything. I'm not going to start asking where you get your ideas about this, but here are mine:
For teenaged boys there is almost nothing scarier than a teenage girl. Nothing. This does not get better with age. Look at the way women are treated by men, by society. Have you read Stieg Larsson? Apparently the working title for the first novel was Men Who Hate Women. This was not a new concept. But I digress - you know what I'm talking about.
The fact that your sons have girls who are friends puts them years ahead of their peers, I can guaranteee it. When they grow into young men, they will have left a large section of the male population behind forever when it comes to possessing the gifts that women can bestow upon others with their friendship: things like understanding, emotional intelligence and strength. They are already protected from the kinds of relationships which use up their joy and dignity. They will never be cowardly enough to use the words "slut" or "bitch".
I'll wrap up this "brief" (sorry about that) email with something reassuring: these sleepovers aren't about sex. They may be and eventually, they probably will be. But right now, despite the formal conversations between parents and the attempts at casual reassurance by partners, sex is not the only thing that two teenagers of the opposite sex can think of to do alone in a room together. Before the not-inevitable move to the least-squeaky trundle bed, there's probably a lot of learning going on.
Sincerely
franzy
I imagine you've probably received a fair bit of email about your article, so I'll try to keep this brief and let you know from the outset that this one falls into the "appreciative but critical" camp.
I applaud the thought that you put into this matter and I agree with your friend about the positives of having any sexual activity conducted in a friendly environment, rather than a dangerous one (I'm not really entering into the complimentary stage yet, am I?). I don't envy the conundrum set you, as a mother of boys, who knows what it's like to grow up as a girl with boys around.
But (there it is!) I think your friend is right. I think that in wanting to protect these girls from their own indecision or loss of control, you're also protecting them from their own decisions and any semblance of mature control they might finally have wrestled back from society. It might have taken a great moving of internal mountains for these girls to finally be able to make the decision to accept an invitation to stay over at a boy friend's (note the space) house. Just walking through your front door (rather than clambering through your son's darkened bedroom window) might be the finishing line for them. They are probably prepared to walk through the front door in the first place because your sons are the kinds of young men they are (young men who know that "no" means "no", but who also understand that lots of other things also mean "No", like "I don't know", "Um", "
Enough about these girls. Onto the boys.
"There is a relatively straightforward relationship for boys between what they want, what they say they want and what they pursue – with sex, and everything else."
I think you're wrong about this. I've been a boy. I've been excellent friends with boys. It is not straight forward. Relative to girls, relative to anything. I'm not going to start asking where you get your ideas about this, but here are mine:
For teenaged boys there is almost nothing scarier than a teenage girl. Nothing. This does not get better with age. Look at the way women are treated by men, by society. Have you read Stieg Larsson? Apparently the working title for the first novel was Men Who Hate Women. This was not a new concept. But I digress - you know what I'm talking about.
The fact that your sons have girls who are friends puts them years ahead of their peers, I can guaranteee it. When they grow into young men, they will have left a large section of the male population behind forever when it comes to possessing the gifts that women can bestow upon others with their friendship: things like understanding, emotional intelligence and strength. They are already protected from the kinds of relationships which use up their joy and dignity. They will never be cowardly enough to use the words "slut" or "bitch".
I'll wrap up this "brief" (sorry about that) email with something reassuring: these sleepovers aren't about sex. They may be and eventually, they probably will be. But right now, despite the formal conversations between parents and the attempts at casual reassurance by partners, sex is not the only thing that two teenagers of the opposite sex can think of to do alone in a room together. Before the not-inevitable move to the least-squeaky trundle bed, there's probably a lot of learning going on.
Sincerely
franzy
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
At least none were stuck together
You know those delightful little urban myths that occasionally happen in real life? The hope for little miracles upon which Antiques Roadshow is based, where some innocent is happily browsing a bookstore or Seconde Hande Shoppe and comes across a quaint little trinket which just happens to be worth millions.
[Actually, I take that back about Antiques Roadshow. Its success is based on the audience's hope that Old Lord and Lady Picklenose will present their supposedly priceless Faberge eggs only to be told that these particular examples were a popular prize at fairgrounds during the 1970s. "Probably worth between 5 and 10 pound - to a collector" the expert will explain cheerfully while Sir Chumpbottom's greasy smile droops down around his tweed lapels.
Don't even try to deny that you've secretly shouted 'Sucked in, you greedy twerp!' when that happens. But I digress.]
My thing is old books. I love the way they smell, the cool old tooling covers, the quaint little drawings and poems inside along with the copperplate inscriptions and the exciting dates - if they have any. I know nothing about it, but I still love the feeling of treasure hunting when I go into second hand book stores, looking for either comics or a bargain.
So there I am, in Port Elliot, about twenty minutes away from raiding the famous bakery and scouring the shelves for something cool.
I come across this:
It really is a beautiful little item, about 8 by 10 inches. 1865. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the pages have long ago fallen out - it's just cover boards and title pages. Fortunately, it's full of old drawings and lithographs. Like this one:
And this one:
Nice, eh? Then there's a few different ones like this:
and, erm, this:
Now I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking "What marvellous drawings! What fine detail! I must see more!"
You're thinking that because that's what I was thinking too. Then I turned that drawing over and found, well, this:
No problem. Very artistic, right? Right. Artistic. Great composition, a wonderful example of early photography in the naturalistic form which ....
... ah, yes, see, this is also a fine example of, um, what's obviously a collection of artistic interpretations of the early twentieth century appreciation of femininity as exemplified by the emphasis on .....
R ... right.
Hrmm ... well that still doesn't mean that I haven't stumbled upon a grouping of art works which can be recognised as representative of an era famous for its lithography and the skill of its craftsmen and artists, many of whom were ...
Okay then. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe the collector just happened to have put all the racy ones at the front and kept the real groundbreaking artistic work at the ...
Nope. More naughties.
Okay, if the next one isn't sexy, then I definitely haven't stumbled upon some stone-aged secret spank book from a deceased estate.
Closing eyes, crossing fingers, turning page ... and it's ....
Oh.
Fucking great. Here I was, hoping to find a bargain first edition and here am, potentially handling the dried remains of millions of little 'first editions'. Gross.
Surely that's it.
Oh man. What is this stuff?
It looks like nuns were really the thing back then. I suppose they had to work out some way to spice things up - what with everything being taboo'n'shit. It's not like today with the internet and everything imaginable at the touch of a button. They probably didn't have a whole lot of weird fetishes or anything because it's not like ...
Does this book come with hand sanitiser?
[Actually, I take that back about Antiques Roadshow. Its success is based on the audience's hope that Old Lord and Lady Picklenose will present their supposedly priceless Faberge eggs only to be told that these particular examples were a popular prize at fairgrounds during the 1970s. "Probably worth between 5 and 10 pound - to a collector" the expert will explain cheerfully while Sir Chumpbottom's greasy smile droops down around his tweed lapels.
Don't even try to deny that you've secretly shouted 'Sucked in, you greedy twerp!' when that happens. But I digress.]
My thing is old books. I love the way they smell, the cool old tooling covers, the quaint little drawings and poems inside along with the copperplate inscriptions and the exciting dates - if they have any. I know nothing about it, but I still love the feeling of treasure hunting when I go into second hand book stores, looking for either comics or a bargain.
So there I am, in Port Elliot, about twenty minutes away from raiding the famous bakery and scouring the shelves for something cool.
I come across this:
It really is a beautiful little item, about 8 by 10 inches. 1865. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the pages have long ago fallen out - it's just cover boards and title pages. Fortunately, it's full of old drawings and lithographs. Like this one:
And this one:
Nice, eh? Then there's a few different ones like this:
and, erm, this:
Now I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking "What marvellous drawings! What fine detail! I must see more!"
You're thinking that because that's what I was thinking too. Then I turned that drawing over and found, well, this:
No problem. Very artistic, right? Right. Artistic. Great composition, a wonderful example of early photography in the naturalistic form which ....
... ah, yes, see, this is also a fine example of, um, what's obviously a collection of artistic interpretations of the early twentieth century appreciation of femininity as exemplified by the emphasis on .....
R ... right.Hrmm ... well that still doesn't mean that I haven't stumbled upon a grouping of art works which can be recognised as representative of an era famous for its lithography and the skill of its craftsmen and artists, many of whom were ...
Okay then. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe the collector just happened to have put all the racy ones at the front and kept the real groundbreaking artistic work at the ...
Nope. More naughties.
Okay, if the next one isn't sexy, then I definitely haven't stumbled upon some stone-aged secret spank book from a deceased estate.
Closing eyes, crossing fingers, turning page ... and it's ....
Oh.Fucking great. Here I was, hoping to find a bargain first edition and here am, potentially handling the dried remains of millions of little 'first editions'. Gross.
Surely that's it.
Oh man. What is this stuff?It looks like nuns were really the thing back then. I suppose they had to work out some way to spice things up - what with everything being taboo'n'shit. It's not like today with the internet and everything imaginable at the touch of a button. They probably didn't have a whole lot of weird fetishes or anything because it's not like ...
Does this book come with hand sanitiser?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
And when the rainbow jerseys arrive it shall be complete
I always sniggered (quietly, behind my hand) about the amount of latent homosexuality in the Australian football codes. You know the line: all those fit, hard-bodied men, sweating together in and out of their tight shorts, gripping and wrestling each other for a living. It's got to be more than one-in-ten in the national leagues, right? But of course, the Australian male hegemony being what it (still) is, of course no-one is openly gay in professional football. Not in such a way that it was ever discussed.
Until now.
In case you didn't know, Matthew Johns, former NRL player has been stood down from his job for his part in a group sex scandal. Turns out it's fairly common practise for NRL players to have group sex with a woman - "team bonding" is a phrase often let slip here, like a sly testicle from ill-fitting shorts.
I'd like now, if I may to set a reading exercise (does the fun never end?!). Read the following passage taken from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled 'Defiant rep star says group sex romps will keep happening'. At the end, I'm going to ask an open question which I believe, if I'm right, might just change the ugly, ugly face of Rugby League in Australia.
Read the passage again, but this time bear in mind the fact that while these players appear to engage in a lot of group sex, there aren't any women mentioned. Based on this, I firmly believe that the NRL is on the threshold of throwing open the flimsy plywood doors, tossing aside the coathangers and shoe racks and announcing to the world "We're here! We're queer! We have group sex with each other!" Imagine that. Out, proud and scoring tries. I reckon the NRL fans and clubs would breathe a collective sigh of relief: no more scandals, no more 'How to treat women nice' classes, no more lies! Just good, honest, consensual sex between large groups of large men without the apparently tricky and complicated inclusion of a woman.
Of course, the game itself may suffer from the channelling of all that built-up homoerotic tension away from the playing field ...
Until now.
In case you didn't know, Matthew Johns, former NRL player has been stood down from his job for his part in a group sex scandal. Turns out it's fairly common practise for NRL players to have group sex with a woman - "team bonding" is a phrase often let slip here, like a sly testicle from ill-fitting shorts.
I'd like now, if I may to set a reading exercise (does the fun never end?!). Read the following passage taken from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled 'Defiant rep star says group sex romps will keep happening'. At the end, I'm going to ask an open question which I believe, if I'm right, might just change the ugly, ugly face of Rugby League in Australia.
THE comments of one senior NRL representative player indicate how difficult it could be to change the sexual behaviour and attitudes of elite league players.
He warned group sex among NRL players would continue regardless of a warnings from chief executive David Gallop that unsavoury sexual acts would put their contracts at risk. The representative player told the Herald that his colleagues were left stunned by Gallop's hardline stance when no player had been convicted of sexual assault, adding that the caution would quickly be forgotten.
"It's fine for David Gallop to come out and say you can't have group sex but the last thing blokes will be thinking about on a Friday night at the club is David Gallop," said the player, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "I don't know how a chief executive can come out and say we can't have group sex if it's consensual. It's like discrimination because that is a person's private life. It's like saying you can't be homosexual, or you can't have such-and-such sexual preferences. How can he tell us what we can do in our private lives?
"We already have so many rules: we can't drink on these days, we can't go to these places, now we can't have group sex. About the only thing we can do these days is go to club functions, and just hang around other players. That's just isolating us more from the rest of the world, and it could lead to even more violent acts."
Are Rugby League players finally coming out of the closet?Read the passage again, but this time bear in mind the fact that while these players appear to engage in a lot of group sex, there aren't any women mentioned. Based on this, I firmly believe that the NRL is on the threshold of throwing open the flimsy plywood doors, tossing aside the coathangers and shoe racks and announcing to the world "We're here! We're queer! We have group sex with each other!" Imagine that. Out, proud and scoring tries. I reckon the NRL fans and clubs would breathe a collective sigh of relief: no more scandals, no more 'How to treat women nice' classes, no more lies! Just good, honest, consensual sex between large groups of large men without the apparently tricky and complicated inclusion of a woman.
Of course, the game itself may suffer from the channelling of all that built-up homoerotic tension away from the playing field ...
Thursday, December 18, 2008
I call paedophilia on Twilight
Since Twilight seems to be the movie of the moment, I'll jump right in. For those who've never heard of it, a quick plot summary: teenage girl goes to new school, falls in love with hot vampire guy, smouldering and sexual restraint ensue. They're in high school love, they protect each other. Cute. Andy Pants begs to differ, but I believe there is a more pressing concern yet to be addressed.
As mentioned above, the girl is a teenager, seventeen. The guy she falls in love with is also seventeen. At least, he looks seventeen. But about half-way through he explains that he was actually 'made' a vampire in 1918 when he was really seventeen. He's more than 80 years old.
And lusting after a 17 year old girl.
And everyone is okay with this??
Surely, even after decades of attending school with school children, he would have gathered enough experience to know that romantic involvement with children is not on.
But no. Everyone is flocking to the movie and simpering over Captain Hotness.
Neh.
Franzy no like.
Bad medicine.
***
GTH - Many points. Moify for coming out of the Enya closet (if you could get back in and lock the door, that'd be greeeaat), Shippy for Rick Price, River - not for the classic music, but for extolling her son's many many talents and Kath for sticking by ABBA.
As mentioned above, the girl is a teenager, seventeen. The guy she falls in love with is also seventeen. At least, he looks seventeen. But about half-way through he explains that he was actually 'made' a vampire in 1918 when he was really seventeen. He's more than 80 years old.
And lusting after a 17 year old girl.
And everyone is okay with this??
Surely, even after decades of attending school with school children, he would have gathered enough experience to know that romantic involvement with children is not on.
But no. Everyone is flocking to the movie and simpering over Captain Hotness.
Neh.
Franzy no like.
Bad medicine.
***
GTH - Many points. Moify for coming out of the Enya closet (if you could get back in and lock the door, that'd be greeeaat), Shippy for Rick Price, River - not for the classic music, but for extolling her son's many many talents and Kath for sticking by ABBA.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Mountin' Wimin
Flicked on SBS last night and watched a documentary called "Landmark Sex: Married to the Eiffel Tower" about women who fall in love with objects. Not as in "I love these shoes I got in Melbourne!" but as in "I love my archery bow, I have been in a relationship with him for six years, I have sex with him".
Like you, I had a lot of trouble getting my head around this. Firstly, there was understanding the fact that this wasn't a mockumentary. These were real women. Their most common object of love and desire were buildings. Structures. Bridges, walls, skyscrapers, that kind of thing. They love them. Romantic, sexual, committed love. The desire and passion with which these ladies talked about the Empire State Building, the Berlin Wall and various bridges around the world was identical to that fervor with which young lovers discuss their new paramours.
One lady in particular had fallen in love with a fairground ride called '1001 Nacht'. She went to visit him in the off-season where he was parked in a holding yard and wrapped in a tarp. After embracing various girders around the place, whispering odes of devotion and getting extremely red and bothered gripping the guard rail, she lay underneath 1001 Nacht and slowly, blissfully smeared her face with the thick grease from his joints. When it was time to leave she sobbed like a child being torn away from its favourite plaything. She was covered in grease. This was the same lady who was asked to move along by a security guard after an extremely long and sensuous embrace with the Empire State Building.
Another woman couldn't help mounting just about every picket fence she saw. She even had a few favourite picket fences in her room. Just short ones, a few pailings long which she would take to bed. And stroke.
I wish I had the imaginative capacity to make this shit up, but sadly, I fall short of the mark there. This was a real documentary. About real people.
This picture is of one of the Objectum Sexuals (as they prefer to be called) during the aptly-named climax to the documentary showing her consumating her relationship with the Eiffel Tower one year after their marriage.
Yes.
Marriage.
She legally married the Eiffel Tower.
And yes.
Consumation.
Yes she hitched her skirts up and mounted a frickin girder on the frickin Eiffel Tower, vag to steel.
I am still not making anything up. I merely took very very close notice of exactly which girder so that whenever I return to The Eiffel Tower, I can say to loved ones "No! Not that girder. Let's get a photo over here instead. In fact, why not Italy instead?"
Or, if I'm there with Captain T, "Hey man, sit right there, I want to take a photo. No, in fact, how about giving the old Tower a kiss eh? It'll be hilarious!"
We were telling 327 and Jimmythins about this documentary tonight and conversation fell, as it does, to fetishes. What were the weirdest kind of fetishes we could think up? (Reader points for weirdest fetish, real or not).
Stobie pole fetish.
Wheelie bin fetish.
Council traffic light fetish.
Can you tell we were walking home at the time?
Brussel sprout fetish: "OOhh! So stinky!"
A fetish for being wrapped in toilet paper.
A fetish for being praised for neat handwriting:
"What do you think of this note that I wrote?"
"Very nice."
"Ooh. Do you like my enlongated loops on the lower-case gs?"
"Pretty good."
"Thank you."
I am proud to announce that I think I've come up with what might be either the weirdest fetish or cleverest prank to bring to a new workplace: a fetish for being ignored. But you tell people about it, be really upfront.
"Hi, how you going? Hey listen man, this might sound a bit weird, but I've kind of got this ... "thing" ... for being ignored. So if you don't always hear what I'm saying first time because I mumble or whatever, don't worry about it too much."
"Huh?"
"Mmm. That's it. Just. Like. That."
And then just walk away and spend the rest of your time quietly sidling into the back of rooms, looking extremely satisfied until someone notices you, then lose interest and leave. Or just mutter a lot in the next room so that it sounds like you're always asking a question.
"..Mntleyh wondrf thtitle thngexist?"
"What?"
"Uuuuuuuuuhhh yyyyyyyessssss."
"Did you say something?"
"Hm? No, nothing. Don't mind me. Yeah. Seeya later. That's right, just like that, hhhhhhhhoolllyy sshhhhhhittyeah .... "
Tell me that's not hilarious. Picture the looks on your co-workers' faces when you enter a room:
Fuck, they'll be thinking. It's that fucking guy who gets his jollies from being ignored! "HEEEEYYY!!! Franzy!! Hey man! What's been happening? Tell me about your day! Hey everybody! It's Franzy!"
"Oh! Franzy! Hi! Let me get you a coffee! No no! Stay right there! I'll get it!"
Even better would be when you were actually able to stand behind someone and ask a question in a really, really low voice for a while, and then they finally turn around and notice you.
"AH! How long have you been standing there?"
"Aaaaaaaaaaages ... you didn't ... even .... hear me .... ooooooooooooo ..."
***
GTH - ZING! Point to Ashleigh. The band was there to symbolise the best "I got a job" song of all time: One Bourban, One Scotch, One Beer as played by George Thoroughgood. Which is actually all about George avoiding his bitch of a landlady and blowing all of his cash on booze instead of on the rent he owes her, which he is able to do by telling her that he has a job.
I actually have a job, but I did sing the verse as transcribed for about 48 hours straight after The Phonecall.
Like you, I had a lot of trouble getting my head around this. Firstly, there was understanding the fact that this wasn't a mockumentary. These were real women. Their most common object of love and desire were buildings. Structures. Bridges, walls, skyscrapers, that kind of thing. They love them. Romantic, sexual, committed love. The desire and passion with which these ladies talked about the Empire State Building, the Berlin Wall and various bridges around the world was identical to that fervor with which young lovers discuss their new paramours.
One lady in particular had fallen in love with a fairground ride called '1001 Nacht'. She went to visit him in the off-season where he was parked in a holding yard and wrapped in a tarp. After embracing various girders around the place, whispering odes of devotion and getting extremely red and bothered gripping the guard rail, she lay underneath 1001 Nacht and slowly, blissfully smeared her face with the thick grease from his joints. When it was time to leave she sobbed like a child being torn away from its favourite plaything. She was covered in grease. This was the same lady who was asked to move along by a security guard after an extremely long and sensuous embrace with the Empire State Building.
Another woman couldn't help mounting just about every picket fence she saw. She even had a few favourite picket fences in her room. Just short ones, a few pailings long which she would take to bed. And stroke.
I wish I had the imaginative capacity to make this shit up, but sadly, I fall short of the mark there. This was a real documentary. About real people.
This picture is of one of the Objectum Sexuals (as they prefer to be called) during the aptly-named climax to the documentary showing her consumating her relationship with the Eiffel Tower one year after their marriage.
Yes.
Marriage.
She legally married the Eiffel Tower.
And yes.
Consumation.
Yes she hitched her skirts up and mounted a frickin girder on the frickin Eiffel Tower, vag to steel.
I am still not making anything up. I merely took very very close notice of exactly which girder so that whenever I return to The Eiffel Tower, I can say to loved ones "No! Not that girder. Let's get a photo over here instead. In fact, why not Italy instead?"
Or, if I'm there with Captain T, "Hey man, sit right there, I want to take a photo. No, in fact, how about giving the old Tower a kiss eh? It'll be hilarious!"
We were telling 327 and Jimmythins about this documentary tonight and conversation fell, as it does, to fetishes. What were the weirdest kind of fetishes we could think up? (Reader points for weirdest fetish, real or not).
Stobie pole fetish.
Wheelie bin fetish.
Council traffic light fetish.
Can you tell we were walking home at the time?
Brussel sprout fetish: "OOhh! So stinky!"
A fetish for being wrapped in toilet paper.
A fetish for being praised for neat handwriting:
"What do you think of this note that I wrote?"
"Very nice."
"Ooh. Do you like my enlongated loops on the lower-case gs?"
"Pretty good."
"Thank you."
I am proud to announce that I think I've come up with what might be either the weirdest fetish or cleverest prank to bring to a new workplace: a fetish for being ignored. But you tell people about it, be really upfront.
"Hi, how you going? Hey listen man, this might sound a bit weird, but I've kind of got this ... "thing" ... for being ignored. So if you don't always hear what I'm saying first time because I mumble or whatever, don't worry about it too much."
"Huh?"
"Mmm. That's it. Just. Like. That."
And then just walk away and spend the rest of your time quietly sidling into the back of rooms, looking extremely satisfied until someone notices you, then lose interest and leave. Or just mutter a lot in the next room so that it sounds like you're always asking a question.
"..Mntleyh wondrf thtitle thngexist?"
"What?"
"Uuuuuuuuuhhh yyyyyyyessssss."
"Did you say something?"
"Hm? No, nothing. Don't mind me. Yeah. Seeya later. That's right, just like that, hhhhhhhhoolllyy sshhhhhhittyeah .... "
Tell me that's not hilarious. Picture the looks on your co-workers' faces when you enter a room:
Fuck, they'll be thinking. It's that fucking guy who gets his jollies from being ignored! "HEEEEYYY!!! Franzy!! Hey man! What's been happening? Tell me about your day! Hey everybody! It's Franzy!"
"Oh! Franzy! Hi! Let me get you a coffee! No no! Stay right there! I'll get it!"
Even better would be when you were actually able to stand behind someone and ask a question in a really, really low voice for a while, and then they finally turn around and notice you.
"AH! How long have you been standing there?"
"Aaaaaaaaaaages ... you didn't ... even .... hear me .... ooooooooooooo ..."
***
GTH - ZING! Point to Ashleigh. The band was there to symbolise the best "I got a job" song of all time: One Bourban, One Scotch, One Beer as played by George Thoroughgood. Which is actually all about George avoiding his bitch of a landlady and blowing all of his cash on booze instead of on the rent he owes her, which he is able to do by telling her that he has a job.
I actually have a job, but I did sing the verse as transcribed for about 48 hours straight after The Phonecall.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Men are generally sneaky fuckers
Here's how it happened: I used to work at The Eagle On The Hill. This was a pub turned Last-Drive-Thru-On-The-Interstate turned fine-dining restaurent turned Schnittie-Tuesday-Local. It turned other things after I was fired for asking for too many Friday and Saturday nights off (every Friday and Saturday), but this story isn't to do with that.
EOTH had a great view over the Adelaide Plane. Evening dinner guests would always try to book the few tables which perched right by the window so that they would have something decent to gaze at other than one other wolfing down chicken schnitzels the size of paving stones. It could even be described as romantic and most nights there were a couple of bookings of 'table for two, rum for four'.
There was even a motel downstairs. You know what I mean. That's right: 'Room for the night, thanks mate. Send down another bottle of Nepenthe.'
Anyway, you get the tone. Romantic and affordable. The way to every man's heart, (but surprisingly few women).
This one night I was on front of house, greeting customers. My job was to say hello, show them to a table, pull out their chairs and (after pushing the chairs back in) take their drink order and any subsequent shit a nervous first dater might feel it necessary to dish out in order to feel like a big man.
These two didn't just arrive, they rocked up. Nobody 'arrives' in a Commodore ute with truck mud guards. He was resplendent in Ed Harry's finest party shirt and she had decided on a dazzling silk-look halter-neck gown complete with black lacy bra, all designed to perfectly accentuate the large piping shrike tattoo on her shoulder blade. A true South Aussie girl and well worth a night of wining and dining at the famous EOTH.
Now pay good attention because it's going to move quickly from here.
I smile.
I show them to the prime table, front row centre for the night lights of Adelaide.
I pull out her chair.
She sits.
I ask her what she'll have to drink this fine evening.
He tells her to get whatever she wants.
She orders a Bundy and coke.
I pull out his chair.
I ask what sir will have.
He remains standing.
Eye to eye with me he says, 'Large pineapple juice, thanks.'
He winks.
He grins.
He sits.
The end.
Men are generally sneaky fuckers.
* If you don't understand, ask a man over the age of sixteen. If he doesn't understand, he's lying.
***
GTH - Mele was close, but Miles takes it away. Two from two. Nobody else gets points because nobody accused me of being a sneaky fucker (even though I just about burst a damn kidney not laughing in the story above) for fabricating the entire tale of Johnny Wade: Stephanie Rice Picture Tearer Upper.
"... finally throwing the pieces into the air and yelling 'Snowstorm'."??
Come on! That's gold!
EOTH had a great view over the Adelaide Plane. Evening dinner guests would always try to book the few tables which perched right by the window so that they would have something decent to gaze at other than one other wolfing down chicken schnitzels the size of paving stones. It could even be described as romantic and most nights there were a couple of bookings of 'table for two, rum for four'.
There was even a motel downstairs. You know what I mean. That's right: 'Room for the night, thanks mate. Send down another bottle of Nepenthe.'
Anyway, you get the tone. Romantic and affordable. The way to every man's heart, (but surprisingly few women).
This one night I was on front of house, greeting customers. My job was to say hello, show them to a table, pull out their chairs and (after pushing the chairs back in) take their drink order and any subsequent shit a nervous first dater might feel it necessary to dish out in order to feel like a big man.
These two didn't just arrive, they rocked up. Nobody 'arrives' in a Commodore ute with truck mud guards. He was resplendent in Ed Harry's finest party shirt and she had decided on a dazzling silk-look halter-neck gown complete with black lacy bra, all designed to perfectly accentuate the large piping shrike tattoo on her shoulder blade. A true South Aussie girl and well worth a night of wining and dining at the famous EOTH.
Now pay good attention because it's going to move quickly from here.
I smile.
I show them to the prime table, front row centre for the night lights of Adelaide.
I pull out her chair.
She sits.
I ask her what she'll have to drink this fine evening.
He tells her to get whatever she wants.
She orders a Bundy and coke.
I pull out his chair.
I ask what sir will have.
He remains standing.
Eye to eye with me he says, 'Large pineapple juice, thanks.'
He winks.
He grins.
He sits.
The end.
Men are generally sneaky fuckers.
* If you don't understand, ask a man over the age of sixteen. If he doesn't understand, he's lying.
***
GTH - Mele was close, but Miles takes it away. Two from two. Nobody else gets points because nobody accused me of being a sneaky fucker (even though I just about burst a damn kidney not laughing in the story above) for fabricating the entire tale of Johnny Wade: Stephanie Rice Picture Tearer Upper.
"... finally throwing the pieces into the air and yelling 'Snowstorm'."??
Come on! That's gold!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Monday, October 8, 2007
One size fits all my butt!
I have long considered the possibility that I may be religious.
Allow me to pause a moment while those who know me well wipe whatever it is that they were drinking from their screens, keyboards and sinuses.
It's true, I don't tend to hold religion in the highest regard, although lately I've come to think that it's perhaps not the nature of religion itself that causes so much torture and pain in the world, but the silly people who use it to justify cutting off their own testicles and forcing other people not to enjoy themselves.
I've just finished reading Robert Winston's The Story of God, which, apart from being very informative and a wonderful companion to Sophie's World (a young adult primer on philosophy from Socrates to Foucault), seemed to hold the view that religion resulted in the quite evolutionary need for soft pink monkeys to hang around in groups in order to survive. This, coupled with the evolved monkey brain's need to explain the things it couldn't (ie. What's the sound? and How did this banana get here?), formed a sort of mud-map of existence and meaning.
A + B = C
Water + Dirt = Mud
Og + Punch = Fight
Dancing + Chanting = Rain
Sacrifice + Gold = Prosperity
No Prosperity + More Virgins = More Sacrifice
That kind of thing.
Read in conjunction with Sophie's World, The Story of God allowed most religions I had heard of to make sense. Religion is very similar to philosophy in that it attempts to explain the world. I think religion is a bit more proactive in that it attempts to explain what to do once you've explained the world, which is probably why it gets into so many fights with science. Science is still stuck on the first bit about how the world works while religion seems to behave much like the impatient maths student I once was, throwing the answer sheet on the teacher's desk and bounding out the door without bothering to show all working out.
I admire that in religion. It's a very selfish philosophy, really. Not in a bad way either. If the answer seems right to you, who is anyone else to say any different? We're not talking about numbers here folks, we're talking about whether you should steal, swear or have sex with certain kinds of people! It must be very gratifying to follow a religion and be right about these questions all the time.
Swearing? No! Never!
Sex with boys? No! Evil!
Fish on Fridays? Yum yum yum!
See what I mean? Always the correct answer! You don't get that kind of positive reinforcement anywhere else!
I do have a tiny philosophical issue with religion in that since I regard all people as different, I think that every single person needs their own code of practice. What's great for one person isn't necessarily wicked cool for someone else. That kind of thing. Religion doesn't really provide for that diversity of people in society. Each religion has its own set of rules to be followed and most religions have great rules: don't hurt other people, be nice to your parents, be nice to your children, don't steal, etc, etc, etc. You see where Robert Winston got his enthusiasm for the theory that religion developed out of a need for physically defenceless monkeys to form groups to survive. The monkeys that had the best groups survived and the best groups tended to have least number of thieving arseholes in them - hence the rules. 'Follow these or you're on your own the next time a sabre-toothed tiger turns up'. Good incentive, that.
But these days sabre-toothed tiger numbers are down, sadly. Monkeys are up. Yet the rules remain. They're still great rules, but mostly self-evident, I feel. The problem is that the rules still seem to be under some kind of moral copyright, as though the values and modes of nice human behaviour were held in holy patent offices, stamped and traded to the thankful consumer.
'Oh, thank [insert deity] I did not kill my parents!'
'Praise [insert deity] that this beautiful day exists/my lotto numbers came up/I got the job!'
It's entirely ego-centric of me, but having lived a life entirely without religion, I am yet to come across a moral conundrum that I couldn't sort out myself. Of course, there have been a few fuck-ups along the way, but I own those. They were all part of the learning process.
And here comes the schism between my own beliefs about correct moral behaviour and religion: I don't think that you should tell other people how to live.
That's it. The difference between my perfect ethos of life and religion is that I don't think other people should follow this rule, because it's not even a rule yet. It's just a philosophy, a theory that could be proven wrong at any second! But I'm pretty confident it won't be.
Religion has a whole set of these rules and explanations that have kept billions of people happy for thousands of years, so it can't be doing too badly for itself . But it's still telling people what to do and how to live without letting anybody figure it out for themselves. This might seem tough to live by, just letting people do what they want and trusting that they will do the right thing, but remember, I'm not peddling answers and explanations here - this is all about me.
Get your own.
The thing I do admire about religion is its art and its rituals.
To the right here you will see my favourite building ever. It is the Cologne Cathedral and is, without exception, the most remarkable thing I have ever seen. I will write about my first, exquisite encounter with it another day. Without religion, it would not exist. Would anything be in its place? The answer to that is as pointless as the question and best left to fiction, but churches can be incredible things to behold. But, being devoid of religious influence, they simply cause me to wonder at the glory and talents of human beings, rather than explain my rapture through some intangible feeling about the inexplicable.
The ritual is another aspect that I find strangely attractive; comforting even. To me every religious ritual from prayer to blessings to yearly festivals seems utterly meaningless, but soothing, fun and calming nonetheless. Rituals are that aspect of religion that causes the individual to stop all else, re-centre, re-focus and engage with whatever explanations for existence, meaning, hope, despair and life they have in their brains. I imagine it's like the comfort a mild sufferer of obsessive-compulsion feels when they switch the light off for the second time, safe in the knowledge that it didn't blow the instant they turned it off. The engagement of ritual sets the scene for a world about to be put right and its completion brings satisfaction and strength within the self.
I said at the beginning of this post that I have considered the possibility that I may be religious. I'm not, but I do have a ritual. A calming, meditative state that can be achieved only at a certain time of day and under the correct conditions. Those conditions aren't always present, but not a day goes by when, at 6pm, wherever I am, my mind enters its own little prayer-room and, if fortune is with me, my body follows. Here is my own personal ritual for calm and peace, followed by a call to prayer:
At 5:55pm I finish all activities, save all documents, close all webpages, bookmark all pages, stack all papers and remove my shoes. I go to the fridge. I select a bottle of Cooper's Pale Ale and place it in a stubby holder. I do not remove the cap, but I ensure to invert it gently to allow the yeasty mud to trickle through the sweet, heady liquid, just as my own troubles dissipate and disperse, diluted with perspective and calm. I fetch a packet of fancy chips. Never plain, never chicken. Every day needs a luxury, a treat, a reward for feeling happy and a salve for feeling sad. I banish all others, sit comfortably in front of the television and watch Jane Riley visit another part of the Adelaide microcosm to report the weather. I watch the post-news Channel Ten plug and am grateful that I don't care about whatever it's talking about. Life is good.
The music starts:
***
GTH: For those of you who just skip to the end of the writing for a grab at glory on a the world's 1,803,855th most popular website, the winner is The Other, other Sam. It was indeed taken at 2006's Adelaide Arts Festival Opening Night. There were dozens of beautiful floating globes drifting around the river, forever ingrained into the minds of the hundreds of Adelaidians who were so thoroughly disappointed at the school pageant/lighting warehouse clearance sale that was the OzAsia Opening Night. However, there are points to River and Neil for their kick-arse jokes.
I also mentioned in the last comment thread that there would be a joke-related competition this post. So: dirtiest joke wins. That's it. Make of it what you will. Nothing shall be censored, unless it's racist or in any way supports the Dutch.
Allow me to pause a moment while those who know me well wipe whatever it is that they were drinking from their screens, keyboards and sinuses.
It's true, I don't tend to hold religion in the highest regard, although lately I've come to think that it's perhaps not the nature of religion itself that causes so much torture and pain in the world, but the silly people who use it to justify cutting off their own testicles and forcing other people not to enjoy themselves.
I've just finished reading Robert Winston's The Story of God, which, apart from being very informative and a wonderful companion to Sophie's World (a young adult primer on philosophy from Socrates to Foucault), seemed to hold the view that religion resulted in the quite evolutionary need for soft pink monkeys to hang around in groups in order to survive. This, coupled with the evolved monkey brain's need to explain the things it couldn't (ie. What's the sound? and How did this banana get here?), formed a sort of mud-map of existence and meaning.
A + B = C
Water + Dirt = Mud
Og + Punch = Fight
Dancing + Chanting = Rain
Sacrifice + Gold = Prosperity
No Prosperity + More Virgins = More Sacrifice
That kind of thing.
Read in conjunction with Sophie's World, The Story of God allowed most religions I had heard of to make sense. Religion is very similar to philosophy in that it attempts to explain the world. I think religion is a bit more proactive in that it attempts to explain what to do once you've explained the world, which is probably why it gets into so many fights with science. Science is still stuck on the first bit about how the world works while religion seems to behave much like the impatient maths student I once was, throwing the answer sheet on the teacher's desk and bounding out the door without bothering to show all working out.
I admire that in religion. It's a very selfish philosophy, really. Not in a bad way either. If the answer seems right to you, who is anyone else to say any different? We're not talking about numbers here folks, we're talking about whether you should steal, swear or have sex with certain kinds of people! It must be very gratifying to follow a religion and be right about these questions all the time.
Swearing? No! Never!
Sex with boys? No! Evil!
Fish on Fridays? Yum yum yum!
See what I mean? Always the correct answer! You don't get that kind of positive reinforcement anywhere else!
I do have a tiny philosophical issue with religion in that since I regard all people as different, I think that every single person needs their own code of practice. What's great for one person isn't necessarily wicked cool for someone else. That kind of thing. Religion doesn't really provide for that diversity of people in society. Each religion has its own set of rules to be followed and most religions have great rules: don't hurt other people, be nice to your parents, be nice to your children, don't steal, etc, etc, etc. You see where Robert Winston got his enthusiasm for the theory that religion developed out of a need for physically defenceless monkeys to form groups to survive. The monkeys that had the best groups survived and the best groups tended to have least number of thieving arseholes in them - hence the rules. 'Follow these or you're on your own the next time a sabre-toothed tiger turns up'. Good incentive, that.
But these days sabre-toothed tiger numbers are down, sadly. Monkeys are up. Yet the rules remain. They're still great rules, but mostly self-evident, I feel. The problem is that the rules still seem to be under some kind of moral copyright, as though the values and modes of nice human behaviour were held in holy patent offices, stamped and traded to the thankful consumer.
'Oh, thank [insert deity] I did not kill my parents!'
'Praise [insert deity] that this beautiful day exists/my lotto numbers came up/I got the job!'
It's entirely ego-centric of me, but having lived a life entirely without religion, I am yet to come across a moral conundrum that I couldn't sort out myself. Of course, there have been a few fuck-ups along the way, but I own those. They were all part of the learning process.
And here comes the schism between my own beliefs about correct moral behaviour and religion: I don't think that you should tell other people how to live.
That's it. The difference between my perfect ethos of life and religion is that I don't think other people should follow this rule, because it's not even a rule yet. It's just a philosophy, a theory that could be proven wrong at any second! But I'm pretty confident it won't be.
Religion has a whole set of these rules and explanations that have kept billions of people happy for thousands of years, so it can't be doing too badly for itself . But it's still telling people what to do and how to live without letting anybody figure it out for themselves. This might seem tough to live by, just letting people do what they want and trusting that they will do the right thing, but remember, I'm not peddling answers and explanations here - this is all about me.
Get your own.
The thing I do admire about religion is its art and its rituals.
To the right here you will see my favourite building ever. It is the Cologne Cathedral and is, without exception, the most remarkable thing I have ever seen. I will write about my first, exquisite encounter with it another day. Without religion, it would not exist. Would anything be in its place? The answer to that is as pointless as the question and best left to fiction, but churches can be incredible things to behold. But, being devoid of religious influence, they simply cause me to wonder at the glory and talents of human beings, rather than explain my rapture through some intangible feeling about the inexplicable.The ritual is another aspect that I find strangely attractive; comforting even. To me every religious ritual from prayer to blessings to yearly festivals seems utterly meaningless, but soothing, fun and calming nonetheless. Rituals are that aspect of religion that causes the individual to stop all else, re-centre, re-focus and engage with whatever explanations for existence, meaning, hope, despair and life they have in their brains. I imagine it's like the comfort a mild sufferer of obsessive-compulsion feels when they switch the light off for the second time, safe in the knowledge that it didn't blow the instant they turned it off. The engagement of ritual sets the scene for a world about to be put right and its completion brings satisfaction and strength within the self.
I said at the beginning of this post that I have considered the possibility that I may be religious. I'm not, but I do have a ritual. A calming, meditative state that can be achieved only at a certain time of day and under the correct conditions. Those conditions aren't always present, but not a day goes by when, at 6pm, wherever I am, my mind enters its own little prayer-room and, if fortune is with me, my body follows. Here is my own personal ritual for calm and peace, followed by a call to prayer:
At 5:55pm I finish all activities, save all documents, close all webpages, bookmark all pages, stack all papers and remove my shoes. I go to the fridge. I select a bottle of Cooper's Pale Ale and place it in a stubby holder. I do not remove the cap, but I ensure to invert it gently to allow the yeasty mud to trickle through the sweet, heady liquid, just as my own troubles dissipate and disperse, diluted with perspective and calm. I fetch a packet of fancy chips. Never plain, never chicken. Every day needs a luxury, a treat, a reward for feeling happy and a salve for feeling sad. I banish all others, sit comfortably in front of the television and watch Jane Riley visit another part of the Adelaide microcosm to report the weather. I watch the post-news Channel Ten plug and am grateful that I don't care about whatever it's talking about. Life is good.
The music starts:
***
GTH: For those of you who just skip to the end of the writing for a grab at glory on a the world's 1,803,855th most popular website, the winner is The Other, other Sam. It was indeed taken at 2006's Adelaide Arts Festival Opening Night. There were dozens of beautiful floating globes drifting around the river, forever ingrained into the minds of the hundreds of Adelaidians who were so thoroughly disappointed at the school pageant/lighting warehouse clearance sale that was the OzAsia Opening Night. However, there are points to River and Neil for their kick-arse jokes.
I also mentioned in the last comment thread that there would be a joke-related competition this post. So: dirtiest joke wins. That's it. Make of it what you will. Nothing shall be censored, unless it's racist or in any way supports the Dutch.
Monday, July 30, 2007
It's hard to believe there's nobody out there ...
MySpace, Facebook, the internet evolves further and further along with every new connection and personalising site into what it must inevitably become: a dating tool. I know, I know, Google Scholar and all that, but really, the internet is just like mobile phones; ten years ago they were specialised equipment for only the elite and the dorky. Now your Grandma has one and nine-year-olds are coding. The more the internet democratises and reaches people who wouldn't normally use it for research or just plain porn, the more it becomes a substitute for that opiatastic thrill you get when you check your mailbox and there's a package inside with your name on it. Somebody loves you. Somebody thinks of you when you're not thinking about them = uR F4m0u5!
And that's just email.
MySpace goes a step further. For all the political gimickery, band support and cheap advertisingyourself as possible. Pictures, automatically-playing songs, videos, likes, lists of favourite TV shows, movies, musical artists, heroes, quotes and more are all options for you to spruce up or 'pimp' your page with various distasteful HTML et viola - you are a web person.
But you're not. Your web personality on MySpace is essentially a 'girl/boyfriend wanted' ad for people who aren't gutsy or horny enough to actually hit a dating website. And fair enough too. MySpace is the online equivalent of the supremely cool dude/tte who tarts themselves up for hours to go to the dance, then spends the entire time leaning against the back wall, smoking and looking thrillingly mysterious, praying that someone will talk to them. The attractive element to this little piece of awkwardness is that people it provides, MySpace is just about making a page with as much information about do come and talk to you. Not only talk, but ask to be your friend.
"Will you be my friend?" comes the plaintive email from your new BFF.
"Agree" you click and squishy-squirt you are thrown together 4EVA. Every MySpace page has a Friends box that shows the Online Personalities of your other friends there can be hundreds or even thousands. At last! Popularity! Nerds no more!
Facebook goes a step further than that. Facebook is MySpace, but without the pimping. It still lets you create an Online Personality, but it emphasises the linking of like-minded personalities.
It all starts when someone sends you an email.
You've never heard of Facebook, but you have been invited to join. Not even to join - just to agree that you know someone you know because they are claiming to know you.
You click agree.
Suddenly - you are another Face in the Book. Then you get another email from someone you know claiming to know you. You click agree.
Your number of friends grows and every time someone you know rubs the Genie of The Six Degrees and sends you an email, the endorphin-laden rush of getting a package in the mail or getting smiled at by the most popular girl/guy in school comes flooding through your inbox.
O-o-o-o-o-oooooohyeeeeeaaaaahhhhh.
Then you're addicted.
No, not addicted. You can stop any time you want. Right after you agree to that friend request. And add another photo.
I attempted to poo-poo Facebook when it first showed up in my inbox, I reasoned that no one would send friend requests to someone who didn't play, didn't send out any friend requests of their own and only posted strangely ugly photos of himself. But that didn't happen. Every day since that first email showed up, another person I know sends an email asking me to confirm that I know them and politely allowing me the opportunity to close the easy-to-navigate menu that allows a trip down memory lane to where this person and I met, where we've travelled and the courses we've studied.
The friendship list has grown, along with my Online Personality. I'm now a guy who has interests, favourite music, films, books, TV shows and quotes. Everything about my, and every other Facebook Online Personality, or MySpace for that matter, reads like a Personals Ad. If I weren't a happily married man, I would have just written "Holding hands, Long Walks on the Beach at Sunset and Making Fuck" and been done with it. Because the connection is what it's all about. People I haven't seen since high school have been in touch. Scrolling other people's friends lists I've seen dozens of people I haven't thought about for literally years. The genius catch (and the dating advantage over MySpace) is that you can only look at the friends list of people who are your friends. You can't look at people separated by more than a degree, but that can all be solved with a friend invitation that, unless you recently (and by that I mean: since that person discovered Crackbook) torched that person's house, will not be refused.
But I have discovered the flaw in Facebook and MySpace and all the the rest, mind you, not the flaw for them or the Addicts who keep their page loaded in the corner, finger twitching, ready for refresh. No one ever puts anything bad, or real on their profiles. I'm not saying that they're lying, just that there isn't the opportunity to paint the full picture of the person behind the Profile.
I want Facebook 2.0 (whatever that turns out to be) to have alongside "Favourite Movies" and "Interests", real categories that can paint a much fuller picture than a few carefully chosen holiday snaps ever could. Categories like:
Races I can't stand
Allergies
Drugs I have taken
Places I have urinated in public
Or if people just filled out their "Interests" segments more honestly, without thinking of movies that would make them seem fun or music that they hear on the radio all the time.
Favourite movies
Hard Butts 5, Debbie Does the Eastern Seaboard, Faces of Death 3
You see where I'm going with this. I apologise for the rambling, but it's late and for all my whinging, I've still got a fair bit of Harry Potter to go.
***
Guess the Header
Jono and River were closest with Canada. A point each for geography. But the main clue were the bins in the corner and the off-yellow lettering for the title spoiling the gorgeous view - which was in Yosemite National Park. Better luck this week!
And that's just email.
MySpace goes a step further. For all the political gimickery, band support and cheap advertisingyourself as possible. Pictures, automatically-playing songs, videos, likes, lists of favourite TV shows, movies, musical artists, heroes, quotes and more are all options for you to spruce up or 'pimp' your page with various distasteful HTML et viola - you are a web person.
But you're not. Your web personality on MySpace is essentially a 'girl/boyfriend wanted' ad for people who aren't gutsy or horny enough to actually hit a dating website. And fair enough too. MySpace is the online equivalent of the supremely cool dude/tte who tarts themselves up for hours to go to the dance, then spends the entire time leaning against the back wall, smoking and looking thrillingly mysterious, praying that someone will talk to them. The attractive element to this little piece of awkwardness is that people it provides, MySpace is just about making a page with as much information about do come and talk to you. Not only talk, but ask to be your friend.
"Will you be my friend?" comes the plaintive email from your new BFF.
"Agree" you click and squishy-squirt you are thrown together 4EVA. Every MySpace page has a Friends box that shows the Online Personalities of your other friends there can be hundreds or even thousands. At last! Popularity! Nerds no more!
Facebook goes a step further than that. Facebook is MySpace, but without the pimping. It still lets you create an Online Personality, but it emphasises the linking of like-minded personalities.
It all starts when someone sends you an email.
You've never heard of Facebook, but you have been invited to join. Not even to join - just to agree that you know someone you know because they are claiming to know you.
You click agree.
Suddenly - you are another Face in the Book. Then you get another email from someone you know claiming to know you. You click agree.
Your number of friends grows and every time someone you know rubs the Genie of The Six Degrees and sends you an email, the endorphin-laden rush of getting a package in the mail or getting smiled at by the most popular girl/guy in school comes flooding through your inbox.
O-o-o-o-o-oooooohyeeeeeaaaaahhhhh.
Then you're addicted.
No, not addicted. You can stop any time you want. Right after you agree to that friend request. And add another photo.
I attempted to poo-poo Facebook when it first showed up in my inbox, I reasoned that no one would send friend requests to someone who didn't play, didn't send out any friend requests of their own and only posted strangely ugly photos of himself. But that didn't happen. Every day since that first email showed up, another person I know sends an email asking me to confirm that I know them and politely allowing me the opportunity to close the easy-to-navigate menu that allows a trip down memory lane to where this person and I met, where we've travelled and the courses we've studied.
The friendship list has grown, along with my Online Personality. I'm now a guy who has interests, favourite music, films, books, TV shows and quotes. Everything about my, and every other Facebook Online Personality, or MySpace for that matter, reads like a Personals Ad. If I weren't a happily married man, I would have just written "Holding hands, Long Walks on the Beach at Sunset and Making Fuck" and been done with it. Because the connection is what it's all about. People I haven't seen since high school have been in touch. Scrolling other people's friends lists I've seen dozens of people I haven't thought about for literally years. The genius catch (and the dating advantage over MySpace) is that you can only look at the friends list of people who are your friends. You can't look at people separated by more than a degree, but that can all be solved with a friend invitation that, unless you recently (and by that I mean: since that person discovered Crackbook) torched that person's house, will not be refused.
But I have discovered the flaw in Facebook and MySpace and all the the rest, mind you, not the flaw for them or the Addicts who keep their page loaded in the corner, finger twitching, ready for refresh. No one ever puts anything bad, or real on their profiles. I'm not saying that they're lying, just that there isn't the opportunity to paint the full picture of the person behind the Profile.
I want Facebook 2.0 (whatever that turns out to be) to have alongside "Favourite Movies" and "Interests", real categories that can paint a much fuller picture than a few carefully chosen holiday snaps ever could. Categories like:
Races I can't stand
Allergies
Drugs I have taken
Places I have urinated in public
Or if people just filled out their "Interests" segments more honestly, without thinking of movies that would make them seem fun or music that they hear on the radio all the time.
Favourite movies
Hard Butts 5, Debbie Does the Eastern Seaboard, Faces of Death 3
You see where I'm going with this. I apologise for the rambling, but it's late and for all my whinging, I've still got a fair bit of Harry Potter to go.
***
Guess the Header
Jono and River were closest with Canada. A point each for geography. But the main clue were the bins in the corner and the off-yellow lettering for the title spoiling the gorgeous view - which was in Yosemite National Park. Better luck this week!
Monday, July 16, 2007
The Bloodhound Gang wouldn't have made it past the blue dye
According to anecdotal evidence*, STDs are on the rise. There are a multitude of reasons - most of them to do with the rise of conservatism and the religious right. This has been blogged about before by great writers than I, but there are two easy targets: shithouse sex education in schools and confusing advertising. When I went through school I had no less than two term long periods where we were taught about sex and everything surrounding it.
In primary school the wonderful Ms Safe (her real name, she assured us) told us all about why our dangly bits were doing those things and why it was wrong to point at other kids' dangly bits. We got pictures of nude children that we were allowed to draw on, a full and frank explanation about how babies were made (sex) and exactly where they came from (vaginas). And, if any of us doubted that last point, we were all sat in front of the TV in a corner of the library and shown a video of a baby coming out of a vagina, umbilical cord, placenta, maternal screaming and all.
In high school were moved on to what is known in rap circles as The Nitty-Gritty. We were given a quick refresher about how sex worked, reminded that it caused babies and then introduced to contraception, safe sex STD avoision. At no point were we told that condoms were against god or that we would be safe from STDs within the bonds of holy matrimony (like Mele was). We were even briefly divided up for a frank discussion about menstruation given by a friendly-yet-businesslike lady from a specialist government department. The girls went in first for women's business (I never found out what - maybe they told lightbulb jokes) and then the boys were allowed in to learn all about periods. But not before the Vice-Principal herself interrupted her busy day to line us all up, military parade-style, and inform us that having periods was a natural and beautiful, yet sensitive part of all young women's lives and that any mockery, joking, sly sideways glances or improper smiling during our short lesson on menses would result in immediate suspension. We all nodded maturely and trooped in to watch the lady from the government give a straight-talking description of periods while we watched tampon slowly absorb a glass of clear blue liquid.
The thing I remember thinking at the time was that all that education about STDs was almost unnecessary, given the pre-sex-education sex education our generation had all had at the hands of one TV commercial. Talk to anyone around my age and we will all tell you of a deep-seated fear of AIDS and condomless sex at the hands of The Grim Reaper. We need to re-screen this ad. I guarantee STDs will go down again.
***
In other news: the winner of the inaugural Guess The Header Competition is River for her flashy science talk and the gag about the pizza (which correctly unraveled my cypher, placing the photo of weird fish alongside the blog about weird fish, or anchovies if you prefer). Sorry other OTHER Sam, you were way way way off with the China guess, and yet, so close ... How? This photo was taken in Chinatown in San Fransisco. It was the only place in America where I actually saw fresh fish and vegetables that weren't marketed as an exclusive novelty. If you scroll down, the (as yet) blogless River will be immortalised with her leading score of one on the Writing Guess The Header Competition Glory Board. Who will guess this blog's photo? Who? Clue? Think "Bad Word Play".
*stories Mele tells me about the private school she used to work at.
In primary school the wonderful Ms Safe (her real name, she assured us) told us all about why our dangly bits were doing those things and why it was wrong to point at other kids' dangly bits. We got pictures of nude children that we were allowed to draw on, a full and frank explanation about how babies were made (sex) and exactly where they came from (vaginas). And, if any of us doubted that last point, we were all sat in front of the TV in a corner of the library and shown a video of a baby coming out of a vagina, umbilical cord, placenta, maternal screaming and all.
In high school were moved on to what is known in rap circles as The Nitty-Gritty. We were given a quick refresher about how sex worked, reminded that it caused babies and then introduced to contraception, safe sex STD avoision. At no point were we told that condoms were against god or that we would be safe from STDs within the bonds of holy matrimony (like Mele was). We were even briefly divided up for a frank discussion about menstruation given by a friendly-yet-businesslike lady from a specialist government department. The girls went in first for women's business (I never found out what - maybe they told lightbulb jokes) and then the boys were allowed in to learn all about periods. But not before the Vice-Principal herself interrupted her busy day to line us all up, military parade-style, and inform us that having periods was a natural and beautiful, yet sensitive part of all young women's lives and that any mockery, joking, sly sideways glances or improper smiling during our short lesson on menses would result in immediate suspension. We all nodded maturely and trooped in to watch the lady from the government give a straight-talking description of periods while we watched tampon slowly absorb a glass of clear blue liquid.
The thing I remember thinking at the time was that all that education about STDs was almost unnecessary, given the pre-sex-education sex education our generation had all had at the hands of one TV commercial. Talk to anyone around my age and we will all tell you of a deep-seated fear of AIDS and condomless sex at the hands of The Grim Reaper. We need to re-screen this ad. I guarantee STDs will go down again.
***
In other news: the winner of the inaugural Guess The Header Competition is River for her flashy science talk and the gag about the pizza (which correctly unraveled my cypher, placing the photo of weird fish alongside the blog about weird fish, or anchovies if you prefer). Sorry other OTHER Sam, you were way way way off with the China guess, and yet, so close ... How? This photo was taken in Chinatown in San Fransisco. It was the only place in America where I actually saw fresh fish and vegetables that weren't marketed as an exclusive novelty. If you scroll down, the (as yet) blogless River will be immortalised with her leading score of one on the Writing Guess The Header Competition Glory Board. Who will guess this blog's photo? Who? Clue? Think "Bad Word Play".
*stories Mele tells me about the private school she used to work at.
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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.
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.
