Playgirl’s Mr Movember!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can always tell when a bloke is only growing a moustache for Movember.  For some reason the dignity and gravitas that usually accompanies a genuine nose-muffler, the type grown by ringmasters, philosophers and maths teachers is completely missing. Movember mo-growers either carry it with the grace, aplomb and subtly of an oversized novelty sombrero, brashly waving it around as if to say ‘I’m a wild and crazy guy I want to make party-party’. Or they especially furtive about it, ducking their heads when they catch you checking out their face-friend and giving you sheepish looks through their eyelashes which say ‘I don’t usually look like this’.  

The former I can deal with using the same patient good nature that I use to deal with other people’s ribald dads but the latter I find infuriating because they don’t seem to realise that their bashful moustache makes them about 34% more attractive to me. It makes me so sad that the first day of summer that things gonna be long gone and the city’s make-out appeal is gonna slam right back down to ‘minimal’ until the drunken Christmas parties roll around.

Annyway, I thought I do a little tribute to the most popular ‘tache styles I’ve seen this year. I have obvious favourites, despite loving them all. As my model I have used English actor, J.J. Fields below;

J.J.s pretty awesome permanent moustache honestly make me think, ‘Is there anything wrong with marrying someone based solely on their facial hair?’ The answer is no!

The Bryan Ferry

Although similar in appearance, this thing should not be confused with the Shifty Sam, because it’s  about a billion times more  sophisticated in a never-to-be-attempted-by anyone-other-than-a-thin-attractive-70’s-crooner-or-F. Scott-Fitzgerald kind of way. Just look at J.J. in this baby, he looks like Indiana Jones if he had decided to take art history instead. These things are so classy they have to be rinsed in champagne and styled with tiny silver combs. If I was even  half as well maintained as I should be to deserve a guy sporting one of these,  I’d have to be Audrey fucking Hepburn*

Notable Examples: Bryan Ferry, Clarke Gable, Sammy Davis Jnr. 

Chopper Gringo Hulk Hughes the 70’s Porn and Tennis Star

‘Oh look at me! I’m 100% man oozing with frustratingly charming machismo. I’ve got absolutely no imagination or sense of humour, but I’m great at making out! I’ve never really understood irony but some girl with a fringe and glasses told me my ‘tache was ‘ironic’, and that’s expanded my pick-up range by 20%! I’ll keep milking this fad until it disappears and use the phrase ‘moustache rides’ indiscriminately! Come on ladies, you know I’ll win you over eventually!’

And they do, they always do.

Notable Examples: That dude in Dead Wood, Bubble-O-Bill, and Nick Cave

Patches McGee

Whilst there are a lot of sensory memories about high school which I may still find sexy but patchy pubey facial hair is not one of them. There’s something about this one reminds me of that kid in at school who developed too quickly and had man hips, appalling skin and a shadowy moustache before most other kids could turn 13. Although we should all be impressed with the fact that many men can grow a credible nose-neighbour within a month, there are many who try and fail, miserably. I suggest that these guys don’t bother looking like teenaged nightmares and make generous donations to their more hirsute fellows.

Notable examples: The Woman for Le Tigre, boys from the Brewery Coffee shop on Erskine Street, Leonardo DiCaprio. 

Shifty Sam

Nothing says ‘I’m trying to smell you while you’re not looking’ than a shifty Sam. Even J.J. looks like a sexual harasser in one of these. These kind of thin, wispy snail trails are favoured by office creeps, adult book store owners and the skinny weird villain in costume dramas. But what’s not to like about that? I always said that the best thing about creeps is their perseverance and tenacity.

Notable examples:   Chris Cornell,  John Waters, Crispin Glover (ok, he doesn’t really have one but if he did it would be weird).

Captain Flourish

This is truly the king of all moustaches! It’s majestic, rugged, stately, regal and manly all at the same time. I like these best when they are growing on charming old-timey Southern Gentlemen who say things like ‘I say, well, I say, its mighty fine to meet ya, miss Jo-Maybelleline, would you care for a mint julep and the deed to the plantation in my heart? If you would do me the honour of takin’ it, well, I’d be mighty obliged’.

However, the Captain Flourish may need more than a month to really get going. I don’t think it’s possible to grow a mo in secret, but if you could, it should be this one. Then on the first of November you unveil this beauty and let us all bask in its glory for the next thirty days, a memory to treasure for the rest of my life.

Notable Examples: Corey Stoll, Tom Hardy in Bronson, Mel Gibson in his 'I'm Completely Mad with a beard now' phase. 

Finally, as I woman I felt that I’d been put at disadvantage with Movemeber, being unable to really participate (not that I don’t try, the results are underwhelming). That was until I heard about this lady. I think her story is pretty cool, I think she’s pretty cool. I’ve said it before, I wish I had a credible tache... 

Also also also, before I forget, y'all should really head over to Movember Australia's official site, where you can donate, play games and check out more amateur mos online! Exciting!

*I am currently more like Katherine Hepburn, but the really old Katherine Hepburn who turned up to the Oscars wearing her gardening clothes, covered in dirt.

Dear Michael Fassbender

Dear Michael Fassbender,

What’s up, you ridiculously smoking German/Irish man you?

As your future wife I have to say that I'm thrilled with your current popularity. I don’t think I’ve used the phrase ‘on trend’ in regards to a person so much in my life as I have in the last year and a half. You’re the current talk of the town, the cock of the walk and the captain of my heart and I have to say I’m really glad you’ve found a niche playing handsome weirdos in every other movie going.

Moreover, I'm really glad that the time has come where everyone stopped all this ‘OMG RYAN GOSLING IN MY PANTS PLS!’ nonsense and remembered that there are actual men still alive in the world. Actual real men, walking around on strong, manly, Olympian thighs of gods, with thrillingly sharky sharky smiles.  Are you about to kiss me, or take a bite outta me? I dunno, but I think it’s just… neat.

What’s the deal with Gosling anyway? I completely fail to see that dork’s appeal. Honestly, you, mo mhuirnín,  make him look like a wet cocker-spaniel puppy with a cold who has just been told about Bambi’s mum from the bottom of a well , i.e.  drippy, wet and annoyingly pathetic (P.S. could you please shield me with your amazing manly arms of wonder when the Gosling fans come baying for my blood? Those hounds! Thanks.)

All your hotness aside, it doesn’t really change the fact that you are a probably more than a bit creepy. And it’s not just because my mother thinks your eyes are too far apart. It’s your collected body of work. I just watched the viral for Prometheus, David 8 in which you appear to be some sort of TERRIFYING FLOWER SNIFFING ROBOT BUTLER from the future.  Add that to:

• Serial Shagging addict 
• Serious Doctor/Patient confidentiality breach
• Secret Wife Haver
• Masochistic Spartan 
• Sadistic Roman
• Giant magnet with a serious chip on his shoulder

And those are just the one off the dome, I'm sure a couple of hours of IMDB research would yield more proof of your sexy creeping, occasionally in German. Oh Michael, just how many languages can you act in, mein lieber schatz?

On the crazy and hot celebrity scale (1 being the lowest, Justin Timberlake = Surprisingly Normal and 10 being the highest aka Christian Bale = probably would eat someone) your collected body of work (not to mention, you know, your body) would probably earn you a solid 8. This means you've probably got a couple of years before you go Oliver Reed/ Richard Harris style bonkers, drink yourself to death or start narrating IMAX features.

But Mikey… Fassi… Bendi? We’ll sort out the nickname situation later. It should be said that it’s not just your glorious jolie laide face, stupefying bod or air of crazy danger that has us so excited, it’s the fact that you may have the ability to refresh the power of the edgy UK actor once more. 

The golden boys of the nineties are gone; the Rickmans, the Oldmans, they have become jowly and old.  The hotties of the 2000s- Ewan McGregor, Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler-  have failed us with shitty rom-coms like Down With Love, Maid in Manhattan and that one with Katherine Heigl… eurgh Heigl, she is pure whitebread boring and I'm gluten intolerant!

And what are we left with? Can we really rely on Rupert Penry-Jones to deliver strength, or Benedict Cumberbatch to supply sensuality? Neurotics and mad geniuses maybe. The truth is, Mister Fassbender, fan girls of the world need you to deliver obscure United Kingdom hotness out of the dark depths of Middle America date movies and ABC costume dramas and into the white hot light of good films with self-respecting actors.  Come on, Toms Hardy and Hiddleston can’t do this all by themselves. Fassbender, my heart, we are all counting on you.

You future frau/bean chéile,

Joe

8 Things I'd do if I were a dude

 You ever wonder what you would do if you woke up one day to discover you had a dick? After the initial panic and frantic attempt to find my Brian Doyle-Murray spiritual guide, I think I’d settle in very nicely and get started on my new gender agenda.

Here are just a couple of things I’d do if I were a dude.

Smell Amazing all the time
Seriously menfolk, how do you expect us to get busy with you when you smell like old vegetable sacks full of rotten shoes? All you have to do is wear clean clothes and wash yourself and your body will do the rest. If I were a dude preparing for a date I’d wash with Old Spice, brush my teeth, gently splash myself with cologne, put on clean clothes then run to wherever I needed to be, working up my intoxicating manly musk. Yep, the scent of a vaguely sweaty clean man is a confusingly sexy thing.

Grow a beard
I’ve always envied the stately sartorial statement which is a manly beard. It’s like an extra accessory you can wear on your face. Whereas women have to pay to get their facial hair removed I’d have a legitimate excuse to grow it luxuriously long and lovely for free.

Strike up conversations with likely girls
If I were a dude I would talk to any pretty girl that looked at me appreciatively. I’d make conversation in buses, chat in elevators and flirt at bars. I’d share my umbrella, offer to carry things and generally be courteous and friendly to the point of seeming Edwardian.  I know that this would probably turn out being way creepier than it sounds in my head but once I figured out how to pick my targets I think I could do quite well for myself.

Talk as men do
Dudes seem to bond with other dudes purely on the basis on a mutual  Y chromosome. Seriously, I was having a drink with a mate and this complete stranger sat down with us. Within ten minutes they had exchanged numbers and were planning to watch movies the next day. I overhear real men having hilarious conversations and have devoted some energy into decoding them.  Are they being profound and deep or are they really talking that intensely about melted cheese? One things for sure, I want in!

Play a musical instrument 
I could certainly, happily be the dude who just walks into a place, picks up a banjo and starts serenading people. I don’t know why I don’t do this now, but I know it would be  more charming with my big bushy beard. I would play the banjo, wear a Greek fisherman’s hat and play Appelachian mountain songs… shit I just became my grandpa.

Allow women to style me.
If I were a man I would rely very heavily on the fashion instruction of the women around me, because most of the women I know look amazing all the time. If I took their advice I would almost certainly look interesting, well groomed, hipsterish and hot enough to be up to my elbows in bookish fringy women.

Go topless more often
It’s not socially acceptable for me to get my tits out whenever I like. If I had none, then there would be nothing to stop me from being shirtless 65% of the time.

Not be a dick
Just because society has given me carte blanche to forget appointments, leave texts unreturned, commit constant faux pas, openly ogle, fart, belch and blunder my way through life doesn’t mean that I have to.

The LadyVom Manifesto

Once in a life time a band comes into existence that threatens our core ideals of music, artistry and taste. Spume Records are proud to introduce their newest, most dynamically dangerous acquisition, LadyVom.

An all-girl acidelectropopglamrock group in the style of Peaches, The Runaways, Devo and Minty these five luscious ladies deliver gut-wrenching, leg leaping, bile inducing music energy like a punch up the bracket. A volatile mix of raw female sexuality and bone rattling rhythm, these girls are on a jet powered piston into music history!

Spume Records owner Bilious T. O’Really discovered playing in a secret tunnel party in Errskinville and was immediately taken by the group kinetic, laser like intensity and their determination to keep playing even after the audience left. Described by critics as ‘five Iggy Pops, except some play instruments, and they’re girls too’, LadyVom are a force to be reckoned with!

Expaktro Vulgaris - Vox and Theremin
Not much is known about enigmatic lead singer Expaktro Vulgaris. Some believe she was raised by a family of mutes in far hidden village in the Las Hurdes region of Spain. She communicated only through Theremin till she spoke her first words at the age of twelve - ‘Benedict Cumberbatch’. Expactro’s dusky voice infused with mournful theremining and sensual, guttural screams lead LadyVom’s rich abrasive sound.

Alex Vomette - Bass

Known to the press as ‘the funny one’ Alex Vomette is indeed hilarious. She has been known to set the LadyVom tour bus on fire as a joke. But when it comes to her bass playing, Alex is as serious as the plague, standing on the corner of the stage like a stone Aztec goddess of pulsating cadence. Her lurching, grumbling bass line forms LadyVom’s heaving, queasy core. Guaranteed to make your stomach skip a beat.

Lizzie Whizzie- Drums
The first thing Lizzie Whizzie did when she left reform school was steal a drum kit and start playing for LadyVom. Unfortunately the band’s then drummer, Kaka Spiv, had no idea that she’d been replaced and the next couple of months were really awkward for everyone. Lizzie’s drumming thrashes and crashes like an American bull terrier in a steal cage, bring an animalistic rabid frenzy to the heart of LadyVom that’s oh so danceable!

Lady O’Barf- Lead Keytar
Daughter of nobility, Lady ran away from the gilded cage of O’Barf Manor at 16 and has been playing in underground acidpopelectropunk outfits ever since. She penned the iconoclastic ‘Give me all your cash, Stupid’ during her time with Haggy and the Dumdums, but soon left after a creative and romantic argy bargy with titular Haggy Von Moron. Her retching keytar riffs and explosive licks drive the steaming, speeding juggernaut that is LadyVom.

Pukesie Collins- Tamborine and percussion
If someone can beat a tambourine like it owes her money, it’s Pukesie Collins! This spicy unsettling firebrand of pure throbbing rhythm gives LadyVom its subtle mystery and delicate timing. The none-to-secret love child of Stevie Nicks and Rudi Van DiSarzio and Spider Dijon, this bangin' beauty is a multi-instrumentalist, master of the triangle, square and dodecahedron.

LadyVom’s demo single ‘Sick with Love (Hold my hair)’ is available to download on iTunes now, with their debut album Ewww due to launch on April 1^st, 2012

Pour vinegar on the thorn in your cardboard heart... whoa! That's depressing!

Google is a wonderfun thing. I’d like to think if I was unemployed, or in hospital for a long period of time (say for argument I had suffered a terrible fall after trying to jump my Shetland pony, Morgrim the Wonderhorse, over a matchbox in a steeplechase) I would happily wile away the long futile hours in traction with only my left hand in tact by going on the Google and looking up things.

I love that Google will just hand me interesting things to look up. Hey there Joe, did you know it’s the 100th anniversary of water? Find out what it’s made of! It’s a distraction engine.

Yesterday, of course, it decided to tell me all about Valentine’s Day, and the ensuing five minute Wikipaedia break lead to the discovery of a twee little tradition known as the Vinegar Valentine.

For those of you who don’t know what this is (and haven't already clicked through) participate in this scenario. Imagine this, the dude that you like, let’s say for my example, the tall cute beardy one from Commercial Kings, Rhett, wants to meet you on Valentine’s Day. You see him approach; he might even be wearing a subtle red shirt for the occasion. From the sheepish, promising smile that you know is only for you, you can tell that the small pink envelope he’s handing you is the magical key to all the wonders of a long term, serious and outlook-changing relationship that is seconds form being yours.

You giggle demurely as you snatch the espial out of his hand and tear it open only to find this...

What a slap in the left, right, lower and all other ventricles. I can't think of a more delightfully weird and wonderful way to tell someone that you hate them than give them a card on a day usually reserved for love, niceness and special sexy underpants. I cannot believe that someone would actually give someone this and not expect to be paper cut eviscerated.

I mean Valentine’s Day was concerning enough but I had no idea that instead of just being plum ignored I could be handed a deceptive, hope-raising item which will then viciously lampoon all my character flaws in a concise little card with an unflattering and painstakingly accurate caricature.

The vinegar valentines I’ve found have been olde worldy, stuff like ‘shiftless man’, the ‘bookworm’ and the ‘busybody’. It seems like such a weird thing that in a time where snark is the go to attitude, people swear in wedding vows and people play sarcastic songs at funerals, I surprises me that these haven’t replaced genuine romantic cards. Why don’t we give in nasty cards to the ‘constant status updater’, the ‘competitive dieter’ or the ‘glued to your iPhone guy’. The person who comes up with the best one in the comments gets a Kit Kat

Remind me again

I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror and thought ‘you know who I remind me of? Miss Piggy.’ I’m essentially a slightly less glamorous, brunette version of Miss Piggy… with teeth. Like if Miss Piggy had been a hamster… Miss Guinea Piggy. Now, whilst some of you may think I have some tickets of myself to compare myself to the Devine Swine; I’m definitely less stylish, less high maintenance and less skilled at hitting people than she is. But like it or not, at some point we all remind others and ourselves of someone, or something else.

People often tell me that I remind them of someone they know, to which I usually reply ‘I’ve just got one of those faces’. I may very well have ‘just one of those faces’, you know, the kind with two eyes, a nose and a mouth that could pretty much be anyone. I totally see why folk are frequently mixing me up with completely disparate people. If you’ve ‘just got one of those faces’ it likely that you don’t care that you look just like their sister’s boyfriend’s second cousin either but will politely agree that you look just like some person you’ve never meet as long as it lets you get on your life.

Having said that, I really don’t mind if I remind you of someone, especially if it’s someone you like or think is fun and tells good stories. It’s kind of nice that there’s another version of me. I hope we meet up one day and mess with everyone in a series of wacky misunderstandings.

I am also totally happy to remind people of celebrities, as long as they are vaguely attractive, intelligent and sane celebrities. No one wants to hear that they're a dead ringer for Mickey Rouke. Someone once told me that I reminded them of Maggie Gyllanhaal and I was like ‘that’s such an insane leap of reasoning that I’m actually flattered that you’d attempt it just to make me smile’.

Comparing someone to a celebrity is a weird pick up gambit because it could go so terribly wrong. Forgetting subjectively attractive celebs like Sarah Jessica Parker - those ones that really divide people- you could just pick someone who’s played someone unattractive once. Saying ‘you look just like Charlize Theron’ to a person who has only seen Monster would probably crush their living soul.

I use like to use celebrities as a point of reference; say if I am trying to describe a hair cut or a clothing style or some person that I know. It makes life easier because they’re a visual reference that most can recognise or Google. It also helps because I use up all my adjectives here I actually run out during conversations. ‘You know Whathisface? He looks like that dude in that thing with the monkeys... Franco! That’s the one! He looks like James Franco if he was ginger and had a hunch.*

*I know no one who even remotely looks like Franco, so stop asking.