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.

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.