What Pizza Are You?

Remember when the clichéd awful question to ask a potential date was “if you were a pizza topping what would you be?” was simple to answer?

There were 6 answers, each with their assigned personality traits

·      Margherita – traditional, simple, pure, original

·      Hawaiian – basic boring

·      Supreme – complex, a bit of spice, open to everything

·      Vegetarian – hippy, high maintenance, feminine (this was before vegetarianism was a mainstream dietary option)

·      Meat lover – masculine, rugged

·      Seafood – exotic

Now with gourmet, handmade, wood-fired pizzas the options are too numerous to even start listing. More evidence that hipsters are destroying the world as we know it.

The endless array of options also makes it impossible to assign personality traits. Though if your pizza topping includes quinoa, kale or is made up entirely of so called “superfoods” then it might still speak volumes about your personality.

No longer are the meats limited to ham, beef salami and chicken. Pizzas now come with, bacon, pastrami, quail, duck, goat, and game. Where previously only a select few vegetables were considered suitable to top a pizza now if you can grow it then you can use it.

I never understood what it meant, but apparently the style of base you preferred spoke volumes about your character. Again the options were simple, thin or think. That was all.

Thin and thick remain, but now there are so many more options to consider, wholemeal, rye, sourdough, flat bread and gluten free to name a few. In a world where carbs are viewed with the same level of suspicion and borderline hatred as a burqa I am sure people are also ordering pizza sans base.

Chain stores are now upping the ante on pizza bases by stuffing them with cheese, or cream cheese, or hot dogs, or meat balls , or corn chips or cheese and corn chips. This may be very telling about your personality or your waistline or your likelihood to have a major coronary before the age of 50.

Is it no wonder finding a life partner is so hard nowadays?

It also explains why online dating and dating apps are also all the rage. Like a pizza menu, these apps and sites offer picture of what the selected person can look like (when at its absolute styled best) as well as a list of their “ingredients”.

If you want to date the equivalent of anchovies, lentils, bean shoots and chilli on rhubarb chutney base all sprinkled with Himalayan rock salt and lime juice after being removed from the oven then that person exists, somewhere. Download there profile or swipe right today.

Hipsters are to blame

First the Hipsters ruined the simple pleasure of a take away coffee by removing the simplicity. Now the beans have to be organic, fare-trade, hand reared, grain fed, certified vegan, biodegradable packaged, no carbon footprint, super beans. The coffee itself is not complete without a renaissance art replica being created in the milk.  We also cannot even order a coffee without first becoming personally acquainted with the skinny jeaned, paisley shirted barista, who will not pull up the next recycled, bamboo fibre, disposable cup without knowing our name.  All of which takes time. Grabbing a coffee used to be something you could do quickly, on a whim. Now it is such a length process it needs to be diarised, the day needs to be planned to accommodate the event that is “getting a coffee to go”.

The skinny jeans, paisley shirts and shoes like grandpa used to wear were soon not enough. Now they needed beards. Full, thick beards. Beards that could be stroked to purvey a sense of wisdom and understanding. Beards that could be braided, or put into a pony tail to purvey a sense of wanker. Beards that make you look like a bushranger or a member of a ZZ Top cover band. This desire for facial hair cutting deep into the profits of razor and shaving manufacturers. Sure electric clipper sales were increasing as facial hair, in fact all body hair, now had to be sculptured. Manscaped. But clippers are a once off purchase. Shaving blades were monthly.

Following the growth of facial hair came the growth of head hair. Long flowing locks like the 70s. A look that looked ridiculous then and no better now. Sure the 70s blow waved and now it is in top knots but it still looks ridiculous. The topknot is sure to be one of the first fashion pieces to be heartedly laughed at when the obsession with wearing their grandparents clothes without the slightest hint of irony, accessorised with glasses with no prescription, pre-tied bow ties and bob socks comes to an end. The growth of head hair has done to the hairdressing/barber trade what the facial follicles have done to shaving.  It has also ostracised men who have genetic pattern baldness. Which may explain the increased popularity of the fedora. Hair like the BeeGees, beards like Ned Kelly and hats like Dick Tracey.

If ruining coffee, the shaver trade and the hairdressing profession was not enough, the hipster has now all but ruined one of the great charities. Starting in 2003 in Melbourne Australia to become one of the great initiative raising awareness and much needed funds for men’s health Movember success came from men being sponsored through donations to grow their facial hair throughout the month of November. One month of looking scruffy then a like a bit of a dick. The more outlandish the facial hair the better. Waxing moustaches like a 50’s dandy, handle bars like bikers, goatees like Colonel Sanders, and full beards like bushrangers. Now because of the self-centred, ego centric, look at me attitude of the hipster Movember is now unrecognisable. Is that person participating in Movember or just a Hipster? Who knows, and more importantly who cares. No one is talking Movember this year. Who is sponsoring a mate to keep the facial hair that they already had.

The Australian cricket team used to be big supporters and participants in Movember, and they might be again this year, but who can tell. Mitchell Johnson has kept his Chopper Read handlebar moustache for a couple of seasons. He had it when his success rate improved phenomenally, and like Sampson hair, he kept it believing it gave him strength. Warner has sported a moustache reminiscent of cricketers in the 80’s for a long time. During five day test matches, historically players do not shave so who can tell what they are doing.

I am not sponsoring anyone this year because I do not want to inadvertently be supporting the creation of a new Hipster or be enabling an existing Hipster to continue their lifestyle. The price of their artisan coffees is so high nowdays, I figure a donation has already been added.

A Waiting Game

Modern life is full of waiting. Many religions might even argue that life is merely the waiting room for the after life. In modern western society there is a lot of waiting lines for ATM, self-serve check outs, entry to a venue of choice. Some would say the longer the line the better the venue, or at least the better the venue’s marketing.

Sometimes waiting is frustrating, waiting for a taxi, waiting for the person who has jammed the office copier to come back and fix it, waiting for any service at the post office.

Other times waiting can be a positive, even exciting experience waiting months for your long planned holiday to commence, grand final week when your team is playing in the big game, waiting for a online purchase to arrive in the mail.

To consider how ones response to waiting can change consider an airport. With modern security passengers have to check in anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours prior to departure.  Passengers arrive eagerly for their travel experience willing to wait out the time between arrival and boarding. How quickly does this eagerness change to frustration or outright hostility if that flight is delayed even for only a few minutes?

Do people work to fill in the time during the day before playing in the evening and weekends or is it vice versa. To answer which is correct for you, consider again the airport departure lounge. Is the inevitable wait  an opportunity to read, browse the overpriced retail stores or grab a drink and bite to eat or is it an opportunity to catch up on emails and read that report from the office.

Hospitals are an interesting experience in waiting. You want an ailment that is serious enough to get the medical professionals attention and get you to the front of the queue. However you don’t want your condition to be so serious that alarms sound, codes are paged through the hospitals p.a. system that bring doctors running from all corners bringing a variety of machines that beep with them. You also do not want a condition that places you in a room with stadium seating so that medical staff want to wait and line up for an opportunity to see how you are treated.

I personally like to have something to wait for, no not to be eventually served by a bushranger bearded hipster barrister to get my morning caffeine fix waiting for something exciting or interesting. I like to have holidays booked ahead of time with the dates in my diary. I like to have tickets to an event or performance. I like eating and drinking out with friends, whilst I enjoy a spontaneous opportunity – a phone call asking what are you doing tonight?” I enjoy the night more if I have had to wait for it. Even if it is only 24hours I enjoy the anticipation and the waiting.  A blank diary is my enemy.