Fran's Blog

I just moved home about 2 weeks ago now. It’s lovely, we’re having a smashing time. In typical “that is so Francis” fashion I had the broadband installed as we moved in. “Fantastic” I thought. But alas the line is noisy etc. and giving me about a 50th of the speed. “No worries” I thought as I started a conversation with my trusty ISP. We tried a few things, none really worked, so I decided to call them. And so the story begins.

It was 12am, I thought “best get this sorted sooner rather than later”, so, slightly drunk, I decided to call. The young lad took me through the steps. He reeled them out “Is the box plugged in and switched on?”, “is the phone line plugged in?”. I closed my eyes and patiently waited until he got through the list of stock questions before getting to the advanced stuff.

Through the easy questions my mind harked back to Scott Hanselmann’s suggestion of Fizzbin. The idea is that it is a Tech Support handshake. Like saying “I know tech, I have checked the obvious problems like the unit being on,I know the lingo”. The conversation could go something more like:

“Hi, Internet Tech Support…what’s your issue?”
“Fizzbin.”
“You have an IP?”
“No. Your DHCP isn’t passing out IPs. Am I banned?”
“Looks like your MAC is xxxx, you’ve been running a torrent?”
“Yes, I’ll stop.”
“Cool. You’re un-banned. Fizzbin.”
“Sweet. Catch you later.”

(Courtesy of Scott H)

Though I fear my technical support guy had no clue about technical stuff. It’s now been elevated to his superiors, whatever that means.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of speaking to me about music while drunk has most probably heard my rant about disco. The short story: disco has gone from the classy days (to sordid days) in the 70s to (a lot of the time) just pure tack. Of course every music form has its tack, but people sometimes hear me say “I play disco at my night” and they immediately think “IT’S FUN TO STAY AT THE YYYYMCA”, and not much else. That’s a big reason why we started our night Better Days almost 6 years ago, to start the classy side of disco, and other forms of old music again. The disco that is good music, associated with class and good times. But that is a whole other story. My point is, while music becomes classic, it can lose the class, and also the meaning it had in those times.

Retro has a tendency to become tacky. A lot of things from the 70s or any other decade are difficult to re-create without seeming out of place or out of time. Some get it right though. I recently went to see Raphael Saadiq at the Jazz Cafe who laid on a great performance from his new album “The way I see it” where he has taken an influence from the Motown days of old and very very slightly updated it. To the point where it looks great again. See what you think below.

Raphael Saadiq – Love That Girl from Artists Den on Vimeo.