Most of you readers know me personally but only a handful of
you have ever seen me completely shaved. Now don’t get overheated, I am
referring strictly to my face. I will insert here that I do not understand nor
endorse the current practice young adult males have adopted of shaving their
bodies. In my young adult years, body hair was a source of pride, a sign of
maturity and signaled sexual prowess.
Now it seems the desired norm is to look like a pre-pubescent girl. If this applies to you, look back into your
upbringing and try to discover where your parents went so tragically wrong; and
for God’s sake, stop wearing tank tops and board shorts unless you’re at the
beach. You look like a bunch of sissy
marys! I suppose my message is politically incorrect according to modern
standards of acceptance and inclusion.
But mark this; when the apocalypse occurs and those of us who didn’t
make the rapturous cut are scrambling for survival, I’m betting on cannibalism
and it seems to me hair free will indicate savory tenderness.
I have been a member of the mustachios cult for essentially
my whole adult life. The last time I
bared my upper lip was for a woman. And
the last time I stopped shaving my mustachios was for a woman; se la guerre! Men being men, they would
be loathe to admit to it, but the motivation for most of our grooming and
fashion choices are meant to be lures for women. Does the lion sport a mane to
ward off the cold of the African Veldt?
Does the bull elephant grow massive tusks because it facilitates the
grazing of grasses and leaves? Does the peacock annoy the hell out of us? If you answered two out of those three
question, “Hell no!” then you accept the hypothesis I am proffering.
Facial hair and its grooming is a very complex and, as shown
by the number of men who completely screw it up, dicey undertaking. We have established the central motivation as
plumage to attract the female of the species.
But the universe of follicle farming is overrun with subtext:
The Acne Cover Up
Most of us endured the humiliation of teen-age acne vulgaris
during our horrific journey through puberty. It’s not bad enough we have to
endure social awkwardness, at the same time we are cursed with oozing,
dripping, glowering sores on our faces. Ironically, the same hormone that
drives us to seek the attention of the opposite sex, testosterone, also fosters
the outbreak of the facial scourge vernacularly referred to as zits. Some male
adolescents opt to grow beards to cover their dermal shame. However, by my
observation, the hopeful beard grower is often ill equipped to produce foliage dense
enough at this age to camouflage his pimples, blackheads and cysts. And the unfortunate result is a visage that
suggests an even yuckier state of health than the acne alone. The same
technique has been applied in attempts to cover the resultant post-pubescent
pock marks, but with similar or lesser success.
The Ferret Face
Not all of us (well, not all
of you) are blessed with a Clark Kent
chin. Many men with a weaker jaw line
will grow a beard, goatee or van dyke to enhance their facial profile. If one has the proper density and hair type,
this can be very effective. Straight,
easily groomed hair is best for this technique.
Curly, unruly whiskers will give the casual observer the impression a
sea anemone has attached itself to your chin after escaping your mouth. A word of caution; if you successfully employ
this technique to enhance the masculine thrust of your mandibles it becomes a
lifetime endeavor. If you suddenly
revert to your clean-shaven (un)natural state, you are likely to overhear
whispered comments like, “I wonder what happened to Charlie this weekend; it
looks like he fell down a flight of stairs and hit his chin on every step? That’s what happens when cousins marry!”
The Monastic
Some men grow beards with no
thought to grooming. During the
Crusades, the Knights Templar of Jerusalem adopted a vanity (or rather
non-vanity) standard which prohibited both the shaving of facial hair and the
growing of head-borne tresses. How this
was to aid in the rescue of the Holy Land from the Saracens remains a mystery.
They did however set up the first international banking system. Now remember,
the Knights Templar were largely men of great wealth and stature who chose to
eschew the temptations of the corporeal world in favor of spiritual
strength. As we now know, the plan did
not work out so well. Today we see this
fashion sported most frequently among white supremacists and outlaw motorcycle
gang members.
Professorial Pretense
Middle-aged men hoping to
displace some of the wear and tear of life’s journey will adopt a number of
techniques in hopes of presenting a welcoming refuge of male maturity. The hallmarks are: the Mazda Miata, the tweed
jacket, Wayfarer sunglasses and the neatly trimmed and colored beard with
mustache. Just for Men is marketed for just these men. The problem of course is the dilemma of how
dark to go; too dark signals phony, too gray shouts geezer. If you are hosting a party, you will want to
invite several of these men to act as magnets for the women with daddy issues
and clear the field for the men who can’t abide baby talk.
The Baseball Player
The goatee: Grow up, shave; you
didn’t make the Big Show; enough said.
But I digress. The purpose of this missive is to explain my
proclivity for mustachios. Let me put it simply; men of action wear
mustachios. Whether real or mythical,
contemporary or historical, the heroic figures of our civilization sported lip
hair. Derisive names such as caterpillar, cookie duster or flavor saver cannot
detract from the enhanced masculinity resulting from the addition of a Fu
Manchu.
If you have known me long
enough to have accompanied my explorations via travelogue (http://dalesoutwesttravels.blogspot.com/)
you know of my enchantment with the American West; its history, geography and
culture. Threaded through eighteenth
century history is a common feature of the steely-eyed killer, the dispenser of
justice, the protector of the pioneer; they hid their determined sneer below a
well cultivated mustache: Wyatt Earp; “Doc” Holliday, Pat Garrett; “Kit” Carson
and “Wild Bill” Hickok. While I do not pretend
to rise to the level of grit commonly possessed by these men, I aspire to exude
the strength of character, the commitment to justice they shared as they walked
through the West, leaving a trail of dead villains in their wakes.
But there is more than stolid
determination behind the mustachios. Mirth
peeks out from around its tapered edges.
It teases us with the dilemma, “Is he smiling?” From the deadly serious
to the dead pan, our cultural history is rife with funny men who cultivated
hair on their upper lips. And what am I
if not a striving comic? What do I see
when I look at the faces of those who inspire my feeble efforts? What is common among Groucho Marx, Charlie
Chaplin, Ben Turpin, Ernie Kovacs, Oliver Hardy, John Cleese, Rip Taylor,
Robert Benchley and Avery Schreiber? Of
course, it’s the moustache; the mark of the serious man who does not take the
world too seriously!
Do you know any other scribe
who could conflate gunfighters and comics? As evidence I offer you the 1972
made-for-TV movie, Evil Roy Slade starring John Astin. According to Wikipedia it is available on DVD
or Blue Ray Disc. I found mine at
Amazon.com for about ten bucks including shipping. It will bring you at least ninety-seven
minutes of belly laughs (per IMDB)
This brings us to today’s big
announcement. Beginning with this week’s
blog, I will end each posting with the punch line of an iconic joke. If you know the joke, you will recognize it
immediately and may take some pride for doing so, and hopefully chuckle. If you don’t, send me an e-mail and I will
respond with the text of the entire joke.
* * *
And this week’s punch line is: “I don’t know, but his face rings a bell!”
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