A View from a Slippery Slope

Sung to the tune of Crosby Stills Nash and Young’s ‘Almost Cut my Hair’:

Almost trimmed my beard
Happened just the other Day
It was getting Pretty plain
‘Coulda said it looked kinda’ Gay….

One of the deadly side-effects of getting into ’Sufferin’ Bastard Middle-Age’ is the unsavory propensity to grow or fuck around with one’s facial hair. You know what I’m talking about. Everybody’s grown a beard before, if not on purpose , then at least by attrition. But what I’m talking about is the intentional manipulation of your manly facial hair to look more young or hip or fashionable. We’ve all done it, or toyed with it, at least. But my advice to you is to say that it is a slippery slope my friend, a slippery slope.

Here are some examples:


The Mustache:

When you start growing a ‘cookie duster’, it is so easy to over-groom, thus leading to ridiculous displays of facial anomalies, like, 1) Magnum P.I. Mustache, 2), Porn-Star Mustache, 3) the David Niven, or worst, of all, 3) Gay-Guy Mustache . If you’re trimming, you’re falling into one of these categories.

Goatees:

Unless you Want to look like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo (Rooover heeere, Raaaagy), don’t even fool with Goatee. It is NOT cool. It is, for the middle-aged guy, the facial hair equivelent of a ‘comb-over’. A goatee may look cool when you’re 25, but not when you’re 45. A double no-no is the old ’shaved head and a goatee’ look that seems to proliferate these days. Face it dude, if you’re bald, shaving your skull and growing a goatee is not going to change a thing. You’re just bald and lame. Uncle Sam you are not.

Van Dyke:

A desperate cry for help, the Van Dyke is neither mustache, nor beard, nor Goatee, but a bastardization of all three. It is personal grooming gone amock. If you are seriously considering a Van Dyke, consider buying a Corvette, because you, my friend, are having a mid-life crisis. The mere time it takes to maintain an effective Van Dyke would stop any sane man from considering it. The desire to grow a Van Dyke is directly proportionate to a man’s male pattern baldness. Again, don’t do it, my friend, don’t do it.

Beards:

Beards are fine and Beards are beards, best kept for hunting camp and slothful days of Winter. But again, when you start ‘trimming’ your beard, you inevitably end up looking like either Abe Lincoln, or any Amish guy you might see in Pennsilvania. Grow a beard, but don’t start fooling around with it. It’s a slippery slope, Abe.

Bottom line: grow facial hair for only one reason: because you are too Fucking lazy to shave and you don’t care what you look like. Anything else probably means you are a ’Poofta’ (Nooooooo Poooooftaaaas!).

Hey, I'm just sayin'

BFC