Mustaccio.

Well, at least the weather has mellowed out again, so I feel that I am physically a bit more able to function than I was yesterday.

The last couple of days have been filled with facial hair. Not mine, mind you, but others around me. So I thought in honor of this interesting turn of events, I'd try to examine a little bit about what the heck is going on in this facial hair revival. Some time ago, I made the argument that Tom Selleck's "Magnum" moustache was one of the more formidable moustaches seen in entertainment. I was thrilled that other people also weighed in on their opinions. I'm going to run through a few popular or common facial hair options and give a little closer examination to the pros, cons, and in-betweens of these various styles.

MOUSTACHES

The Magnum: I've already mentioned it a few times. Think Selleck, think Ned Flanders. It's the only thing those two fellas have in common. This is the big 'n nasty of moustaches. It goes from immediately under the nostril to the edges of the mouth, and no further. It's thick and lush. Left unchecked, it can be nauseating to look at, but if you keep it clean, you'll be a hit with the ladies. If it worked for Ron Burgundy, it can work for you, too.

The Fu Manchu: This particular 'stache shows up in two incarnations. The first is the original and truest, which requires the edges of the moustache to be long and flowing. I don't know anyone who can rock this naturally. Other than Boris Karloff, of course, and his was a prop. So for us mortal folk, there's the hipster fu manchu, which is probably the most widely seen and accepted form of the ironic hipster moustache. It roughly resembles an upside down horse shoe. When it comes to this bad boy, the bushier the better.

The Frenchie/The Pencil: Yes, I'm lumping the two together, but it's mainly because they are only separated in mindset and the little patch right under the nose. Each are thin, and while the pencil connects from edge to edge across the mouth (a la John Waters), the frenchie is split in the middle by generally no more than a centimeter. It may also, on rare occasions, be curled up at the tips.

The Handlebar: A thick, lush 'stache that curls up at the ends. Rollie Fingers was one of baseball's great closers, he's also one of the world's best handlebar moustaches. Look out, ladies, this one is making a comeback in a major way. The real secret is to find the right wax to give both hold and maneuverability.

The Franz Joseph: Want to look like an 1800s saloon owner? Just grown your sideburns along your cheeks and connect them shits into a thick and heavy moustache known as the Franz Joseph. Then drop some trivia knowledge that your facial hair was originally inspired by the first emperor of Austria. This look is limited to folks who can grow respectable cheek-beards, so users are sparse.

BEARDS

The Short-Box beard: This is your all-purpose beard. It's well-trimmed and sinks no lower than the jawline. This is the beard people should think of when they hear the term "beard". Unfortunately, if you let this one get out of hand, you end up looking like the flannel-sporting "Al" from TV's Home Improvement, or any of the guys on "This Old House".

The Goatee: This is the vanilla ice cream of beards. It has been criticized as being over-utilized by portly men to draw attention from double chins, or to create more chin where one has a weak jawline. I find that, when paired with respectable sideburns, this is the best bang for your facial hair buck, and it's hard to mess up as long as you keep it SHORT. No one wants a shaggy goat.

The Soul Patch: In my life, I have met one man who can make this work without looking like a complete tool. Alas, every wannabe yuppie paired the soul patch with a ponytail when they wore jeans and a sports coat and ruined this look forever.

The Landing Strip: Like the soul patch, but it extends to the bottom of the chin. It looks horrible no matter what. However, you can only make it worse by growing out long, scraggly hairs from a soul patch and letting them fall to the chin. For the worst, most egregious offender of this look, do yourselves a favor and do a google image search for "Scott Spezio". It makes me want to vomit, looking at that pink mess.

The Chin Patch: Essentially a goatee without the moustache component, this can be hit-or-miss. It tends to scream "look Mom, I'm seventeen and can grow facial hair!" but it can create a bit of flair for the right person. Don't let it creep down the neck, because that's just gross, and don't let it get too long or else you end up looking like Scott Ian from Anthrax. And unless you're making a tribute to the late Dimebag Darrell, PLEASE don't dye it pink and fork it out.

The Chinstrap: Also known as the gladiator, this can be a very flattering beard. It's basically a moderately wide swath of hair from sideburn to sideburn, via the chin. It's self-explanatory, really. Most people would think Big Papi, I prefer John Goodman in The Big Lebowski for the best celeb chinstrap, though he accompanied it with the moustache. Perhaps that's the difference between the gladiator and the chinstrap...
WARNING: while the chinstrap is almost universally flattering, don't leave it too thin, because then you look like one of those idiotic douches with the pencil-thin goatee/sideburn thing going on, and no one wants to be that guy.

The Anchor: A sadly under-utilized facial hair option. You're looking at a well-groomed chin patch (edge of mouth to edge of mouth) flowing into a landing strip (which is fine when connected to other facial hair, just not alone), creating the visual affect of an anchor on your chin. Works almost primarily with dark-haired folk.

The Coverall: Never a good look. Eric Clapton may be the only man left on the face of the earth that thinks this is okay. As the name suggests, you just let it all go, and keep it somewhat kempt and close-trimmed. It looks more like you're coming off a three-week bender.

The Amish: Sometimes called simply a neck beard, this is when one keeps everything clean shaven from the chin up, and lets the forest run wild down below. This look also makes me want to vomit. It worries me that metal heads have taken to growing this beard with a shaved head. Henry David Thoreau is the only person to make this look bearable.

The Grizzly Adams: Want to look like a mountain man while riding public transportation in a major metropolitan city? Just let the beard take over. This is a surprising (to me, at least) hipster favorite. Granted, men of larger statue should avoid this beard, widely due to it's "hairy bear" association. Just keep in mind: you want to be Grizzly Adams, not Gentle Ben.

This isn't discussing the weather...

... but it's too damn hot. Even in my basement hovel it's still in the 80's. San Francisco isn't supposed to be like this.

I have no idea how people survive when it's over one hundred degrees most of the summer. I guess it's something you get used to, but it sure as hell isn't something I'll ever get used to. Give me mid-sixties and partly cloudy any day.

I'd love to write more, but I have to get cleaned up before I head out...

Collectors.

I had a few different topics in mind when I sat down to write this post, but as I logged in, I noticed that one of the "blogs of mention" or whatever it is that they link to with the hopes of supporting lesser-known blogs, and I could tell by its title that one of the blogs was dedicated to a vice which is nearly particular to the uncool nerds: stamp collecting. First, a caveat - I am not here to bash stamp collectors. My father is one. I just don't understand it. Having said that, I still stand by my claim.

The real question that seeing the aforementioned blog brought to my mind is: how do you define a collector? Most people would consider me to be a guitar collector. I prefer to think that I just happen to have a hell of a lot of guitars, and I know a lot about them, and guitars in general. Same with CDs - it's not like I actively seek out rare or out of print CDs, I just try to get music into my ears. I don't care about having original copies, usually; I'm often content just to borrow an album from a friend or anything like that. I tend to hoard books, but that speaks more to my tendency to re-read books, rather than my desire to have a lot of them. Hell, right now 90% of my darling books are residing in meticulously sorted boxes in my garage.

I have also noticed that the concept of collecting is somewhat foreign to the younger generations. Yes, I realize that at twenty seven I sound like a prick when I make generalizations about "younger generations", but I don't give a damn. How many kids these days have a stamp collection? Baseball cards are all but gone. (that's another blog, since that is all a product of corporate greed) Magic cards, the rage of my later grade school days have fallen to the wayside, but paved the way for things like Pokemon cards or Yu-Gi-Oh or Card Captors or whatever shit it is the nerdy kids are into these days. Action figures are not nearly what they once were (what kid didn't have a somewhat respectable group of Star Wars action figures back in the 80s??). All of it has been replaced by the desire to have the cool new technology before your friends do. Think about how many high school kids thought they were so ahead of the curve when they had their Sidekick like a year or two ago; they were such a status symbol that kids even wore them around their neck, though it's also due in part to the fact that they are too friggin' big to stick in a pocket. Still, imagine what must have gone through all those kids' heads when Apple unveiled the iPhone. Now that Apple is lowering the price, will ANYONE out there buy a Sidekick anymore? Hells no.

Sorry, got on a bit of an old man kick there for a minute. Back to collecting. I think at the core of the definition of "collecting" is the hands-off mentality. People who have stuff tend to use it. I read books and comics. I listen to my CDs, and when I have the opportunity to, even listen to my old LPs. I play all my guitars, though not at the same time. Collectors are the folks who worry about original packaging, resale value, original issue, and the term coined by collectors for collectors, "mint condition." These are the people who, as kids, refused to take their toys out of the packaging to play with them, preferring instead to look at them and examine every angle through the opaque plastic boxing. The teens who went to shows, bought a t-shirt of the band, hung on to the ticket stub, and put the whole thing artfully in a display under Plexiglas.

So what's the lure? Is it a sense of competitiveness? Is it genetic? Or are there some people who take more joy in seeing something cool or fun than interacting with it at the risk of causing it some slight damage. I could go on a whole tangent about the process of making new guitars into "relics", but that might take a whole other page. Let me know what you think, I'm curious as to what drives us as a culture to collect whatever it is that floats your boat. Maybe it will help explain why I have an entire shelf jam-packed with baseball cards in the uppermost reaches of my closet.

Wow.

I have been in consistent contact with the Swedish girl who, it turns out, is my second cousin. As will happen in the course of conversation with me, we got to talking about music, and I asked if there were any cool Swedish bands that haven't blown up in the US yet that I needed to know about. She promptly provided a handful of bands, all of which I really enjoyed. However, there was one band that stands out, and they're called Mando Diao. It doesn't sound the slightest bit Swedish, I know, but man are they amazing. Picture the best parts of garage, soul, and pop music all blending together to make a band of good looking Swedish hipsters, and this is the product of that equation.

Creativity.

Or lack thereof.

I don't know how many of you, dear readers, have creative pursuits in your day-to-day lives. I have a couple, this blog being one of them, and music being the blanket term to cover much of the rest of it. However, in recent weeks, save for a few moments of clarity or providence, I have felt like I've got nothing cooking. I want to write some new music, get a new band together, and I've been kicking around the idea of writing a little short fiction here and there just to keep myself sharp. Yet for whatever reason, I have nothing to offer right now. The music that emanates from my fingers is little more than re-hashed interpretations of everything I always play. Chord structures escape me, melody lines fade away as if taken by the breeze. I know I sound ridiculous and sentimental right now, maybe even a bit cheesy, but a creative blockage like this weighs on my well-being. I feel like there is something hanging over me from the time I wake until the time I go to sleep. I know most people will simply say that I should not focus on it, give things time and let it come naturally, but that isn't really an option. I blinked and somehow my summer is already a month gone. It's been great; I've been reading some great stuff, listening to a bunch of amazing music, and generally enjoying myself. Still, I feel a somewhat pressing desire to get something creative put down on paper, tape, whatever.

Suggestions?

Shame on you.

By sheer happenstance, I watched two of Noah Baumbach's movies in the last two days. The first one, The Squid and the Whale, I've seen a number of times. I think it's pretty well done and very well acted, but as I am NOT a New Yorker, some of the local culture and class stuff is lost on me. Tonight I saw his latest effort, Margot at the Wedding. I was a little underwhelmed. Not so much that the movie was more than a little odd. I can handle odd. I generally tend to like odd. However, I was let down in that the two movies have ridiculously similar plot elements. Both deal with New York writers in failing marriages. Both have kids who are trying to sort things out as the marriage is breaking down. Both have familys that WAY over-share when it comes to sexual news and events. While the first movie is supposed to be semi-autobiographical, this one just seemed a bit more derivative, and didn't have a lot to offer as far as anything new or exciting.

One other thing popped into my head as a result of seeing this movie, and that's the depiction of professional writers in movies. It seems like all of Hollywood would have viewers think that writers are all eccentric, anti-social, self-absorbed, and mentally unstable. These two movies both paint writers in that light, the same with movies like Running with Scissors, The Tenants (which oddly pairs Dylan McDermott with Snoop Dogg), or even Sideways. So here's my cynical slant on the whole thing: chances are, most of these screenwriters had aspirations to be authors at some point in their careers, but somehow fell into the practice of screenwriting instead, so they feel it is necessary to paint fiction writers or poets in a negative light. Before you call me on it, yes, I realize that The Squid and the Whale and Running with Scissors are both autobiographical, so there has to be some degree of truth to the whole thing, and Sideways is based on a novel, but try to think back to a movie in which the main character is a professional writer and was just a good person and talented at what they did. No, Shakespeare in Love doesn't count, smartass. I think it's a conspiracy. Who's with me?

That's just gross.

As one of my first blog posts highlighted, I am a little too cognizant at times of the actions of those around me. As you can go back and find, I have a particular distaste for people sucking face in wide-open public spaces. Today I will be chronicling a few other things that people do in public that really leave me with a sour taste in my mouth.

1) Pull out a wedgie: I know I know, everyone twists or turns the wrong way from time to time and ends up with a little extra bit of underwear where it doesn't belong. (except, of course, you thong people, but still) I realize this is a common hazard that goes along with wearing underpants. But do you have to stand around in some public space and make a major spectacle of wrenching yourself around and trying, usually with just thumb and forefinger, to meticulously pluck the invading underpants out of the crack? I've gotten pretty good at a relatively subtle hands-free removal tactic, but if nothing else, just pretend to adjust your pants or something and do sort of adjustment to free up the infringing fabric.

2) Pick your nose: I will admit, I am a nose picker. But only, and I repeat ONLY in the privacy of my own home when (a) I have tissue nearby and (b) I can go wash my hands immediately after. In public, however, what's in your nose should stay in your nose. I realize it's no fun mining nose gold if you can't share it with the townspeople, but some things are better left in the comfort of your own home. Plus, in public, there's the whole disposal issue, which I often shudder to think about. Because, come on, let's face it: the pick-and-flick technique is highly erratic and can lead to undesired and unexpected results.

3) Sticking gum under tabletops/desktops: I wish I could say that this was limited to grade school or even high school kids, but unfortunately, it's not the case. Just this semester I had the displeasure of flipping up the writing surface of a desk I was sitting in, only to reveal about a dozen discarded pieces of gum that had been surreptitiously left there. I mean, come on. There's a trash can in the room. It's not like high school where you're not allowed to chew gum, so you have to stash it to avoid trouble. I'd be pretty willing to bet that if you go to most restaurants and coffee houses, there is at least one piece stuck somewhere under one of the tables. And that makes me want to vomit.

4) Spit on the sidewalk: I know you just hocked up that loogie. I know you want somewhere to deposit it. I know that spittoons have been out of fashion as interior decorating solutions for years. But do you REALLY have to spit that nasty wad of mucous right there on the sidewalk? They call gutters "gutters" for a reason - they are the unwilling recipients of all things nasty that were once on the sidewalk, and street sweepers come by once a week to clean them up a bit. That's more than can be said for the average sidewalk. So please, please, disgusting loogie hocker, if you insist on relieving yourself of that mouthful of phlegm, at least do it in the gutter, where I tend not to walk for just such a reason. Thanks.

I think that's about enough nastiness for the afternoon. I guess this was in part prompted by Jon's chicken filth water story, but it's also something that's been brewing for quite some time. I tried to spare some of the nastier ones I had in mind - did I forget anything essential? Let me know.