Come on barbie.

I've noticed a trend here and there from time to time, and even witnessed it firsthand the other day, and it was terrible. It's the bald-head-with sideburns look. Shaquille O'Neal did it for a while and it didn't quite work, I've seen a few other celebs try it and it's been worse. Naturally, as the title of this posting might indicate, the most famous violator of this look was that dude from the band Aqua, but his were even worse, as it was an over-the ear band of hair that connected into a semi-sideburn that was just chock full of douchiness. A more recent violator is Tim Nordwind of the band Ok Go. Paired with the fact that he always tends to be a bit more flamboyant in his clothing choices than the rest of his bandmates, he is further proof still of why you never want to be that guy with the bald head and the sideburns. Just let it go, man. Just let it go. I mean look at him, he looks like Powder (or Michael Stipe) with giant caterpillars crawling past his ears.


The other violator that is similar, which also seems to be making a comeback is the shaved head/full beard combo. Again, just because you can't grow hair on your head somewhere doesn't mean that you should try to compensate by growing it elsewhere. Imagine how bad that could get - some dude has a completely shaved head, yet compensates for it by growing an epic patch of back hair to make up for it. No facial hair but a massive carpet of chest hair peeking out from over his collar. (Tubes, I'm looking in your direction) I won't even go into the hair in "other parts" that might be grown to compensate, because that's gross.

There's only one person who can pull off the beard and bald look, and that's Kimbo Slice. I may or may not actually think that, but look at the guy. I'm really quite sure he could tear me from limb to limb, so in the sake of preserving my life, I will say "lookin' good there, big guy."

A Close Shave

If you know me or see me on a regular basis, you are probably well aware that the razor is no friend of mine. In fact I think I could probably count the times I've been full-on "clean shaven" in the past year on my fingers and not have it hinder my typing one bit. I generally keep my looks pretty clean, but I just don't really see the point of having that baby-bottom smooth face. I know it works for a lot of people, but especially when you are goateed like me, having a smooth neck is more of an afterthought than anything else.

Despite my personal feelings about facial smoothness, I was downright impressed the other day when a co-worker told me he was leaving the office on his lunch break to get what he affectionately referred to as a "real man shave". For fear of the fact that we were in San Francisco, and you generally are better off not inquiring into others' grooming habits, I did not ask him to elaborate. However, as is his style, he continued on. It turns out he was getting what I really believe is a real man shave -- he was going somewhere (a barbershop or tonsorial parlor I have to assume) to get a shave in the old-fashioned way: steaming hot towel, hot lather, and a straight razor. I suddenly hold this man in even higher regard than I did before.

See, it's not that I think it's so cool and kooky that he gets a shave like that from time to time, it's just that I find the whole "having someone shave you" be a very intimate experience. I haven't gotten professional shaves, but my barber has been known to do a little fine tuning on the edges and the neck with a straight razor, and the amount of trust I place in the man is through the roof. I mean, granted, I'm already putting a lot of trust in him to cut up my thick and luscious hair in the first place, but if he screws that up, I will just walk out of there kind of looking like a jackass. If he screws up a close shave, I might be walking out of there with a tourniquet. And that's the beauty of the "real man shave" - you are placing complete and total trust in someone who is an artisan in a lost art, and I know that had I the coin to pay for something like that on a somewhat regular basis, I'd be walking around the day of my shave with a swagger that would make John Wayne look like a prancing little dancer. Trying a shave like that on yourself, however, just seems foolhardy. These people are professionals for a reason, and it's hard to carry yourself with a cocksure swagger when you might need stitches for that gash under your chin.