I’ve had been bald follically challenged for a little over a decade when I decided to go (sans hair). It really wasn’t a decision I made but more of a decision made for me and immediately after I converted my head into, well something that was less haired and really smooth and hairless, I put on a hat and went to see my girlfriend. She knew me from the days when one needed a rake and a weed whacker to get anywhere near my scalp. And her, being the understanding person she was, asked me to take the hat off. She then asked me to put it the hat back on.
She said that this is something we should have talked about as if my head is some sort of democracy and she has some kind of input. I told her that, with regard to my head anyway, there is no voting; I’m a dictator and this was totalitarianism at it’s finest, and I thought the hair conversation was over and, for once, I had prevailed or at least saved face even though I couldn’t save hair. I had forgotten about the ‘withholding-of-services’ hand she was prepared to play, I’ve always sucked at poker, and I kept the hat on for the remainder of the relationship which I could have timed with an hourglass.
Being bald was never in the plan and I remember in my early twenties, my hairdresser had to use thinning shears to get through to my chrome-domus. As time passed, the hair cuts went up in price even though there was less hair to cut and hair cut people should charge by the amount of hair they have to cut.
When mother nature served me up a hand of male-pattern-baldness, I raised her with a-shaved-head, so in the not-so-grand-scheme of things, I won but I don’t want to mock as she may use her ace-up-the-sleeve and slam me with impotence.
My coworkers had a lot to say and guys just poked fun but the women, oh the women, they let you know how they feel about the whole head shaving, women are great with unsolicited opinions, as if this was a majority rules type of situation. This goes for growing a goatee or wearing a color shirt that’s out of your normal wheelhouse and any unsanctioned change that has not gone through the committee of every girl I have ever met.
Some of the follically endowed think I’m overly sensitive about my head issue but it’s really quite the opposite. I have thought about baldness more than most I have more more bald jokes than anyone: these range from, “When it rains, I don't need an umbrella, I need a squeegee.” to “The shine off of my head helps the company save on it’s lighting bill.”
Being bald used to be a thing of shame or a way to identify cancer patients but I wear it as a badge of honor and the cost savings, oh the cost savings.
I spend less on haircuts and brushes and shampoo, make that I spend nothing. The first time my girlfriend showered at my house, the conversation went something like this:
Insensitive Girlfriend: Where is your shampoo.
Sensitive Me: I don’t have shampoo.
Insensitive Girlfriend: You don’t have shampoo? Why not?
Sensitive Me: For what? My eyebrows?
Insensitive Girlfriend: So what do you wash your head with?
Sensitive Me: Soap.
Insensitive Girlfriend: Seriously?
Sensitive Me: You do love me, right?
This conversation went on for another 10 minutes where I was thoroughly head-shamed…it’s a thing.
Outside of sometimes buying a bottle of Salon Selectives for my girlfriend when she stays over, I haven’t spent any money on haircare since Bill and Monica was a thing. When I shave my face, I just keep going and stop just short of the eyebrows. I don’t have to worry about getting my sideburns even or trimming the scruff on the back of my neck between haircuts so I’m covered when watching scary movies.
When I shave, I just don't stop until my head is smooth as, well something thats really smooth and hairless. I almost fell into the trap of saying, “as smooth as a baby’s ass” but I think thats a weird thing to notice about a baby and I don’t want to be the creepy guy who, in an awkward moment, rather than commenting on how cute the baby is, focuses on, well, I’m not saying it again.
For those last couple of haircuts, I really felt like I was getting taken for a ride because there was less and less to cut but I was actually paying more with a price increase. I think Rapunzel was a lucky duckie with no haircut expense but what she saved on haircuts, she surely spent on shampoo and conditioner and fishing nets and a hair dryer the size of a pizza oven.
I always feared losing my hair as my father is bald and I imagined that somewhere in my early thirties, my wife would be running her fingers through my hair and I wouldn't be home. My coworkers constantly made jokes about it and, after ten years, should this still be a consistent topic of conversation. I tell them being bald is my superpower. This is my rationale: when I go to the Museum of Natural History, I see that Cro-Magnon man’s hairline comes down to his eyeballs and if modern man hairline starts much higher, us with sixheads, as opposed to foreheads, we’re just more evolved, and this might not make much sense to them as they’re not as advanced as me; they have all of that hair draining their brainpower. And when the aliens land, they’ll need me to smooth things over for them; I’ve seen tons of depictions of aliens, not one of them had a pompadour.
Rather that hang my hairless head in shame, I realize that I’m in good company with George “I would like to dip my bald head in oil and rub it all over your body” Costanza and Larry “pretty, pretty, good” David who prefers the monk look and who, when he got called a bald turd by a professional wrestler on Curb, he later referred to himself as said bald turd.
There are many famous people who were bald before being bald was cool. First there was Friar Tuck, who had the original monk hairstyle. Then there was Ben Franklin and I can’t imagine that the lightening striking the key had nothing to do with it. Mr. Clean has been bald since long before I was born but those commercials with him bald as a kid have to be the creepiest thing ever. Telly “who loves you baby” Savales was one of the slickest, both literally and figuratively, men of the 1970s. And Patrick Stewart was Captain Jean-Luc Picard, how much more evolved does it get.
We also have Jim “they know nothing” Cramer, and Stephen Covey who taught us to sharpen the saw presumably to shave our heads. And John Malkovich is such a hairless badass that there was a whole movie about people wanting to be him. The Blue Man Group is just a bunch of haired guys who want to pretend they’re bald, and the blue thing is a strategic diversion. Ben Kingsley is bald and he was the King in the King and I. I didn’t see the broadway play but I know that the throughly haired Julie Andrews got second billing to the bald King.
Bryan Cranston was Dr. Tim Whatley, Seinfeld’s dentist who converted to Judaism purely for the jokes, Malcolm’s father, and the bald and the evolved Heisenberg. Charlie Brown is on our side and we have Ron ‘Opie Cunningham’ Howard, Jordan and Barkley and Shaq, see, us baldies stick together. Vin Diesel wouldn’t be so fast and furious with hair. Dwayne Johnson was The Rock, The Tooth Fairy, and he’s hairless and not just on top of his head.
John Wayne was bald but he pretended not to be as did Sean Connery and Burt Reynolds and Brett Michaels who was having sex with Pam Anderson when he wasn’t get hit with stage curtains; I bet Brett’s hair is attached to that red bandana. Bob Newhart is bald but he it’s hard to tell from his convincing combover that starts just above the opposing ear.
We also have Dick Cheney who would make a convincing Bond villain or he could be the Penguin opposing Batman in the 60s TV series. Kevin Garnett had to tell us he’s bald as he’s too tall for us to know.
Kareem “no last name necessary” who starred in Airplane and who also played basketball, has the nickname cueball.
Homer Simpson is bald and he stars in a long running sitcom as is Dan Castellaneta who voices him. Steve Balmer is bald, okay our list had to have a least one dud.
Haired people of nothing on us. First there’s Bill “Bubba” Clinton, and you can keep him. And there’s Fabio and Stalin and Rasputin and Donald ‘The Donald’ Trump. Chewbacca had hair in his mouth which is is why no one could understand him. The cavemen in the Geico commercials seem angry all of the time. Perhaps if these guys, Wookiees, and cavemen were bald, they’d be or would have been a bit less angry and the world would be a better, and balder, place.
I’m not saying that bald people are better than our haired and less-evolved counterparts, but I think I’ve made some relevant points if that is your contention. And all babies are cute and they are mostly bald. And not one of them, not ever, has cut me off in traffic.
