I’m bald. I’m not afraid to admit it, as I have done several times before in this column.
I’m also not afraid to offer solutions to remedy baldness, even though I proudly believe it’s something that doesn’t really need to be remedied. I do so because it’s fun.
My latest solution, one of which I told my wife I’m going to do, is to make the combover in vogue.
Men have used the combover for decades to make it look like they have more hair on their heads than they really do. It’s never worked, because it’s clear all who have tried this before are shameful of their baldness and style their hair without the advice of professionals. I could lock myself in the bathroom in front of a mirror for an entire day and would come away looking no better than anyone else with a combover.
But, if I went to a professional hairdresser first and discussed my goal, I think we could come up with a combover together that would be the king of combovers. The professional could advise me on how I should grow the hair I do have, and when it reaches the right length, we would style it in such a way that people with full heads of hair would be jealous of me.
The hair I do have is short right now. I’ve kept it short for years now, because it does make me look less bald. It’s a proven trick many bald and balding men successfully use. And I still have hair that grows on the sides and back of my head. It doesn’t grow on an ever-expanding round patch on the top of my head. When my hair isn’t short, it appears as though I am wearing a white monk’s hat on my head.
All this means I’m the perfect person a brave hairstylist can work with to create the world’s first hip combover.
Upon successful completion of this killer combover, we’ll have to market it to the rest of the world, and the best way to do so would be to recreate it on the head of a popular bald/balding celebrity, because celebrities are (sadly) the types of people others follow, creating trends and eventually popular culture.
I will want recognition for my achievement, so before I allow any celebrity the use of my combover, I’m going to trademark a name – the Steuckover – and will contractually require the celebrity to refer to it as such when discussing it with reporters.
I know the Steuckover will take other forms, much like the Rachel did in the mid 1990s, and I will be honored by all of them. Eventually, they’ll become too popular and the mass public will start hating it, as the public tends to do. Millions of people will take to the Internet to trash the Steuckover, and just as quickly as it became popular, it will be gone.
But give it another 10 years or so. It’ll be back. Maybe in the form of the “ironic” Steuckover, or the “retro” Steuckover. I’ll be happy with whatever form it takes.
Once the Steuckover becomes a thing, I know it’ll only last initially for six months at most. I’m already working on the next trend – the cool toupee.
Author’s note: My wife, Jenny, wishes to comment on this. A loving husband, I’m happy to give her some space, even though she relegates me to a small sliver of space on our bed at night. This is what she has to say:
“To all fellow wives of balding husbands with odd senses of humor... I apologize for and do not condone the idea presented in this column. Be assured that I do own a pair of clippers; however, should the Steuckover take hold, I will be assembling an ‘embarrassed wife’ support group.”
Showing posts with label bald hair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bald hair. Show all posts
Friday, April 8, 2011
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
World not ready yet for some bald people
I shaved my head, using a Bic razor, two weeks ago, an experiment I repeated one week ago but one I will probably not repeat again for a long time.
My reasoning for doing it in the first place: to eliminate the giant bald spot on top of my head, one that makes me look like a monk from a distance because it looks like a monk’s hat. By getting rid of all my hair, I figured the hat would disappear and I would look like a white Michael Jordan, or at least Charles Barkley. I’d reference a modern-day basketball player here, but I stopped watching when they retired and the only players I know all have hair.
Shaving my head wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. First I used an electric clipper to make my hair really short, and then I got out the Bic. After lathering my head in shaving cream, I attempted to cleanly shave lines of neat rows from my forehead to my neck.
I say “attempted” because the Bic stopped shaving after just a few inches, but it continued to pick up the shaving cream. I was left with a bald forehead, a bald head top and short hair in the back of my head. In other words, I looked like my grandpa.
I gave up trying to be neat about it and then shaved my head in small strokes wherever hair remained. Fifteen minutes later, satisfied I got it all, I took a shower and emerged as a completely bald person. I wasn’t the white Michael Jordan, or Charles Barkley; instead, I looked more like Richard Moll, the guy who played Bull on that great 1980s sitcom “Night Court.”
The first person to see me was my 4-year-old son, Braden. “Where did all your hair go?” he asked. “You look silly.”
Gee, thanks. But this is the same boy who says everything looks silly, except his grandmother. “She is beautiful,” he will tell anyone willing to listen.
Braden and I went to the bank later in the morning, and the tellers said nothing about my hairless haircut. Maybe they thought they didn’t know me well enough to comment, but their silence was identical to the silence I received from nearly everyone, including Braden’s beautiful grandmother who picked him up later in the morning to take him for the day.
When my wife, Jenny, came home, she looked at it and shook her head. “No, it doesn’t work,” she said.
I didn’t want to believe her, but judging by non-remarks I had been receiving all day, and some the next day including those by my co-workers, I knew she was being truthful.
I didn’t hear a single positive remark about my baldness until I saw my best friend that Sunday. He’s shaved his head before, so he thought it was tough.
On Monday, a co-worker who has been shaving his head bald for years said he liked it, too, leading me to conclude only bald people or formerly-bald people could appreciate it.
The only negative remark I heard about it, other than those from my honest wife, was from a neighbor of my in-laws who joked that I looked like a skinhead. That’s the type of negative remark that should have inspired me to grow what hair I do have back, but instead I shaved it all off a week later.
I thought maybe I just needed to get people used to it before they could finally say they liked it. After seeing I had done it again, my wife was even more honest. I had too many bumps on my head, plus the shape of my head wasn’t fitting for complete baldness, she said.
When Braden told me over the weekend I needed to grow my hair back, I knew he was right. The world wasn’t ready for bald Scott. It’ll have to wait until all my hair goes away naturally. That’s coming in a few years, so the world had better get used to it.
My reasoning for doing it in the first place: to eliminate the giant bald spot on top of my head, one that makes me look like a monk from a distance because it looks like a monk’s hat. By getting rid of all my hair, I figured the hat would disappear and I would look like a white Michael Jordan, or at least Charles Barkley. I’d reference a modern-day basketball player here, but I stopped watching when they retired and the only players I know all have hair.
Shaving my head wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. First I used an electric clipper to make my hair really short, and then I got out the Bic. After lathering my head in shaving cream, I attempted to cleanly shave lines of neat rows from my forehead to my neck.
I say “attempted” because the Bic stopped shaving after just a few inches, but it continued to pick up the shaving cream. I was left with a bald forehead, a bald head top and short hair in the back of my head. In other words, I looked like my grandpa.
I gave up trying to be neat about it and then shaved my head in small strokes wherever hair remained. Fifteen minutes later, satisfied I got it all, I took a shower and emerged as a completely bald person. I wasn’t the white Michael Jordan, or Charles Barkley; instead, I looked more like Richard Moll, the guy who played Bull on that great 1980s sitcom “Night Court.”
The first person to see me was my 4-year-old son, Braden. “Where did all your hair go?” he asked. “You look silly.”
Gee, thanks. But this is the same boy who says everything looks silly, except his grandmother. “She is beautiful,” he will tell anyone willing to listen.
Braden and I went to the bank later in the morning, and the tellers said nothing about my hairless haircut. Maybe they thought they didn’t know me well enough to comment, but their silence was identical to the silence I received from nearly everyone, including Braden’s beautiful grandmother who picked him up later in the morning to take him for the day.
When my wife, Jenny, came home, she looked at it and shook her head. “No, it doesn’t work,” she said.
I didn’t want to believe her, but judging by non-remarks I had been receiving all day, and some the next day including those by my co-workers, I knew she was being truthful.
I didn’t hear a single positive remark about my baldness until I saw my best friend that Sunday. He’s shaved his head before, so he thought it was tough.
On Monday, a co-worker who has been shaving his head bald for years said he liked it, too, leading me to conclude only bald people or formerly-bald people could appreciate it.
The only negative remark I heard about it, other than those from my honest wife, was from a neighbor of my in-laws who joked that I looked like a skinhead. That’s the type of negative remark that should have inspired me to grow what hair I do have back, but instead I shaved it all off a week later.
I thought maybe I just needed to get people used to it before they could finally say they liked it. After seeing I had done it again, my wife was even more honest. I had too many bumps on my head, plus the shape of my head wasn’t fitting for complete baldness, she said.
When Braden told me over the weekend I needed to grow my hair back, I knew he was right. The world wasn’t ready for bald Scott. It’ll have to wait until all my hair goes away naturally. That’s coming in a few years, so the world had better get used to it.
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