The Bald Truth
“Grass doesn’t grow on a busy street”
Archie Bunker, commenting on his hair free skull
“It don’t grow in concrete neither.”
Edith Bunker, commenting on Archie’s hair free (and inner) skull
Season Three of The White Lotus television series on Max follows the annoying and wealthy guests at a luxury hotel in Thailand and much of the talk involves denigrating “old, balding men” who are “losers back home” but manage to be with beautiful, young women overseas only because they are rich.
Wait! The show is filled with the nastiest people doing the nastiest things who are then for the most part rewarded for their nastiness, but old, bald guys are the problem?
The internet is also filled with tons of YouTube and Reddit posts claiming that women “swipe left” (apparently, a bad thing) more with bald men (although many of these posts may originate from sites selling hair transplants).
Stop with the scalp shaming!
Prick us, do we not molt?!
My son Adam claims that men in our family come in three varieties; hairy, very hairy and Chewbacca.
Unfortunately, unlike my sons, very little of that hair remains on my head.
For all of us aging can be unpleasant but, for some of us, aging is a downright strange phenomenon. Hair starts growing everywhere else but on top.
Does the hair really need to fall out? It is not like our ears fall off as we get older!
A bald mountain has no vegetation - - but it is still a mountain.
A bald tire has no tread - - but your car still rolls along.
According to the Quora platform, bald in gaming or meme slang means, “a person who is seen as being stripped of their advantages or who has been defeated in a humiliating or straightforward manner” or has “a lack of style or flair.”
Ouch!
A bald eagle gets its name since it has white on its head - - if only!
Although classic male stereotypes provide that men are not supposed to worry about their appearance, throughout history men have tried all kinds of things to hide their skin dominated domes.
The saddest attempt was and remains the combover. This is a well-documented maneuver to hide one’s baldness (but which only draws more attention to the depleted hair supply) by starting one’s part down below the ears somewhere near the knees and combing over the sad little remaining follicles to the other side.
According to some, Julius Caesar had the first combover since sculptures and other depictions show his receding hairline with hair combed forward (technically, a “comb-forward”).
Napoleon sported a bit of a combover and, while clearly out of style today, many politicians and would-be dictators (e.g., Rudy Giuliani, Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko) have combovers - - hmmm, see a pattern here?
Apparently, in 1977, the U.S. Patent Office actually accepted Frank J. Smith and Donald J. Smith’s patent of a combover with a Trumpian version that involved combing the hair over from both sides and the back!
Eventually, combovers went out of style without ever really being in style.
Instead, today some people go for hair transplants, “hair systems” (a.k.a., toupees), or use all kinds of topical creams, sprays and treatments such as minoxidil (Rogaine) or oral finasteride (sure, the side effects may involve some of your favorite parts other than your hair falling off, but nothing to fear).
Some now even try expensive and nasty platelet rich plasma injections that involve shooting a needle with your own plasma into your head (Ew!).
C’mon cue ball heads!
I say, let’s stand proud with our shiny pates!
My baldness destiny struck in my early thirties, but when my part started sliding downwards, I quickly went close-cropped and have not looked back since (why look back, there is not much there to see).
Remember, somewhere along the line Yul Brynner came along and made baldness cool and sexy (for those of you too young to remember a rotary telephone, see link above to explain Yul Brynner). Sure, he was wearing pajamas, but in the King and I that man was badass and he could dance.
Let me reveal an often missed truth: all of those losers showing off their thick, shaggy unshorn noggins are just dying to look like us lucky blokes with streamlined skulls.
And those of you with receding hairlines take heart (and not just because it could be worse, you could have an advancing hairline) - - soon you will be one of us!
Not to brag, but maybe just to rub it in a little bit, here are the top ten advantages to being hirsute challenged:
We are an elite club. Yul Brynner was only setting the groundwork for Kojak (Telly Savalas), Patrick Stewart, Michael Jordan and Dwayne, “the Rock” Johnson. Try calling action star beefcake Jason Statham “skin head” and see where you end up! Curly Howard - - by far the coolest of the Three Stooges. Even without all of their celebrity swagger, some of that shiny dome power alights on us all.
Think of all the money we save on shampoo and combs.
Our hair loss results from all that extra testosterone which comes in quite handy if you know what I mean (well, at least that is what we tell ourselves to feel better).
Bald brothers love each other. Well, so claimed Larry David … “We see each other on the street, we give a nod.” Has deep meaning.
No need for a bathing cap at the pool (warning, you may even get ridiculed for putting one on when you have more beard stubble than curls).
Haircuts? Not necessary once we purchase a simple beard trimmer or razor. Avoids the awkwardness for barbers who had to pretend they were still cutting our hair sixty seconds into our haircut. (To set the record straight, I hold no grudge against Chris, my former barber on 44th Street in NYC, who when I asked if I could get a discount since there was so little to cut, said I should pay extra since it took so long to find).
We never have a bad hair day.
Hat hair? Not even a thing. Sure, we wear a hat in both the summer and winter but purely due to our devotion to style and to show loyalty to our favorite teams (only the envious claim that it is to keep away the sunburn in the summer or so we do not freeze our bare kepilach in the winter).
Wind? Not an issue.
We can always get a quick laugh by saying we are “going to let our hair down.”
So, enjoy your status as one of the lucky ones.
Who knows, maybe at the right angle, not too close up, in just the right light, someone may mistake you for Jason Statham.
Your (former) barber Chris would make a hell of a business negotiator!
You're bald?