Throwback Thursday From August 2016 – “Hairs Looking At You, Babe”

Throwback Thursday From August 2016 – “Hairs Looking At You, Babe”

I’VE BEEN NOTICING SOMETHING RECENTLY – Something that the rest of the world may have been aware of for some time. I can be slow on the pick-up at time.

There seems to be a fad, fashion trend, or style, for men that is news to me. I’m seeing a lot of younger men sporting really long beards. I’m not talking Abraham Lincoln beard, but something closer to the ZZ Top band or the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Under 50 years of age break out your Google).

 

There was a fellow, whom I guess to have been about 30, who came into St. Arbucks for the early services/brewing with a neatly trimmed beard (red, no less) that reached to his belly button. The hair on the top of his head was cut short, but his beard was the size of a fuzzy red placemat. He had the moustache to go with it. When he sipped at his coffee he had to use one hand to lift the ‘stache so he could access his mouth.

I would not want to watch him eat a slice of pizza.

A few days ago he came in with a friend. He also had a most prodigious beard (blonde). I don’t think it’s a cult thing – they both looked sane and neatly dressed in a rather Preppie manner. Aside from the beards they could have been part of the “Up With People” cast (Look ‘em up again.).

When I mentioned this to the collected Usual Suspects (possibly a mistake) they said that it was a style that was considered “Hot” by the current crop of young ladies. There is no way I can personally verify this without risking getting myself slapped, kneed, or called a variety of names. So, I’ll have to take them at their word.

There has been a beard, in one form or another, on my face for close to 50 years. I first grew on for a part I was doing in a play and I kept it. Right now it’s just a short moustache and small lawn on my chin – all gray.

I’ve never had a long beard like is fashionable now. That would be too much work. Taking care of a beard like that is similar to having a small dog that needs constant grooming. Imagine a Chihuahua that, left unattended, grows up to be an Irish Wolf Hound.

While I get some coffee and go on a short fact-finding mission to learn more about these beards take a look at the slides of my trip to Yellowstone.

Slide One: A picture of a bear. I took the picture.

Slide Two: A picture of me. The bear took the picture.

Slide Three: A picture of me and the bear. I don’t know who took the picture.

{Courtesy of the late Jackie Vernon. Thank you, Funseekers}

During my minimal research on this phenomenon I read an article that called these long beards “Hipster Beards.” Do tell? Hipster?

I have been seeing these guys carrying around their Shetland Ponies for a good year now. That’s a long time for anything carrying the label of “Hipster.” The 1960s style Carnaby Street Skinny Suits came and went. The “Soul Patch” mini-facial hair stayed around longer because it required no effort or cost, but these Ground Cover Beards might call for the hiring of a Professional Landscape Artist to maintain it.

Hmmmm? I’m wondering…could these guys with the Astro-Turf facial hair be wearing fake beards???

Hipster, indeed – more likely made in North Korea by slave labor!

An intriguing possibility, but, on second thought, unlikely.

These two jokers I see at St. Arbucks look more like runaways from a West Virginia Jug Band than some “Hipsters” from Terre Haute (That’s French for, “There’s something moving in your beard.”).

A Cut Above

 

IT’S HAIRCUT DAY! The rest of the world has told me that it is time. Seven billion people are right. I need it. My head looks like a frightened groundhog. I’ll get the haircut or there will be six more weeks of “Game of Thrones.” My wife said that she looked over at me the other night and thought that the Chupacabra had gotten into the house.

I don’t have as much hair as I used to – at least not on my head. My back still looks like a field of neglected Astro-Turf. I’m not bald by any means. My hairline hasn’t really changed all that much. It is just more of a dotted line any more. When I run my comb through my graying locks I can see the top of my head looking back at me. My head underneath my hair looks surprisingly like a week old cantaloupe.

Do Not Do “The Freddie”

 

IS IT ME OR…IS IT THEM???

I admit that either possibility is, at minimum, plausible.

They (The ubiquitous “They”) say that Time is a fluid thing and that the very concept of Time Travel is no longer the property of Science Fiction writers. OK, I can accept that, but I just don’t expect it to happen while I’m quietly trying to have a cup of coffee.

Twice in the last month while I was concentrating on getting my plastic straw through the lid on my iced coffee my world was intruded upon by the 1950s and then the 1960s. I’ve been through those decades before so I recognized them immediately.

Fashion, Fashion, Who’s Got The Fashion?

I HAD A HORRIBLE SHOCK TO MY SYSTEM last Friday morning. Someone I’ve known and trusted posted pictures from the Gucci Summer 2019 Men’s Collection. High Fashion at 7 AM, before my coffee or my Blood Pressure Meds, is a dangerous thing. Having my loved ones nearby pulled me through.

I don’t know if the fine folks at Gucci have “Substance Issues,” a severe misandristic bent, or a just plain lack of taste. Or maybe they hate their models. I guess it doesn’t matter.

Throwback Thursday from July 2015 – “Randall The Candle”

Throwback Thursday from July 2015 – “Randall The Candle”

 

 

Randall The Candle

IN 1997 THERE WAS AN EPISODE of “Law And Order” (An American Cops and Robbers TV show set in New York City) that had a character, an arsonist, who went by the moniker of “Randall the Candle.”

Cut to 2015 in Terre Haute (That’s French for “Change the battery in your smoke alarm.”) and a conversation with one of the “Usual Suspects” during services at the Chapel of St. Arbucks.

The “Suspect” – a former resident of New York City and the son of an NYPD Detective and I were discussing the recent fire at a café across the street from St. Arbucks that destroyed the place within 24 hours of their “Grand Opening.” He hinted that it looked a little suspicious and that maybe “Randall the Candle” was in town.

Egads!

Further interrogation uncovered one of those “Art imitating Life” things. According to the Usual Suspect seated in the chair across from me – Randall the Candle was a real person, and an arsonist, and an off-the-books consultant for the NYPD about fires of a “suspicious nature.”

I do not find this to be at all beyond belief because every writer I know borrows from real life in every paragraph and a character called “Randall the Candle” is too good to pass up. If he didn’t exist you would have to create him.

Given the timeline of the TV show and the youthful remembrances of my cohort in coffee, I would guess that “Randall” is long gone to that Great Tinder Box in the Sky.” He isn’t still alive to file any lawsuits over using his colorful nickname. Even if he was around to make a play for some cash – any court action would almost certainly result in him admitting to a long career in crime and that would then open up a whole new set of fertilizer hitting the fan issues.

It seems that in real life, rather than “reel life,” Randall the Candle was a man who worked on both sides of the Law. For the right price he would light up your life and/or your warehouse in such a manner that your insurance company would have to pay off. He was a Capital P Professional.

But as active as he was, Randall wasn’t the only game in town and he did not like competition – especially “small p” professional arsonists who did sloppy work. It was sort of like a dishonest politician smearing the reputation of an honest —  wait, bad analogy there. There are no honest politicians. But you get my drift.

Randall the Candle would work with the police on cases of arson – helping them to identify how the job was done and often by whom. Arsonists, like most people, are creatures of habit and tend to repeat themselves – left sock, right sock, left shoe, right shoe, left incendiary device, right incendiary device.

In my own perverted literary way I am glad to learn that Randall the Candle actually existed. His whole story has a Damon Runyon-esque flavor to it. With a name like his, and a decent voice and sense of rhythm, he could easily have been a character in “Guys and Dolls.”

I can’t say that “they don’t make ‘em like Randall the Candle anymore.” I don’t know.   But I’ll bet you’d be hard pressed to find some jamoke with the moxie to play with the bacon and still run with his torch like Randall the Candle.

Picture Me As “Superfly”

 

LAST WEEK MY WIFE, THE LOVELY AND EVER OBSERVANT, Dawn, and I were driving around town taking care of some errands when she asked me a question that made me go, “Hmmm?”

Her question: “What ever happened to Whitewall tires?”

Indeed.

I May Lose A Friend Over This

“BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER” someone once said. It wasn’t me. I’m the kind of person who actually likes the sound of bagpipe music…in small doses. I once owned a car that was the same color as me – kind of a pasty, sickly, Eastern European – needs to get out more, flesh tone. People used to say that it looked like someone’s elbow coming down the street. So coming to me as an Arbiter of Beauty is risky business.

What brings this all up as a topic of conversation is – Wallpaper.

Throwback Thursday From March 2015 – “I Have A Question”

From March 2015

I Have A Question

 

 

I HAVE NOTICED SOMETHING in the last few months that, while not disturbing or earthshaking, I do find curious.

I am about to tread on dangerous ground here.

I Need Protection

I CAN’T HELP IT. Deep down in the core of my being I am a nerd. I know that on my surface – what the world sees – I am this Super Cool, Hip, Macho, and Stylish Dude, but… You’re not buying this are you?

The only part of those words listed above that are true are that I am a nerd. I, unfortunately, have documentation to prove it.

Throwback Thursday from Oct. 2015 – I Told You This Was A Bad Idea

Throwback Thursday from Oct. 2015 

I Told You This Was A Bad Idea

WELL, I NEVER THOUGHT THEY COULD PULL IT OFF. I was right. Today was the day at St. Arbucks when the baristas were planning to dress up as the customers. It was supposed to be a real laugh riot. It wasn’t.

First of all, I never expected The Boss to give her imprimature on the whole idea. “Dress up like the customers? I don’t think that is a good idea.” But she did give it her OK. Something I’ll bet she now regrets.

I thought that it would be a bad idea because there are some customers around here who are just a tiny step away from an extended visit to the Thorazine Hotel, and seeing someone looking like them staring back at them from across the counter might be enough to push them over the edge.

I now know that I shouldn’t have worried about that because, as they say in the closing credits of most movies, – “Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.”

When I walked into the Chapel earlier this morning I was met by one of the crew wearing a tee-shirt and blue jeans and sporting what was planned to look like a white moustache. The moustache was painted on. I didn’t say anything because, at first look, I was concerned that the white stuff on her upper lip was some kind of medication.

Did she burn her upper lip? If so, how? Perhaps I shouldn’t ask. She might be sensitive about it, being so obvious.

It never occurred to me that it was part of a costume meant to look like one of the Drive-Thru customers. My bad. When I asked The Boss about it she told me that she thought it looked like an application of “Nair” –  there in an effort to get rid of the gal’s real moustache. Ouch.

It was several minutes later when one of the other members of the crew began to berate me.

“You’re not wearing a Hawaiian shirt!” she snarled at me.

“It’s 50 degrees out there and raining – of course I’m not wearing a Hawaiian shirt.”

That was when I was finally informed that today was “Customer Costume Day” at St. Arbucks. You could have fooled me, and they did, I guess.

As far as I am concerned it all looked more like, “We All Dressed in the Dark Day” at St. Arbucks. Is how they have dressed today what they think we, the customers, really look like?  I’ve always felt that I have a bit of dash and flair in my wardrobe, and not like I’ve been Dumpster Diving after a nice three-week camping trip in the City Park fighting with the squirrels over loose chestnuts.

So far today the barista who is allegedly dressing like me has not shown up for work. At least I don’t think so. I see no Hawaiian shirts, no baseball caps, no remarkably outstanding example of Machismo and Adonis-like good looks.

I won’t be surprised if the “other me” doesn’t show up. After all, who wants to go out in a cold, rainy, blustery day while trying to maintain a persona like mine? I have enough trouble keeping the Original together. I just can’t envision some amateur trying to do it.

Uh-Oh, she just showed up. This is one brave girl. She dresses impeccably, as you can tell. The only problem is – she is so slim that she makes me look like The Hindenburg. For those of you under fifty – look it up.

Next year I will suggest that the crew at St. Arbucks all dress up like The Boss. I think that would be fun – if The Boss doesn’t fire them all, that is. If she does fire them all, then it was a bad idea and I will disclaim any knowledge of it.

Throwback Thursday from July 2015 – “Randall The Candle”

Throwback Thursday from July 2015

Randall The Candle

IN 1997 THERE WAS AN EPISODE of “Law And Order” (An American Cops and Robbers TV show set in New York City) that had a character, an arsonist, who went by the moniker of “Randall the Candle.”

Cut to 2015 in Terre Haute (That’s French for “Change the battery in your smoke alarm.”) and a conversation with one of the “Usual Suspects” during services at the Chapel of St. Arbucks.

The “Suspect” – a former resident of New York City and the son of an NYPD Detective and I were discussing the recent fire at a café across the street from St. Arbucks that destroyed the place within 24 hours of their “Grand Opening.” He hinted that it looked a little suspicious and that maybe “Randall the Candle” was in town.

Egads!

I Need A New Shirt

THE RAVAGES OF TIME HAVE TAKEN THEIR TOLL ON MY WARDROBE. At least on the part I care the most about – my Hawaiian shirts. The rest of my clothes are there solely to avoid public prosecution, frostbite, and scaring animals and the rest of the population. I do have jeans that have holes in them and shoes that have outlasted their laces, but I cannot allow my Hawaiian shirts to paint me with a colorful deterioration.

Throwback Thursday from March 2015 “I Have A Question”

I Have A Question

I HAVE NOTICED SOMETHING in the last few months that, while not disturbing or earthshaking, I do find curious.

I am about to tread on dangerous ground here.

Styles come and styles go. I understand that, but I see one current hairstyle popular among young women that I just don’t understand. It seems that a huge number of young gals I see at St. Arbucks, in the supermarket, or wherever, are walking around with their hair piled up on top of their heads in what looks like a mini-nuclear mushroom cloud.

My first thought was that it was in “homage” to Marge Simpson of cartoon fame, but that wasn’t it – and none of them had blue hair like Marge. Then it finally dawned on me – these gals all had their hair piled up ala a combination of Olive Oyl from “Popeye” and Mammy Yokum from the “Lil Abner” comic strip. But these women are much too young to know who Mammy Yokum was/is. Al Capp, the creator of Lil Abner, has been dead for decades and I really doubt that any of these hairfull young people have seen the movie musical made in 1959. And I don’t think Popeye gets much play on TV these days. More is the pity.

Could it be coincidence? Is there some new cult around that has them all wearing their hair like that? There has to be a reason. It sure isn’t because they all, independently think, that it is an attractive hairstyle. It ain’t.

As I sit here at St. Arbucks and I look at the corps of baristas behind the counter I see that four out of five have their hair that way. The fifth one is Sean and he hasn’t yet succumbed to the style. I pray that he does not. It would be very off-putting on a man his age. He looks more like Santa Claus anyway.

I don’t purport to be a fashion maven. Far from it. When I entered the time of my life known as “Geezerhood” I had to admit that my favorite music is “Oldies,” my favorite movies are “Classics,” and my sense of style died along with Disco.

I’m not saying that these young folks shouldn’t be allowed to wear their hair in whatever style they choose. I’m just curious that they all seem to be choosing this particular style – one that puts them in danger from low-slung ceiling fans. I’d hate to see anyone injured or maimed in the name of fashion. Platform shoes were risky enough, but they never had potentially fatal consequences. (Alex Trebek may wear them on Jeopardy! but he keeps his hair short.)

I know what you’re thinking – “Doesn’t this Geezer have anything better to do than sit around muttering about our hairstyles?”

Evidently not.

Yo, Ho, Ho, And A Bottle Of Eggnog

BEING THE COMMITTED CHEAPSKATE THAT I AM I have given up a number of expensive hobbies in favor of others that are cheap – like me.

I used to drive in Sports Car Road Rallies and for a while I flew Sailplanes – two ways to burn up income faster than was rational. Now that I’m retired I have taken up the cheapest of all hobbies: People Watching. I wish I had started doing this years ago. It would have saved me a lot of money and rescued me from a diet heavy on Ramen Noodles.

I Used To Tie One On

I WAS LOOKING IN MY CLOSET YESTERDAY. It was like gazing into a Time Machine. There are clothes in there that I haven’t worn in years. Some don’t fit anymore. Some never did fit, and some I used to wear to work.

And then there are The Neckties.

Hairs Looking At You, Babe

I’VE BEEN NOTICING SOMETHING RECENTLY – Something that the rest of the world may have been aware of for some time. I can be slow on the pick-up at time.

There seems to be a fad, fashion trend, or style, for men that is news to me. I’m seeing a lot of younger men sporting really long beards. I’m not talking Abraham Lincoln beard, but something closer to the ZZ Top band or the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Under 50 years of age break out your Google).

I’d Rather Have Green Beans

WE RECEIVED A COUPON IN THE MAIL the other day. It came from one of the Mega-Stores – those places that sell everything short of nuclear weapons and reasonably fresh green beans.

It’s Haircut Time!

I GOT MY HAIR CUT ON MONDAY. I needed a haircut a month ago, but with all the travelling and such I never got around to it. My head was beginning to look like a Chia Pet version of myself.

The Shirts

I ADMIT IT. I’m not the most stylish guy on earth. I dress simply – not that I’m Amish or anything like that. In winter I wear turtlenecks and sweaters and in summer I wear Hawaiian shirts. And I’m cheap.

I Have A Question

I HAVE NOTICED SOMETHING in the last few months that, while not disturbing or earthshaking, I do find curious.

I am about to tread on dangerous ground here.

Styles come and styles go. I understand that, but I see one current hairstyle popular among young women that I just don’t understand. It seems that a huge number of young gals I see at St. Arbucks, in the supermarket, or wherever, are walking around with their hair piled up on top of their heads in what looks like a mini-nuclear mushroom cloud.

My first thought was that it was in “homage” to Marge Simpson of cartoon fame, but that wasn’t it – and none of them had blue hair like Marge. Then it finally dawned on me – these gals all had their hair piled up ala a combination of Olive Oyl from “Popeye” and Mammy Yokum from the “Lil Abner” comic strip. But these women are much too young to know who Mammy Yokum was/is. Al Capp, the creator of Lil Abner, has been dead for decades and I really doubt that any of these hairfull young people have seen the movie musical made in 1959. And I don’t think Popeye gets much play on TV these days. More is the pity.

Could it be coincidence? Is there some new cult around that has them all wearing their hair like that? There has to be a reason. It sure isn’t because they all, independently think, that it is an attractive hairstyle. It ain’t.

As I sit here at St. Arbucks and I look at the corps of baristas behind the counter I see that four out of five have their hair that way. The fifth one is Sean and he hasn’t yet succumbed to the style. I pray that he does not. It would be very off-putting on a man his age. He looks more like Santa Claus anyway.

I don’t purport to be a fashion maven. Far from it. When I entered the time of my life known as “Geezerhood” I had to admit that my favorite music is “Oldies,” my favorite movies are “Classics,” and my sense of style died along with Disco.

I’m not saying that these young folks shouldn’t be allowed to wear their hair in whatever style they choose. I’m just curious that they all seem to be choosing this particular style – one that puts them in danger from low-slung ceiling fans. I’d hate to see anyone injured or maimed in the name of fashion. Platform shoes were risky enough, but they never had potentially fatal consequences. (Alex Trebek may wear them on Jeopardy! but he keeps his hair short.)

I know what you’re thinking – “Doesn’t this Geezer have anything better to do than sit around muttering about our hairstyles?”

Evidently not.