A Dearth of Heroics

this was a busy week for Perpetual Post — but among my favorite topics we took on this week were Moustaches. Apparently there has been a resurgence of popularity of the moustache. i don’t believe it, personally. i’ve had a moustache since grade school, but if i didn’t I wouldn’t try to rock on now and act like its cool. here’s my piece. (go to perpetualpost.com to check out Jillian’s and Ted’s perspectives.)

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AKIE BERMISS: I agree with Jillian in principle: moustaches are not for everybody. I don’t necessarily think you have to be 45 years old to pull it off, but you should think about it before you just grow it out like you know what you’re doing.

I, personally, have a scraggily moustache. Its a really a shameful piece of work. But, I never trim it. I never shave it. I never comb it out or condition it. Its just my moustache. When I was 12, hair started to grow on my face. I was shocked. Scared even, I didn’t like it so much. But I didn’t know what to do about it. None of my siblings has very much facial hair. I was sort of the odd man out. So it took a while for me to figure out shaving. And then it took a while for me to figure out that shaving was a mistake. I shave my moustache and I look like a duck that’s been in a bar fight. It don’t work. I did it a few times in Junior High and then gave it up forever.

You see, for me, the moustache has always been bittersweet. I never really wanted one. I always wanted a nice, full, luxurious beard. I wanted inches upon inches of hair to grow on my chin. None ever really came in. I was one of those unfortunate types who can get plenty of hair to grow UNDER his chin — but nothing on it. For a while, in High School, I had no hair on my cheeks or chin and so just rocked a sort of sad chin-strap beard. It was really, truly a sad thing to behold. All I’d ever wanted was a soul-patch and goatee — but it wasn’t mean to be, friends.

So you know what I did? I gave it up! I relinquished my hopes of ever being that cool jazzer with the sexy goatee. Without it, I was forced to find new and innovative was of being hip. It was hard, believe me. I had to deal with some residual anger about it in college when it would get cold and my friends would just grow out a beard and be done with it. If I let mine grow out? Chin-strap.

Why am I telling you these things (these horrible, horrible things)? Because I want you to know that I always knew that if I could grow a beard, it’d be awesome. But I couldn’t. And that fact, as I grew to accept it, helped me to understand that some people SHOULDN’T rock a beard. Even if they can grow it out.

And so, in my early twenties I decided I’d better be sure about this moustache thing so that I wasn’t just making an ass of myself and thinking I was covering up the pummeled-duck look of my adolescence. And what did I discover? Hey — the moustache works! It really does.

So yeah — I can rock it. I’m not even 30 yet. But you can’t, friend. So stop. Is it ironic? Yes — very. But to a mature audience it draws on an irony that plumbs depths you are probably not ready to expose. (We’re not laughing with you, you know.) When you’re ready for the ’stache — you’ll know it.

Don’t jump the gun, my friends. Stand clear.