Mustache Memories

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with mustaches.

No idea why that furry upper lip was cool to me, probably because my father always had one.

I was just used to see a grown up man with hair on his face. The one time my father shaved off his mustache, I was about 5 years old and I told him "Daddy. shave it back ON".

Granted, I was a child of the late 70's, early 80's so it wasn't all pedophile creeps with Astro vans hovering around playgrounds with facial hair. It was everyone.

I remember as a kid, thinking only normal men had mustaches. I would thumb through the JC Penny and Sears catalogues and think it odd when they DIDN'T have a little fur on their upper lip. Those were the weirdo’s.

I would also pause at the matching bathroom sets....those fuzzy toilet seat covers and matching everything, I was fascinated by them, probably because my mother didn't think toilet seat covers were sanitary....but that's a story for another day.

Nowadays, unless you are a featured guest on To Catch A Predator, or hanging out at a NASCAR event, the mustache is just plain creepy.

People don't get the same prestige sporting a lip rug they did back in the day. No. No more would you hear, "Hey that guy must be upper management, check out the 'stache" kind of props. They are more like, "Ew get that guy a razor".

It takes a certain kind of man to pull off a mustache in 2010. I mean Tom Selleck is an icon for it, and without one he isn't even the same man. My dad had that same kind of Stache Appeal. He wasn't HIM without it. He was just another portly man with no upper lip. Weird.

There are some other iconic face fuzzed men still out there; I mean has anyone even given Alex Trebek the time of day since he went naked up there? Hulk Hogan has his 2-toned handlebar, and without that and his manicotti looking bleached locks, he's just another roided out old guy living out his glory days.

The young community tries to strategically stylize their facial follicles. Shaping them into those absurd looking chin straps. I mean really, why make your face look like you have it holding your hair to your head? Its ridiculous looking.

You either have to full-beard it up like Alan from the Hangover or Al the assistant from Tool Time; or baby face that shit up. Even a 5 o’clock shadow bit of scruff is kind of sexy on some fella’s. Other's just look lazy.

But the mustache, the mustache is a dying art. You must be of a certain age these days to pull one off. A young man in his 20s or 30s just doesn’t have the wherewithal to get away with it. Unless of course, it’s some sort of lost bet or spoof for a Halloween costume solely for the humor in it. No. You don’t have the knack.

It was once such a distinguishment, a testament of a man’s manliness. You could GROW the hair, therefore you must do so, and with panache.

Cartoon villains twirling their mustaches while devising diabolical plans for debauchery. Hitler and even Charlie Chaplin, all you needed to see was that tiny black area under their noses and BOOM! You knew in an instant who they were. Like the bright red lips of the Rolling Stones, that tiny little piece of hair on the lip was an instant identifier.

You must follow the footsteps of iconic men who wore them with style. Whose identities are lost without them. Like that guy from Hall and Oats. I mean he is nothing without his lip hair. Icons like Selleck, Trebek, and Hogan. Super Mario, Geraldo, and Dr. Phil. Wilford Brimley telling us all about Diabetes. Takes a gentleman to pull it off and sell that shit.

Go big or go home.