Ill-Advised Facial Hair
Apologies to those among us who actually look like they were born for a goatee, mustache, beard, drake, or Van Dyke. Guys like Jim Rome, Tom Selleck, and the bad guy in silent movies. Most of us have experimented and most were disastrous.
I have dabbled with the goatee, which is actually a Van Dyke. It started in New York when I was dating a girl who liked the look. She was African-American and I think she thought it made me look vaguely ethnic, like a Conquistador with jeans and Timberlands.
There was also the headshot session I had booked and I wanted my money’s worth, which, to me, meant shaving off the goatee half-way through and getting multiple looks. What if I cut myself? Of course the only look the facial hair gave me was being too young to play Iago. Not a master stroke of marketing acumen.
Headshots are the bane of a performers existence (if you disagree, you’re a weirdo). You have to pick clothes you never wear and stare into a lens and try to be sexy or smile like the world just opened up to you. It’s a humiliating process. It makes no sense to complicate it with a shave kit trying to look like the blacksmith at a Renaissance festival.
When you’re young you want to look older, or scragglier, or like a young Springsteen. When you’re older you have no excuse, and if you can’t grow hair quickly, you need time off to get it going. I dabbled again, not sure why, and went through the effort to get some pictures with it. I don’t know what the image is trying to say. Maybe it’s courting work as a “bad guy” in a student film, or an extra in a Nickelback video, either way take a look and try not to laugh.
