The Fall of the Moustache

[MisterCairo]

Separated at birth?

If you can grow a big thick bushy mustache, I SAY JUST DO IT!

Don't make a decision about that choice based on the lame opinions of those around you. Who cares what others think. They make disparaging assessment without any logical thought but instead pressure you to do something their way because of how some small aspect of society "Feels" about it. Resist I say, and grow that mustache long and thick. Unless of course you don't want to. Then don't. Societal pressure is a bad thing and must be resisted. Its what makes you feel good that counts. Unless the pressure comes from your wife. Then you better do what your told.

I grew my first mustache and beard senior year in high schoot. A little thin and fuzzy but workable. As I got older it thickened up and got darker. I ditched the beard and kept the mustache when I started applying for jobs. four years after high school. I accepted a job that required I look high school age so for 11 months I kept it off. That was the first and last time I did not have a mustache. That was 32 years ago.

Iv'e had a full beard or two over the years but my wife told me It made me look too much like my brother so it stays off now. She was never fond of my brother.

I was told early in my career that the reason cops keep mustaches is so they can play with it while talking to a suspect, thereby having the hands at the ready if the suspect decides to throw a punch. What say you Lieutenant Dangle?

Iv'e allowed my mustache get so long that I could pull it down to the bottom of my chin. And yes I have waxed it. It's kinda like a guy with thinning hair doing a comb over. Add a little wax, comb it to sides and Bam!, its three times thicker. Don't even try to tell me Tom Selleck doesn't wax. Beside wax keeps it out of my milk and keeps it from getting caught in a soda can pull tab. Ouch! No one has ever made a 1980s or porn star like comment to me about mine.

I'm not ashamed of my Mustache, and you shouldn't be either.

Some people just have to have a mustache. Take Sam Elliott. Thats the only way a mustache is supposed to be... unless of course its not for you. Then Its not. No pressure.
View attachment 84751

Mr Elliott's mustache is great. But have you seen him without it? He's got this long upper lip that comes to a point in the middle. He looks like a turtle. He's got to hide that lip. He'll probably hunt me down and beat me up now.
View attachment 84752

Now about those hipster dudes. Thats another story.
View attachment 84753
Oh wait. Hipster's are COOL.

 

[scottyrocks]

Don't make a decision about that choice based on the lame opinions of those around you.

Lame opinion = any opinion that differs from your own. haha

 

[Willybob]

I know Ive probably got a few lame opinions of my own, according to some dope out there. Heres one. Whats with all these modern detective series on the tele now with detectives who show up for work with a three day growth of facial hair. Im not talking a bordered, trimmed, well maintained short beard, but just plain unshaven mess creaping up the cheeks and down the neck like some hobo. Do employers really allow that these days? Is that the new popular look?

 

[scottyrocks]

The new popular look is whatever some famous, or hope-to-be-famous actor or actress pushes in hopes of being the originator of a new popular look. If it's right, at least in some demographic's eyes (read as 'much younger than me'), then it becomes the new popular look.

 

[Dan Allen]

I have kids in the mid forties who have never seen me without a mustache and I occasionally threaten to cut it off and move next door and defy them to find me. Like most things it has changed with the times , it is no longer dark brown but rather gray and regrettably I have more hair below my nose than above. based on some of the comments from younger people I don't think the mustache in any danger of dying off. An example of this was an incident that happened while traveling threw Dallas at three in the morning. In an effort to stay awake I stopped in some out of the way convenience store. While shopping quickly realized that I was being followed by a couple of "pants on the ground" types. I hastily made my way to the checkout, grabbed a pack of gum and threw it on the counter. The lady at the register who apparently was watching the whole thing , grinning ear to ear said " honey, they are harmless....get what you want". The pair was waiting outside the door and as I walked to my car one said almost apologetically "nice hat" and the other added...."nice stash" then went on their way . Encouraging words for both of my "vices" and woke me up for another two hundred miles of driving.
perhaps someone ought to start a " show us you stash" thread.

 

[Zombie_61]

...perhaps someone ought to start a " show us you stash" thread.

I think you/we would need to be at least a little more specific. Without more context "stash" could be interpreted in any number of ways.

 

[scottyrocks]

A while back we were talking about creepy. I'm watching The King of Comedy (1983) with Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis. Rupert Pupkin's stache is the very definition of creepy due to the character it lives on.

 

[HadleyH1]

I'm another one here who regrets the moustache has fallen.

I like moustaches. My handsome father, who is gone now ,wore for a while the most amazing pencil moustache.

 

[deadlyhandsome]

I'm another one here who regrets the moustache has fallen.

I like moustaches. My handsome father, who is gone now ,wore for a while the most amazing pencil moustache.

I have photos of my grandfather with his pre-war Doug Fairbanks pencil mustache. You hardly see them any more.

I sometimes have a mustache, and I quite like it, but my wife does not care for it. I guess I wouldn't like it if one day she had a scratchy growth on her upper lip. Seeing that I enjoy kissing my wife more than admiring my mustache I'm getting ready to shave it off (again). In the big scheme of things it's just some facial hair.

 

[Tiki Tom]

"I wish I had a pencil thin mustache; the Boston Blackie kind..." ---Jimmy Buffett

 

[Edward]

All this stuff has long cycles, in part, because whatever negative or positive association something has needs a generation or two to go by before it's forgotten (although, I think we have a century or maybe two before Hitler's 'stache has a bat's chance in hell of coming back).

That Robert Mugabe has had a go at it, but for some reason he hasn't managed to make it any more popular.

I see a lot of young guys with a shaved head and a goatee with mustache trying to get the tough guy look.

the business men's cut or Clark Gable look isnt too common these days

I see a lot more shaved heads

It's become a default standard for many rasons - not least that those of us in Generastion X have been losing our hairon average ten years younger than our fathers did. Generational attitudes to partial baldnes, wigs and toupes have changed; also, crucially for us white guys, the shaven head look has been filtered through the gay community in the nineties and brought into mainstram fashion by the likes of David Beckham. DB may not be someone I've ever chosen to emulate (my personal Baldness Icons were Yul Bryner, Richard O'Brien and Patrick Stewart), but it's lovely to be able to have a whitre-boy shaved head and not have people assume you're a racist.

Again, too, as with facial hair, a shaving technology has advanced and changed, it's much easier to run arazor over the skull every other day (or even every day) and have it sorted in five minutes.

Hang in there! What goes around, comes around. The Magnum P.I. Mustache will come into fashion again one of these days.

Doubtless. IN my own short time I've seen such horrors as flares and the 1980s come right back into full fashion force. If they can come back....

I think WWII had a lot to do with the short-hair-clean shaven look that prevailed until the late 60s. In the military beards were forbidden and mustaches were pretty much restricted to officers. During a popular war, even the civilians imitate military style so wearing a beard became the mark of an eccentric. During my boyhood in the 50s-early 60s I saw maybe half a dozen bearded men and not very many mustaches. A few British actors like Sebastian Cabot and James Robertson Justice wore beards and, well, they were Brits, what did you expect? There was Maynard G. Krebs, but he was an aspiring beatnik. Incidentally, none of the early Beats were bearded, that was pretty much a tv cliche.

I'd say it's less imitation of the military directly, more imitation of the 'screen -cool' of Hollywood films (whether deliberate propaganda pieces or no) that portrayed the Heroic Fighting Man, Defending Us All Against Evil in a certain way. Interesting that they were most commonly RAF in the British depictions (or, at least, officer class), tied as that was to certain class expectations in many cases. (With the RAF less so than WW1, but still on the officer side...).

 

[Edward]

Maybe it should be noted that shaving yourself became much easier post-1900 with the invention first of the safety razor (King Gilette, 1901, patent date 1904) and later the electric shaver. Beards and mustaches are a lot of trouble to tend (I've worn both in my time), and most of us are too lazy or too busy to devote the attention they require. In the teens and 20s many urban men began every day in the barber shop, which had a culture unto itself. You didn't tend that fancy handlebar mustache, your barber did. Much easier to cultivate one that way. The safety razor made shaving at home much less of a chore, but fine-tending is more difficult than with a straight razor and an electric razor is really only good for clear-cutting, though very fast at that one task.

This cannot be stated enough. Whatever fashion plates and movies tell us, the average man on the street will always go with whatever is easiest....

I do wonder, too, just *how* prominent facial hair really was back when. Taches especially. I say this because I have always assumed that there were more people wearing glasses in "vintage times" because there weren't the options of lasik or contact lenses... and yet just last week I read that Doctors now believe that there are more kids needing corrective eyeglasses now than ever before (to do with spending so much time concentrating on screens, especially smaller ones like phones and phablets). Apprently back in the fifties it was only somethingl ike 10% of people needed them in the UK. That surprised me greatly as a figure!

Yep, Freddie Mercury maybe killed it, too.

INsofar as a lot of straight men will have been scared off the tache from the usual fear of "looking gay", I doubt Freddie Mercury really had an impact there. The cropped hair and big tache thing was already an extremely stereotypical "gay look" when Freddie adopted it - which, of course, was part of the point, as he was as much satirising the stereotype ashe was celebrating his own identity.

The Village People were gay?!?!?!

In point of fact, only one of them was actually gay - the Native American, if memory serves.

Fortunately, it seems that the stigma against aviator eyeglasses is fading with their adoption by the hipster subculture. Everyone does something right at least once, I suppose. Though it seems I'm seeing many more 70s/80s style plastics selling than the Dahmer style metals.

I had a pair back in the mid eighties when they were fashionable; really gone off the style since. Well, I say that, but what I mean is I don't like the big 70s/80s teardrop style ones. I do rather like the rounder, definitely more 30s looking version - actually bought some in presecription this year, these:

The rounder lense really transforms the look to my eye. Round my way, the hipster kids seem to prefer the big, heavy-plastic, teardrop style, very eighties-fashion, the uglier the better. As is hipster style. Still, hatever they're into, much like the gay community, I suspect will filer into mainstream fashion relatively soon.

^^^^
By age 6 & starting school, it was evident I required eyewear.
In my area, what was only available was the plastic thick style like “Clark Kent”.

(Buddy Holly, who grew up in my neck of the woods.)
The photo on the far right is typical of my frustration for the fact that I wasn’t
able to grow a mustache.

I love that strip of photos! Not seen it before. Always makes me sad now when you go into a machine to get passport photos domned and they're justg all multiples of the same shot - none of the old fun of pulling acomedy face on the last one....

Fun fact: These photos were taken by Holly in a photo booth, along with a very young Waylon Jennings. There are other photos from the same "session" depicting Jennings sporting his own pair chunky (sunglass) frames.

EDIT: Some days I just don't know what I'm talking about!

Seeing clean-cut Buddy Holly smoke always takes me aback a bit..... different times!

I see a lot of Harold Lloyd glasses on the street around here -- they seem to be enjoying a resurgence of popularity these days. My reading glasses are that type -- not so much for a style statement as the fact that they were only $39, and were the only frames at that price point that had lenses bigger than a peep-hole.

Yes,. I've noticed the high-street big chain opticians in the UK in the last year or two all have interesting frames, from some very 20s thick and round ones to a resurgent popularity with the browline style. Which is nice to see!

Round glasses are certainly making a comeback, after years of being stigmatized as "Harry Potter Glasses." I enjoyed the books, but, for someone working in optical, that kid was the bane of my existence when dealing with any super-nearsighted person above the age of ten. I'm glad that there's finally a backlash against rectangular glasses; not to diss them, but, there are just some folks who benefit tremendously from roundies.

INterestingly, I'd always assumed that Harry Potter was a big part of bringing the style back into popularity among the kids....

 

[Edward]

I can't help but think it's by design when you read the script, then look over his shoulder you see a clean shaven male with a serious set of man-boobs.

I always have to laugh when I see memes like these. I picture them being made by some guy who has been made fun of over his beard, and isn't *entirely* secure with his own masculinity either.

I think, for Germany, Hulk Hogan did really his part in killing the mustache for a undefined period, here. And additional, movies with motorcycle-cops with mustache or Goose in "Top Gun" and all that. That's probably the reason, why many German find mustaches "pornish" or often "homosexual".

Quite likely. I think a lot of it is down to cultural difference, but it's certainly true that a lot of the desperate attempts to be more manly than manly in that sort of novelty pretend-wrestling world do come off as comical, very gay, or simply trying too hard to a European eye. I can see that affecting how men who might not want to be perceived as any of those would view the taches.

It was nothing new, but with cable television, VCRs, and "home video" becoming more commonplace in the early 1980s adult movies did indeed become more mainstream simply because people who would not want to be seen entering or exiting an "adult" movie theater suddenly had access to those movies in the relative privacy of their own homes. Some of the stigma associated with being an adult movie fan diminished, but there was still a difference between knowing what a porn star looked like and wanting to look like one. Again, this applies only to my personal observations here in southern California, so I can't say I'd have the same opinion if I had grown up in the midwest or somewhere on the east coast.

The web has been the big game-changer there in part, in terms of easy access to some pretty heady stuff, though actually I would see the 'pornification' of the mainstream as more of an issue. There's a significant demographic of young girls in the UK nowadays who want to be a "glamour model" as an aspiration. It's an outgrowth of the famous for being famous phenomenon in part, but sad when compared to the aspirations the girls I as at school with typically had.

That is prehaps the problem. If you want a highly groomed tache, such as Gable's, you don't just let it grow naturally. You gotta shave & shape it while it's growing. Using a cut throat razor would be preferable to a modern safety razor as you can get a much cleaner moustache edge & you have to keep that baby trimmed too which means getting comb & scissors out at least once a week.

Yip. LOTS o' work for a regular working stiff....

I met Tom Selleck a few years ago. He is one big dude. I'm 6'1" and he towered over me, also, he is a big boned, big framed guy. Even if he wasn't a movie star - you'd notice him in any room.

From what I've read, Stalin was a short, stocky, compact guy, but also one that could command a room with his presence. Still, I don't see Selleck playing Stalin.

Stalin was 5'2". That's why he was perfectly happy at Yalta, and the other post-WW2 peace conferences, to be picture sitting down with Truman and Churchill / Atlee. (All the official group photos had them seated). Truman was, of course, seeking to avoid being perceived as weak as might have been the case had the American people seen him in a wheelchair. Stalin was just fine with this as he didn't want to be pictured as a little man over whom other leaders towered.

Selleck must be at least a foot too tall to play Stalin. (Course, a lot of us said the same thing about Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine at a time, and now we can't imagine anyone else in the role! ). Gerard Depardieu would be a good choice for an older Stalin; perhaps Sacha Baren Cohen for young Stalin.

It's the same thing that was going on in the 90s when suddenly you started to hear aging boomer men with spray tans trying to spout hip-hop slang -- my old radio boss and his ridiculous "Yo, whut it izzzzzzzzzz" every morning. When a generation begins to sense that it is becoming passe, it will go to great lengths to try and seem relevant. The early '70s were the golden age of this in popular culture -- too many aging entertainment figures of the passing generation were desperately trying to seem "with it" without much more than a Sunday-supplement sense of what "it" was. I remember seeing Benny Goodman, of all people, on TV at some point in the 70s with hair down to his collar and big fuzzy sideburns, and feeling really embarassed for him. At least he didn't grow a big moustache.

I do love to drop the occasional "Word on the street is..." in front of my undergraduate charges, just to watch their skin crawl.

In this part of the world, one of the worst and most prevalent examples of this was the series of "Wassup" Budweiser commercials that began in 1999.

Most. Hateful. Ads. EVER.

I think I hated them even more because of the weak parody thereof in Scary Movie.

An example of this was an incident that happened while traveling threw Dallas at three in the morning. In an effort to stay awake I stopped in some out of the way convenience store. While shopping quickly realized that I was being followed by a couple of "pants on the ground" types. I hastily made my way to the checkout, grabbed a pack of gum and threw it on the counter. The lady at the register who apparently was watching the whole thing , grinning ear to ear said " honey, they are harmless....get what you want". The pair was waiting outside the door and as I walked to my car one said almost apologetically "nice hat" and the other added...."nice stash" then went on their way . Encouraging words for both of my "vices" and woke me up for another two hundred miles of driving.
perhaps someone ought to start a " show us you stash" thread.

Isn't it funny how the hip hop kids are so often the ones who 'get' it? I've had to wholly rethink my own assumptions viewing some of them locally when my experience was they're always the first to genuinely compliment what I'm doing. And often the politest too (my partner occasionally has mobility issues, and the absolute first to hold doors or offer her a seat on the bus are always young, black or Asian men in hip hop regalia. Hurrah for the shattering of stereotypes!

 

[MisterCairo]

In point of fact, only one of them was actually gay - the Native American, if memory serves.

The American show Saturday Night Live once had a recurring cartoon about two super heroes who appeared to be gay without it ever being established formally. in one episode, they go "under cover" as "a Native American and a motorcycle enthusiast" to blend in at a, ahem, club.

INterestingly, I'd always assumed that Harry Potter was a big part of bringing the style back into popularity among the kids....

You know you are getting old when you refer to them as John Lennon glasses (I own two pairs of officially licensed frames, prescription in both regular and sunglasses). Funny that I paid through the teeth for what are (were?) National Health glasses...

Most. Hateful. Ads. EVER.

I think I hated them even more because of the weak parody thereof in Scary Movie.

I hated them too, but I did enjoy their own parody, with the Yuppies (is that term still used???) calling each other "What are YOU doing?" "No, what are YOU doing"? "Oh, just watching the stock report, enjoying an import...".

One of the actors in that, he appeared in 40 Year Old Virgin too, is doing a life term for attempting to kill his girlfriend...

 

[Edward]

The American show Saturday Night Live once had a recurring cartoon about two super heroes who appeared to be gay without it ever being established formally. in one episode, they go "under cover" as "a Native American and a motorcycle enthusiast" to blend in at a, ahem, club.

Ha, yes.... that sounds fun. I always thought the Little Britain goes USA series with the two jocks in a similar set-up was pretty funny - and better observed than it got credit for being.

You know you are getting old when you refer to them as John Lennon glasses (I own two pairs of officially licensed frames, prescription in both regular and sunglasses). Funny that I paid through the teeth for what are (were?) National Health glasses...

Oh, tell me about it.... I think Lennon's were (at least some of them) NHS style.... Reminds me of Macca's Hofner bass. As a good kid who listened to his father's words on being sensible with money - and ho saw the other Beatle boys get into debt in the early days buying their Rics and Gretsches on the tick - he bought the original Hofner in part because it converted to left handed very easily, but also because it was a cheap instrument back then. These days, a genuine, German Hofner reissue of the same bass is in the region of GBP1600. Besr in mind that, in 1960, less than a grand more would have bought you the average house.....

I hated them too, but I did enjoy their own parody, with the Yuppies (is that term still used???) calling each other "What are YOU doing?" "No, what are YOU doing"? "Oh, just watching the stock report, enjoying an import...".

That's one I didn't see... I can imagine, though. Putsme in mind of the Armstrong and Miller WW2 RAF pilots with RP speaking in current street-kid dialect. Simple, but very funny.

One of the actors in that, he appeared in 40 Year Old Virgin too, is doing a life term for attempting to kill his girlfriend...

Yeesh. Back to Potter, one of either the Crabbes or the Goyles from the film run did abit of time after that for petty violence, if memory serves.

 

[MisterCairo]

Oh, tell me about it.... I think Lennon's were (at least some of them) NHS style

Here is the link to the frames I have (I have the traditional style however, without the nose clips - I have a permanent ridge etched into the bride of my nose!). I'm at the office and cannot copy pictures for some reason.

edit - worked out the image issue:

https://www.coolframes.com/glasses/...omens-rx-reading-prescription-eyeglasses.html

 

[Matt Crunk]

I'm actually been sporting a mustache quite a bit of late, along with growing my hair.

Sometimes mustache alone, and sometimes with a short trimmed beard

 

[Bamaboots]

I'm actually been sporting a mustache quite a bit of late, along with growing my hair.

Sometimes mustache alone, and sometimes with a short trimmed beard

Hey, Matt. I see you're back in Bama.

 

[Matt Crunk]

Hey, Matt. I see you're back in Bama.

Back in Bama for now. Looks like I've be splitting my time between Bama and NY for awhile, along with guest spots in other parts of the country. Had the earge to travel a lot lately.

 

[MisterCairo]

My father, a Royal Fusilier but serving with the RAF Iraqi Levies, Basra, Iraq, 1942.