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Maybe this bit of viewpoint and story might help some guys in "the crisis" like I once was.
So I just read my 596th jab about guys wearing wigs (some crack by Ava Gardner about Charleston Heston) in some Vanity Fair article and though I usually stay away from blowing off on the internet I'm going do it for a change to all those two-leggeds who got lucky and still have all their hair but think it's ok to mock those of us who don't and our own grooming choices.
I lost near all of my once-gorgeous mane by the time I was 40 and though it near demolished the rickety self-image I'd been riding which included performing musician image (I'm not talking about the cellophane self-image I pasted together for professional tech career that got me to high five-figures), I indulged my then-wife and let her shave it all off to roll with "90's skinhead look". Which by the way I think looks great on non-whites, but I always thought looked not great on me and other white guys who COULD grow hair but choose to look like prisoners of war or just prisoners period.
So I walked around bullet-headed for nine years, wearing IQ-dropping baseball caps, and less IQ-dropping military berets (wool and hot) in a warm western climate, and then suffering like mad in freezing offices with AC vents blowing down on me, remembering the clip I'd read about all the bald guys in Napoleon's army dying first on the freezing march back from Russia. I could relate. But of course not being able to wear a headcover in a modern American office as it was "not to dress code". So after nine years of feeling nauseous looking into the mirror and suffering a tug-of-war with myself over hair replacement I said to myself "f**k it, wearing wigs goes way back, I'm going for it."
And it's worked. After a convenient break from my last bald-mode-dresscode pro job and well used to wearing wigs for a year or two, I re-entered the pro-job world wearing hair every day and guess what: In over 10 years now in multiple different offices and out in the world, not one person has ever "busted me", i.e. noticed it was a wig. Or if they did they didn't dare say anything. And it never slipped or fell off. The couple times I choose to tell the "secret" to a couple different women (at dentist's offices, etc), they were stunned "No way!". Yes, Way, because I wear good stuff. I don't suffer in offices anymore, or grocery stores or in the dentist's chair from AC freeze, or wherever else I might catch bad chills having to go bareheaded to "conform".
It's amazing but typical to me how it's ok in America, or wherever, for child cancer victims to get sympathy and donations for wigs to be made for them so they can "have a normal life", or if women's hair falls out from cancer or worrying about their thinning hair that it's accepted without mockery for them to do wigs, or you name it. Or all kinds of tied-on extensions for a night out. But somehow if a guy who wants to maintain a certain standard of look for himself by doing wigs, it's somehow ridiculous and "weak" or some other b.s. It's just another showoff of how ignorant this society is of traditions and history. Men wearing "systems" was the standard for centuries in Europe. Murdering bloodthirsty warriors considered it part of their standard costume and actually shocked the bowing peasants if they showed up in a parade without hair, or a hat (see "A Distant Mirror" by Barbara Tuchman). In other words, men made it a point to look like something with style. They did it for other reasons too, like lice, but a "gentleman", or even a commoner, showing up with a wig for style or freeze-protection was as noteworthy as someone brushing a fly away. Peter the Great, warrior and all-around fierce badass emperor of Russia in the late 1600's used to routinely grab some other guy's wig in church if he was cold, and then hand it back to the guy on leaving.
And as far as the whole "trying to hide with a wig" non-argument from men or women, I counter with the fact that it take a lot more balls to have a flexible mind and come up with nerve (i.e. flipoff attitude) to wear what is in effect just another prosthetic. Veterans and diabetic amputation casualties (too much fast food) showing up with steel legs and plastic arms never get any razz, that would impolite! Not to mention all those masks they used to make for the guys in World War One who'd gotten their faces blown off. And how is a modern guy under constant stress and pressure to make tons of dough, keep his job and marriage together, raise kids, and not be foreclosed on any less of a "veteran" I ask? I guess if he got his face ripped off in a car wreck his style-conscious wife wouldn't mind him getting some plastic surgery or wearing a mask. But she's somehow within her rights to "not have to deal with wigs falling off" if he tries to do something in that direction.
The British actor Patrick Stewart, star of Star Trek and a lot of other great movies, marvelled with a sneer in an interview once (I paraphrase): "It's supposed to be good manners to not needle someone on their appearance, but here in America it's open season on bald people!" No lie Patrick. And as far as ads with babes hanging all over the guy with his wig, maybe it's valid, but superfluous. I think that message is a bit of an insult to women's intelligence. I never wanted to do wigs to be admired by babes, I was already married and wasn't worried about it. She didn't care, but I cared. For me. The fact that, at 61 and divorced, I hooked up with quite a bombshell-looking woman who didn't give a damn if I wore a wig she was so starving for a considerate guy only proved it to me. I got a lot more sex with her than I ever got with my ex, and I wore a do-rag (that AC again) whenever I slept with her; the wig went back on the rack. And if I'd been an inconsiderate slob, with or without a wig I guarantee she wouldn't have returned the 2nd email.
Maybe if the wig ads showed an 18th century general in a wig making bloody tatters of hundreds of enemy with grapeshot (like they did), or a stunning looking current-day black or Hispanic stud calmly putting his wig back on after pounding some would-be rapist to bloody pulp and then dressing for the symphony with his woman, we'd have the proper positioning. There was a woman who came in to pick up her piece one day when I was there getting fitted and the stylist woman whispered to me "she's rattled because she thinks she's 'lying' to everyone by wearing it." I had to sniff. I thought "What's the diff anyway? She can pretend she had cancer. Bodies are all a cosmetic exercise anyway, especially these days. Is a woman 'lying' when she feels she can't go out without makeup? Can I help it if everyone is too lazy and slobbed out to bother looking like something these days? Why are they the standard?" Only a sucker would fall for it. Hair is maintenance and it's ironic that a wig is a lot less maintenance to me than my hair used to be. It's still a little work but so what. If you're going to have a look, it's maintenance. Just as ask any woman. What the hell. I've always done exactly what I wanted with my body and still do. Just ask my multiple doctors.
So I decided after a few years of getting the odd needle from "just joking" relatives and whoever else dared, what the proper attitude is when it comes to my wearing wigs, or whatever it takes to live up to my own standards. Which is: Everybody can F**K OFF. With knobs on. I'll wear it just to piss everybody off and make them bite their tongues. The more the better. I've never gone so far as to rip off my hair in the middle of party or office meeting and grin just to see the reaction, but I'm always ready to. "I'm practicing for an acting job if you don't mind, any questions?"
That's plenty of steam off and thank you. And for those on the fence, go get fitted and try it. No mail order, a real shop, then you can do mail order after you get your color, design, and dimensions right. The technology is excellent these days, and you can get a good looking piece for the price of three or four fancy dinners. Most come from Chinese shops through competitive American vendors and I even verified with my vendor whether I was subsidizing slave shops 'cause I didn't want to do that, and he assured me it wasn't the case. He had the same concerns and toured the supplier he bought from in China and found it a decent place and they appreciate the business and keep high technical & manufacturing standards. Then wear it in a place where no one knows you. Then don't wear it. Then wear it around a friend or two (REAL friends...). Be flip about it. It takes nerve and the ability to laugh at yourself. Just don't forget to laugh at everybody else. Good luck on your new look, warrior.
So I just read my 596th jab about guys wearing wigs (some crack by Ava Gardner about Charleston Heston) in some Vanity Fair article and though I usually stay away from blowing off on the internet I'm going do it for a change to all those two-leggeds who got lucky and still have all their hair but think it's ok to mock those of us who don't and our own grooming choices.
I lost near all of my once-gorgeous mane by the time I was 40 and though it near demolished the rickety self-image I'd been riding which included performing musician image (I'm not talking about the cellophane self-image I pasted together for professional tech career that got me to high five-figures), I indulged my then-wife and let her shave it all off to roll with "90's skinhead look". Which by the way I think looks great on non-whites, but I always thought looked not great on me and other white guys who COULD grow hair but choose to look like prisoners of war or just prisoners period.
So I walked around bullet-headed for nine years, wearing IQ-dropping baseball caps, and less IQ-dropping military berets (wool and hot) in a warm western climate, and then suffering like mad in freezing offices with AC vents blowing down on me, remembering the clip I'd read about all the bald guys in Napoleon's army dying first on the freezing march back from Russia. I could relate. But of course not being able to wear a headcover in a modern American office as it was "not to dress code". So after nine years of feeling nauseous looking into the mirror and suffering a tug-of-war with myself over hair replacement I said to myself "f**k it, wearing wigs goes way back, I'm going for it."
And it's worked. After a convenient break from my last bald-mode-dresscode pro job and well used to wearing wigs for a year or two, I re-entered the pro-job world wearing hair every day and guess what: In over 10 years now in multiple different offices and out in the world, not one person has ever "busted me", i.e. noticed it was a wig. Or if they did they didn't dare say anything. And it never slipped or fell off. The couple times I choose to tell the "secret" to a couple different women (at dentist's offices, etc), they were stunned "No way!". Yes, Way, because I wear good stuff. I don't suffer in offices anymore, or grocery stores or in the dentist's chair from AC freeze, or wherever else I might catch bad chills having to go bareheaded to "conform".
It's amazing but typical to me how it's ok in America, or wherever, for child cancer victims to get sympathy and donations for wigs to be made for them so they can "have a normal life", or if women's hair falls out from cancer or worrying about their thinning hair that it's accepted without mockery for them to do wigs, or you name it. Or all kinds of tied-on extensions for a night out. But somehow if a guy who wants to maintain a certain standard of look for himself by doing wigs, it's somehow ridiculous and "weak" or some other b.s. It's just another showoff of how ignorant this society is of traditions and history. Men wearing "systems" was the standard for centuries in Europe. Murdering bloodthirsty warriors considered it part of their standard costume and actually shocked the bowing peasants if they showed up in a parade without hair, or a hat (see "A Distant Mirror" by Barbara Tuchman). In other words, men made it a point to look like something with style. They did it for other reasons too, like lice, but a "gentleman", or even a commoner, showing up with a wig for style or freeze-protection was as noteworthy as someone brushing a fly away. Peter the Great, warrior and all-around fierce badass emperor of Russia in the late 1600's used to routinely grab some other guy's wig in church if he was cold, and then hand it back to the guy on leaving.
And as far as the whole "trying to hide with a wig" non-argument from men or women, I counter with the fact that it take a lot more balls to have a flexible mind and come up with nerve (i.e. flipoff attitude) to wear what is in effect just another prosthetic. Veterans and diabetic amputation casualties (too much fast food) showing up with steel legs and plastic arms never get any razz, that would impolite! Not to mention all those masks they used to make for the guys in World War One who'd gotten their faces blown off. And how is a modern guy under constant stress and pressure to make tons of dough, keep his job and marriage together, raise kids, and not be foreclosed on any less of a "veteran" I ask? I guess if he got his face ripped off in a car wreck his style-conscious wife wouldn't mind him getting some plastic surgery or wearing a mask. But she's somehow within her rights to "not have to deal with wigs falling off" if he tries to do something in that direction.
The British actor Patrick Stewart, star of Star Trek and a lot of other great movies, marvelled with a sneer in an interview once (I paraphrase): "It's supposed to be good manners to not needle someone on their appearance, but here in America it's open season on bald people!" No lie Patrick. And as far as ads with babes hanging all over the guy with his wig, maybe it's valid, but superfluous. I think that message is a bit of an insult to women's intelligence. I never wanted to do wigs to be admired by babes, I was already married and wasn't worried about it. She didn't care, but I cared. For me. The fact that, at 61 and divorced, I hooked up with quite a bombshell-looking woman who didn't give a damn if I wore a wig she was so starving for a considerate guy only proved it to me. I got a lot more sex with her than I ever got with my ex, and I wore a do-rag (that AC again) whenever I slept with her; the wig went back on the rack. And if I'd been an inconsiderate slob, with or without a wig I guarantee she wouldn't have returned the 2nd email.
Maybe if the wig ads showed an 18th century general in a wig making bloody tatters of hundreds of enemy with grapeshot (like they did), or a stunning looking current-day black or Hispanic stud calmly putting his wig back on after pounding some would-be rapist to bloody pulp and then dressing for the symphony with his woman, we'd have the proper positioning. There was a woman who came in to pick up her piece one day when I was there getting fitted and the stylist woman whispered to me "she's rattled because she thinks she's 'lying' to everyone by wearing it." I had to sniff. I thought "What's the diff anyway? She can pretend she had cancer. Bodies are all a cosmetic exercise anyway, especially these days. Is a woman 'lying' when she feels she can't go out without makeup? Can I help it if everyone is too lazy and slobbed out to bother looking like something these days? Why are they the standard?" Only a sucker would fall for it. Hair is maintenance and it's ironic that a wig is a lot less maintenance to me than my hair used to be. It's still a little work but so what. If you're going to have a look, it's maintenance. Just as ask any woman. What the hell. I've always done exactly what I wanted with my body and still do. Just ask my multiple doctors.
So I decided after a few years of getting the odd needle from "just joking" relatives and whoever else dared, what the proper attitude is when it comes to my wearing wigs, or whatever it takes to live up to my own standards. Which is: Everybody can F**K OFF. With knobs on. I'll wear it just to piss everybody off and make them bite their tongues. The more the better. I've never gone so far as to rip off my hair in the middle of party or office meeting and grin just to see the reaction, but I'm always ready to. "I'm practicing for an acting job if you don't mind, any questions?"
That's plenty of steam off and thank you. And for those on the fence, go get fitted and try it. No mail order, a real shop, then you can do mail order after you get your color, design, and dimensions right. The technology is excellent these days, and you can get a good looking piece for the price of three or four fancy dinners. Most come from Chinese shops through competitive American vendors and I even verified with my vendor whether I was subsidizing slave shops 'cause I didn't want to do that, and he assured me it wasn't the case. He had the same concerns and toured the supplier he bought from in China and found it a decent place and they appreciate the business and keep high technical & manufacturing standards. Then wear it in a place where no one knows you. Then don't wear it. Then wear it around a friend or two (REAL friends...). Be flip about it. It takes nerve and the ability to laugh at yourself. Just don't forget to laugh at everybody else. Good luck on your new look, warrior.