So I’ve been studying the teenage species in order to successfully integrate with them in film school. Damn. What a difference ten years makes. I`m sure if I were 18 I`d think these teenage dudes were the hottest hot that ever hotted, but right now all I can say is, geesh, these guys need some grooming.
There are two types on the loose right now:
- Hobbit: Okay. Guys have been wearing their hair way too long since prolly 2001. It started out innocently enough — first there was short, normal hair combed forward with a little product in it — the Caesar, and George Clooney did it. Fine. Then it got Queer as Folked with a little more product and a little fin in the front. No problem — Hal Sparks did it, it can’t be bad. Then there was a bedhead thing that mussed it up in all directions. Okay, getting harder to take home to the parents, but whatever. But THEN, with the same gloppy greasy amount of product, guys started doing something on purpose that’s been happening to at residential high schools by accident for years: growing their hair out and getting hat head. Okay — you know how you look at old yearbooks and think, who in the world thought this was a good haircut? THIS IS THAT HAIRCUT.
This is progress?So now apparently the thing is the same length hair without product, so it mops all over your head. This suits wavy-haired dudes better than straight-haired dudes, but the hair doesn’t stand alone. Oh no. These moppy, wavy-haired dudes also wear 1) shorts, so they can telegraph to the world that they are TWELVE, and 2) sandals, so you can see their nubile fuzzy feet. Maybe this resolves a sock tan issue. But what you get, with moppy hair, shorts and sandals is 100% gawky hobbit. I ain’t got a digital camera, so if you want to see a real life example you’re gonna have to go to a first run movie or an under-21 club. Here is the hair, at least. Don’t be fooled by how palatable it can be on a twenty-something with long pants and a stylist. Teamed up with naked toes and some Old Navy cargo shorts it is a tonsorial fart in church.
You`d never catch Fez with this haircut. Mmm, Valderrama…And yet… there’s something worse…
- Shave-raham Lincoln: I can’t even guess at where this one came from. It’s these guys who have head hair and neck beards all clipped to about a quarter-inch. I don’t know if they can’t grow mustaches, or if the mustache is too embarrassed to be affiliated with the rest of the grooming decisions, but O. M. G. I gotta try and find a picture of this. As if the shaved head and goatee weren’t weird enough.
Kind of like this, but with a little more beard and no mustache.I thought this was too bad for famous people to get tangled up in. But I knew I could count on Colin Farrell to look like crap in the newest, edgiest way possible. Viggo Mortenson has gotten close, but he’s never rocked the shaved head and the short beard at the same time.
Kind of like this, but with beard from ear to ear.Finally — the hobbit/Shave-raham connection. Balance is restored.
Not that the ladies are getting off the hook. Apparently ballet flats are coming in this season — they`ll go real nice with that short flirty skirt, so the world sees your underpants and STILL your legs look stubby. I foresee great rebellion against the ballet flats. Anyone tall enough not to mind how their legs look isn’t going to like the way their feet look. Anyone dainty enough not to mind how their feet look isn’t going to like giving up their heels and boot-cut jeans. But maybe I`m wrong. Maybe we’re ready to think we look like Audrey Hepburn running around in loose dowdy calf-length skirts and ballet flats with grubby toe cleavage and fallen arches. H&M has a kind with heels. It blows my mind. Of course, cap sleeves blow my mind.
