I’ve had a deal with Cowgrit for several years: if I ever do anything really embarrassing with my hair to try to conceal a bald spot or a receding hairline, she not only can, but she must bring it to my attention.

Fortunately, I don’t have a bald spot, and my hair is not even thinning. I’ve got good genes in that regard. But if I were loosing my hair, I really hope I could come to accept it and live with it without going to ridiculous lengths to try and conceal the situation. I understand hair loss can be a traumatic problem for a man to deal with, but comb overs don’t make it look better. No one is fooled by a comb over.

Not only do comb overs not make a balding man look better, they can often make a balding man look worse — they can make a man look like a complete idiot. Would a man rather look just bald or bald-and-dorky? There are many bald men who look good, but there are few, if any (I can’t think of one) men who look good with a comb over.

The guy in this picture may think he looks fine with his comb over. After all, he can’t see the back of his head in a mirror. His wife or children should let him know what he looks like from behind. This poor guy might not really know how stupid his comb over looks from behind.

Ladies, you may be wanting for us to lie when you ask, “Do these pants make me look fat?” But a man usually wants the truth when he asks, “How does my hair look?” Even if the truth hurts your man’s feelings and ego, it’s just one moment of hurt versus a lifetime of embarrassing snickers from the other people around him.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

At a lunch gathering the other day, I off-handedly outted myself, to some folks I don’t know very well, as a Star Wars and Star Trek geek. I was surprised by the reaction. There were seven of us sitting at the table together, and the subject of “television in other countries” came up. During this conversation, I mentioned my happiness at finding Star Wars on TV in Sweden. In response to the looks of “So?” from everyone, I admitted to being a fan of the movies.

You’d have thought I said, “I like licking carburators.” The wide-eyed stares I got told me I had just been branded a weirdo. I didn’t even really say that much about it — maybe a total of 30 seconds worth of speaking on the subject. But a “fan” of Star Wars and Star Trek, to these people, means full-on fanatic.

They asked me if I dressed up in Star Wars costume. No, I’ve never. They asked if I go to Star Wars conventions. No, I’ve never, (but I’d like to, some time). They asked did I go see the movies on opening night. Yes, I did (for the first prequel in ’99).

Someone commented, “Oh god, I’d never stand in line for 24 hours to see any movie.” I wouldn’t either; I stood in line maybe one hour, with family and friends.

One guy told of a former coworker who dressed up as “one of those guys” every Halloween. When I asked which of “those guys,” his description made me say, “Oh, a Star Fleet officer — that’s Star Trek, not Star Wars.”

The response to that comment was, “Oh man, you should just stop talking. You’re getting deeper with every thing you say.”

I did stop talking on that subject (although I really hadn’t talked much about it). The whole situation stunned me.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I saw Captain America #36 on the rack in the local Border’s book store. The cover image showed Cap with a gun in his hand. This is so wrong.

If you don’t know, Captain America (Steve Rogers) died in the comics world (Marvel comics) last year. It was big news at the time, and I blogged on it. I predicted he’d come back. (I don’t know what happened with the Captain America series to reset the numbering. CA was well into the hundreds when I last read it, but this is issue #36 — that’s just three years of monthly publication.)

I picked up this issue just to see what they’re doing with this new Cap, and to see if a “Captain America with a gun” was as bad as I suspected it was. The whole concept of Captain America using a gun is completely antithetical to the character of Cap. Steve Rogers didn’t use a gun — he didn’t kill.

The new Captain America is James “Bucky” Barnes, the former young sidekick of Cap back in WWII. I know very little about James/Bucky because he was long “dead” before I picked up on Cap comics back in the mid 80s, and he hadn’t “come back” until long after I stopped regularly reading Cap comics in the late 90s.

New Cap is not as good a fighter as Old Cap, and he’s apparently very willing to kill his enemies. I don’t like him. In this one issue alone, New Cap shoots three bad guys (but none of them die). Now, this is not the first time someone with less morals (or mental stability) wore the Captain America uniform, so I’m not going to get all up in arms about this current situation — I just won’t buy another issue with this Cap’n A. This is not my style of Captain America.

I predicted (with no particular wisdom) that Cap would come back. The uniform has come back, but I don’t count that as fulfilling my prediction. The last page of this issue shows what looks like Steve Rogers in some kind of stasis chamber. This starts the fulfilling of my prediction. When Steve Rogers is wearing the red, white, and blue suit again, I’ll say, “Captain America is back.”

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com