The Wet Secrets – Grow Your Own Fucking Moustache, Asshole

Album:
Rock Fantasy
Year :
2007
RIYL :
Wolfmother / Muse / Kings of Leon

November is, for whatever reason, a month that has been graced with a couple month-long personal tests of endurance. The one which has always interested me most is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to throw down 50,000 words worth of novel in 30 days. One need not be writing great prose, or thinking over every plot twist. This isn’t supposed to be publishable, just complete. If a writer likes it, hey, they have 50,000 words to muddle through and edit and maybe a novel comes of it. If not, hey, you’re writing, right? I’ve long had difficulty reigning in my artistic muses and simply sitting down to write. I am always caught up in making things “perfect” and “not having ideas”… the thought of just writing carefree, with the intention of completion instead of quality, is appealing, and so I’ve long been interested in trying to compete. Being able to succeed would take a lot of work and plenty of energy and time, but it would be something to be proud of.

The other, more popular Feat of November Endurance, however, is something I’ve been pretty good at for years now: growing facial hair. Movember, or No-Shave November, as it’s more logically referred to at times (at what point in history has “mo” been acceptable and interpretable slang for mustache? Never. Stop it right now) is a campaign to grow mustaches for donations. I’ve never much understood the “donate and I’ll do this silly thing” trend. If you’re collecting for a cause I believe in, and I have money, I don’t need you to pledge to walk a mile, or eat a raw egg, or get dropkicked by pro wrestlers… I will just give you money for the cause. Something about being able to grow facial hair, however, seems to draw people in. I mean, I know at least one incredibly smart, witty, and sexually inspiring individual with a glorious goatee, so I can see the allure. It’s a big hairy celebration of man-ness, right down to the raising-awareness-for-mens-health-issues part of the deal. As a man, I like men’s health. Big fan, really. But I don’t really understand the connection.

The weird thing about Movember, however, is that it taps into the really primal, ugly machismo that in 2013 we should probably be getting over. We have this image, as a society, of facial hair representing a rugged masculinity. People without the capability to grow a thick topiary ’round their mouth-holes are seen as less virile by some. Every November, you can rest assured that people will sound the alarm about their manliness and mustache-growing plans. Except maybe we’re past caring about such things. Facial hair, and the growth thereof, doesn’t make one a man. Other more genitalia-based things determine that. My beard and I can assure you, you can have a prodigious face-bush going on and still have trouble with pickle jars and not care about sports. It will not make your voice deeper, and it will not bring in the ladies. Seriously, the supply and demand ratio there simply won’t work to your favor. More importantly, though, why does it matter? What does “manly” even mean in 2013? Should it mean anything? Is beating one’s chest for the innate ability to sprout fuzz all over one’s body doing anyone any good? I think about the women out there who have been held down out of unrealistic, outdated views of what is “ladylike.” I don’t doubt that, for many less testosterone-laden men, our outdated views of the masculine have been no less torturous.

Of course, the thing is, there is nothing wrong with mustaches. There are lots of bad ones, sure (my sister’s husband once had the worst porncop ‘stache ever), but that’s about taste level, not facial hair itself. It’s a choice, like any other image choice, and neither good nor bad. Like all such choices, however, it should be done for oneself. It is great to be confident and happy with it, but it is absolutely ludicrous to pat oneself on the back for it. That’s the confusing thing. It’s sort of like our cultural bacon obsession. Again, like mustaches, I am a huge proponent of bacon. It is delicious, and understandably popular, but it has taken a position as some sort of odd Totem of Manhood. Why, though, does it matter? What does “being a man,” in a non-biological sense, mean, and why is it necessary to be one? It’s one of the quintessential problems of celebrating things which are already the privileged position; I’m totally happy with being a man, and not just because millennia of patriarchal society has left me in a damn good position. I just don’t think it makes a lot of sense to celebrate it. It’s not like culture, where you can share new perspectives with your friends, and it’s not like being on the other side of the power coin, where a celebration can help express the agency of people often ignored. By celebrating these trivial aspects of “manliness,” our major message is that being more manly is good, which suggests things which are less manly are bad. To be sure, there are qualities associated with men that are positive, but they are positive in all people, not simply positive for being male-identified… it’s a perhaps subtle difference, but a real one. It’s simply important to understand what we might be saying underneath our actions.

All this leads in a roundabout way to today’s song, which is in some ways a quintessential man-song. It’s got a crunchy, deep tone and rock swagger, some shouted group-vocals, and it’s about, well, anger, vulgarity, and facial hair. There is something incredibly satisfying about the whole package, right down to the trumpet riff. The charm, however, lies in large part in the absurdity. That a song like this would exist is baffling. Why would anyone demand something so silly from a friend, and in such a belligerent way? Therein lies the connection, to me: this chastisement over not having one’s own mustache is the height of ridiculous. Is the recipient of those words envious of another’s mustache? Does the speaker think the other can take a mustache from him for himself? It becomes either a show of how far rage can go, over even the most ludicrous things, or else a frustrated plea: “Be yourself, dammit. Don’t try to copy my mustache because I have one and you don’t.” We do so many things to fit into groups, fandoms, clubs… it wouldn’t hurt to do things purely for ourselves.

That all said, it probably is true that your iPod is missing a good song about a mustache. Maybe this is just what you’ve needed. But I won’t judge your media center if it chooses to remain clean-shaven.



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Alex Lupica (@Alex_Soundtrack) has been in love with music since he was a toddler, despite its infidelities. (Really, music? Nu-metal? How could you!). Alex is Editor-in-Chief at The Daily Soundtrack.

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