Bristled.

Alec Baldwin was answering random questions for a while this morning on Twitter. I usually don’t participate in this sort of thing because I think it’s really weird when a person says “OMG SAY MY NAME ON TWITTER SO I CAN BE GIDDY” and then the celebrity complies. There is usually a squeal from Ms. Caps Lock after this time-stopping deed has been completed. But since Mr. Baldwin is a political activist of sorts I decided to ask a completely random question.

This is not entirely out of character for me to ask and honestly, I don’t find it all that odd. As a man that is obsessed with facial hair (lord knows I love me some furry faces) I am also equally obsessed with the removal of the scruff. I believe the way a man chooses to remove his naturally growing fur speaks a lot about him as a person, especially in the United States. (I’ve never been able to test my theories in other parts of the world).

I blame my father. My father has been clean shaven for as long as I have been alive and as far as I know, every morning he went into the bathroom and used a can of shaving cream and a razor to shave. My father is one of the most upstanding, honest men I know and therefore I equate this method of grooming with guys that give a damn about themselves, the world and are generally good citizens. There are exceptions to every rule of course, but my casual, completely unscientific observations over the years since making this personal determination have fit these assumptions about 90-95% of the time. Men that choose the use electric razors fling themselves through life working at putting on a quick façade to fit the situation at hand and then move on to the next situation to be whoever they need to be there, grinding away at their chin with a miniaturized lawn mower in between appearances. I see those guys as politicians, CEOs and men that own places like “Carl Tucker’s Used Cars”.¹ By the way, back in my wild, single years, I dumped a few guys, even a very rich one, because of this theory. My hunches proved to be right.

I have been doing a lot of listening of talk radio during my commute this week, simply because I want to wrap my head around the debt ceiling crisis and listen to all sides of the story. The new Jeep has satellite radio, so I have had the opportunity to listen to channels dubbed telling names like “Left”, “Right”, “Patriot” and “Power”. The arguments on both sides of the fence are interesting. I listened to Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson speak about his thoughts and I think I agreed with him. He is a proponent of a “consumption tax” versus an “income tax”. Anything consumed/purchased/etc is taxed 23%. Buy a banana for $1.00 and it costs $1.23, with $0.23 going to the government. Flat tax across the board for all citizens regardless of economic status. Spend more, pay more. Spend nothing (damn near impossible in today’s world), pay nothing. No income tax. No grave tax. No exemptions. No loopholes. Just a consumption tax.

Makes perfect sense to me.

I would wager that Gary is a blade man. He seems sensible in his libertarian ways. New Mexico re-elected him as a governor and they don’t seem worse for the wear.

The one nitpick I have is that everyone likes to pervert the word “Armageddon” to describe everything. They’re saying that on the 2nd of August, when the debt ceiling apparently will explode, that it’ll be Armageddon for the United States. Social Security payments will stop. By the way, that’s absolutely horrible and I think that anyone that paid into Social Security should absolutely get Social Security; perhaps we should lighten our foreign aid and take care of the people here in the U.S. until we get our ducks back in a row, but I could go on about that forever. Back to the Armageddon thing – please stop using that word to describe everything. 10 inches of snow is not Snowmageddon. The 405 being closed is not Carmageddon. A lack of venti cups at Starbucks is not Cappageddon. People, calm down with the “geddons”.

Anyways, I’m betting that most politicians currently in D.C. are electric razor users — grinding away at their chins twice a day so they look good for the public. Perhaps they should take their time and groom themselves properly in the morning so they can put their best face forward all day without having to sneak into the shadows to get ready for their next appearance.

And by the way, Alec never answered my question.

¹ Bonus points to the person who picks up on the relatively obscure pop culture reference.

² None of this refers to those that choose to be scruffy in any manner. That’s a whole separate topic in my world.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad