It’s disturbing how many balding men I see every day. Maybe dudes are working too much or maybe the gene pool is hideously fractured or maybe men in this country are just a bunch of pussies and they cower at the first strand of hair they find in their combs and decide they should adopt baldness as their pathetic destiny.

Of course, this phenomenon isn’t purely American because Canada is the baldest place on earth. In fact, if it wasn’t for Geddy Lee and the McKenzie Brothers there would not be a hair on the head of a single Canadian. It’s the land of the frozen follicle, that’s why the average Canuk wears a hockey helmet in public.

I get short hair, a buzz cut, a crew cut and I understand that when a dude starts to go monk, that is, when he sees the round spot on the top of his head growing into a full moon, a really short haircut can be a safe harbor. I’m okay with that, you know, keeping it simple, being able to wash all bodily surfaces with a single bar of soap. What I don’t understand is shave-your-head guy. You’ve seen shave-your-head guy, right? Of course, he’s fuckin’ everywhere. He thinks his shiny melon is a fashion statement – it’s not. Almost all of them walk around like they’re badasses, and they certainly could be. I’ll never know. The fact is that if a guy has this kind of head obsession, then he’s undoubtedly obsessed with tons of other funky shit. As such I give these headcases a wide berth and make a point of never engaging them in conversation.

You see, most people believe that hair was put on the human head to prevent heat from leaving the body and/or to provide camouflage for Dumbo ears. That would be false on both counts. The hat was invented to keep the head warm and big fuckin’ ears were devised to help uncoordinated people keep their balance, sorta like a natural stabilization system and not even the healthiest head of hair can disguise those kind of ears. No, head hair was invented for the sole purpose of hiding the human head.

It’s a hideous site. Why would anyone intentionally bald themselves while there was still hope for even one human hair? The bald head is like a lumpy, distorted, moguled planet. It has a freak show quality to it that always triggers the reflex of looking away.

Ever sit behind a really tall shave-your-head guy on an airplane? You’ll need to keep the barf bag close at hand. There are rolls of head fat as the head nears the shirt collar. You’ll find divots and crevices and speed bumps and a distorted overall shape that probably lists to one side. Oh shit, there’s the scar the dude got in third grade when he ran headfirst into the tetherball pole! Studying the bald head is like the human skull version of palm reading.

Shave-your-head guy is just another example of people being inconsiderate of their fellow man. It’s a sight no one likes to see. And maybe the worst, most disingenuous part of all this is that shave-your-head guy uses the Telly Savalas bit to make us all think that he’s not really mostly bald, “No, I’m not bald, just stylish.”

We all see right through this hairless disguise, don’t we?

Photo credit: M Domondon on Best Running / CC BY-NC-ND