I have grown a Movember moustache.
You wouldn’t know it because of the face mask, which I have been urged to keep on, but she’s a beauty.
OK, I was hoping for a Ted Lasso/Burt Reynolds, dark and dense as Nordic noir, but what came in was more of an Aging Train Robber, like Bill Miner — another masked man! — which is still cool, apart from an unfortunate patch in the middle that, from a distance, makes me looks as though I want to invade Poland in search of a little lebensraum.
Others don’t like my moustache as much as I do. Co-workers avert their eyes with a combination of embarrassment and revulsion, as though I have a booger stuck to my lip. One friend, normally as inscrutable as a poker player, blanched and took the Lord’s name in vain. My wife has begun referring to me as her first husband.
These reactions probably reflect the relative rarity of moustaches today. Forty, 50 years ago, everybody had a moustache: Elliott Gould in MASH, Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I., Carl Weathers in Rocky (and, before that, as a B.C. Lion), Lanny McDonald, Frank Zappa, Hulk Hogan, Freddie Mercury, Lech Walesa, Yosemite Sam, the Village People, your mother-in-law.
Before that were Albert Einstein, Salvador Dali, Martin Luther King Jr., Clark Gable and both Karl and Groucho Marx. Even Gandhi had a non-violent lip ornament. Nietzsche looked like someone glued a raccoon on his face.
Yet it seems that over time, people grew to associate moustaches with those who were up to no good: Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Snidely Whiplash, your mother-in-law. It’s no coincidence that Canada hasn’t had a prime minister with a moustache since Robert Borden in the 1920s. (Bearded Trudeau doesn’t count.)
Today, men either go clean-shaven or look like hairy lumberjacks (or at least what hairy lumberjacks would look like if they worked in the gaming industry). Someone suggested I, too, go back to a full beard, though when I shaved off the last one, a pretty woman told me: “Losing your beard made you look a lot younger.” That made me blush and squirm until she added “Uglier, but a lot younger.” Someone else suggested I grow Chia hair on the top of my head, or try some of that spray-on stuff.
But I digress. The point I was trying to make was that — Ted Lasso aside — moustaches aren’t as in style as they were. You could probably say that of Movember, too. A dozen years ago, there were all sorts of guys sprouting facial hair in the name of men’s health, particularly prostate and testicular cancer, but in recent times, it feels as though the novelty has worn off.
That’s too bad, because the cause itself, with a broader embrace of wellness in general, is still worthy. In fact, it’s even more important as the pandemic puts pressure on mental health.
This is where the moustache fun gets serious. “It’s one of those things that we just don’t talk about,” says Colin Newell.
A lot of guys retreat and quietly isolate themselves in a dark place when under strain, he says. It’s important, particularly now, to be aware of that and to reach out to one another, let each other know that help is there if needed.
Newell does systems-IT work at UVic. For the past dozen years, he has captained the department’s Movember effort. He somehow persuaded me to join the IT team this year, which was a bit like asking Trump to teach Ethics, but let’s not fault him for that.
The point he is trying to make is that it’s important to both talk and listen to one another when needed. “The difference between not coping and thriving can often come down to a conversation,” he says.
It sounds like something the moustachioed Lasso, the kindest character on television, might say.
Alas, while Lasso’s stache might remain, I have been told that mine will be shaved off Dec. 1, quite possibly at one minute after midnight. Too bad all our problems couldn’t disappear so easily.
jknox@timescolonist.com
