April 8, 2020

"Brake out your small violins for these older male celebrities — their hair has grown voluminously out of control in isolation."

"Humble bragging about how wild their hair has grown while sheltering in place has become a trend among famous men, who are sharing photos of their untamed quarantine locks while salons, barbershops and beauty parlors sit shuttered.... Some actors and athletes have decided to lob off their locks instead."

That's NY Post headline.

It's right to tag this as humble bragging, wrong to spell like that ("brake" for "break," "lob" for "lop").

Anyway, I note that these are rough times for wig wearers. That thing will not grow. Maybe some toupee guys are so rich they're having messed-up, grown-out-looking wigs made to continue their sad charade.

95 comments:

Etienne said...

I brake out my break cleaner on my hearing canal, in order to thwart growth of pubic hair on my external auditory meatus.

Pubic ear hair brakes the sofa romance...

Darrell said...

Did the post hire NYT proofreaders?

Quaestor said...

And what of quarantined queer sex switchers? What are we to divine from their dolorous disguises?

Wince said...

"...wrong to spell like that ("brake" for "break," "lob" for "lop")."

Now popping and locking is a new way of talking
Things will work out for sure spinning out on the floor

Brake dancin'... brake out.
"

The Vault Dweller said...

Althouse: zero sympathy for balding men, and only the point of her bayonet for men in shorts.

BarrySanders20 said...

Lesbian minority mayors of big cities NOT hardest hit!

Rob said...

The illiteracy of many of today's journalists is downright shocking. The NY Post article is the latest example but far from an isolated one. With the cutbacks at so many newspapers, you'd think the reporters and editors who still have their jobs would be the most qualified. What possible facet of hiring by newspapers could explain the lowering of standards?

Quaestor said...

Ah, the saturninity of the gerrymandered genders, gratuitous gravy from the Wuhan unwellness.

Friedrich Engels' Barber said...

I'm saying it's out-of-control beards make a man sexy, not hair. (Whistles a tune.)

RK said...

Real men cut their own hair.

Fernandinande said...

It's right to tag this as humble bragging,

Don't see it at all, they're just goofing around. Actors always want people to look at them, so what else is new?

Freeman Hunt said...

Why humble bragging?

robother said...

Those armies of copy editors and proofreaders are furloughed in the mainstream media. Welcome to bloggershere, writer boys! Althouse has been working without a net for years, not as easy as it looks.

Locks are for lopping, grenades are for lobbing. Breakds are for dancing, brakes are for....

Gahrie said...

Maybe some toupee guys are so rich they're having messed-up, grow-out-looking wigs made to continue their sad charade.

How about all the gals wearing extensions? care to throw a little shade their way?

clint said...

On a related note, Senator Rand Paul appears to have joined Senator Ted Cruz in discovering that he looks better with facial hair.

Jason said...

IT'S CALLED A "POST-APOCALYPTIC MULLET" AND IT'S MINE!

Ralph L said...

Why humble bragging?

I look so horrible with all this hair.

Lyssa said...

“Maybe some toupee guys are so rich they're having messed-up, grow-out-looking wigs made to continue their sad charade.”

This really needs a link to the scene in the Dick van Dyke show where Alan Brady lines up all of his toupees to lecture Laura after she accidentally revealed that he wears one.

Ken B said...

Humble bragging is bragging. But this isn’t bragging is it? I can imagine examples of humble bragging easily enough. Look, I finally cleaned out my 17 walk in closets! But Fernandistein is right. This is just garden variety attention seeking.

J Melcher said...

Lyssa beat me to the Alan Brady idea. Yes, yes, exactly


https://youtu.be/wGEOjxtQtWc

Tom T. said...
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Bob Smith said...

It’s almost as bad as Poil Arbor.

Sebastian said...

"I note that these are rough times for wig wearers."

I note these are rougher times for hair stylists.

But they are just working-class women, so no one cares--yet.

Tom T. said...

Baffling article. I'm not famous, but it's still a fact that my hair is out of control. Everyone's is. My office is having a contest over it, in fact.

None of this is bragging in any sense, and none of it is mockery of the stylists thrown out of work by the shutdown.

Rick.T. said...

Look at me! Look at me!

Who cares? Besides I doubt many of these people go down to Sportsclips and wait in line. I'm guessing they have enough pull to have their stylist come out to them.

stevew said...

Inquiring minds want to know: what do their HSPs think about the newly untamed locks?

iowan2 said...

On a related note, Senator Rand Paul appears to have joined Senator Ted Cruz in discovering that he looks better with facial hair.

I have a buddy that's a nurse, working the COVID floor. He went clean shaven, head and face. Because the virus can attach to hair. YMMV

Derve Swanson said...
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stevew said...

Men have unruly hair, women have exposed roots. Oh the humanity.

Lincolntf said...

Humble bragging is for pussies, I straight up brag. Always have, always will. But I never exaggerate or lie when I'm bragging, that shit makes you a punk.

Bob Boyd said...

Flowbee, baby! I got mine before the hoarding started.

stevew said...

It ain't braggin' if it's true.

gilbar said...

i razored off my hair two days ago
it looks Stupid, but No one is going to see it

LYNNDH said...

No problem. I normally get a haircut and beard trim every 2 months. A month or two more won't hurt me. But I am sure that my barber is taking a serious financial hit. She is a single mother of two high schoolers. When I get to go back the tip will be much higher than normal.

narciso said...

enemy action

fleg9bo said...

My hair was short when all this started. I hope it’s not more than slightly shaggy by the time it’s over. I’ve had a ‘stache and goatee forever but now I’m letting the cheeks grow in. It’s taking a long time to fill in, or at least to look filled in, because my hair is no longer dark.

hstad said...

Well, I guess most people are following the 'lock-down' commands of governments by not getting a haircut. Well, except for the 'Mayor of Chicago'. Just another 'Elite' giving orders to their peons.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-chicago-lori-lightfoot-haircut-20200406-jmyz2wtccnadlknya7hzbetevy-story.html

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

I predict more man-buns.

Calypso Facto said...
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Derve Swanson said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
wild chicken said...

nothing looks worse than a multi-colored, scraggly lengthed, stubbley "beard".

Yeah Boomer Beard. Add a ball hat and they all look the same. Bleah.

And Althouse does have sympathy for bald guys, else she would not accuse the more hirsute of bragging about their dumb luck.

Lurker21 said...

This really needs a link to the scene in the Dick van Dyke show where Alan Brady lines up all of his toupees to lecture Laura after she accidentally revealed that he wears one.

I don't remember that one. But I do remember one where for some reason he couldn't leave New Rochelle and worried about having to see his doctor or dentist in White Plains. It seemed very relevant now.

The scripts of Dick's show are now in the National Comedy Center, located in Jamestown, New York (Lucille Ball's home town). It's not entirely federally funded, but did it really need government money at all?

h said...

I intended to get a haircut before all this began, but I never got around to it. I have some barber clippers and I could give myself a buzzcut. (I use the clippers to keep my beard trimmed.) What say you? Should I give myself a buzz cut, or let the hair grow?

Marc in Eugene said...

There are several quarantine sillinesses on TikTok meant to distract from the plague, one of which features several bars from a song by The Weeknd, listened to 650 million times on Spotify, which number I find almost literally unbelievable. I, who am barely sufficiently well coordinated to dance what was called in the days of my youth 'the box step', will admit to being amused by some of those videos: parents' indulging their home from school children, spouses convinced by their partners (against his or her better judgment, one supposes) to indulge etc etc.

Narr said...

Well, as a fairly hirsute male of a certain age, with a full (if no longer lush) head of wavy locks (no m.p. baldness in my genes!), who had finally found a guy's barbershop, and was getting monthly trims (I favor short, some length on top, skin around the ears) I may have to go back to having my wife cut my hair. She did it before, when we were young and carefree, and I got sick and tired of sweating under the freak flag . . .

Once a week or so I shave everything but my bits of lip and cheek hair. On my face.

Go for it, h!

COVID-19 can't survive long on sunburned scalps.

Narr
What, you guys didn't know that?

Etienne said...

A buzzcut requires a tan, or you can use that orange ferric chloride like the President uses on his skin.

I trained my wife many years ago, and when I snap my fingers, she does whatever I... ouch, wait... ow!

narciso said...

whose the tool

JaimeRoberto said...

Real men cut their own hair.

Wrong. Real men have their wife cut their hair.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

remeber the flowbee?

we can all travel back to the 80's in style.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

"Are a refreshing vacuum haircut.

With this product you save money! Save time! Vacuum haircut."

Narr said...

Wife, girlfriend, what's the diff?

Narr
Delilah, get your ass in here

Francisco D said...

Althouse: zero sympathy for balding men, and only the point of her bayonet for men in shorts.

Maybe she does have a heart of stone.

That reminds me. Shorts season in southern Arizona starts soon. I will hold out as long as possible, but it will be shorts and sandals EVERY DAY for about 6 months.

I prefer 6" shorts. I hate the long baggy ones. Does that make a difference to Althouse?

Narr said...

For lack of a Cafe post, I'll pre-position this: What did WHO know, and when did WHO know it?

Narr
Walkies!

FullMoon said...

This situation is making me impatient.

Going to follow Narr's lead and not wait for cafe.

Besides, this info much more important than haircuts'

"Bob Dylan’s latest single “Murder Most Foul,” his first original song in eight years, is also now the folk-rock icon’s first No. 1 hit on a Billboard chart.

“Murder Most Foul” is a sweeping 17-minute ballad about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, and according to Billboard, the song debuted at No. 1 on the Rock Digital Song Sales survey.

Billboard reports that the song hit 10,000 downloads in its first week and was streamed 1.8 million times in the U.S., which landed it at #5 on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart. The track also has 2.7 million views on YouTube since debuting on March 26."
https://www.thewrap.com/bob-dylan-scores-first-ever-no-1-hit-with-17-minute-murder-most-foul-ballad/

rhhardin said...

Keep a pair of barber scissors by the computer and cut off any hair that feels too long. No need to do much at once. It doesn't look bad. Last commercial haircut 1975.

rhhardin said...

I remarked that the DMV misspelled blonde last year. Blonde is for the female, blond for the male. The guy took no notice of the correction.

Brunet(te) is the other adjective inflected for gender in English.

GingerBeer said...

Alan Brady: "Or this one, my Alan you need a haircut."

https://youtu.be/wGEOjxtQtWc

Chris Lopes said...

So passing high school English is not a job requirement in modern journalism. Good to know.

Jon Ericson said...

So I'll give ol' Bob the benefit of the doubt and say he's warnin', not wishin'.
Ol' Bob's got eyes that see.

Mark said...
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Mark said...

This is the first time I have been able to dare going with not shaving altogether and let it all grow out. I've gone a couple of weeks before when traveling on vacation, but never for this long. Because it is scraggly, you really can't do it when you have to go into work every day.

bagoh20 said...

Imagine the unseen horrors due to no Brazilian waxing and anal bleaching. Oh, the humanity!

Doug said...

In two more weeks, I will have a Kentucky Spoiler.

Kai Akker said...

What is this "small violin" bs? Sick of dumb crap.

walter said...

It bugs me that Fauci describes mitigation as keeping our foot on the accelerator.

bagoh20 said...

I'm pulling mine out. This shit sucks. I am getting tired of having nowhere to go, but that's minor. I'm mostly sick of the news hyping it up constantly, and constantly negative. It's making people around me just miserable and miserable to be with. I have never watched so little news in my life. I have just stopped completely. I go to my sites for actual numbers, I come here, and I watch Youtube videos about everything else, but you have to really work at it to avoid COVID content. It's like nothing else is happening in the world, and I know that's not true.

ALP said...

OK I gotta humblebrag about my parnter - he who decided back in November of 2019 to grow out his thick, thick, thick black hair to donate for wigs. How could he have known? Wait a minute what DID HE KNOW when he KNEW IT?

bagoh20 said...

If a nuclear bomb falls in the world, and there is a virus epidemic, does anyone hear about it?

rehajm said...

...to continue their sad charade, says the daffy bottle blonde.

bagoh20 said...

At narciso's link: "Poll Shows Americans Blaming China, Not Trump, for Coronavirus Pandemic"

It tells you a lot that such a thing would even be a possible question. Can you imagine a world where it would even be asked if a Democrat President was responsible for a pandemic. I mean, I know Trump is incredibly evil, but really?

Lurker21 said...

This is when all those gadgets men got as gifts but never use could come in handy.

But please, if you don't have clippers, don't try to use that nose hair trimmer.

walter said...

The long haired should braid it into a mask.

Mark said...

Has Italy gone over the hump?

Mark said...

The long haired should braid it into a mask.

Not if they are Cherokee. They have other uses for Cherokee hair.

Fritz said...


Blogger LYNNDH said...
No problem. I normally get a haircut and beard trim every 2 months. A month or two more won't hurt me. But I am sure that my barber is taking a serious financial hit. She is a single mother of two high schoolers. When I get to go back the tip will be much higher than normal.


I got my last haircut just a couple of days before the governor’s shutdown. I paid her double with the comment that it might be a while.

Mark said...

Italy is definitely on the downslope.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

Sebastian said...
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Sebastian said...

For lack of a cafe, or a separate post:

"I don’t know why President Obama hasn’t supported Joe Biden a long time ago. There’s something he feels is wrong,” Trump said during a Wednesday press briefing at the White House. He went on to remark that Obama would not want him to win reelection. “He knows something that you don’t know, that I think I know. But you don’t know,” Trump added. Trump went on to say there’s “a weird deal going on” in the party, pointing out that Sen. Bernie Sanders said he’s keeping his delegates, a move the Vermont Independent made clear is to further his progressive platform during the nomination process. “He didn’t really drop out. What about his delegates?” Trump said. “I mean, he said he’s going to keep his delegates. That’s a weird deal going on."

Have we have ever had a more knowing president, so completely on to his adversaries' game?

Ann Althouse said...

"Althouse: zero sympathy for balding men..."

I said nothing about "balding" men.

"Balding" is a silly word, but the fact that you talk about "sympathy" actually turns the attention to you. Obviously, you think baldness is bad or you wouldn't think it is a matter for sympathy.

I made fun of the celebrities who are choosing to show off their ample hair and of people who use wigs to hide the condition of their head. Where's the antagonism to baldness in that?

You've exposed yourself.

Mark said...

It looks like Italy will be rejoicing on Easter.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

I need a vacuum haircut. If you know what I mean.

wildswan said...

Well my hair is just sooo thick that no one but a trained stylist can cut it and so as I wait it is growing out and it grows sooo quickly as well as sooo, sooo thickly that all the natural wave is being pulled out by the weight. And also I know a place where they are cutting hair but I haven't gone there. For I am the very model of a modern major citizen.

Nancy said...

An old roue in "Jean Santeuil" conceals his baldness by owning 40 wigs, each one with slightly longer hair than the previous one. He wears them in rotation, and then goes back to the first wig explaining he had a haircut.

Fernandinande said...

I made fun of the celebrities who are choosing to show off their ample hair and of people who use wigs to hide the condition of their head. Where's the antagonism to baldness in that?

Here's the lack of sympathy you expressed about men, not "people", hiding the condition of their bald or balding heads: "Maybe some toupee guys..their sad charade."

Wearing clothes is a sad charade, too, people hiding the condition of their bodies.

You've exposed yourself.

By correctly characterizing what you wrote?

Lest you incorrectly think I've exposed myself, I have a really nice thick full head of hair, with a bit of "salt and pepper" that gives a misleading impression of respectability.

dreams said...
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Ann Althouse said...

It’s humble bragging because it’s presented as if it’s a problem but it’s actually showing off something they’re proud of, in this case, lush, thick, healthy, natural hair.

Ann Althouse said...

“ Here's the lack of sympathy you expressed about men, not "people", hiding the condition of their bald or balding heads: "Maybe some toupee guys..their sad charade."”

That’s just saying it’s sad to be ashamed and try to hide. Come out of the closet. Own it. Be yourself.

That you took it as you did shows your distaste, not mine.

Most people think toupees are bad. It’s pretty tame to scoff at toupees.

Ann Althouse said...

“ Lest you incorrectly think I've exposed myself, I have a really nice thick full head of hair...”

My point was that you’ve exposed yourself as a hater of baldness. Your assurance that you have thick hair increases the exposure.

There’s no wig for that.

The Vault Dweller said...

I made fun of the celebrities who are choosing to show off their ample hair and of people who use wigs to hide the condition of their head. Where's the antagonism to baldness in that?

I agree that your post was largely making fun of men, humble bragging about having a full head of hair. I also never said you were antagonistic to baldness. Merely, that you had no sympathy for balding men.

And that was based on your reference to men who chose to wear the most suitable hairpieces they can find/afford, as a "Sad Charade". Calling that lifestyle choice, a sad charade, shows very little sympathy for a man who merely wants to alter their appearance so it is more pleasable to them. It is perfectly fine for men to want to look in the mirror and feel happy with their appearance. Frankly suggesting it is sad, is a little bit sexist. As if only women can chose on their own to alter their appearance to make themselves feel better about their appearance. Your individual opinion on how a man should or should not feel about his appearance based on his own individual beauty steps undertaken is unfairly controlling, and a little matriarchal in assuming that the Female Gaze should be the arbiter of what male beauty is.

veni vidi vici said...

Seacrest's beard is obviously fake; you can see the lining/mesh behind the hair along its topline. The long hair in back probably is, too. No one consuming no amount of aloe vera and other nutrients and elixirs for hair would under any circumstances see that kind of length in 4 weeks.

As a lampoon of the other celebs brag-posting about their hair growth, though, it's pretty effective humor.

Amadeus 48 said...

NY Post copy editors clearly arrrh in quarantine, matey.

Amadeus 48 said...

Mayor Lori Lightfoot sympathizes with these C-list celebs and suggests that these people run for elective office so they can avoid the restrictions that they impose on others.

Amadeus 48 said...

"There’s no wig for that."

But there may be a merkin.

Amadeus 48 said...

In the old Dick Van Dyke show, Alan Brady (played by Carl Reiner) goes through the whole toupée progression routine after he is "exposed" by Laura on a talk show.

Fernandinande said...

My point was that you’ve exposed yourself as a hater of baldness.

Jeezus...your projections and imaginatings are really quite ridiculous. Troll much when you get caught out?

Here's what you said about bald women, it's quite hypocritically different than what you said about men:

"If you're bald and you choose to wear wigs, it may be a good idea to wear a perfectly wiggy wig — like they say in the old song, a "wig-hat" — so that there's no expression of hiding or shame."

I think that, deep down inside, you're a hater of men, or at least a dis-liker of men in general, and making fun of "toupee guys" is just a way to obscure that fact since you have a very different attitude about wig-wearing women.