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| Image by Aldo Martino from Pixabay |
Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}, a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.
Dear Gentlereaders,
Some men look good with scruff; most do not in my semi-humble opinion. Many men look good with a mustache, goatee, beard, etc., but many men do not.
{Scruff?}
Scruff, a.k.a. designer stubble, is a name for/reason why so many men nowadays look like the late, not so great, Yasser Arafat.
{Who?}
Hoo-Boy, talk about complicated... I suggest following the link if you don't know, or perhaps even if you do. Quite the character. Terrorist, on-again off-again peace maker, and an alleged billionaire who lived modestly, but who took very good care of his many friends and his family.
Anyway, the only reason I mention him is...
{A rich terrorist? Did he live in Qatar? Wait, if he was so rich, where did all the money go? He's been dead for what, twenty years?}
There's a section in his Wikipedia article, linked to above, about all that money: "...in 2003, a team of American accountants—hired by Arafat's own finance ministry—began examining Arafat's finances. In its conclusions, the team claimed that part of the Palestinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion...".
Consult your favorite AI if you'd like more details. Just asking plain vanilla Google won't tell you much for some mysterious reason. Irregardless, I feel like Mr. Arafat buried it in multiple rabbit holes.
{You feel like?}
Sorry, I've been watching too many YouTube videos. The phrase I feel like is often substituted for the phrase, I think that nowadays. I feel that it's like, mildly concerning, like the way the word like is often used nowadays.
The only reason I mention Mr. Arafat is that he was a pioneer of scruff. I distinctly remember wondering, "back in the day," why doesn't he shave off that half-assed beard? I was curious about this because I discovered early on that I also am only capable of growing a half-assed beard, and/or a pathetic mustache.
Having no chest hair to speak of, I've drawn the obvious conclusion that I'm likely slightly more evolved than the average human male, given that I also didn't come with wisdom teeth installed.
{Uh-huh. Perhaps you're actually less evolved? What about your...}
I also distinctly remember doing a bit of research at the time and reading somewhere that he had a skin condition of some sort that made it painful for him to shave. Since I've always hated to shave, I briefly considered giving it up and claiming that I had a skin condition.
I changed my mind because I thought it made me look scruffy. Apparently, I was a man ahead of my time, but I didn't know it.
Being a man of a certain age... Actually, I should say being a person of a certain age, given that I know for a fact that all geezers and geezerettes worry about the state of their "little grey cells," that is to say their brains, I went a-googlin' to verify my memories concerning the Arafat Scruff.
I briefly panicked because I could find no verification of my memory, as opposed to several stories claiming it was all about carefully cultivating his image as a full time revolutionary who had more important things to do than shave, and/or didn't have time to waste on shaving, and/or shaving was often not possible when he was out and about in the sands of the Middle East leading the charge.
However, much to my relief:
"For all his unprepossessing appearance, his ill-fitting military clothes and unshaven face (a skin condition made it painful for him to shave), Arafat had a certain feline charm." I found this in an undated article by a UN functionary in a publication called UN News.
{Who cares?}
It's a geezer/geezerette thing, you wouldn't understand. Misremembering is scary, given all the news stories about famous folks suffering from cognitive decline. Besides, it simultaneously points out that rich, hypocritical terrorists aren't a new phenomenon. Win/win. Did you know Arafat used to fly around in a private jet? He...
{Isn't the title of this column, Scruff?}
Well, yeah, but I'd sure like to know what "a certain feline charm" is.
The first time I remember noting that scruff can be attractive was in the mid-1970s when I worked with a guy who looked like a carefully coiffed movie star when he was sporting scruff, but it wasn't a conscious choice on his part. It was because he worked full-time while attending school nearly full-time and was tired all the time.
Unable, as mentioned, to grow either a decent-looking beard or mustache, when I tried scruffing, I didn't care for the results; my girlfriend at the time strongly agreed, and that, until recently, was that.
Although I'm a sartorially challenged straight white toxic male, even I noticed in the decades since that scruff has become quite popular, but I didn't realize just how much effort some men put into it. I thought it was just some dudes attempting to look more rugged and/or just wanting to be "in style." I had thought about looking into the phenomenon, but never did until recently.
Aside: I'm so old that I haven't cared about being stylish in decades; I just strive to not look goofy or alarming. Getting old has its compensations.
{Goofy is as goofy does?}
I'm ashamed to admit, as my millions of gentlereaders are aware, that although I am a world-class current events maven, I missed the boat, and in more ways than one.
I didn't know that scruff referred to anything besides the scruff of a neck till I heard a character on a TV show saying to another character, "Nice scruff!" Ah hah! There's a name for that (usually ugly) thing I've often seen growing on men's faces lately, particularly on television characters or movie stars.
{Sniff. I rarely watch TV shows myself.}
Me either... wait, does streaming count?
Mistakeingly believing I had stumbled on the official name of the phenomenon that all the cool kids were using, I entered scruff into my Googleometer. The first hit returned, and the next several hits as well, referred to SCRUFF, an app. Google Play: "SCRUFF is the top-rated and most reliable app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people to connect with each other."
Having a keen eye for the obvious, I quickly realized something was amiss.
{You learn something every day if you pay attention.}
By scrolling down and clicking around, I eventually discovered the term designer stubble. Enter those two words into your search engine or AI of choice, and all will be revealed. I liken it to the moment in the movie version of The Wizard of Oz when the cinematography switches from black and white to color.
Scruff, designer stubble, call it what you will, is a RBFD, practically an industry. There's even a brief Wikipedia article titled Designer Stubble.
I found literally hundreds of articles about the proper way to cultivate and maintain the perfect scruff/designer stubble so as to look more manly and rugged, including reviews of electric razors specifically designed for that purpose.
Men now have to read articles that sound like the male version of the sort of things women's magazines, displayed at supermarket checkout stands are famous for to figure out how to look like they're men?
Here's a tagline from a GQ (originally called Gentleman's Quarterly) article that turned up in a link to an article that I (unfortunately?) couldn't read, as apparently GQ lives behind a paywall these days.
"Here's our guide to getting that perfect day-three scruff."
The September issue features an article titled, How to Take a Really Good Bath.
{That's it? What's the witty takeaway? Many people prefer...}
That's it. The takeaway is obvious.
No wait! I just thought of one. The feminization of the American nation continues apace.
Colonel Cranky
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