day 19

I have to be honest, I miss the soul patch a little bit. It gave it balance -- and you could almost believe for a minute that I thought I was cool. Now I am firmly in Peeping Tom territory. Two days left. I haven't been able to break the news to the little fella.

My dad took a look at my face the other day and told me I looked like Clark Gable. I think understanding Gable's moustache is key to understanding why the moustache has become nearly extinct. For generations, a moustache was a sign of elegance and dignity. Women liked it. It was high-class. Gable personified this.

Then when Burt Reynolds started wearing an overaggressive machostache in the 70's, it got all fucked up. First off, let me say that Burt Reynolds, with or without moustache, is one of the baddest dudes of all time. I love Burt Reynolds. But the whole hairy-chested, thick-moustached, macho man thing that happened then turned the moustache from a symbol of refinement into a sign of rebellion and untamed hypermasculinity. Then as an offshoot of that it became associated with homosexuality.

And as we looked back on those times, the whole "macho man" era became something of a joke. And of course there is nothing that scares the average straight man more than being mistaken for gay. So the moustache died -- After Selleck (A.S.), who was grandfathered in, no straight or gay man* could wear one without being ridiculed.

Only now, with the Reynolds era a safe distance in the rear view mirror, have we begun to once again explore the moustache in an unironic way. Let's bring it back. Grow it for Gable, people.

P.S. One of the most underrated and consistent moustaches of the last 40 years:

* Again, we are talking about white men. Moustaches have continued to flourish in the latino and african-amercian communities.