{"id":30751,"date":"2017-02-27T17:37:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T01:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/slack-tide-breaking-bald\/"},"modified":"2017-02-27T17:37:00","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T01:37:00","slug":"slack-tide-breaking-bald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/life\/slack-tide-breaking-bald\/","title":{"rendered":"Slack Tide: Breaking bald"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now, I\u2019m bald \u2026 or, as some of us prefer to be called, \u201cHairless-American.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, I have been for decades, long before Samuel L. Jackson made it cool. I\u2019ll never forget the night, summer after junior year in high school, when this girl who\u2019d improbably enough been running her fingers through my hair, suddenly stopped and said, \u201cWait, is this a bald spot?\u201d Man, that evening took a sharp turn \u2014 namely, straight to the 24-hour drug store for as much Rogaine as I could afford on a camp counselor salary.<\/p>\n

You know, in some ways, bald friendliness was a large reason behind relocating to Alaska in the first place: here, I can go about my life with barely a concern about sunburned scalp. Also, I figured it\u2019d be a good place to go to develop an Alaska-based reality TV show, chronicling my life as I do nothing but watch other Alaska-based reality TV shows. I call it \u201cDeadliest Couch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyway, here are a few reasons why I love beards:<\/p>\n

Hats are the poor man\u2019s toupee, much like Funyuns are a vegetarian\u2019s pork rinds.<\/p>\n

And take it from me, Scott wears it extremely well, although he\u2019s kind of a Mr. Clean doppelg\u00e4ngers.<\/p>\n

Chrome domes I admire include: Shakespeare, Gandhi, Bernie Sanders, Dave Chapelle, Vin Diesel, Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson, Jesse \u201cThe Body\u201d Ventura, Bruce Willis, Michael Jordan, Sinead O\u2019Connor, Lex Luthor, Bozo the Clown, Michael Stipe, Mr. Clean, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, the lead singer of Midnight Oil, the drummer of AC\/DC, every member of the Blue Man Group, Winston Churchill, Pac-Man, Dr. Phil, Mr. Magoo, Mr. Burns, George Burns, Bill Murray, Pitbull, Yoda, Moby, Charlie Brown and, of course, the Dark Lord Voldemort.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Voldemort, I almost forgot the most inescapable bald man on earth at this very moment, our 45th president, \u201cHe-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.\u201d Actually, that\u2019s not a fair analogy. Donald Trump is more like \u201cHe-who-Must-be-Named-All-the-Time-Especially-by-Those-Who-Hate-him-Can\u2019t-we-Just-Facebook-About-our-kids-pets-and-Artisinal-Food-for-one-day?\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, we lived to see it \u2014 we\u2019re in the White House now! For the first time since Eisenhower, a Hairless-American president.<\/p>\n

Now, I can\u2019t speak to the size of Scott\u2019s hands. \u2026 You\u2019d need to ask Ellen about that.<\/p>\n

For instance, my grandmother sent me her usual $25 birthday check with a memo directing me to use it for a haircut. Hate to break it to you grandma, but I lost most of my hair before the turn of the millennium. See, now that makes me feel old.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, while premature baldness is a terrible joke to play on any human being, nature was especially cruel to me, considering I used to boast a head of flame-red, shoulder-length curls that would make Shaun White McTwist 1260 in his pants.<\/p>\n

Baldness, it isn\u2019t just a bad hair day, but the worst hair day, every day, until the day you die.<\/p>\n

To borrow from James Brown: say it loud \u2014 I\u2019m bald and I\u2019m proud!<\/p>\n

Nope. I\u2019ve got no choice but to grin and bare scalp it. I mean, what else am I supposed to do? Grow a combover?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2022 Geoff Kirsch is an award-winning Juneau-based writer and humorist. \u201cSlack Tide\u201d appears every second and fourth Sunday.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now, I\u2019m bald \u2026 or, as some of us prefer to be called, \u201cHairless-American.\u201d Indeed, I have been for decades, long before Samuel L. Jackson made it cool. I\u2019ll never forget the night, summer after junior year in high school, when this girl who\u2019d improbably enough been running her fingers through my hair, suddenly stopped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30751"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}