To Beard or not to Beard: Mad Men’s Jon Hamm shaves!
There’s been some buzz around the internets that Jon Hamm from the superb show Mad Men has shaved the beard he’d been sporting these past few months. Apparently the hipster contingent of society has got their collective nose out of joint about it, but I honestly don’t understand their disappointment, I mean, the character he plays on TV is a clean shaven ad man from the 60s, what was he supposed to do? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of facial hair, historically every one of my favourite artists have gone through their colossal beard phase. Still, you can’t stay with the same high forever! Eventually, there comes a time when you’ve got to give your face a break and let it play in the sun.
Unfortunately, you can’t please everyone. The hipster enclaves of America will just have to swallow their pain and get on with their lives. Perhaps they can find solace in the copious facial forest of Zach Galifianakis – he’s got enough wool to make up for ten Hamms.
I sympathize with the Mad Men star, as I too am a recent shave-ee. I’d been meticulously cultivating my scruff for almost 5 months and enjoyed it immensely, but then one night in a fit of pique I ferociously took to it with a razor, feeling it was time to shake things up a bit. Actually, that’s not the whole story. The truth is two preceding events sort of influenced my decision. You see, a couple of days prior, an extremely irate man (who happened to be clean shaven) accosted me on the street accusing me of pilfering a banana from his fruit stand, and just 24 hours later a friend of mine told me I looked like Ted “the uni-bomber” Kaczynski. It was deeply unsettling to me. I was undergoing the cruelest sort of discrimination, attacked on all sides by a bunch of meanie “beard-ists”!
Feeling the pressure from naked faced society, I thought that perhaps it might serve me well to abandon my colossal beard phase – for a while at least. To ease the transition, I initially pruned the sucker down to a Frank Zappa mustache and then to a Rollie Fingers, but that lasted only twenty minutes…soon all traces were gone.
The day after I did the deed, I felt a bit depressed, as if a friend had passed away. My new face felt strange, like an astronaut that’s been in space too long, the muscles in my jaw felt weak. I even may have shed a tear or two, although I’d never tell. I recovered quickly however as I am the strong, resilient type. Besides, I know it won’t be too long before I see my old friend again, who knows? …perhaps this spring.
