A Timely Return

Perseverance pays. Which brings this little reward to all the loyal friends and fans who flooded me with requests and recriminations while Checkpoint Delta was on a long hiatus. OK, maybe it wasn’t a flood. More like a dribble, but the message floated in and now I’m back pounding on this battered keyboard to express some stuff that’s been on my mind since I went internet-AWOL to do a movie down under in Australia. More about that shortly but first some thoughts on facial hair.

I ponder this right now as a purely masculine phenomenon. Hirsute females are another issue entirely and likely a situation that should concern the WNBA when it inevitably allows transgender hoopsters onto the hardwood where they can grind genuinely female players into the paint. But I digress…and so should the WNBA. What’s got me in a lather thick enough to make my razor glide is the number of pundits, politicians, performers and other public figures who are now sporting facial hair ranging from five o’clock shadow to high noon full beards.

What’s the deal, I ask myself redundantly having actually tried to grow a beard while on a distant movie location. Don’t know what made me do it other than a mad desire to look as cool, anti-mainstream and earthy as some of the folks in the news. I’m looking at you Vice President Vance, former active-duty Marine who was doubtless taught as I was in boot camp that beards were only sported by hippies, commies and wannabe mercenary gunfighters. My personal experience with beard-growing was a disaster. The hair that emerged unshaven on my face sprouted as snow white as the hair on my head which caused my long-suffering spouse to declare that I looked like Papa Smurf.

Bowing to the leakage that must ensue in these days of your business is everyone’s business, I have reluctantly included here a photo of bearded self which will—like Pearl Harbor—live in infamy. The Dye beard is long gone by now leaving only the mustache that I’ve sported off and on for a half century. I’m still not sure why a beard made me look like a sleazy wino rather than a rugged and wise elder of the common folk.

Regardless, it can’t be my abject failings that made the Veep and so many others stop shaving and groom their collective kissers into some version of a dust mop. Sure, some men like the way a beard makes them look like rugged individuals who just don’t give a damn about grooming conventions and who should be listened to, revered or voted for just because…well, it’s a beard, mark of the rebel and independent thinker.

The savvy folks at Gilette, Schick, and others who make big bucks on male grooming supplies were quick to spot the potential loss of revenue. Now they’ve got a bunch of us focused on grooming our hirsute crotches, chests and legs with high priced specialty tools. Sad to say the hairy-chested he-man image is edging toward oblivion. This madness continues blowing through a generation of males like a narcissistic cyclone.

Maybe it’s just a tonsorial fad. Some kind of passing male fancy like long sideburns, Beatle cuts, mohawks or mullets. I’m hoping that’s the case and it’s not just sour grapes on my part. If you copy my convoluted reasoning here, this beard deal is possibly another manifestation of modern man’s attempts to break out of the ordinary, to look like a rugged individualist, to become a wily protester raging against the machine. That or they are just too lazy to shave.

Either way, I’m good with it slitting here in my curmudgeon cave and throwing verbal stones at the cool guys who are trying to turn beard stroking into an Olympic sport. There’s no accounting for these things much beyond the obvious. And I’m first to admit that style wise there’s a fitting lid for every pot. Much more relevant is what comes out of the bearded guy’s hair encircled mouth. Good to know facial hair doesn’t short-circuit brain waves in most but certainly not all cases.

Now a word or two about that project that kept me on the other side of the world for six months. It was a semi-sequel to Tom Hanks’ WW2 Navy movie titled Greyhound that aired to great popularity on Apple+ TV in 2020. In the newest version Tom reprises his Commander Ernie Krause character and loses his destroyer to shore batteries while cruising the gunfire support line for D-Day 1944. He’s briefly hospitalized but in recognition of his outstanding record in the Battle of the Atlantic, is offered a newer tin can bound for service in the Pacific at the Battle of Okinawa. It’s a genuine thriller full of authentic sea battle action. Be sure and regularly check local listings for the air date.

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