Hairy Bastards

Hairy Bastards
By
Leo de Natale

Perhaps the first time I realized there was a difference between being hairy and a hairy bastard occurred when I was age10. The local barbershop had hired a young new barber. He started cutting my hair –boy’s regular–and I noticed his incredibly hairy forearms. In particular, I observed that underneath his hairy right wrist was a relatively new tattoo. I grew up in an era when tattoos were socially unacceptable and relegated to sailors or motorcycle gangs. The problem with this guy’s tattoo was its invisibility. You couldn’t see it because his forearm hair had regrown. It was an unseen tat.

Listening to my parents while growing up I learned there were certain ethnic groups that were notoriously hirsute. Greeks, Armenians, Turks, Arabs and Southern Italians were infamous for their thick, turbid hairiness. It was primarily males who exhibited the most hair but many women followed suit. The men often adorned themselves with mustaches, thick, coarse beards and sideburns. However, it wasn’t uncommon for these ladies to sport unwanted visible mustaches, facial hair or forearms. Of course many women in that era didn’t shave their legs –or probably armpits. These groups were awash in hair. They were apparently oblivious to their physical appearance but times have changed.
Television infomercials are inundated with products that eliminate female and male hirsutism. They especially concentrate on women and ‘staches that occur even in fair-skinned, blue-eyed women. When I was in college I dated a young Irish beauty – once. We had a wonderful evening that ended at a local area known for “parking”. We began kissing and, like Jerry Seinfeld dating the woman with “man hands”, I suddenly drew back. This blonde blue-eyed coed had a hidden mustache, felt but not seen. I recoiled when it scratched my face. As Austin Powers would say, it was like kissing a man, baby.

That incident heightened my observational skills. Soon, I started to notice men with thick black hairs scattered on the tip of their noses. My longtime plumber Dino is in his early 50’s. A handsome Italian-American (some think he resembles George Clooney) is not your typical plumber. He is 6’1” and quite fit. There’s not an ounce of fat on him. You’ll never see the usual plumber’s crack when he’s replacing your toilet.
His once black hair is now salt and pepper. At the last service call he made I noticed a change. At the tip of his nose, a forest of short, black hairs had sprouted. Dino is at the age where he needs reading eyeglasses. My hunch was he can’t see those bristles but they’re there. I also noted another invasion of hirsutism. Dino was now growing a black forest surrounding his ears. We’re talking enough hair to camouflage his ear canal.

He’ll soon require an industrial-sized ear trimmer to scythe through the hairy buildup. What I can’t understand is how his wife can presumably see this growth and alert him to his advancing fur line. Maybe she needs reading glasses, too.
Perhaps I’m generalizing but Italian men seem to exhibit this problem ear/nose problem. I remember a boyhood friend, Johnny Guglietto, whose grandfather lived with Johnny’s family. It was the first time I witnessed someone with ear hair so overgrown it covered the entire aural opening. The hair obscured nearly 100 per cent of the passageway. I pondered what is it with these old guinea men? Maybe this was the reason for his hearing loss. Was it considered a hairy badge of honor or was it, like Dino’s case, they just can’t see the changes in their physical appearance.
As an aside, while touring the Grand Canyon several years ago, I stood next to an impeccably well-dressed middle-aged gentleman. He was by the paddock where the canyon donkeys were corralled. Much to his chagrin, his expensive, spit-shined shoes were filthy with dust and manure. Looking at him closely was a sight I had never seen. His nose was pointed and had flared nostrils. I couldn’t believe my eyes. His interior nasal hairs were grey and combed into neat, straight rows. I surreptitiously moved from side to side and, yep, both right and left nostril hair was fastidiously groomed. It was a WTF moment. It was as if this kook was flaunting an anatomical anomaly. To paraphrase James Brown, say it loud, my nose is hairy and I’m proud.

This is one of the mysteries of male homo sapiens. The unwanted, unnecessary, unsightly and atavistic body hair.
Moving elsewhere on the body there are guys who have neck hair, resembling an ivy vine. I always conjure fictitious horror movies –“It Came From Beneath The Neck!!” Such hair weaves through men’s shirt collars and form a labyrinth of hair connecting neck with head. Pro football quarterbacks Joe Flacco and Andrew Luck are classic examples of why turtleneck jerseys can make a remarkable improvement on physical appearance, with or without uniform.
Moving along the human anatomy, there are other areas that wreak havoc on a man’s physical appearance. First stop is the chest. Back in the 1960’s, actor Sean Connery portrayed the iconic James Bond. In nearly every film he appeared bare chested for certain scenes. Connery is an incredibly hairy beast with a human sweater that started at the chest and ended at his waistline. That look may have been more acceptable 50 years ago but compare Connery’s forest to the most recent Bond, Daniel Craig. During a beach scene in Casino Royale, Craig wades to the shore, displaying his taut, well muscled physique, and no visible chest hair. And don’t forget the film Forty-Year-Old Virgin where Steve Carell undergoes a painful yet hilarious chest hair removal by a sadistic salon employee.

Spinning around the torso, we find another designated area: hairy backs. The late pro wrestler George “The Animal” Steele was in the villain category. He’d always wrestled bare-chested. His back was almost as woolly as his chest. Steele’s bald, clean-shaven head added to his bad guy appeal. I always felt sorry for his opponents who grappled with his hairy, sweat-laden body. Unsightly back hair also is included on infomercials. One device resembles a modified back scratcher. Hirsute male models demonstrate how the device removes lawnmower-style– back hair one section at a time. There’s a hair removal product for every area of the human body.
Let’s go a little lower. Legendary basketball player Bob Cousy was an incredible athlete. He also had probably the hairiest legs in the National Basketball Association’s history. It appeared he was wearing woolen leggings while playing on the old Boston Garden’s parquet floor. To Cousy’s credit he’s very self-deprecating about his thighs and calves. He was a hairy bastard extraordinaire and accepted his genetics.

Speaking of legs, many women undergo the masochistic ritual of waxing. Hot wax is applied to their legs and, very much like the Steve Carrel scene, the leg hairs are pulled from their roots and cause considerable pain. Leg hair takes longer to regrow with waxing. Of course there’s also the women’s Brazilian waxing technique where hair is removed from the groin, aka “down there”.

And so both sexes deal with the issues of unwanted hair. I heard a comedian who was commenting about men, especially bald men ( he also was bald). “Why is it men who are losing their hair in one place –their heads– deal with hair sprouting in places –their ears” he queried. “They resort to plugs and usually succumb to ugly toupees?”
“Why not transplant the ear hair or chest hair on to the head?”, he said. “Or maybe even the controversial pubic transplant!”. Bald Sean Connery would have never need to wear a “piece” if that cosmetic dermatology were available.

There’s another area I’ve noticed over the years. Older men’s eyebrows. Age and their old guy DNA kicks in and creates bushy caterpillar eyebrows. The Jerry Seinfeld character Sandy Baron, the late Andy Rooney and newscaster Walter Cronkite were prime examples of this anomaly. The eyebrows become bushier as they age.

I often had this image of taking an electric hedge clipper to Rooney’s brows and pretend I’m trimming a privet bush. I would yell at the television set, “Yo, Andy, Walter, time for a trim. Your brows are a distraction to your commentary!”. I guess when men reach a certain age, they feel more avuncular and the bushy brows become de rigueur. Concern over physical appearance wanes.
Returning to the head, there is one area that’s particularly noticeable: the nose. Unlike the Grand Canyon dandy, many persons, male and female, grow unsightly nasal hairs. They protrude from the nasal cavities and become human crab grass. Many will notice these unwanted visitors and routinely snip them away. The problem is they return, sometimes overnight. The aforementioned television infomercials also advertise nasal hair trimmers that resemble a modified toothbrush.
Our last bodily topic pertains to younger men. It’s the Unibrow. I will never understand why young guys walk around with such an unsightly eyebrow pattern. Someone should tell them Unibrows are grotesque. It’s one of the anatomical anomalies that forces people to look away during up close discussion as if they’re staring at the sun. Look long enough and it damages retinas. People become transfixed by the Unibrow and find it difficult to sustain a conversation. You cannot recall what the Unibrowed are saying. In induces hirsute-related amnesia. Maybe one day the infomercials will advertise a laser or women’s wax treatment for this category of hairy bastards.

Let’s face it. Body hair is a pain in the ass. Especially a big, fat hairy ass.