I have gorgeous hair. I have a god’s head of hair, a stud’s, a Don Juan’s, all the women, gay men, and envious straights turn and look. Such hair and such a head! But I will not, in fact cannot, be mean about hair loss anymore. Open for discussion, however, is the way men deal with their denuded dreams.
The famous ninth-century Chinese poet, Bai Juyi, wrote about his baldness. “At dawn I sighed to see my hairs fall/At dusk I sighed to see my hairs fall.” And we all sigh, we do. But then, after realizing the personal, physical and especially spiritual release of baldidity, he concluded “Now I know why the priest who seeks/repose frees his heart by first shaving his head.” Of course!
But making fun of combovers, toupees, knee-jerk head shaves, comb-backs, and any other desperate male methods remains fair game. Because some guys don’t get it. Gasp, my hair thins and my kids point out my bald spot. No! Let’s not call it that, it’s my balding spot, as in active, as in not quite there yet, as in I’m holding on. I shall take my baldingness like a man! So I say. My son goes, “Dad, can I trace your bald spot?” Balding spot, son, balding. “Dad, you have a scar in the middle of your bald spot.” Thanks, son. I look at the scar. It’s more a dent. A gash. An arroyo. Back from the wars and I’d taken a battle ax to my massive rotunda.
But I can handle it. I’m taking it now and I’ll deal no matter how bad it gets. I’m prepping as we speak, deep breathing. Looking in the double mirror. I deserve baldness. I deserve it like no other because I made fun of all bald dudes, from the first one I met — my high school principal — to good friends to guys with toupees to Italian macho men with slick-backed hair so obvious to Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Oh, God, help me.
I first noticed thinning hair on the exact crown of my gigantic pointy head at my parents’ house. About five years ago, in their double mirror. Just trying to check out my stunning handsomeness with both mirrors. Hey, what the f . . . ? What’s this? I looked closer. No. Not happening. Not real. Must be all the stress, graduate school, lack of money, job market. Yes, I’ll meditate, do yoga, cross-train, and my hair will grow back. Or at least stop falling out. My comb collects hair. I wipe the comb clean with tissue. My head grows faster than my hair. Yeah, that’s it. Remain calm. Study baldingness.
I used to check out men on the streets of Manhattan, in catalogues, in GQ, for examples of clothing studliness. I like that look, those suspenders, those shoes, that tie, that hair style. Now I study baldness, men showing their bald crowns, men hiding baldness with distressed sadness, men thinning, men all the way, men in between, scraggly, tight, short, long, old hippies bald on top with a ponytail ouch.
There are hot ways to be bald. And hurt me shoot me ways to baldify. It’s like being told you have cancer. No it’s not! It’s the passage of time, wisdom arrived, stateliness, CEO, senator, philosopher. It’s a sign of mortality! No it’s not, a sign of maturity and having arrived, wealth and trophy wives. Really? I will not panic.
Sit in the front row of a theater. People must be staring at my glaring spot. I have a spot. A fucking spot. It’s growing by the minute. Lecture in front of class, turn to the blackboard, write amazing insights, completely inspirational, stunning. But students can’t take notes because they’re blinded by the fabulous spot, one that I have yet to properly tend. Still have my hair longish, like I’m trying to be somebody.
Does my hair wisp? I pray not yet. If I comb my hair back like this, is it a combover? Am I obviously too self-conscious? Should I shave my head entirely and go domey-dome? The chrome? If I shave my head what will my skull look like? What if it’s a funny-looking gigantic head with serrated plates and scars and bumps? What if there’s discoloration? What if I look like an alien? I shall shave my head; I shall groom tight; I shall scraggle long and not care; I shall combover; I will not toupee are you kidding me? I will not hair implants.
Because I am now an unwilling member of the Men’s Balding Club, I have to study all versions of baldidity, I have to thank all the balding men who have gone before me.
The first example in my life, the first that I remember or noticed as A Thing, was my high school principal. He was tall and strong-looking, broad shoulders, big arms, loved football. What a man! He tried to get me to play on the football team. Wide receiver might have been fun. I noticed his crazy head of hair, which made zero sense. He was bald from forehead to neck nape. Yet he grew his hair long on the sides, well over his ears to his shoulders. And, so claimed inside sources, I saw the bobby pins myself, his wife helped him wrap his hair every morning, piling it on top of his head, covering his bald expanse, his personal desert, canopying and pinning, folding and pinning, spinning and pinning, like some fantastic cotton candy or stevedore’s coiled rope.
Woven, spun, and pinned. If that shit were ever to fall apart in the wind, in public, it would be the end. I never saw it fall apart. He had an excellent, supportive, talented wife. The choices we make slowly over time! He chose with incremental steps, unintended consequences always showing themselves, to cover his blanched shine with spiraled straggle. Fine. I’m not making fun. I’m learning lessons. I’m studying. I’m sharing conclusions because many of you, whether you like it or not, will lose hair and you have to man up and do it right.
Don’t get me started, force me to launch, about our current president. Who actually knows wtf he does and who he’s hired to master that orange head? As a researcher, I really should interview his stylists. When I inquired, as a scholar, about his head through the proper channels, Secret Service showed up at my door. I opened the front door, saw the dark shades and suits. They wanted to know about my perverse interests. I’m tall, so you can’t really tell that I’m rapidly achieving wisdom. I lowered my head and bowed, showed them the salt flats of Utah. “Ahhh,” said one. “Well, you can’t know, so don’t ask again.” With that, the SS moved toward their sedan and I promised never to push the prez head issue again. Though I do look at that head. Of all the combovers forever, his is the most remarkable. Better to trim it and show it, this is what I’ve learned from all the balding men who have gone before me.
The summer after my freshman year in college, and after saying goodbye to my high school principal’s amazing head forever, I returned home for a visit. I needed a haircut for my giant crest of wind-waving wheat. Back then I walked tall and did not cower. Now I love hats, caps, beanies. Beanies because my summit extends above treeline and it's so effing cold on the summit. That summer the barber cut my hair, I thanked him, tipped him, and walked to the cafe next door. Seated at a table doing some work was one of my best friends! Hugs, secret handshake, massive studliness! Bro hug, fist tap on back, man it’s great to see you. He smiled, I smiled, we caught up. Then I noticed.
My friend, my dear good friend, so tragic, not even 25, was rapidly losing his hair. Talking massive loss. The kind of follicular goodbye where this dude, by 29, will sport dome on top and hair ring above his ears. No way he’ll find a wife, I thought. Poor guy, no reproduction for you, no promotions. Walk into interview, over before it begins. I shook my head. I probably shouldn’t hang out with him anymore.
Good thing I have my maternal grandfather’s hair, I thought. Such delicious hair he had! And everybody loved him, so well-loved. I tossed my head, flipping my hair back as we talked. Ran my fingers through my hair. The conversation faded. “Well, I’d better get back to work,” he said. “Yeah, I’ve got to go meet my girlfriend,” I said. I flicked my head again and grand monocots waved in the wind, astounding root biomass, a fantastic vision of fecundity and male health. So thankful for my mom and her dad, you look just like him, you have his hair. God, I’m blessed.
We competed in everything, my best friend and I. In sports growing up, in school for tops GPA, in our band, in a group of guys walking down the street or jockeying at the beach or ordering food, in higher ed, and writing, publishing, and girls. All love, though, all love-hate, all love. But I had him. I had him with the coup de grace, nothing could touch me, I would win every single battle, argument, philosophical discussion, creative bit of expression. Why? Because I possessed the final coffin nail, the last so-long, the ultimate can’t-touch-me. Not even thirty and he began losing hair. And he possessed hair, wore it long. I had him! I mean, we were rockstars, rebels. You have to have long hair in your life at least once, or some kind of Hair On Notice. We were anti, we were alt. Beard to my nipples, ponytail to my crack.
He would sit and mess with his hair at all points thinning. He twirled his hair, pulled on straggly strands. “You know, your hair’s gonna fall out faster if you keep that up,” I’d say, already victorious. You could see scalp through vague grasslands, deforested and windswept. If we ever had a real argument, I knew how to kill it. Mean, but a winner. There are winners and losers in this life. Chest puffed I walked the land with fertile head. My boy twirled his hair and yanked at it obsessively, his own mortality expressed with a glabrous peak. He, as a person must, looked at himself in the mirror. He cut to the chase, like many millions, and shaved his head and kept it that way. For twenty years he’s rolled uncovered and exposed, with a tight little goat reflecting manliness. He wears his maturity well.
But I learn, that’s what I do best. Because I’m stupid. And then I share. It’s the only thing I know. I was a best man at a wedding once, a different best friend. I told a story. People loved the story, the wedding, the stone house and the ocean. But what everybody really wanted to do was run an intervention on the groom. Like he was an alcoholic or something. He had a fine beard, props to all that. However, his ponytail and hopeful wisps, time gone by, austere and unembellished. His wife refused to say anything, because guy stubborn. I was never going to say anything, because you let a dude roll till he sees it himself. Eventually, he cut his hair short, kept the beard, chopped the tail, and he looks great, healthy, vibrant. Still accruing knowledge, I had no idea, I did not.
A brother from another mother. I share one of those. He’s a great kid, now a man, eleven years younger. My brother — my blood! — possesses a special kind of crown. A good lad, super smart, our faces, smiles and eyes the same. But not our heads. Until recently. He also in his twenties began losing hair. As a teenager he had skateboard hair, shaved on one side, long on the other. A free spirit. A king in the making. By thirty, homeboy had the tight rim of hair above his ears and a shining, treeless pate. I love my brother. He looks like a lawyer or a banker in Manhattan, like his cousin my cousin, his two uncles my stepmom’s brothers. They roll, and role, the serious bald noggin. Nothing to do but own it and go make millions, or open a sandwich shop, or go to grad school. Own it on Facebook and own it on Tinder. Many women dig that distinctive maturity, that baldy-boy élan. A sign of brainpower and wallet. Aptitude and talent, such fine eyes and a fantastic smile.
But still, for twenty years, I won everything, I stood on top of the pile. I wore my hair this way and that. These days I’m double mirror, like my best friend, pulling at flimsy strands. This my comeuppance, this my life lesson, my what-goes-around. My what must rise must fall.
In The Hague once I walked with a severe wind-tossed head of thick hair, like a Kennedy after a day at the beach. Women glanced at my waving grasslands, looked away and then grabbed one more look. I walked the cobblestones that day, sagging under the poundage of my glorious hay, and took some street shots. Buildings, shops, shadows, light, and people. The best shots I print and study, choosing my final ten for The Wall of Time. There’s one of a crowd, mostly walking away from the camera’s eye. The backs of many human heads. For ten years I’ve loved this photograph and studied it. But then, during the past year, I can’t look at it any more. Two young men walking briskly away with their day’s agenda bare dermis peeking out from scraggly growth. Speaking of light. Have to adjust my meter. Leafless and arid, the expanding spots now consume the photograph, suck the joy from buildings and post-rain sidewalks, handbags, clothing, shoes, streetcar tracks, and bicycles. I can no longer look. I have shelved the shot forever.
Siddhartha, a man rich with worldly things, worldly loves and passions, worldly work and possessions, concerns and anxieties. A court official in a kingdom finds time for verse, for sex with a courtesan under a moon with silk draped across windows and the four-poster. Grow fat with wealth, status, good food and great wine. Lose your hair. Shave head, begin to question the world of appearances and human relationships. Sit under a tree, meditate on the Tao, read the great philosophers and poets, write contemplations, begin preaching the word. Renounce the world while balding! See the scalp’s prominence, its dominance, forest receding during an Ice Age, the crown’s great glacier, topographical, expansive, blinding.
Gaze into the stream and behold your denuded top, your shamed visage, your chubby self, and perceive a flash of Light, the word of God. The Buddha speaks through you! Sit under the tree and renounce the world! Become a mendicant. Give up family, wealth, station; abdicate privileges; repudiate lust; deny appetite; encourage calm, Om under the tree and find God. That’s what Siddhartha’s new dome commanded. He glimpsed the wastefulness, private greed and lust, and the hatred of the world. His shining example for all to see. He spotted his summit in a courtesan’s mirror and collapsed. She tried to enliven his spirits, give rise to another head. To no avail. He realized the way of the first fifty years had ended. His bleak, austere apex demanded a new way of living, to master body and mind. To abandon the bustle of the world for a calmer, selfless, enlightened existence. His baldidity met his breath. He looked at his lover one last time, touched her forehead, and announced his forever departure. Gave his riches away, rid his body of all remaining tresses, and turned toward the light. The bereft noodle now a blinding light, leading the way through darkness, away from Babylon and Sodom, toward the infinite illumination of Nirvana.
The opposable thumb, the maker of tools, a man on the moon, see what we can do, necessity the mother of invention. I got you, I got you. And so men, weak, desperate men, testosterone leading us astray, we fight to lead the pack we weep our best years lost. And so we invent, we take matters into our own hands. Best bald spot concealer, organic micro-fiber hair spray. Color scalp spray, watch how I fix my bald spot instantly. Good looking hair color spray black. Hair building fibers from Topic, natural keratin hair fibers, my secret hair enhancer, alopecia hair loss treatment, Jerome Russel Spray-On Hair; spray paint the bald away, 1990s infomercial hell #19, hair fibers conceal hair loss with thinning hair and bald spots. Hair in a can. The unornamented landscape, the bleak, exposed expanse; leafless and barren, above treeline or denuded entirely. The Agent Orange of aging - Aging Orange - of death and one’s own mortality. You reach for the spray can. You must. It’s the right thing to do for you.
For some reason, the “20 Worst Toupees of All Time” are listed with erectile malfunction. Howard Cosell on the mic with the blazer as Ali plays with lifting the rug. Burt Reynolds, John Travolta, Nick Cage, William Shatner, Tony Bennett, Kermit the Frog, Marv Albert the absolute best, Sean Connery he’s sported some decent fake hair that cost a lot of money and required a magician’s touch. There exist mullet toupees. You choose mullet toupee when you suppose that people will see a mullet and go no way that’s a toupee, he’s not wearing a toupee, ergot he’s not bald. Epic hairpieces; rugs; vinyl siding. Bald with dignity, it’s not possible. Everyone knows a guy playing with his baldified core, myself included, even if you shave it all off, grow a huge beard and still lift weights.
Tasteful baldies do exist. And I’m learning from all the men who have traveled this special path. Recall the words you can’t say on television, George Carlin. He displayed straight-up slice of chrome up top, side hair trimmed, and his little ponytail that can only mean I’m Still Cool No Matter What I’m Going With It. Which is fine.
Jurgen Klinsmann, former German striker and fired coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team, favored a tight trim with tufts puffed off forehead and around his bald spot, showing the bald no problem for overhead cameras. He owned the hair he had left, and his developing baldness. The most ridiculous man alive, of course, is the President of the United States. There are shots of his hair flying vertically in a wind. When you study the wind blow, you can see his real hair, nice and tight above his ears. And the thing is, if he just kept it trim and bald, he would look good. But no, he went for eternal clown. Not a soul on earth, not even God, can take him seriously. We have to take Vladimir Putin seriously because, well, he’s just straight bald with a tight circle of hair, unvarnished and austere, and, well, Russian. He lifts weights and swims every day and rides horses topless with his nipples showing.
English footballer Bobby Charlton presented for the world a wonderful combover, while playing and posing for shots and the wind, the wind, nature’s way of tempering man’s vanity. And he was very good. Senator Carl Levin’s combover reached for and achieved fantastic. Excellent shots from above at the baseball park. Poor, poor men with the long hair on the left side, grown down to shoulder, then lifted up high over the treeless summit and dropped to the other ear, sometimes pinned sometimes not. You cannot be looking in the mirror with any sanity or honest self-awareness.
I sit in my hair stylist’s chair, an urban setting. I’ve been going to her for years. I’m very loyal. I go, “So, um, about that developing wasteland,” and she without hesitation, “Just keep the hair short.” I smiled, there’s the mirror, there other customers. “But could this be considered a combover, this comb-back over the top of my scalp?” “No, not yet.” “I should show you pictures of my maternal grandfather, you know, the hair line. He did a great job, there’s the wavy hair, there’s the balding with age.” “I got you,” she said. “Don’t let me suck,” from me. “I won’t.” She keeps me tight and clean. But the mountains change, quickly, they erode. Stop with the double mirrors, stop. It’s no small coincidence that toupees and combover photos are teamed with mugshots.
Braving It and Shaving It. Mondo Baldo. Men who are less bald than they used to be. Chin strap for that toupee. The wigs of doom. Freshly shaven Bald & Proud. In Manhattan, Mane Beauty, Wigs and Plus, Andrew DiSimone Wigs, HairPlaceNYC; in Los Angeles, The Wig Fairy, the Wig Shop, Hollywood Wigs, Wigs Today, Ebony Hair & Wigs. In Beverly Hills, Cal East Imports, Own It Hair Extension and Wigs Studio, CreatedHair. In Ames, Sally Beauty. The perruque, the rug, the piece, the squirrel, the patch. Solar-Powered Love Machine; Heroes Don’t Need Hair; Sorry to Hear About Your Bad Hair Day, says the bald man’s T-shirt; don’t waste testosterone on silly hair follicles; baldalicious; Hair? Meh.
Samuel L. Jackson, dome chrome and big gray beard, nice suit - I like it. Thanks for teaching me, thespian who has traveled the path before me, guiding the way. Shave soap, shaving cream, razors, trimmers. What do you set your trimmer on, bro? My youngest brother now rides it tight. An aerodynamic apex is a great thing. Lower that dome you studly bull! The gospel of braving it and shaving it, says Mondo Baldo.
You will not see dome or even hint of scalp in today’s films. But watch anything from the 1960s and 1970s — all male leads had thinning hair. Almost gross to watch, those famous studs and wondrous males. Bogart, Brando, Nicholson. Watch them and see the difference between then and now. Only watch the male heads doing what they do, nodding and bobbing, and the shots. Then watch today’s. No such missing vegetation, no such hurt.
Thank you, my younger brother and my two best friends who lost their hair in their twenties. Apologies, too, for all the times I punched above the eyebrows when arguing with you, dropping diss bombs like no one. Thank you for teaching me, for showing me the way, how to stand tall, how to gracefully negotiate indications of aging and mortality. To you, kudos. And Ben Kingsley, replacing one Captain’s hair version with another’s. And Charles Barkley, you silly guy; Andre Agassi and your different versions of dealing — don’t forget the mullet. Paul Shaffer, you ran hard with David Letterman - and now look at his impressive beard! The Rock, too, thanks, even if you run for president. Telly Savalas, Magic Johnson, Shaq; Bruce Willis whatever I’ve seen you in Idaho in your bar and your blues band and your chrome. Ahh, Sean Connery, you have ditched the hair and demo’d dome. Nice. Robert Duvall, see it’s possible to be talented and exposed, bald-pated and still a man.
The #1 for me, as far as leading by example for multiple decades no probs I got nothing for you but performance? Terry Bradshaw. Nice work, sir, I bow to your baldness and your talent on and off the pitch. I mean gridiron. John Malkovich is the coolest bald, way cooler than MJ, and scary. Oh, Wayne Rooney, why, why? Famous baldies who plugged. I’m telling you, man, it’s not the way to go. But you showed me, I learn from example, and there you are, exampling. And so I gaze with double mirrors at my growing wonderful, and I’m flooded with thanks, with historical and current examples of how to do it, how to lose hair with grace, aplomb and dignity; and absolute horror, self-pride gone wrong, and bad decisions.
Without all of you who have gone before me I wouldn’t know what to do, would not know where to turn for solace, comfort during the storm. No church, no counselor, no self-help guru. Nobody could help me. And oh God I can’t forget, after all this education, Michel Foucault, the Jordan of the mind. And Mr. Clean. And why do you think Zidane was destined to become bald? To better head-butt in World Cup finals is why. Howie Mandel, Woody Harrelson, Dwight D. And, though I’ve only seen photographs of statuary, that one philosopher Socrates. An excellent painter you may have heard about once, Picasso. And the Dalai Lama, you can’t fuck with his divine mojo. And Gandhi, he was bald af. Learn, men, know.
And I’m telling you, man, nobody, nobody anywhere, appreciates the psychology of balding, the looking in the mirror death sighting, the ball-sag, the end of days, the girls won’t like me, my power gone, my voice shredded, they’ll all see the lie, my students’ laughter, my skin, my flab, my abs where are they, my mile time, my mountain climb, my attractiveness, my cheekbones, my facial hair my clothing, my finances my prospects my everything goes out the window and even if you lose hair in your twenties, my middle-aged, my top of the hill and it’s all down after this, a slope to the coffin or the urn. And it’s true, embracing your own mortality, and your wisdom, is the only way to go, for any of us, man or woman, gay straight or between.
Baldness is a reckoning, you can see it in every balding man’s eyes. Just look at them, and look into mine. Note also the smugness of sixty-year-old men who have thick hair. The way they strut, the way they cross their legs, even short dudes under 5-7. Better lift weights, barren bros, step into the yoga studio, protein shakes and a serious cleanse, bail sugar, reject carbs, pick up piano, work on your voice, run a Marathon, climb a mountain, ab work like you’re insane and imprisoned! Drink those smoothies, reach and climb away from your own desperation. Buzz cut, go bald in style. Grow a tight beard, pluck your ear hair, or come with the thick frightening goat and leather jacket.
Michael Jordan taught everybody how to go chrome. To step in front of the issue and command it. To boss baldness. To shave off all hair and dome the shine and give zero fucks and take it to the hole with your tongue sticking out. Many balding public figures started doing it, and this acceptable badly style flourishes today. Tim Howard, USA’s goalkeeper, for example, shaves his dome, gleams it on the tele, and demonstrates swag with a gigantic beard. Zinedine “Zizou” Zidane toward the end of his playing career kept his hair buzzed, not shaved, and from the television’s eye you could see this great player’s baldified hurt, though he played like a god, and even the 2002 Champions League volley contained a lesson for all future balding men.
But now, as Real Madrid’s former manager, his smooth hairlessness and absolute uncovered shimmer astound from the touchline. Wayne Rooney, though, chose not to heed Jordan’s great lesson, the teaching of His Greatness, His Airness, the Samurai of Baldness. Rooney chose expensive hair implants. The problem is, from the camera’s great heights, it’s obvious he chose the weaker route, the hiding it path, the afraid to die. And from that day his playing suffered. Had nothing to do with age, his legs, his lungs; had everything to do with hiding — no, trying to hide — one’s expanding scalp.
Whatever element of a person’s psychological makeup — his upbringing, his parents, his choices, his weaknesses, all of us included — leads one to hide the bare, is equally demonstrated in job performance, personal relationships, overall contribution to society. An internal weakness always shows itself in the world. Obviously, this very essay demonstrates my fright. Don’t build a bunker for nuclear apocalypse, like the one in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road; build the bunker for baldness. And I just might hide my depilated self, never to appear in public again, stop writing on the blackboard, sit in the theater’s back row. But I will not combover, will not implant, won’t toupee, and won’t MJ the domey dome to deal with the barren. So what should we, the next generation of balditeers, do? For starters, we should learn from all those who have gone before, all around us now. See that guy in the sweet suit? I’m checking how he’s dealing with the expanding glacier.