May 20, 2009

Mustache as Art

Los Angeles, California, May 20, 2009:

The mustache gets a bad rap. Sometimes it is considered the mark of a cad. But something caught my eye at the world famous Getty Museum in Los Angeles: A poster treating the mustache as art.

The gift shop at the Getty sells alphabet posters with each letter standing for an item contained in the works of art housed by the museum.

For the letter M, the mustache is cited. This is fantastic news! Of all the wondrous works an art museum might hold, the Getty chose the symbol of Ron -- the mustache -- to represent the letter M.

If this isn't an endorsement of Ron's policies towards art, the alphabet, and posterized paintings, I don't know what is. The Getty Museum and all of its benefactors and visitors are obviously in support of the movement Ron has championed. They must also endorse his facial hair.

While I don't feel Ron will ever lose his "common man" role, I believe that this step towards being more sophisticated is a good one for him and his constituency.

Huzzah!

- Bittle

Posted by Bittle at 09:38 AM

May 08, 2009

Snarr-stache

Murray, Utah, May 8, 2009:

The mayor of the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray says he has little choice but to shave his nearly foot-long handlebar mustache for charity. Dan Snarr is putting the decision to a vote of residents and says his fashion statement is "getting creamed."

"People are voting 'shave.' It's a way to get back at an elected official," said Snarr, who has sported the waxed mustache for three years but now is resigned to shaving.

Besides, his wife hates it. She's sick of puckering up for a kiss and getting poked in the eye.

Yet the 59-year-old Snarr also is facing pressure from the mustache lobby. The St. Louis-based American Mustache Institute got wind of his plans and called on Snarr to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of opposition.

The Mustache Institute is demanding Snarr "recant" his shaving pledge and find another way to support the Children's Miracle Network.

"This could include shaving your head, your back or committing to not clipping your toenails for up to eight months," the group's leaders wrote to the mayor.

Snarr said he had never heard of the Mustache Institute and isn't certain how to respond to the letter. "It's like politics -- whatever you do, you're damned," he said.

The New Jersey-based Ronatarian Party has also voiced its opposition to Snarr's proposed trimming.

"It's an outrage that a fellow politician would even consider shaving his or her glorious mustache to placate his constituency," said party chief Ron. "F*ck who voted for you, man! You're in power now...do what you want."

A local Costco warehouse store says residents have been voting since May 1. The paper ballots will be counted May 16.

Snarr said the last he checked, shave votes in one glass jar far outnumber the save votes in another and that his graying mustache was doomed. But the vote is tightening, a store manager said Thursday.

Still, Snarr says the only voter who matters is his wife, April, who calls her husband's mustache "obnoxious."

Snarr should face down his opposition -- mainly women -- and keep his mustache, said Aaron Perlut of St. Louis, chairman of the Mustache Institute and a social-media consultant.

Perlut said mustaches fell out of favor in the 1970s and that his group's most recent surveys shows only 20 percent of women favor them. That's why more men are sporting tiny "chin" beards, which Perlut calls a "spousal compromise."

The group stands in defense of the singular mustache, rejecting all other styles of facial hair, even beards.

The Ronatarian Party has never officially placed mustaches on its party platform, but the group is stridently pro-mustache in all public forums.

Posted by Bittle at 08:43 AM