Atrocities of Fashion: Goatevil

by Eric Skilling

Hey you Chia Chin!! Yeah I’m talking to you. Did your razor happen to break? Perhaps you’ve dulled it from all you’re failed suicide attempts. You never could do anything right. In the meantime something has emanated from your chin. A smelly, tangly hair island has sprouted from where I’m sure your dignity once resided. But dignity doesn’t seem to be an issue concerning you. It’s all about being an individual, isn’t it? Just like everybody else. If there is one thing I’ve learned in life it’s that just because you have the ability to do something doesn’t mean that you should. Perhaps it was the novelty of it all for you. One day being woken from a wet dream to discover a hair growing from beneath your chin. One hair became two, two became that shit on your face that’s there right now.

The goatee began it’s fashion comeback sometime in the early nineties and has yet to die the timely death it deserves. It is quite popular among the teenage set for reasons unknown, though I’m sure, had those same rockin’ teens been the same age ten years previous they’d have atrocious heavy metal mustaches. Joel had a similar one when we first met. But unlike you, Joel has learned from his mistakes and now sports a pair of matching sideburns. Though not necessarily my fashion cup of tea at least he has lost the beard he once grew several summers ago. It’s good to see he’s on his way to recovery. Now if we could just do something about that hair.

When pondering the goatee several questions come into mind. Such as the reason why. We could discuss the rebellion aspect of it, that’s easy enough for you to understand. Could the goatee be a direct result of your father not letting you have the car for the evening? I’m sure it is. You’ve got to show them you’re hardcore or else they’d never believe you until you show them that Korn tattoo on your chest. The one that appeared one morning during a hangover. Unlike the ink on the piece of paper with the girl’s phone who you made out with in the bar last night, this mistake doesn’t wash off. But a goatee can be shaved off. Very easily in fact. So the question is: Why don’t you? Perhaps the world shall never know.

There are two types of mentality behind the goatee, the heavy metal alterna- type mentality or the artsy beat poet mentality. Both should be punished by death. I’m willing to carry out the sentence with little or any remorse at all. Both of the mentalities carry with them a false sense of rebellion. A sense that they are going against the grain. It gives the perpetrators a certain sense of pride because they feel like they are unlike others when in fact they are more like the herd than they realize. Should you hate them? Of course you should. Anyone who feels they are holier than thou without reason should be punished. The artsy goatee types can continue reading their William S. Burroughs (finally dead) and listening to their Jazz in the hope that their creativity shall be spurred, but in the end it’s all bad poetry and bongos.

I can forgive the metal maniacs simply because they don’t know any better. Their life is all Camaros and malt liquor. They’re almost huggable in that dimwitted kind of way. But they just don’t have any fashion sense therefore they must be eliminated. The poetry spouting artsy types aren’t nearly as forgivable. How boring they are. “blah blah angst blah blah” they say. Yawn. Yawn. Yawn. Pathetic squares abound. They may as well just eliminate themselves.

They’re hard to understand. Even I can’t get my head around them, though I’ve tried. >From what I have learned, I despise. Really now. How long does it actually take to shave every morning? And when you do look into the mirror how do you decide which parts to shave and which to not? It’s all about symmetry and grace in the end and by defying these conventions you defy fashion sense. It’s true. You are an atrocity.

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