Give Me a Head with Hair

Back when I used to go to high school reunions, one of the main reasons for attending was the jealous looks and remarks I would get from former male classmates (former classmates who are male, that is, not former males who are classmates). I received these envious glances because these guys were mostly sans hair while I was the opposite. I was reminded of this yesterday while watching American Hustle. This forgettable film (so much for all the hype) opens with an unforgettable scene: Christian Bale’s character Irving affixing his rug and then arranging his comb-over on top of it. If anyone or anything in the movie should get an Oscar, I vote for the comb-over.

Yeah, Go Ahead. Make Some Remark, Hockey Puck. I Dare You.
(Don Rickles Publicity Photo, 1973, US-PD)

Writing this makes me wonder where this incredibly vain/gauche/desperate habit originated. (I know. Who am I to talk before taking a walk in their shoes, right? But what the heck.) In doing my normal “research” I did not find much on the history. (As far as I can tell, the Roman emperor Constantine may have been the one to start this madness.) Still, along the way I stumbled on some interesting comb-over flotsam and jetsam. First, individuals with comb-overs in Japan are called “bar code men” because the striations in the hair strands resemble the scanner bar codes on retail consumer products.

Second, one particular style of comb-over has been patented. This features hair combed over the top from three different directions. The instructions for this appear below. I can’t make heads or tails of them, which is not surprising. I have never figured out those bow-tie diagrams either.

The Smith Patented Comb-Over. You Figure It Out. I Can’t.
(US Patent Office Illustration, 1977, US-PD)

Despite our lack of knowledge on their origins, you have to admit that comb-overs, which come in all sorts of wacky dos (or wackados as I call them), can be intriguingly entertaining. King Charles IX of Sweden, for example, did his in the form of a cross. General Douglas MacArthur’s G.I. Joe action figure has a comb-over. There is even a teacher called Mr. Combover in Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide who combs his beard over his scalp.

It appears that I could go on about this forever. I will not, much to your relief I’m sure. However, if you’ve become so enamored of the subject after this brief exploration that you just have to have more information, watch Combover: The Movie, an hour-long “shockumentary” on what some have called the “cruelest cut.” The filmmakers even talk to the son of the man who patented the three-way style shown above.

I’ve just had a horrible idea. What if someday I need this knowledge? What if someday it’s me standing in front of a mirror with a bottle of spirit gum adhesive and a can of hair spray trying to hide my cranial nakedness strand by stringy strand? Should that day ever come, I hope I would make the better choice and just shave the rest of my head. Then, should anyone ask about my severe hair deprivation, I would simply smile and answer with the immortal words of Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca: “I’m not bald. I’m just taller than my hair.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Visit Kim Pederson’s blog RatBlurt: Mostly Random Short-Attention-Span Musings