Brian's Hair!

My hair has been thinning for many years. It started on the crown and my hairline has been gradually moving back to meet it. Until recently, my old hair style was looking more and more like a bad comb-over. The second worst fate which can befall any man had happened to me: I was beginning to look like my father. (The single worst fate is to start looking like your mother! The horror!)

While talking with friends in San Jose at the GALA Choruses Festival VI in July of 2000, Jim Oshwald and Dale Murphy of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus said they had clippers handy and if I wanted to be trimmed down to a #1 or #2 cut, it could be arranged. After a couple of days to mull it over, I decided to go for it.

OK, this probably doesn't seem like a big thing to you, but I'm somewhat inherently conservative when it comes to my appearance. I've had my beard for nine years, my moustache for 15 years and my hairstyle largely unchanged for almost 25 years. I'm not generally given to tinkering with any of them but the time had come when drastic measures would be required very soon. The opportunity had come to experiment with knowledgeable friends in a safe environment far from home; if the results were disastrous, I still had some time to mitigate the damage before going to work or even returning home. Best of all, we could do it free of charge and in private.

- This is the "before" Brian. Note the sides just over the ears (more comfortable when wearing glasses) and crown comb-over; unseen is a tapered back.

- We're part-way through the operation. The sides are gone and we're about to attack the top with a #2 setting.

- Here's where our barber friends decide to have a good laugh at my expense.

- The finished product, #2 all around. At the time, the beard was untouched. I later trimmed the sides of my beard to a #1 while leaving the chin at #2. The idea was to give a bit of variation in the beard while still camoflaging an oversized chin. At the time of this writing, I am still toying shaving down the sides to leave a goatee but the jury is still out on that.

- Ok, with the hair fully done, it was time to do something with the beard. Here's the "before" picture, beard untouched.

- Here, I've trimmed the side to little more than stubble. Unfortunately, even though there's little grey in my beard, it made my cheeks look exceedingly pale. Still, I kinda liked it.

- Now I've shaved down to a goatee. These rosy cheeks haven't seen the light of day in 9.5 years, since early 1991. I like the results and have had some compliments on the new look so far.