Some of you delinquents may be wondering what goes on at our weekly beer summit, the Progressive Happy Hour. While generally PHH is like that Foxwoods ad about how you'll leave everything you own in Las Vegas when you go there, as a community service, I'll share with you just one of the many diverse topics that came up last week: Wilford Brimley.
Yes, that Wilford Brimley. The one with the oatmeal and the diabeetus. How does the star of "Coocoon" and "Our House" hold the key to all of our country's ills, you ask? I'll give you a hint that it lies in those thick, luxurious, walrus-like whiskers of his. The fact is that he is the last person alive to have facial hair that people trusted and liked.
Think about it. No politician today would be caught dead with evil, untrustworthy facial hair. (and we know facial hair = evil because Star Trek taught us so.) All the evil people of the 20th century were known for their facial hair: Hitler, Stalin, Einstein, Magnum P.I, and Rollie Fingers to name a few. But back in the 1800s, facial hair was a sign of trustworthiness. Why, Abe Lincoln's chin-curtain would mean a guaranteed election loss in today's world. Ulysses S. Grant, the guy on our money, would probably be mistaken for Osama Hussein Bin Laden! Chester A. Arthur's whimsical muttonchops once caught the fancy of the Western world, making the birthers of the 1880s completely forget that he was actually born in faraway Canadia, but in 2009, his facial hair would only be a target for people throwing single-serve coffee packets. (WHERZ YUR BIRF SERTIFIKATE, NO-ARTHUR?!!)
Who was the last trusted politician to rock the facial hair? Why it was obese William Howard Taft, who retired from the presidency to be carried about the Supreme Court on a door. It's a fact: Harry Truman really defeated Thomas Dewey on account of Dewey's disgusting mustache. And don't go pointing out Geraldo Riviera, that guy with the mustache! I said someone that people Trusted. Would Al Capone trust him with his vault, hmmm? Wolf Blitzer?? Why, that beard is so pathetic that Walter Cronkite died of shame.
If clean-cut B'raq Obama really wants to make Change in Washington, he simply MUST follow Canuck A. Arthur's example and grow a cool Clark Gable mustache, or maybe a hep soul-patch, and return facial hair to respectability for the 21st century. That would really freak everyone out in a major way and that Health Care reform could just slide on through unnoticed.
This is yet another reason why Billy Dee Williams should run for public office.
So everyone grow facial hair today, and bring it to Progressive Happy Hour. Tonight, starting at 9:30 at Red Rock Tavern, formerly Kenny's barber saloon. Free tins of mustache wax await you as do mountains of handlebar-style fries and frothy beverages.
--General Ambrose E. Burnside
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