Of facial hair and men

Just last night, I joked with Snowden that when I go any longer than six days without shaving, my facial hair takes a nasty turn. On that seventh day, it stops looking like stubble, and it transforms into a creepy pseudo-beard with wiry hairs sticking out every which way, and bits of egg and marinara sauce seem to magically appear in its nether regions.

Later that same night, I turned on the TV to watch the return of David Letterman and Conan O'Brien to their respective shows and time slots. It wasn't until Letterman was over and I was three quarters of the way through Conan when I noticed something was amiss: They were both sporting massive beards. In both of their monologues, they explained that they were growing the beards as a means of showing solidarity with striking members of the WGA (Letterman, whose company struck a separate deal with the Writers' Guild, came back with his full writing staff, while Conan did his entire show without input from any other WGA members). Presumably, neither will shave until the strike is over. Of course, a better sign of solidarity would be to remain off the air entirely until the strike is over, but keep in mind the hundreds of non-writing employees at those shows who've been out of work for over two months.

In a way, I feel like I was involved in three separate conversations about facial hair in one day. That seems like a particularly odd coincidence, and in hindsight, I probably should have bought a lottery ticket yesterday. In any case, I was amazed that any network executive would allow a talk show host to grow a beard. You know how they always say, "Never trust a salesman with a beard because it makes them look like they have something to hide." It's so true. Letterman looks like Ted Kaczynski, and Conan looks like an Amish child molester. People with beards, especially escaped kidnapping victims and lost hikers, should never be allowed on television.

Oh, and I almost forgot: Conan was hilarious, even without his writers. He spent a good five minutes of the show explaining his practice of spinning his wedding ring on his desk when rehearsals get tedious, actually spinning the wedding ring, and then getting frustrated when he didn't break his previous record of keeping the ring spinning for 41 seconds straight, and he was STILL funnier than Leno. I'd happily watch an entire episode of Conan's show in which he did nothing but dance like a gangly spazz on his desk for an hour.