Supersymmetry in the Realm of Tonsorial Disruption

In its attempt to reconcile General Relativity with the quantum mechanical environment, supergravity places an upper limit on the number of dimensions at 11. Crazy sounding? You betcha. What we really want to avoid, though, is that not-uncommon confusion that believes Supergravity has some meaningful intersection with the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. Yeah, as IF. Bottom line – my hair has stopped falling out. It is now jumping out. Let’s talk. 

A Thinning Head of Hair Famously Speaks To Virility

I have thinning curly hair, and now it is graying, or “gray” to put it more succinctly. They say thinning hair is often the result of too much testosterone, which would indeed explain my abundant musculature and tendency to bully people I feel confident I can outrun. Virility aside, my curly, vanishing hair is – in appearance – that of a clown who has been hurled with great force out of a gusty chemical explosion. 

Imagine, if you will, a circus tent detonating (for reasons unknown) in roaring bales of fire. A lone figure in enormous rubber shoes is flung outward and up from the chaos, arms and legs frantically waving, blousy diamond-motif costume trailing smoke. That’s the cataclysm summoned by the most cursory glance at my thinning, curly hair. I’m not balding like Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces, but like Clarabelle the Clown once the fire extinguishers have done their work. Yeah, the world may be teeming with “balding” men (we do prefer the term “virility-cursed”), but few of us are “balding” in a way that makes children cry. 

“Mama (the child sniffles)… What happen to dat clown…?” 

“Don’t cry, sweetheart, that’s not a clown. That’s a nice man with hair like a clown.”

“A ‘sploded clown, mama?” 

“Yes, sweetie.” (the young mother smiles and touches the child’s cheek, her voice nearly breaking with love) “A nice man who looks like a ghastly, exploded clown.” 

Like Most Young Men, I Once Had a Young Man’s Head of Hair

Like most young men, I once had a young man’s head of hair; though it must be said that even at its best, my disaster puff appeared to be a cruel and capricious accident of nature. This was partly to do with the habitual, ill-advised relief I sought in my mom’s curling iron. I was determined to have the fashionably straight hair with which all my classmates had been blessed – that middle school curtain-hair that any curly-headed wallflower in his right mind coveted above all else. O’ the sheer bang-tossing coolness of these fortunate straight-haired titans. Why had I been stuck with this loathsome verticalized frizz? Out of sheer psychopathic envy I would unconsciously mimic the same hipster head-toss of my imaginary bangs, but to lesser effect; my skinny frame and burst of rice noodle hair giving me the aspect of a broccoli stalk with a tic. 

The teen coolness standards of that time were no help. Such estimable publications as Tiger Beat and Totally Rad Straight-Haired Power Teen mocked me with their garish, oversaturated covers of helmet-haired pop stars. David Cassidy, Shaun Cassidy… I was haunted by the combed and famous Cassidys! 

What exactly did my “hair” look like in those days? If you have seen the movie Fantastic Voyage – about a submarine shrunk to the size of a molecule and injected into a guy’s neck (a true story) – you’ll recall the famous scene in which a cowardly Donald Pleasance tries to ditch his comrades by stealing the submarine while they are outside the vehicle and swimming through jelly. Pleasance recklessly crashes into a giant white corpuscle (as can happen), which then lugubriously attacks the foreign object. Our bad guy is trapped by collapsed machinery and gets his comeuppance, the corpuscle descending on the pilot’s bubble atop the sub, eating through the glass and engulfing the would-be escapee’s screaming head. Yes, I had hair like an attacking corpuscle. On some days it was more like a steel wool amoeba. Neither designation flatters. I took matters into my own hands. 

So, yeah. I began using my mom’s curling iron, smashing down my shameful stuff every evening into some approximation of what my classmates took utterly for granted. Then through the night (I am not making this up) I would tactically smash my sorry head against the pillow – first this side, then that – in order to assure success. Results Varied. Most days I would show up at school with the sort of Doris Day flip that invites the unwanted attentions of middle school bullies. “Hey, Wing! This is geography class, not The Pajama Game! Haw haw haw haw haw! Haw haw haw haw haw haw!” Stung with shame (while marveling at the thugs’ knowledge of the Doris Day canon) I would take my seat, receiving Mr. Clement’s ministrations on Lichtenstein or the Taymyr Peninsula, burning with shame and anger and just a touch of Dippity Do^™.

Some Men Can Wear a Hat with Panache 

Some men can wear a hat with panache. Other hat-donning miscreants should be run out of town in the dead of night by torch-carrying, fist-shaking country folk. In the former panache category we have guys like Richard Mineards, whose class, erudition, and crystalline British accent make any hat he chooses a natural augment to his ensemble. To place any hat on my thinning pate, by contrast, gives me the unfortunate look of a Victorian pickpocket. Bowler, Derby, Top Hat, Beret, Fedora; even the festive Fez, with its vaguely conical profile and delightful swinging tassle – no hat will have me. 

Yes, there are over-the-counter chemicals one may apply to the denuded scalp to encourage new hair growth. I’ve applied these potions religiously (on bended knee and with a slug of wine, that is), and the bursting forth of my new Andy Rooney eyebrows improved neither my mood nor social standing. There is also some sort of pricey helmet festooned with diodes being touted as the great hope for the balding. At a certain point in one’s struggle it becomes clear that there may be worse things than a head garlanded with this awful stuff I’ve been gifted by a smirking cosmos. A light-throwing helmet is definitely in the running. 

Reader, should you see me walking down Coast Village Rd. with that unmistakable swagger you have all come to love (“Huh? I’ve never seen this jackass walking around town. You?” “Nope. And that’s just fine with me.”) I ask that you look kindly upon the calamity atop my mildly misshapen head. And I will do the same for you. KIDDING!