Having a Moustache in the Modern Era

Can you hear me properly? Are my words not being confounded by these stray seventies-style follicles? These face tubes that grow under my nostrils? Thankfully, as you may have guessed, I’m typing these words because if I was standing in front of you, you could grab the handlebars on my face and ride me around the town like a rather stylish, flesh-coloured bicycle.

I’ve always had this ability – rampant facial hair growth. It might or might not have something to do with the fact that I was bitten by a radio-active member of ZZ Top when I was a child. Other people get spiders, I got a man with a silly beard. It’s not a bad gig though, I get to swing through the neighbourhood on my whiskers, roof to roof and tree to tree – saving those in need. I go by the name of, “The Moustache” or El Mustachio to the Spanish. I often find myself battling the evil forces of “Clipman” or Il Razorino to the Italians. He has a suit made entirely of razors and clippers. More often than not, I thwart him with the might of my lip-cylinders, wrapping up his legs with one side of my moustache and whipping his botty with the other side. That’s correct, not only can I swing, I can whip too.

I’m sorry, was that a little whimsical? A little out-there? Let’s try and return to some state of normalcy. Grab hold of my lip-reins and ride me like a nicely-fragranced horse.

Sent to jail. For having an ass-kicking moustache.

A moustache is a lot more than a collection of hairs growing under your nose. A moustache is a legacy. Something handed down from father to son. Empires are built on moustaches. I’m quite sure, that under Barack Obama’s noble upper-lip – he hides a moustache of gargantuan, krakatoan, leviathan-like proportions. Yes, many crazy mass-murdering tyrants and dictators had moustaches too – Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, Lord Kitchener, Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe spring to mind, but that’s not important. On the side of good I’ve got Tom Selleck, Einstein, Dali, Ghandi, Frank Zappa and Freddie Mercury – and I’m sticking with them.

My popsicle had a moustache for nigh on thirty year, and by Jove, I’m continuing the legacy. I could lie and tell you that my father died in a shaving accident in the Congo, but that would be untrue. He runs a pharmacy in Tokai. He shaved his moustache off a few years ago, and I proudly took those bits of discarded man-fur and figuratively stuck them to my naked, pink upper lip. Well, I just didn’t shave my upper lip for a while, but you get the idea. Imagine two men standing on a mountain peak, red light from a perfect sunset streaming past them as one hands a pitch-black horseshoe to the other, who proudly and promptly staples it to his face. Kind of like that.

Apparently this cat's name is Jan van Voorst. More like: Jan van Awesome! He's not even a cat!

What is interesting about having a joke living right under your nose, is that you forget that it’s there. I find myself walking around in public and watching people do double-takes as they realise that I don’t have a caterpillar balanced between my nose and lip. For some people, it’s a knowing smile – a recognition of something great, something more than just the mundane – for others, it’s a little bit of a snigger, but that’s fine. I let the small-minded ha-ha’s bounce off my mouth shield. The real people out there know that this moustache I sport is at least as important to humanity as the pyramids at Chichen Itza.

Indeed, it’s a constant choice to keep yourself looking like this every day, but whenever I feel the need to shave, hanging over me like a sword of Damocles, someone or something reminds me that this moustache is not just for me – it’s for all of the men out there who know how awesome moustaches are, and any ladies who may want to stroke it. A friend of mine’s father saw my moustache and all but bowed-down, he was so proud of me. Just the other day, I was driving out of a parking lot and who should I drive past but Louw Venter (Corne from The Most Amazing Show) our eyes met through the glass and he looked away for a second, only to be drawn back by the magnetism of my moustache, hanging around my mouth like a big black… magnet.

So, whenever I wish I was a little cooler, a little more hip to the times and up to the date – something tells me that this moustache should stay. I can say with all honesty that I will keep it at least until next year. The times I’ve shared with Moustache have been great – we’ve shared some great meals (and my moustache has even kept some left overs for me to be eaten at a later date), we’ve drunk our fair share of beers and once or twice; when I’ve been drinking a cappuccino – a tiny little bit of foam got caught in it – it was too cute for words.

He only looks sad because his brother just died.

Sometimes it is trying having an amusing doorway to the seventies around your mouth, but in the end, the times we’ve shared together and the amusement we’ve shared at other people’s responses to us have made this an extremely special relationship. One day, when my lip is bare and cold and people no longer point and whisper to their friends, I’ll remember that summer we shared – when the world was simple and all we had to worry about was making sure that the little black hairs we shared didn’t get stuck in the ring-pulls of cans.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and have a little cry.

Yours Ron Jeremyly,

Paul White

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