Opinion & Comment

Combing Through Bold Plan To Use Bald Men As Billboards

APPALACHIAN NOTEBOOK, By Steve Oden

Baldheaded men might be able to cash in on their condition.

I recently viewed a television news report on baldheaded billboards: men who will sell advertising space on their shiny domes. The marketing strategists responsible for this slick idea (pardon this pun and others to come) envision legions of hairless pates pushing Pepsi, Polo and MP3 players.

My personal view is that the blessing of male pattern baldness should not be sullied by cheap commercial trickery. Isn't it enough of a personall affront that baldheaded people have been assailed by ads for hair restoration products, hair weaves, wigs and implants? I mean, the ad agencies and companies they represent have portrayed baldness as a type of disease or deformity.

As an expert on baldness, I am further outraged by the fashion trend for young men to shave their heads. They are counterfeits. Anyone who skips all the trials and tribulations of gradual hair loss - the emotional and societal struggles, the heartbreak of witnessing once glorious curls and locks washing down the shower drain - doesn't appreciate the final "oneness" that naturally baldheaded men feel . . . our calm acceptance that turns eventually into pride of being. We are a band of brothers, hairless but unabowed.

And, we sense when an imposter is among us. Like combat verterans who've heard the bullets whiz and whine overhead, naturally baldheaded brothers can recall the anguishing sound of hair follicles drying up and single hairs giving up the ghost, tiny screams of mortality. We are reminded that life is short whenever a brush, full of hairs that will never sprout again, is contemplated.

So, we can easily identify an interloper in our ranks. Baldheaded men possess a heightened sense of propriety. This is why we are disgusted with hair pieces and wigs. Why hide your expanse of naked scalp under an artificial cover that, even when high-priced, on a hot and humid day resembles a dead woodchuck or an unkempt bird's nest?

I once worked with a fellow who wore a bad toupee to work every day. It was such a poorly made and fitted hairpiece that he became the object of much deprision and outright scorn. After work, however, he never wore the wig. He was clearly torn in spirit, in need of help and counseling . . . so one afternoon we (several baldheaded co-workers) cornered him in the parking lot and snatched the toupee off his head.

The last he saw of the hairpiece, it was headed north on Interstate 65 toward Nashville, attached to the radio aerial of a Mack diesel truck, flapping ignominously in the breeze.

The next day, he came to work in the natural state of baldness, like the Lord intended.l People started to treat him differently . . . actually talking to him at the coffee machine. His production improved, and he was promoted upward in management. He married a rich woman who adored him, made millions during the dot.com boom of the 1990s, and sold his stock before the bust. He retired at age 48 and now splits his time between a Colorado ski resort community and Myrtle Beach.

His success came after acceptance of baldness.

Consequently, we of the Brotherhood of Baldness take a dim view of using bare scalps for advertising billboards. We hold ourselves to a higher standard. Whether due to genetics, stress, or illness, we have learned to live with and, indeed, revel in our lack of dorsal hair. It is enough to force us to countenance the pseudo-bald, those who willingly shave their heads in order to imitate movie stars, gangster rappers and pro wrestlers.

The final slap in the face would be to see men dividing their shiny toppers into grids of standard advertising units and selling the space in order to hawk toothpaste or male sexual enhancement drugs. The idea is uncouth, avaricious, and unacceptable. Dues paying members of the Brotherhood of Baldness are already developing a strategy to combat this blasphemy. Mass e-mails are winging through the digital void; phone banks are zinging with calls.

Beware, those of you who would embrace this idea and corrupt the perfect smoothness of your head with advertising jingles. We have weapons at our disposal. You risk the terrible retribution known as "Knuckles and Noogies." Don't be surprised when, in an elevator or crowded lobby, you are grabbed by several members of the Brotherhood, secured in a headlock, and the offending ad is rubbed clean. You may thank us one day . . . or you may decide to start wearing a toupee to cover the scars.