Do you wanna be a 'hairdo'...?

(... we are making a tv show (and website... and podcast... etc.) called; "Let's Make Politics!", here in Toronto, Canada. This blog is where we explore that process. In this specific instance... the 'transparent' aspect of posting unproduced, unfinished segments.)

Do you want to be bald?

It's a ridiculous question.... right?

How about herpes sores... want some o' them?

Maybe a rash of acne with the pock marks, bringing that nice 'landscape-effect' to your cheeks.... like the rolling hills and dells of Montana's Big Sky country.... hmm... tempted?

On the face of it..... it's all ridiculously obvious.

No one would choose to be bald.

Well..... now the Possible Cure for Baldness is maybe a year (two, at most) from being an actual cure for baldness.

(quick side note on the linked vid; is there anyone... maybe, in the history of mankind... better suited to report on this, than Matt Lauer? He's kinda got that 'prince passed over for the crown' vibe about him. I totally see him, tearfully pleading to his 'magic vanity mirror' for at least that minimal, Nightly News anchor, sweep of hair. I vote, by the way, for his just saying 'balls, to all this half-measure shite' and showing up to work with an awesomely obvious wig.. just this huge, coiffed head of horse hair... and, never even acknowledging it's audacity.)

This cure for baldness is now..... like an assortment of other 'mind-fuck level' advancements..... just over the horizon.

I used to look at my Dad... as I'm sure he did, at his father before him... and, think to myself, I don't want to get older.... and, I know I don't want to get balder.

I'm vain... I'll own that. But, I also knew I was staring down the barrel of my follicle forebear... so, I better come to terms with it.

This was my fate and my future... so, I better make my peace with that.

It's funny... I used to do a version of this 'time machine' routine with girls I would date in school (... and, I'm talkin' grade school to junior high).

A playground pal pointed out to me; "a good way to judge what a girl's gonna be like when she gets older is to look at her mother." That's the time-lapsed photograph.

Boringly obvious to any grown person now, I know.... but, that's a profound revelation to a kid.

So.... I'd see this girl's 4o-something mother come to pick her up after the bell rang.... and, she's just this unfuckable muppet... and, I'd say; "Y'know.... I don't really see this going anywhere. I don't think I can keep spending my lunches and recesses with you.

We could just keep playing out the string here. I keep giving you half... sometimes all... of my fruit roll-up... and then, bam!... thirty-five years later, I wake up to the chinless Yoda puppet with the driver's license that's kibitzing with the teacher, right now.

I've gotta think about the return on my fruit snack investment. But still, I don't want things to be weird at the next pizza/pool party... I'd like to try to stay friends."

As we start to unlock and unravel our genetic blueprint... explore these new frontiers.... we're also conjuring a big bunch of 'fuck-you's' to our fate.

Gregory Stock gave a hopeful speech in 2003 about where we were going with our genetics.... and, this was before we'd completely mapped the human genome.

Just five years later, Juan Enriquez was on the same stage, talking about genetic leaps that were faster, bolder and more exciting then we could have imagined.

And, we're all great guns ahead!.... 'cause, it's all 'progress'... right?

That's how it's being sold to us.

I mean, it's barreling down on us, whether we like it or not.

But.... the question is now; should you 'cure' your baldness?

There's an expression, that's made it's way into showbiz... where you call someone a 'hairdo'.

It basically means.... he's a head of hair, and not much else.

Other than a thick, lustrous lid of hair... he's an empty, husk of a human being beneath.

We've all seen these people.... 'cause, not-at-all coincidentally, they're the ones hosting the biggest and 'broadest' shows in every country...

(Ben Mulroney, pictured above, is Canada's answer to Ryan Seacrest [assuming the question was, can you out-bland the U. S. of A.'s offering in this mayonnaise sandwich contest?]. He's basically just an inoffensive personality vacuum... who, based on my own informal surveys, isn't actually liked by anyone I've come across, outside of maybe his parents... one of whom, Brian Mulroney, was an equally ineffectual, processed cheese slice of a Prime Minister for Canada.)

.... point is, everybody knows of some tv personality that fits this description.

When I meet with industry people about what it means to make a transparent and collaborative show, there's always a lot of explanation... what it means to not build the set, until you've had people participate in the design process (nobody's done it before.. so, it takes some 'splainin).... or, what it means to have participation in the process of 'making the host' (... it makes it sound like some "Mr. Potato Head" meets "Guess Who" game, where people vote on whether the host should have a moustache).

I always describe listening to this Stephen Colbert in-store interview, and hearing him talk [about 35:30 in] about putting together the 'character' of Stephen Colbert for the show... how he became this amalgam of all these various 'talking heads' and tv news personalities, and what parts of the look, the attitude and the delivery of this guy (all the way down to his Anderson Cooper-eque 'perfectly-polished coin', side-parted 'hairdo')... came from which inspirations.

In the least 'behind the curtain in the lipo clinic', reality train-wreck, sense possible..... there's a unique circumstance with being able to tailor-make a personality for a tv show... just like the unique circumstance with making a show like "Let's Make Politics!"

We live in a time where we can decide. We can shape things.

Should our host have a thick, lustrous head of hair? Is it important? Is it necessary? What's lost and what's gained?

I've read statistics ('cause, I was looking for them)..... that say that guys who are bald or balding have more sex and more success than guys with the thick, healthy head of hair.

Why...? Well, the argument goes... the bald guy is trying harder.... he's developing his pecs or his personality..... or maybe he's just working on his chloroform technique.

There are bald douche bags, sure....

Lex Luthor lost his hair in a lab accident and became a criminal mastermind.... but, let's not fixate on the criminal part and gloss over the mastermind bit.

Bloefeld, from the Bond films, had to watch James Bond knee-deep in pussy.... while the closest he got was the white, fluffy, persian thing purring in his lap.

... but still, it seems like the real douche bags.... the non-fictional ones.... are of the other variety.

..... ...... .........

..... I mean, just look at those men.... a veritable 'murderer's row' of history's greatest monsters. Empires of success built on rivers of blood and tears... that they must've then synthesized into a fantastic leave-in conditioner and protein pack.

The truth is... none of these things are cut n' towel-dried.

I haven't lost all my precious hair... yet.... and still (other than the one random homeless person I stab in the eye every week to quiet the demon monkeys in my brain), I consider myself a compassionate, engaged and well-rounded person.

Either way.... (if you watch the linked vids) we're not gonna stand, arms akimbo, and stop a cure for baldness.

We'd be stupid to try.

But.... what might seem an obvious or ridiculous question to ask..... should be asked... and, explored. That's what we're gonna do on "Let's Make Politics!"

So.... do you want to be bald?

Or..... do you wanna be a 'hairdo'?

Think... before you answer.