1. The Male Pattern Baldness Ponytail

1. The Male Pattern Baldness Ponytail

Let's start with an obvious one: the male pattern baldness ponytail, heretofore referred to as MPBP.

Case Study: Steve, 41, is just like the rest of us. He wakes up in the morning, does is buns of steel work-out, has a plate of Oreo Cookies and a glass of goat milk for breakfast, takes a shower, and goes to work. Maybe Steve's a teacher. Perhaps he's even a lawyer, but he's probably a computer tech or a key grip for a late-night public access television program. I can make this assumption because Steve proudly sports the MPBP. He has anywhere between six and twenty-two hairs in the frontal lobe region of his head, yet he pulls them back with the rest of his hair from the side and back region of his head into a ponytail held together by a purple scrunchy. He goes through his daily routines unaware of the absurdity, because none of us fellow citizens has the courage to stage an hairvention.

Observations and Findings:

1. MPBP is not entirely Steve's fault. MPBP is similar to gaining weight, in that the reduction of hair follicles has been a gradual, subtle process in most cases, and Steve simply doesn't see what we see when he looks in the mirror. When he looks in the mirror, he sees Brad Pitt's hair from Legend of the Fall.

2. Alongside the old school comb-over, I become more incredulous at MPBP with each passing year. With the new millennium came society's full embrace and acceptance of bald dudes. Hell Jason Statham is a freaking action movie star sex symbol. How about Ed Harris? He's a bad ass in Gone Baby Gone. Cal Ripkin is bald, and I'm pretty sure my happily married sister would let him buy her a drink, not because he was, at the end of his career, an overrated short-stop who put his record in front of his team's best interests, but because he's a good-looking dude, regardless of his hair situation.

3. By sporting the MPBP, Steve limits himself to about 100 out of 1,000,000 perspective significant others. That's just not good business, especially in the business of love.

4. It is timeless. Under no circumstances in the history of mankind has the MPBP looked good or been heralded. Even if Steve is a synth player in a widely successful Journey cover band in 1986, MPBP is not OK.

6. MPBP makes all those around Steve uncomfortable.

7. MPBP promotes negative gossip. It doesn't make Steve a worse person, but it makes me a worse person because I must tell everyone I know about it (a difficult civil duty, but a civil duty nonetheless).

Reaching Out:

With a MPBP, you, Steve, are less likely to apply sunscreen to your dome (because of the 6-22 hairs "covering" his scalp), leaving you more susceptible to melanoma. None of us like cancer, Steve. MPBP is a enabler of cancer. A friend of cancer is no friend of ours, Steve. Are you pro-cancer, Steve?

posted on 6/6/08

To report MPBP, contact Phil In Transit at this website.

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