THUS SPAKE THE ‘STACHE
A pondering on whiskers.
BEHOLD. Or, wait. Okay, here: Scroll to the bottom, BEHOLD for a little while, and then flip back here. I’ll wait. Okay...GO............we good? Cool.
ANYWAY. The staggering mass of philtrumnal follicles by which I am certain you have just been shocked into silence belongs to none other than the philosopher with whom I am reasonably certain you are familiar, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche is perhaps most famous for his proclamation that, “God is dead.” Let there be no doubt in your mind that the extravagance of that lip-foliage which so broodingly lurked about Nietzsche’s talk-hole played a not insignificant role in this. You see, men are, by nature, feeble and cowardly. They quail from harsh reality, and appeal to divinity to comfort them. However, Nietzsche needed none of this. So proud and fuzzy a prow did he have perched upon his lip that he no longer felt any need for “comfort.” As the King of Moustaches would probably be unable to have been disproven to have said in the unlikely circumstance that there was such nobility (which there totally should be): “Dogs? Man, forget dogs. Moustaches are where it’s at. They are like these constant companions, Fur-Golems composed of testosterone and rage existing solely to be your best bro forever. It’s awesome.” Yeah. That’s totally something that hypothetical guy might say. imaginary royals of facial fluff aside, once our dear friend Nietzsche had cultivated what was essentially the effing Congo of moustaches, he found he had all the companionship a man could need. Not to mention, so coarse and rugged were the tendrils of masculinity he sprouted like a freaking face-farmer that his glorious mouth-drapes were essentially a multi-tool, eliminating the need for many tools. He could get down to scraping paint, grouting floors, cleaning fish, washing/waxing cars, and even ESPECIALLY stabbing vagrants, all with his transcendentally magnificent ode-via-appearance to the Gods of Manhood.
It is also well known that it was Nietzsche who popularized the term, “Übermensch,” or “Superman.” A lesser writer might churn out a tired line about how Nietzsche’s moustache helped make him a “Man of Steel” or some such thing, but I am too cautious by half to fall for that. I know that would, in fact, be an insult, degrading the magnificence of the Master Philosophers Visage-Shrubbery by likening its coarseness to mere steel. Because it is actual documented historical FACT# that the first steel wool was made when Nietzsche nuzzled up against an I-Beam. Nietzsche often spoke of mankind evolving into a new, higher form with his Übermensches, but the sense in which he spoke referred to our collective mental, philosophical and cultural state. But make no mistake, he had already more than accomplished the evolutionary ascension to a higher form in a wholly physical way through the follicular protuberance his face rebelliously extruded, as though daring the world, “What. Make me.” This type of growth is more than just a shirking of grooming trends, this is an advance in the arts of Moustachery on a very fundamental level, this is less like facial hair and more like the horns of a Mountain Goat, a fierce and ostentatious declaration of the possessor’s superiority. Clearly our Dread-Lord of Face-Fuzz represents the pinnacle of human development, and the beginning of a new, greater species, Homo ‘Stachiens. I envision a glowing future where an entire society of brooding, nihilistic mustachioed super-geniuses tromp heavy-footed about, occasionally entering into fierce tussles wherein the loser has his (or her, I’m no sexist) beautiful, lush, but ultimately inferior crop of dense curly hairs ripped painfully from their face, whereupon they are shunned forever. It would be a utopia. And, certainly Nietzsche’s spawn would thrive massively in just such a culture, given how absolutely absurdly virile a man would have to be to extrude through his pores so luscious a mouth-carpet, and how powerful his genes must thereby be.
I mean, just LOOK at this mighty specimen of manhood. Walruses would shuffle home, sobbing and feeling like wusses after being confronted with whiskers so adamantly and furiously stupendous. There is a kind of thinly-veiled, rage of insanity lurking somewhere under the endless topiary maze of Nietzsche’s copious brows and prodigious ‘stache. There is an intensity to it, but also a crucial lack which makes it all the more terrifying: There is no remorse to be found in those eyes. This is a man gifted with one of the world’s most extraordinary intellects and driven by brutal, feral passions. Nietzsche states famously in “Beyond Good and Evil,” that “...when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.” I am tempted to say that this is precisely what has occurred to the man himself, thereby obliterating his soul to result in his terrifying gaze, but then I realize: That cannot be true. Not with this man. And then I notice that this phrase is in the second person. Nietzsche was clearly explaining what happens only to others when they try the abyss-gazing thing. Given the indomitability of the rabid wolverine he kept dangling just below his nostrils, it seems all too apparent that Nietzsche gazed into the abyss, it nervously gazed back, Nietzsche challenged it to a staring contest, it feebly declined, and then Nietzsche called it a pansy and beat the ever-loving crud out of it. There is just something undeniably awe-inspiring about a man who clearly went out, punched a Grizzly Bear in the face until it was almost dead, then ripped a piece of bear off and straight stapled that stuff to his mouth.
Think what you may of Nietzsche’s philosophies, but one thing cannot be denied: His moustache was incredible, in the way that seeing a dinosaur sipping tea with a Stormtrooper is incredible. To impress this point upon you one further time, I leave you with what I assure is a totally real, well documented anecdote#: Once a group of scientists showed a picture of Nietzsche to a group of Blue Whales, well known for the dense forests of hair-like keratin they keep in their mouths with which to filter feed, called a “baleen,” or, more scientifically, a “rockin’ Sea-’Stache.” According to reports, the whales stared at the picture for approximately 30 seconds, at which point one nudged its nearest companion, hesitated for a moment or two, and then said:
“BBBBBOAOAOAOAOAOAAAWAWAAAOAOAOAOAOWOAOWAOW.”
Which translates roughly to:
“I dunno, kinda seems like overkill, doesn’t it?”
THE ‘STACHE, THE LEGEND
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