Mustache
Occasionally I'll see an interesting mustache in a movie or TV show and I'll try to replicate it, but a fascinating transformation takes place. A mustache that makes a movie villain look exotic, mysterious or tough always, no matter what, makes me look like the guy behind the hotel desk in I Love Lucy reruns. I know that mustaches look good on some people - although Don Ameche and my dad are the only ones that come to mind at the moment -- but the potential for tragedy is just too great. C-

Muttonchops
It's time for muttonchops to make a comeback, don't you think? Really, I don't see how you can go wrong with facial hair named after meat. Plus, once veejays and jaycees alike are sporting full, bushy muttonchops, Chester A. Arthur can finally rest in peace and stop haunting my carburetor. C+

Sideburns
A simple set of sideburns can say so much. It can express solidarity with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, or if shaven into interesting shapes it can say "I'm working up the courage to get a tattoo." It can denote an urge to prove your virility without giving your girlfriend stubble burn, or it can say simply "I work at Borders and this is all they'll let me get away with." B

Full Beard
You would think that a full beard would be the easiest thing in the world. There's nothing to do but let that fucker grow and use the money you're saving on razors to influence senators. A beard is a personal thing, but in my case the problem is that in raw surface area most of my beard is on my neck, so if I grow it all out I look like I'm harboring some endangered form of rock-growing fungus on my face. So I still have to shave my tender, milk-white neck with a cruel and expensive slicing device. C-

Goatee
It's just happy coincidence that I already had a goatee when the goatee boom of the late nineties happened and venture capitalists where combing San Francisco for goatees in which to invest. Sure, for a while there it looked like goatees might just keep getting more and more valuable. We dared to hope that perhaps the Goatee Economy would transform society, but I think in our hearts we knew that it couldn't last. And yet, many of us hung on to our goatees even as plunging goatee values made headlines across the world. And even now there are pockets of us stubbornly clinging to our goatees both in the literal and metaphorical sense, those who insist that it was never about the money and the parties and being interviewed by news-magazines as if our opinions mattered. It was, and still is, about hiding our chins. A