Wacky Facial Hair

Outta Leftfield: Yosemite Sam and John Oates: Go-to guys for upper lip hair tomfoolery
Published: Thursday, October 21, 2010
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

Can you imagine the inspiration for this column? "Note to self - write column about guy's wacky mustache." This is about the 10th column we've seen dealing with Hall and Oates, too.

Now here’s something you don’t hear every day: John Oates invoking the name of Yosemite Sam.

Here's another thing you don't hear every day: the name "John Oates."

That’s right. Oates is of course one half of Hall & Oates — arguably the most successful duo in rock and roll history.

That's quite a lofty claim, Mr. Morsch.

Sam is the grouchy gunslinger with the “hare-trigger” temper and archenemy of that “crazy idget galoot” Bugs Bunny.

And if you didn't know either of those things, you're even dumber than the author is.

The only thing that John Oates and Yosemite Sam have in common is that they both have (or have had in Oates’ case) a mustache.

You may remember that in the 1970s and 1980s, when Daryl Hall and John Oates were becoming big names in the music business, Oates sported a bushy mustache. As he and his music matured, Oates shaved off the mustache and moved on.

Is he actually suggesting that the development of Oates' musical talent is directly tied to the shaving of his mustache? I'd like to see this theory fleshed out a bit more.

But the mustache didn’t. In fact, John Oates’ mustache developed kind of a persona of its own and a cult following, even though it no longer had a lip on which to sit. Fans and the media perpetuated the notion.

What notion? The notion of... the mustache existing? I seem to be missing the jokes thus far.

Oates, who now lives in Colorado, is a local guy, raised in North Wales and a graduate of North Penn High School. His folks still live in the area, and for the past few years when he’s been back in town, he has scheduled solo gigs at the Lansdale Center for Performing Arts and the Sellersville Theater. In fact, you can read a preview of his Oct. 29 Sellersville show in this week’s Ticket entertainment insert inside this paper or online at www.montgomerynews.com.

Anyone want to bet what the topic of Morsch's November 2 blog will be? Another trip to the Sellersville Theater - I can hardly contain myself.

And Oates — always gracious and accommodating with his interview time on those occasions when he’s coming home — is so nice that I can’t imagine he would ever refer to anyone as a “crazy idget galoot.”

Hey, here's a new spin on an old formula - Morsch describes a celebrity as "gracious" and "nice"! Although, I must honestly tip my cap to Mr. Oates for tolerating the company of Morsch for any length of time.

Over the years, we’ve spoken four or five times about his work and personal appearances and he allowed me to sit in on a private songwriting workshop he once conducted at the Lansdale Center for Performing Arts.

Man, Oates is a SAINT.

I had never broached the subject with him in any previous interview, but this time I felt comfortable enough to ask him about “the stash,” hoping that he found the whole hubbub surrounding it as silly as I did.

It should be "the 'stach." "The stash" would imply that there is a cache of something sitting around.

“I just think it’s funny,” he said. “People are always asking me about it. Just the other day, a request came in for me to sing a song for Yosemite Sam’s mustache. Just because I had one, evidently I’m now the go-to guy for anything that has to do with lip hair.”

Now that’s a funny quote.

Oh! It is? I'm glad you told me, because if you hadn't, I would have assumed that it was not a very funny quote at all.

Even though Oates is a good sport about it, he stresses that he has distanced himself from the mustache days.

“It represents a part of my life and the person I was back then,” he said. “In a sense, the shedding of that mustache was a way for me to reinvent myself and move on with my life. I really wasn’t planning on being that particular guy for the rest of my life.

... On the other hand, maybe Mr. Oates is just as dunderheaded as our beloved executive editor.

“I think so many people get locked into a self-image, especially in the world of performers and show business. Their self-image becomes one and the same with them. I certainly don’t feel like that particular image was me in any way and I didn’t want it to be me. I always look forward to growth and not going back.”

Yeah, yeah he definitely is. What the heck is he even talking about? When I shave my nutsack, am I embarking on some kind of spiritual journey to find my true self?

Of course, Oates is referring to personal growth and not upper lip growth. Fair enough. Still, his was one of the great stashes of all time, right up there with the likes of Salvador Dali, Albert Einstein, Hulk Hogan, Bob Goulet, Tom Selleck, Rollie Fingers, Bernie Scally and the aforementioned Yosemite Sam. (By the way, the voice of Yosemite Sam was the great Mel Blanc, who also wore a mustache, although it was more of the pencil-thin version.)

Again, it's "'stach." "Stash" means something completely different. His list of great mustache-wearers extends just a liiiiiiiiiitle bit too long, doesn't it? And duuuuuh Mel Blanc did the voices for Looney Tunes? Duuuuh I had no idea!

Unfortunately, I did not inherit the mustache gene from my father. Dad resembled actor Hal Linden, and with the moustache, Pop was a dead ringer for Linden’s television character Barney Miller, so much so that I would occasionally call him “Barn” in conversation.

At least he inherited the "great sense of humor" gene, right? Imagine the yuks that this family must have produced.

I wore a mustache and goatee for seven or eight years, but the upper lip part of that equation was one of the weakest mustaches in the history of mustaches. John Oates’ mustache would scoff at my mustache. Yosemite Sam’s mustache would actually berate my mustache right off my face.

Mark it down, folks. October 21st: the day Morsch writes something that I actually think is amusing. Not laugh-out-loud amusing, surely, but I smiled. This is actually good, somewhat witty writing.

In fact, I believe Sam would have no trepidation at all about calling me a crazy idget galoot, that’s how weak my stash was.

... And he blew it.

In hindsight, it would have been better if I had just ignored some of the more unruly nose hair and allowed it to incorporate itself into the mustache, just to add character and density to the overall effort.

That's disgusting, but for Morsch, entirely possible.

I believe that not doing so may have cost me my only chance for inclusion into the American Mustache Institute membership, a definite missed opportunity.

But that would be just splitting hairs.

He started these last paragraphs with a desperate need to do a "hair" pun. But how could he logically work it in? Deciding that this would be too much effort, he makes up a fictional organization (not funny), and uses that to hook in the pun (also not funny).