Here are the products that I use to shave my head bald.
I started shaving my head with the Gillette Mach3 Men Razor and Edge Shave Gel for Men. When shaving your head bald, you need to take it slowly to avoid nicks and bleeds. I spend ten minutes shaving my head every other day.
During the early months of the COVID-19 shutdown, I really needed a haircut. With the barbershops closed, I had to give myself a haircut. I used my electric trimmer to cut back my hair and my razor blade to shave my head bald.
That was three years ago.
I’m still shaving my head bald even though the world went back to normal and COVID-19 remains a lingering threat. Men who shaved off a full head of hair are confident, dominant and masculine. Otherwise known as the Bruce Willis effect.
Last year I made a video about 2020 being the beginning of a new decade or the end of an old decade. According to a YouGov survey from last year: 64% of Americans believe 2020 is a new decade, 17% believe 2021 is a new decade, and 19% don’t know. That video came out three months before the coronavirus became a U.S. problem—and I still needed a haircut.
I mentioned in that video that some people believe we are re-living the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Decades better known as the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, and World War II. We are not yet re-living those decades. We are re-living the years before those decades. When the 1918 Spanish Flu killed more soldiers than all the soldiers who died fighting in World War I.
When I started working from home nine month ago, I wanted to go aqua jogging after work every day. But the water in the unheated outdoor swimming pool was too cold. I had to wait until spring for temperatures to warm up. And then everything—including swimming pools—shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.
That was four-and-a-half months ago.
Santa Clara County, otherwise known as Silicon Valley, re-opened outdoor swimming pools with social distancing rules. I’ve been aqua jogging every week for the last month. Learn how my “gated community” re-opened the outdoor swimming pool.
I cut off my unmanageable naturally curly hair with the electric clippers two weeks ago. A failed attempt to grow out my hair. I haven’t had a haircut in the six months since I started working from home for my government I.T. job at a three-letter agency. My haircut—or lack thereof—didn’t matter much to my virtual coworkers. We all had black tape over the webcam of our work laptop to protect our privacy. If I were to give myself a bad haircut, there wasn’t a better time than the stay-at-home pandemic.
Since my haircut with the clippers turned out uneven and splotchy, I had to finish it off with shaving cream and razor blade. My newly shaven scalp felt raw like a rubber inner tube from a bicycle tire. I searched with my free hand for rough spots to shave with my razor hand. A smooth scalp all the way around made for a consistent haircut. That, and looking good as a man, made shaving my head bald worthwhile for me.
The only other hair that I had on my head besides my caterpillar eyebrows was my sideburns and no mustache beard, which started and ended at the indentations of my glasses at my ears. A pair of scissors kept my beard nicely trimmed to avoid interfering with wearing a medical mask in public.
Read the rest of the essay at Medium. If you’re interested in supporting my writing on Medium, become a paid member and I’ll get a referral bonus.
The last movie I saw before the shelter-in-place order took effect in California was “Bloodshot” starring Vin Diesel. With people already staying away from the movie theaters, two-dozen people watched the Saturday afternoon IMAX showing in their own row for proper social distancing. Since then I missed going out to the movies every weekend to break up the week-to-week grind. Every day in Silicon Valley is Christmas morning with few people walking about and cars on the street.
If only there was an alternative for watching movies at the movie theaters. Silicon Valley still has a drive-in movie theater called the Capitol Drive-In in San Jose. The chain that operates that location is West Wind Drive-In, which has its Sacramento, CA, and Glendale, AZ, locations open for business during the pandemic. Other regional drive-ins in the U.S. are also open for business.
