A hairy congratulations to my friend and office mate Michael for not only digging up this wonderfully disturbing image of himself, but submitting it for consideration in the mattLandia MUSTACHE HALL OF FAME. Michael, I salute thee!
PS - If you are interested in being considered for a place in the MHOF, send your pic to matt at mattlandia dot com for consideration. By sending me your pic, you agree to having it posted on this site.
St. Louis has fallen into grace. After a week here, I have found the spice, the accent color, the asterix if you will. A man with a handle bar mustache and red headed starlet pounding the keyboard... I'm getting ahead of myself.
While visiting with my good friend and MP3 dealer DJLight, a happenstance look at the local sound menu leads us to a Dresden Dolls show, on the banks of the mighty Mississippi. We enter Mississippi Nights, and walk into a large room of {{GASP}} mustachioed men, top hats, bowlers, striped stockings, and surly fat drunk men. I nod to Jason, and we agree that the night has promise on two fronts: the potential for good music, and an opportunity to establish contact with the provincial mustache militia.
The Music was taken care of first. The Dresden Dolls, a two piece combo of piano and drums did not disappoint. Amanda Palmer, the pianist extraordinaire seemed one part Tori Amos, another part turn of the century can-Can girl. Brian Viglione, the marionette painted drummer, alternated assaulting the skins, conjuring the spirits of puppets long since put away, and bantering with the audience. Between the motley smattering of the fan base, the rolling delivery of the Dolls clever balladeering, and the thick haze of smoke, the night felt back-alley Parisian.
The 'eureka' moment arrived when I came face to face with my mustached doppelganger. Similar hair, same hair coloring, same mustache style (The Drooping Mexican Gunslinger, aka The Salchicha Jones) and same respectable fashion sensibility. A fellow champion of the mouth curtain, we give each other the global nod of approval. To make matters even more surreal, when I pull out my phone to document his existence, he pulls out the SAME phone. We make introductions (his name was Pete and his lovely companion was Rose) and chat for a moment. Nice to know the local mustache militias are cool and decent people.
I walk away feeling warm fuzzies about the comforting complexities of chaos theory and alternate universes. Where there is one doppelganger, there are many. I am not alone in my advocacy of the global mustache! As I travel the world, I will seek them out and we will establish the foundation of a Mustache Revolution. 'Que Viva El Bigote! Que Viva El Bigote!'...
Hat's off to Guillermo for this tasty piece of mustache propaganda, found in a BBC article called "Admirers flock to Indian brigand's grave". Raja rocks the house.
