that's my bro on the left
I have to fess up that it starts, as many 90's stash stories probably do, with Rio, who in Barcelona hammered LA Zack and I with a home truth: mustaches are cool. It wasn't until several years later, when I could pretend to myself that Rio's monstrous influence had faded and my ideas about mustaches were my own again, original, that I finally let myself grow in a nice Peter Fonda handlebar. My friends didn't say much, though I thought it looked pretty happening. Eventually I tired of leading every new encounter with a bold retro fashion statement that many didn't understand, that some likened to a worm crawling around on my face. So I shaved it, and felt clean, pure and neutral again.
It was another Zack, Zack from Boston, who a few years later turned things 180 again. He brought a photo up to Cambridge which he'd snapped in my Easy Rider phase. He said, "that was a pretty good look for you, man." I was depicted waiting in line at Boogaloo's, wearing my black Miami Beach hat and my Big Mac jeans jacket. I agreed: that manly grove of face fur looked pretty swank hanging out there underneath my safety glasses. So last summer I let the weeds grow again. I'll bug Boston Zack for the Phase 1 picture, but for now I leave you with these, snapped one evening during Phase 2 around the family hearth:
that's my bro on the left
Just like Rio!