timid

it's a sunny sunday morning here in mexico city. i've had an excellent last couple of days with regard to work and, more importantly, with regard to mustache sightings. this country is hands-down the tops on the list for the mustachio. maybe i'm jumping the gun on this, but i am pretty confident in my assessment. call me strange or slightly obsessed, but i am not joking when i say that the grooming and general maintenance of mustaches here is nothing short of impeccable.

yesterday i had about an hour ride on the metro - which in and of itself was a great experience. i love riding the metro here. SO many people, and on a saturday afternoon no less. it should go without saying that claustrophobics need not apply. but i digress. on that ride alone, i saw 3-5 great mustaches. i am willing to estimate that some 30% of men in this country have a mustache, and an overwhelming 90+% will have a mustache at some point in their life. one of the variables that is skewing the percentage of mustachio-ed men at any given point is a rebellious younger crowd that is inclined to grow alternative forms of facial hair - the goatee, sideburns, etc - but they all return to their mustachio roots at some point. at least most of them. (note: these numbers are based on scientific sampling by the author.)

unfortunately, my project is suffering from a fatal flaw: surrounded by a plethora of mustaches, i find myself too timid to take pictures of all these people. how do i go about taking a picture of some random mexican guy (generally a bit older than myself) on the metro without making him think i'm some sort of freak?? i still haven't figured this out.

a quick example of my timidity and hesitancy to take photos:

on friday i was riding the metro to work and i saw a fantastic "dad 'stache." this guy had his 10-12 year old daughter with him. she was already starting to act, dress, be more like a 'young woman' than a 'little girl'. this, i can imagine, is an awkward transition for any father. the girl was certainly going to be pretty, but was still slightly awkward and the scales were temporarily tipped towards innocent girl rather than troublesome teenager. the father was working on his protective streak, getting ready for many years in overdrive. there was a great shot of the two of them sitting together in one seat on the metro. his mustache was assertive enough to keep interlopers away, but endearing enough as to not scare his daughter. a fine balance, as you can imagine. and herein lies the problem: i am describing it to you rather than showing you a great pic. i just didn't have the balls to snap a candid picture, or the deathwish for that matter, to ask this guy permission to take a picture of him and his daughter. i saw no need to accelerate the development of his protective streak.

because of my timidity, i have only had pictures of myself and el bigote. and no self-respecting mustache connoisseur wants a blog with just pictures of his own mustache. so, i held out until i got the "security 'stache" as seen above on the right. i caught this guy at a mall in the centro comercial here in mexico city. great thick stache. lots of body, well-groomed. perfectly authoritarian. for a mall security guard, at least. you need to be imposing when making sure people don't get out of hand while drinking their starbucks coffee.

my goal for this week is to shed my reluctance to take random photos of people. in the mean time, i'll leave you with some sage-ness inspired by the meticulous mustache management by my mexican compatriots:

** respect those around you. keep your mustache clean. **