So, I’ve been growing a mustache lately; not just to make the visual representation of my  lifestyle more child-friendly, but also to raise awareness and funding for prostate cancer in Canada. Why, you ask? Well, regular readers of reputable scientific journals will note that nothing fights prostate cancer quite like a hirsute Canadian.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry, that’s normal. You can find out everything you need to know about MOVEMBER and my participation therein right HURR or right HURRRRR.

Here’s what I look like at the halfway-ish point of my first Movember experience:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My natural good looks and inhairent charm aren’t the only things blazing a scorched-earth policy across both the interwubs and the loins of confused young men. There’s a war going on, folks, and things are getting … hairy.

Recently, my friend, fellow blogger and intimate life partner, The Brentertainer, crafted a loving visual ode to his own fuzzy growth … and by that I mean his mustache, and not that other thing – he bought ointment for that and you’ll be happy to know it’s clearing up nicely.

To commemorate his MOVEMBER experience, Brent crafted this Stirling piece of photoshop art, or as I like to call it … “Photoshart.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a one-off effort, you might think, to raise awareness for his own Movember donations page, as well as that of our Fukushimo team. You, however, underestimate the tenacity of this Brenterprising young man, for that is when he released the Photoshart heard around the world. It was a picture of my face pasted atop a beautiful lady; my eyes closed, silently admiring from afar a similarly tweaked image of Brent, standing like one of the legendarily rippling soldiers of Sparta. (nope, not lying – see below)

Such wanton besmirchment of The Stevil Empire shall not stand! Thusly did I become Brentangled in a conflict we have come to call “The MO-toshop War.” However, if it’s one thing our friend Sunny T taught us, it’s that there is an Art of War, and within the unholy conflict that has volleyed between friends, there is some true mastery at play. That is why, in a bid to showcase the artistic anatomy of our Motoshop War, I would like to take the time to critique each salvo so far. Brent has already launched this over at his blog, but here are my own interpretations…

Note first the wild “come at me bro” stance employed by Brent’s sinewy beckoning, set beneath the sickly pallor of a smokey night sky. Is this, perchance, an aggressive call to arms against an increasingly parasitic and pants-less global economy, or is it indeed deeper still: a war dance – the last gasp of a near feral, misogynistic presentation for the thinly-veiled figure of Artemis, goddess of the moon, the hunt and, of course, the swarthy five o’clock shadow and feathered mullet combo - here represented by an orgasmic Steve? None of this yet touches upon the image’s graphic display of liquid viscera, dashed about the canvas like so much war paint. Interestingly, much of it seems to be emanating from Brent’s loin cloth, quietly suggesting that this was a heavy day of fighting … as well as manstruation. Ew.

In this, we are lead to believe that if prostate cancer had eyes, and could indeed close them, this is what it would see before it went to sleep at night. More male posturing abounds in this piece, leveraging the technologies of Man’s IRON will, and indeed his “War MO-chine,” against the resonating might of an increasingly emasculated and archaic idea of western “Super Power.” The text, and indeed context herein, remains as enigmatic as the placement of Brent’s left hand; although, as is evidenced by the pursed expression on Steve’s own countenance, the viewer can guess where both are going. Perhaps the truest answers can, as in life, be found below the mustache belt.

Unlike the others, this work alludes to a greater childlike sense of wonder, using simultaneously as its treatise the ontological juxtaposition between the supposed good of the caucasian ideal and the inherent evil of skeletons who dress in purple. It also speaks volumes to the Motoshop War itself. Will its participants stand against each other long enough for their disproportionately large quadriceps to begin to look like shorn nutsacks, or will they indeed be consumed by the toothy, vaginal castle sneaking up behind them? Who amongst us has not been set upon by similar dilemmas? Whatever the outcome, one thing is certain within this war: hairy orange beast men with lengthy man pelts and a touch of the Downs will be there. And they will be inexplicably happy.

Panic. Anger. And fear? In its thickly-caked brushstrokes, this appears to be a same sex marriage of all three, and in it, we can see the varying degrees of what scientists have called “Mustachceptance,” or that process by which men and women come to terms with their mustaches. It begins with the bottom right figure: hesitation, blindly lashing out at a world that both fears and respects you, but mostly thinks you look like a child rapist. Fear congeals in the figure to the left, quickly becoming anger, distilling itself into its bare essence – a gaping resoluteness with a heavier finger on the trigger of a gun called life. Finally, there is acceptance, when the now hirsute cycloptic man inevitably dons a fully-articulated, albeit somewhat sexually ambiguous, cybernetic war suit and unabashedly jumps at the world in a bull-charge as if to say, “I’m mustachioed as hell, and I’m not gonna take it any more!” If there ever was one, this, friends of art, is a story … nay, THE story … of human evolution … into robots.

As the old saying goes, “keep your friends close, but your mustachioed friends closer … because they’ll probably try to fist you.” With that in mind, we see above both trust and the lack thereof in equal measure as both subjects go ass-to-ass, ready to face the world face-to-face. However, are their weapons drawn against an encroaching society … or instead against one another? Is, as is intoned within the work, the only unifying factor a mustache? Is the hair above a man’s lip able to reach its tendrils into his very soul, and if so, will such growth root us to one another in solidarity against the forces of Cobra? The answer, while perhaps not simple, is clear: Abso-fucking-lutely.

That’s it for now, but keep on checking back, because this war is set to continue for the remainder of the month. Brent definitely just cleared the room with his last Photoshart, but I’ll soon be back … for MOre.

(In all seriousness, if you’d like to donate to the very worthwhile Movember cause against prostate cancer, please do so HERE - our team has made great headway so far with amazing support, but we could always use more help. As long as you keep MOnating, we’ll keep coming with the ridiculous.)

If you’re reading this … you ARE the Stevolution!