At last, Andrew Sullivan and I are united on
something. Here’s an overwritten bit from the December GQ, expectorated by
someone named David Kamp:
“Maybe you’ve even taken notice of photo-bylined neoconservative
commentators like Andrew Sullivan and Rod Dreher, for whom a goatee
signifies a cool-daddy engagement with the poptastic modern world of Wi-Fi
technology, reality television and boutique California garage wines, a
worlds they find compatible with their rigorous, showboaty churchgoing and
unapologetic
hawkishness, which therefore gives the lie to the stereotype of
conservatives as jowly, out-of-touch old guys, because — look — there’s
this groundswell of goateed young, self-congratulatory moralist offalheads
who represent the true direction in which America is headed.”
Golly. Since the Rt. Rev. Kamp is so interested in the semiotics of my
facial hair, let me disappoint him by saying that I acquired it in 1994,
after picking up a razor following two weeks of not shaving while recovering
from an auto accident. The things were popular back then. I grew accustomed
to it. Now they’re not so popular, but I like it anyway, so I’ll keep my
Republican goatee. My little dog Checkers will be surprised to discover that
his master’s outdated beard was an attempt to be secretly “poptastic.”
Anyway, what’s facial hair have to do with politics? I was just as
conservative back when I wore combat boots, long hair and an earring
because, well, I liked it. Anyway, what’s a Wi-Fi? What’s a David Kamp, and
why does it write so badly?