Kiss And Makeup, In That Order

It's a funny thing to wear makeup. For a man it's funny in any case, I think (although that's a less and less politically-correct viewpoint). For anyone it's a funny thing to do when it's the sort of makeup that you wear for performing on stage or onscreen. There's makeup to make you look as you should without makeup, for God's sake. Nixon eschewed it, and partly due to that lost the 1960 election. Kennedy had no problems with it.

I've had to wear makeup a handful of times in performance, and I expect that to become more common. It has so far been that sort of muted makeup,mostly. Once I requested unnecessary makeup from a makeup artist with nothing to do. I had to take the subway home from that shoot, and I worried that I might arouse unwanted attention of some kind, but it takes a lot to move the needle with people around here.

The other day, I appeared in my roommate's short film. His particular vision called for me to look rather hideous. Everyone who saw the way I looked loved it, but it remains to be seen how audiences like me. I didn't see it much, but found it startling when I did. To make me look more worn, my natural lines and wrinkles were highlighted, and that doesn't make my feelings about aging any better. It's fair to say I had mixed feelings.

Makeup for me will continue to be only for performing. I can't see every doing it for some kind of personal, deliberate reason. There are a lot of problems, with the inability to ever touch my face without ruining it being among them. It would also be an awful lot of effort and time for someone who doesn't even like taking a shower because of how it takes up time that can't be spent doing anything except cleaning and listening to the radio. Yeah, makeup's not for me mainly.