Getting warmer out there, isn’t it? About the time of year when you gotta get into the movie theater to cool off. That new Brad Pitt movie, maybe. The Hangover sequel, definitely. But first: Get outside. And before that, get yourself a shorter cut. It’s a glorious thing: not as much time spent styling, a little less glop on your fingers, and longer days at the beach. Hell, if these guys are doing it, you might as well follow their lead — with a little help from Shorty Maniace, of Mystic Hair in San Francisco, a legitimate barber to the stars and, now, for you….

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In a tragedy that shook the grooming world to its core, the comedian Conan O’Brien received one of the worst shaves of all time on Monday night from an enraged amateur barber named John William Ferrell. The Los Angeles county coroner’s office suspected foul play and said excessive drinking of Barbicide may have been a contributing factor in the facial hair’s sudden decline. O’Brien’s beard succumbed to injuries suffered by a weapon Ferrell called “Excalibeard” and was given its last rights, during the commercial break, by someone who actually knew what he was doing.

It was fifteen months old.

“I made a terrible mistake,” Ferrell said afterward, and quickly left the set of his former friend’s TBS variety show in an episode that had been billed as the “Beardpocalypse” and lived up — rather grimly — to the weird things people were saying about it on Twitter.

O’Brien’s beard, notable for being red and kind of uncomfortably scruffy, first came to prominence during the Hollywood writers’ strike of 2008. His rust-colored whiskers quickly became a symbol of the workingman’s struggle — or, as the legendary anchor Tom Brokaw put it, “a draft dodger from the Civil War” — but the writer’s strike was resolved before, you know, the economic collapse.

With O’Brien eyeing a legendary spot of his own, the facial hair disappeared, perhaps ominously, as O’Brien rose to — and then got shoved right off — the summit of late-night comedy as host of NBC’s Tonight Show.

But the beard brought O’Brien strength during his unemployment, from really disgusting Twitpics and all the way to a new job… on cable.

In the pantheon of downtime grooming, the comedian sought at once to outdo former Vice President Al Gore and current middle-school teacher Gary Weddle, a Washington man who on Monday, after vowing not to shave until Osama bin Laden was captured or killed, shaved his 3,454-day-old beard — and took some of the spotlight from O’Brien with him.

Then came Ferrell, confident after a heavy marketing and social-media campaign that “there is nothing else going on in this country other than the fervor to shave that beard.” What Ferrell did not bring with him was any serious grooming knowledge. And with that came a half-buzzed, burning disaster the likes of which America hadn’t seen since his stint on The Tonight Show.

“Do you have any expertise at this?” Conan asked, adding his beard’s final words: “That’s terrible! No! That’s horrible. Why didn’t you give me a bib?”

No proper services will be held, but condolences may be sent to TeamCoco.com.

But Seriously:

A clean shave following months or years of beardedness can be a cathartic experience, one that can catch men by surprise. They often don’t recognize their younger-looking and less hirsute reflections or experience shavers’ remorse. Which can also lead to reclessness.

If you’re going to lose the whole thing once, it’s important to slow down. Don’t rush for the razor like Ferrell did. Instead, use a pair of clippers (no blade guard necessary) to trim your whiskers as short as possible before lathering up. If you don’t trim your beard first, the long hairs will clog the blade and cause uncomfortable tugging. (See above.)

Once you’ve shorn your beard to itss shortest possible length, wet a washcloth with warm water and soak your beard for five minutes to soften the whiskers and prepare your face for the blade. To protect your skin, apply a pre-shave oil like one from the Real Shaving Company ($6.50, realshaving.com), then use a shaving cream like the nice stuff from Bluebeards Revenge ($22, bluebeards-revenge.co.uk). Shave not in Ferrell’s stark-raving-mad “circular motions” but along with the direction of your whiskers. Make sure to keep rinsing the razor to avoid clogs. Then just rinse your face with cool water and apply a soothing aftershave or moisturizer, and you’re done. No makeup person allowed, no personal shame.

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Photo Credit: Meghan Sinclair/TBS

Just think what some of the most famous bearded men of all time could have accomplished, if only they’d been properly groomed. Now, thanks to the magic of Photoshop, imagine doing better.
By Nick Burns /// Photo Illustrations by Ben Running ///

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Male musicians these days aren’t exactly known for their groundbreaking fashion — at least not when it comes to the red carpet, where the women tend to shine even more so than usual at the Grammys than the rest of awards season. Perhaps Jason Segel said it best when introducing Sunday night’s surprise winners, the indie-meets-half-shaved-head Arcade Fire, “Tonight proves what’s most important about music: if you become successful enough, and reach enough people, you’re allowed to wear whatever you want.”

So while there was plenty to look at from the neck down on the likes of, like, Rihanna, the 2011 Grammys taught our half of the species more about hair styles than anything else. And, yes, that means we will be talking about Justin Bieber, but in a highly useful way — and with a much more grown man, barber Shorty Maniace of Mystic Hair in San Francisco, watching by our side to make these into award-winning looks work for viewers at home.

Read more and view the slideshow at Esquire.com

Photo Credit: Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty (Bieber, Mars); Larry Busacca/Getty (Jagger); Kevin Winter/Getty (Arcade Fire)

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/grammys-2011-red-carpet-5233152#ixzz1N7ueXH8n

We already know that Colin Firth looks good in a tuxedo. You didn’t need to hear him thank Tom Ford during his acceptance speech on Sunday for that. But as much as there is to learn about tuxedos and fancy suits each awards season, the main supporting role has got to be facial hair: Between Christian Bale’s chin forest and the strange preponderance of goatees among this year’s leading men, it’s hard not to look above the collar. And it’s not that hard to look better than these extremely well-dressed, good-looking, and famous men. Seriously. Grab your razor….

Read more and watch the slideshow at Esquire.com

Photo Credit: Getty Images (via esquire.com)

It’s hard to feel too bad for Tom Brady these days. That supermodel wife, the 9-2 record, his $72 million contract — did we mention that supermodel wife of his? But the National Enquirer‘s report this week that the three-time Super Bowl champ was seen exiting “New England’s foremost authority on hair restoration” had to make most men cringe — except the Jets, of course.

Still, it got us thinking: Brady used to be a kind of ideal man, and yet here he is hawking Uggs — this after Justin Bieber put him in his place for stealing his haircut, which, in turn, has Brady sporting these current Viking locks of his.

So maybe going bald isn’t such a bad thing after all; maybe it’s just good timing for the guy — all guys with thinning hair, really — to get a new look. Herein, our playbook, with apologies to Jake Gyllenhaal’s already long week of Photoshopping….

Read more and see the slideshow at Esquire.com

Photo Credit: G. Flume/Getty (left and in slideshow), George Gojkovich/Getty Images Sport (middle), Eugene Gologursky/WireImage (right); Photo Illustrations: Ben Running

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/tom-brady-balding-4080481#ixzz1N7u4PfVQ

Do you remember the days when shaving wasn’t so complicated? Before drugstore shelves became this crowded with shaving cream? When aftershaves didn’t arrive packed with extracts from plants found only in the farthest reaches of the Earth?

Growing up, we watched our fathers and grandfathers partake in the sacred ritual that separated the men from the boys. And back then, shaving was — dare we say it — kinda cool.

Thing is, the time-tested tools used by men back in the day are experiencing something of a resurgence. A return to the classics, if you will. So whether you seek to recreate the barbershop experience at home or indulge your need for nostalgia, here are the must-have items for any old-school kind of shaver. Now go make Grandpa proud.
Read more and view the slideshow at Esquire.com.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

SAN FRANCISCO—When Ed Gallagher goes sailing, he wears a webcam on his head, straps a netbook computer to his hip and hops onto a boat with his dog. Then he relies on Herb Meyer, a skipper back on land, to watch the live, streaming webcam video and give him instructions.

Mr. Gallagher, who is 59 years old, is blind. “I used to listen to the old blind guys who had been sailing for years say you don’t really need your eyes,” he says. “I wanted the ability for blind people to truly sail by themselves without a whole crew.”

Mr. Gallagher’s sailing experiment was on view one Sunday afternoon recently. While Mr. Meyer, who is also disabled, parked his wheelchair at the bar in the San Francisco Yacht Club with a laptop, cellphone and a beer, Mr. Gallagher was in a 36-foot sailboat with his guide dog, Genoa.

“Tack left, Ed. Tack left,” Mr. Meyer spoke into his headset. “Ed, you’re not listening to me. I’m the captain. Tack left. Oh, I lost him again,” he said after the screen went dark from a weak signal. For Mr. Meyer, who still sails after a boating accident left him wheelchair-bound 17 years ago, it was like playing a videogame.

The sailing experiment is part of Mr. Gallagher’s broader project to offer a remote guidance system to help the blind perform everyday tasks from reading expiration dates on food packaging to crossing streets (since bicycles and hybrid cars are difficult to hear). In the past four years, the retired building contractor has performed a number of dangerous—and ordinary—tasks using the system.

He has driven a car through the Rocky Mountains, fired handguns, practiced archery and repaired his broken thermostat—all the while receiving instructions from a sighted person miles away.

Mr. Gallagher’s vision loss prevents him from obtaining a drivers license, so it is illegal for him to operate a car. But a spokesman from the California Department of Boating and Waterways says no federal or California laws prohibit him from recreational boating as long as he “obeys the rules of the road.”

Mr. Gallagher says he hopes that with his system and others like it, visually impaired users will feel more comfortable working outside their homes. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey estimated that in August 2010, approximately 75% of nearly 4 million people over the age of 16 who reported being blind were “not in the labor force.”

“Technology is a tremendous liberator for people with vision loss and most people with disabilities,” says Mark Richert, director of public policy for the American Foundation for the Blind, in Washington.

Mr. Gallagher’s system is controversial, and it isn’t foolproof. Last March, the San Francisco resident suffered a bad concussion in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colo., when he hit a big rock that his guide hadn’t seen, flipped over and landed headfirst. It took him months to recover.

“I’ve been going skiing there for years,” he says. “After this accident, I think it’s time to hang up my skis.”

Mr. Gallagher, who grew up in Lake Fenton, Mich., lost his sight 15 years ago to cytomegalovirus retinitis, or CMV retinitis, a rare viral infection. An avid sailor, he says that he thought at the time that his vision loss “was the end of sailing.”

But Mr. Gallagher regained his sea legs when the Department of Veterans Affairs suggested that he join a nonprofit organization called Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors in 2000. The group offers specially engineered dinghies that allow its quadriplegic and paraplegic members to sail solo.

That inspired Mr. Gallagher to pioneer a system that would achieve the same goal for the blind. In 2006, he teamed up with psychiatrist Richard Baldwin and wheelchair-bound sailor Paul Walker, who were also involved with BAADS, to create Genoa Services, which he named after his dog.

Developing it was slow at first, with the trio depending on donated equipment and a shoestring budget. By 2007, they had created a rudimentary system using a laptop and a bike helmet with a bulky video camera strapped on top. But with improvements in technologies like Wi-Fi, the system progressed to include sunglasses with a webcam embedded inside, and a small Asustek Computer Inc. netbook.

During a recent demonstration at the LightHouse for the Blind in San Francisco, a Northern California blind-services organization, a blind woman, Sandra Abeyta, 46, struggled to hold back tears after she was able to distinguish between classic yellow mustard and Dijon in the cafeteria refrigerator using the system.

“Genoa could really improve people’s lives,” she said.

But not everyone is excited by Mr. Gallagher’s invention. Bryan Bashin, chief executive of San Francisco LightHouse, says the system could prevent blind people from learning basic, nonvisual survival skills. “This could lead students down the wrong path,” he says. “I fear that they will think having someone sighted see for you is the only solution to blindness.”

Mr. Gallagher remains undeterred by skeptics. He says Genoa Services has attracted small amounts of cash from investors—and equipment from device maker Logitech Inc. and its founder Daniel Borel. Mr. Gallagher is applying for a government stimulus grant.

Meantime, Mr. Gallagher is having fun with his system. Last month, he took Genoa (the system and the dog) to a San Francisco park for a game of fetch. He hurled a tennis ball across the park, all the while being guided by his assistant Isabel Tifft, who was about 15 miles away in Alameda, Calif.

Genoa scurried after the ball but refused to return it to Mr. Gallagher. (Fetching isn’t generally part of guide dog training.) “Where’s the ball?” Mr. Gallagher asked aloud.

Some people standing nearby who thought he was talking to them called out, “It’s to your left, a little further.” Mr. Gallagher quickly replied, “I know where it is.” To their astonishment, he quickly picked up the ball.

“They must have thought I was talking to myself or had gone completely crazy,” Mr. Gallagher said, laughing.

Photo: Brian L. Frank for The Wall Street Journal