Baldsploitation

I was recently featured on the CNN Headline News show News To Me. I was interviewed for almost an hour by the show's host, Eric Lanford. The conversation was all very insightful and titillating, but of course it had to be cut down for time.

One thing that was left on the cutting room floor was Eric's plea to me, his plea for an idea to make money off of his baldness. Eric has a fairly stunningly bald head, which seems to almost glow in his publicity photos.

I tried to tell him that he was already making money off of his bald head since he is the host of a national TV show, but he wants more. He wants his head to work for him, bringing him riches beyond belief simply because of the fact that its follicles are flawlessly free of any errant hairs.

I thought about it. I thought about it long and hard. I literally began to pull my own hair out!

Finally, I decided that the way for a bald man to make money off of his baldness is to exploit other bald men, and if Eric doesn't act on this right away, it would be a shame. If he doesn't do this, one of you, his other shiny cue-ball compatriots, should definitely act as fast as possible on this idea.

Here is the idea: A calendar of famous bald men, the images created with aerial photographs of hundreds of bald men, the tops of their heads acting as the pixels.

Why is this a great idea?

1. People love photo mosaic art and any art that is something else when you get closer. Just ask Chuck Close. Okay, you can't ask him, because he is dead, but you can see his art on display all around the world. If I was putting together this calendar, he would be either January or December.

2. This is the perfect gift to give any bald man that you need to give a gift to, especially bald men that you don't know. It celebrates baldness in an artful and lighthearted way. Plus, no one wants to spend more than twenty bucks on the guy three cubicles down at work, knowing nothing personal about him except the fact that he is bald.

3. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that at least two thirds of all calendars are bought by women, and there are a good number of women out there, though they may lurk in the shadows, who love bald men (I have no statistical data real or made-up to back this statement up).

4. People love wacky calendars. Go to the calendar section of your local bookmart or click here and you will find calendars featuring Pugs dressed like fishermen, naked firemen and babies, yoga dogs, outhouses, Jimi Hendrix, and even Nuns having fun. It's all about tapping into that tiny part of the brain that wants to know what day it is and see Sister Mary Francis on a roller coaster at the same time.

Eric, if you don't make this happen, you are really missing out on some bald generated revenue, and I don't think you will ever forgive yourself.

P.S. If you want to hear about my latest and greatest ideas before you hear about them from the bald guy three cubicles down at work, you should subscribe to my blog.

P.P.S. Eric, Barack Obama has his own calendar, shouldn't you? If you make this calendar, you can be Mr. July cause it's so hot!

P.P.P.S. If you are one of the 38 people that didn't catch my CNN HLN NTM appearance, click HERE.

P.P.P.P.S. You could probably put the same images on everything from coffee mugs to shoes and make even more money.

Get Together

This another one of my more socially conscious ideas, so if you are looking to get rich quick off of this one, you might as well stop reading now.

I am sick of the whole Red State/Blue State country divided 24 Hour News Channel marketing scheme that is actually doing as much to polarize Americans than any of the real issues. People are buying into the idea that the 300+ million people who live in our country can be broken down into the limited color pallet of a box of crayons from IHOP missing several colors, lost to a bowl of grits and a four year old Willy Wonka wannabe.

Of course it isn't just maps that are creating this disconnect, this divide between small town and small apartment, homegrown and homeboy, urban and noodlin, but the maps are important place to start if we really want to come together as a country. If you look at a map of the 2004 election not drawn up by Fox News or CNN's Best Political Team On Television®, you will see that our country is still essentially purple. Plum and mauve are much harder colors to rally around. Most people don't even know what mauve is.

We need to return to maps that actually reflect what is going on in this country, maps that don't discount people and try to break things down into absolutes, black and white, red and blue.

Write to FOX, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and any of the others that might have left out. Tell them to keep the Red and Blue maps in the closet, at least until election night.

The truth is, we are all much more alike than we want to admit, both inside and outside of the voting booth, so don't cling to a color before or after this election. Instead, remember that we are stronger indivisible than divisible, and none of us should be invisible(sorry, I couldn't resist).

The place for blues and reds in our country is on our flag, together. After all, if these colors did run, more people would know about the color mauve, and we would get even less respect around the world.

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P.P.P.S. Commenting on Ideas By Chuck is still easy. You don't have to give any information, and I welcome, with open arms, ridiculous and insulting commentary on my ideas. Plus, I might be able to help you with your own personal problems... just nothing to do with bodily functions or mental health, please.