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Monday, October 24, 2005

Bum's Rush



Al Franken does a great bit on his "Air America" radio show called "The Oy Yoy Yoy Show". As his sidekick Katherine Lanpher recounts the week's news involving the Bush administration, Franken, in a heavy Yiddish accent, responds with, "Oy yoy yoy!"

I have my own "oy yoy yoy" moments. Like when I tried painting all the doors in our house. Oy yoy yoy! Looked like a drunken eight year-old did the work. As my people say, never again.

My most recent "oy yoy yoy" has been this whole Schick Injector bum's rush. I wish I'd never opened my big fat mouth about these wonder razors (oy yoy yoy, there I go again -- "wonder" my tuchus! LOUSY, this razor is! Pheh!)

When my pal Gordon used to bang the drum for these vintage Schicks on the late, lamented MSN Wetshavers forum way back when, I made a mental note to try them someday. But I was getting such amazing shaves with my newly-acquired Merkur HD double-edge safety razor that I never made the move.

Then our mutual friend Andy made a pivotal discovery -- that if you clipped down a Feather disposable straight razor blade to the right length, it would fit into any Injector perfectly, and deliver an ungodly close shave that rivalled anything you could get from the most expertly honed straight razor.

Andy was foolish enough to share his discovery on Wetshavers, I was foolish enough to try it, and the rest is history. After I raved about the Featherjector combo, all the shavegeeks who'd been dishing out the bile nevertheless snuck over to eBay and scarfed up every Injector in sight, driving prices to heretofore unthinkable heights. $200 for a mass-produced plastic razor from the 80s that you couldn't give away a few months ago? It's totally absurd, and I take full, self-loathing responsibility.

Fact is, I should've pulled a JFK -- Kennedy sent Pierre Salinger out to score a thousand Cuban Upmanns before the embargo began, and I should've yoinked every Injector on eBay for a solid month before flapping my gums about what an amazing razor this is. But I didn't, and now every shavegeek yutz is prowling eBay for anything that says Schick on it, and I'll never see another Injector again south of 50 clams. Oh well.

Anyway, who cares. I've given up on the Injector. Yeah, you heard me. If every mouth breather on the shavegeek forums is wild about Injectors now, how cool can these razors really be? If a 58 year-old guy in a Deep Space Nine t-shirt with jelly stains down the front and a forum handle of "VelveetaFan" uses the same razor I do, I need to make some changes in my life.

So this weekend I tried a vintage DE I'd acquired awhile back but never actually shaved with till now. And loaded with a no-name Isreali Personna DE blade and lathered with some Trumper Violet shaving cream and a Vulfix #2235 badger brush, this _____ razor just flat knocked me on my ass. What a shave!

What, you think I'm going to spill the beans? After what we've just been through with the Injector? Not a chance, shavegeek nation. You're on your own. I need yutzes with jelly-stained Deep Space Nine t-shirts to shave with something other than what I shave with. It is a need I have, and a need I will expend great effort to feed.

Suffice it to say, this particular DE's never been a fanboy fave, and it's so non-descript and undermasculinated that even if I told you what kind of razor it was, you'd probably just make fun of it (while simultaneously flailing away like a speed freak trying to outbid each other on eBay for one, and driving the prices into Injectorville). So no dice. That's the kind of guy I and you am.