- Hi, I'm stand up comedian and actor, Charles Gould.
You may recognize me from my many roles as creepy guy,
creepy guy, and Jew.
I have a few anxieties,
like I'm not young anymore, I guess.
I didn't hit him did I?
I'm I being a baby?
And like 50% of American men, I'm losing my hair.
Nothing to be ashamed of, but I'm a little ashamed of it.
Lucky for me, there's a billion dollar industry
when it comes to hair loss prevention.
Unlucky for me, I struggle to make decisions.
So I decided I need to talk to someone
to overcome this anxiety.
And my first stop is the therapist.
And I'm going to drive there,
even though I haven't driven a car in nine years.
So let's go.
- So tell me what balding means for you.
- I think it means like,
I don't know, maybe not being attractive anymore.
- And how do you think it's going to be doing comedy
if or when you do lose your hair?
- I don't know, I think I might be funnier,
especially if I just keep this,
and then I just go bald here, but I keep this super long,
immediately funny, right?
- So being funnier is more important to you?
- Than being hotter?
- I don't know.
Yes, it is.
- Is there anything that hair loss
is maybe preventing you from doing right now?
- No jumping in pools,
going to the beach, going to the ocean,
driving with the windows down, yoga.
'Cause of the bending,
and the kind of like the leaning forward.
- So let's talk a little bit about
the options that you have.
- Well, I could take a pill.
The problem with that is there's a sexual side effect.
Which what's the point of having hair,
if you can't get a boner?
I could get surgery,
or I could just kind of accept.
- So what would be your plan when you leave here today?
- I don't know.
- Okay, so you need a plan of action?
- Yeah, I do.
So we're done, this is over?
- Yeah. - Okay, so, okay.
It's just I feel, it's just so nice to talk.
- Happy to hear that.
- Right now we're off to talk to some people
who take a pill for hair loss,
one that's prescribed by a doctor.
I wanted to talk to real people who take the pill
to see if they experience any side effects.
With all the research I've done on that has been online,
and there are some horror stories on there.
I mean, M. Night Shyamalan doesn't have nothing
on some of the stuff that I've read.
Oh, I'm going to go through this yellow light, ooh!
And also, I'm going to convene a round table
of people with hair,
people that don't have to worry about hair loss,
and just get their thoughts
on how they feel about bald people
see if they like them, if they find them weird,
if they even notice them,
and if they will pay for my therapy.
Hello.
- How are you? - Hi.
- From what I've heard, you guys are all on a pill,
and I wanted to talk to real people
who take it to find out if they've experienced side effects
or anything like that.
Thank you so much for coming.
So we're going to talk about bald guys and
whether or not they're attractive to you.
I asked two women and one man to come
because I'm one third gay.
- Okay.
- Yap, that checks out.
- So I've done a little research into all this stuff,
and it seems like some of the side effects
are pretty gnarly.
- I'm kind of worried because I heard ED is one,
and I mean, that's something that you won't know
for until years down the road in most cases.
- If you start experiencing that,
would you stop taking the pill?
- Oh, yeah, definitely. - Yeah.
- Yes. - Absolutely.
- I don't know.
- Really, you think you would keep going?
- I'm in a long-term relationship, man,
and I love my girlfriend.
- Yeah.
- But, I use my hair everyday.
- Well, is there a side effect
that would stop you from taking it?
What if you lost a toe?
- Which toe?
- Pinky toe. - Pinky?
Yeah, man, sure, I'll give up a pinky toe.
- I would prefer a bald guy over a guy with long hair.
- So, ponytail bad, shaved head--
- Yeah. - Good?
- I saw a guy put his hair in a ponytail
and I never spoke to him again.
- Really?
- I could not look at him again.
- There's so many conflicting points of view on it,
like this person saying use urine in your hair,
this person saying you--
- Saw one where a guy was drinking his
wife's menstrual blood.
- Did he have like a before and afters?
- No.
Let's say it turns out that is the cure,
would you do it?
- [Man] Oh, yeah, definitely.
- I'd become a vampire my friend.
- All right, okay.
- I don't know about that one.
- That you won't do? - I don't know man.
- You said you would chop off your toe.
- That's my toe, that's me.
- What do you think I should do?
- Can we just see the full?
- I mean, you can it's painful.
- Give us the full turn around.
- Yeah we get it, ooh.
- Oh, okay.
- Okay, there are you happy?
- Well, how do you feel in your heart, man?
- I don't know. - What do you think
- that's the problem. - will make you feel better.
- I don't know, I don't know. - Yeah, I--
- I need someone else to tell me.
So we just came from the panels and they were really good.
All the guys said they had experienced no side effects,
which, I don't know if they were being totally honest about?
I mean, one of those guys I think was bald,
but he didn't want to mention that part.
Right now we're on our way to a hair loss clinic,
people that specialize in transplants and wigs,
and stuff like that and I don't know about that either,
because they're either very expensive and when they're bad,
they are really bad.
Sometimes the cover up is worse than the crime.
Also people who have really bad hair transplants
are all evil.
- Well, welcome. - Thank you.
- My name is Stephen Madaus.
I'm the California division leader for National Hair Loss.
Walk me through what you're currently doing
for your hair loss now.
- Constantly worrying about it, staring at it in the mirror
and bothering all my friends
asking them if they think my hair is falling out.
- So what other family history of hair loss do you have?
- Yeah, they're all bald. - Okay.
- Both my grandparents were bald,
and wrote my parents out of their wills.
- All right. - So I'm just going to be looking
at my bald spot through this iPad?
- Yeah, we're going to actually, it's going to magnify up to 50.
- Okay great.
Oh, this isn't so, oh, whoa, wow, look at that.
It looks like a bug.
- So there're two methods that you can stop
male-pattern hair loss, one of them you already know about
which is a pill, right?
- Yes.
- The second method is medical-grade lasers.
- Okay. - So, you never want to have it
directly in your eyes.
- How much does the laser hat cost?
- It can be anywhere from 900 to 3500.
- I've done a lot of research into hair transplants
and so I think I've become an expert at spotting them.
I was wondering if I could run these by you.
- Yeah. - And you can tell me
if you think these are hair transplants.
- Yep.
- So I think this guy has had one.
- Oh, yeah.
Look how strong that hairline is right there,
versus right, there.
- Got it. - Yeah, I agree.
- This one is a pretty egregious one.
- The hairline is much lower than that photo.
- Right. - Yeah.
- He looks way better in this picture.
- Yeah, that's it, he'll be more happier with that photo.
- Yes.
- Should he have gotten one?
- You know what, I'm actually digging the look.
- You like the bald Gandhi? - Yeah.
- Okay, so you mentioned what my expectations are.
- Yeah. - I have some mock ups
of some, kind of like where I see my hair in the future
and just wondering if these are possibilities?
- Okay. - So here's the first one.
What do you think?
Can we make that happen?
- That's very long hair.
- [Charles] Yeah, it's nice, right?
- [Stephen] It actually has a straight wavy look to it.
- Could I get the Jon Snow?
Is this realistic?
- For your own hair? - Yes.
- Absolutely not.
- Okay, thank you for telling me how you really feel.
Okay, now this is my personal favorite.
This is what I would do if I wasn't losing my hair.
- Oh, yeah, see, that's very California too.
- [Charles] I call this the Jaden.
Is this a possibility, 'cause it's short?
- Let's see what we can do.
- I'm feeling like that's a no.
Yeah, is it a no?
I call this one the unfortunate reality.
- You know what, it's not a bad look.
- I wasn't expecting you to give me props for the bald look,
I got to be honest.
It shows that you're an honest man.
- [Stephen] Yeah.
- So the hair loss clinic was good.
The laser hat was interesting.
I do think they missed an opportunity
with the salesman to have a bald guy.
They had given this guy who has a beautiful head of hair,
they should have sat me down across from like the weirdest,
saddest, bald man, and have him just be like,
if you don't want to look like this,
put the lasers in your brain.
So the last thing on my list is acceptance.
I need to talk to someone who is bald,
who's accepted that they're bald
and hasn't been kicked out of Hollywood,
still has a career in this industry,
maybe even it made them better,
like a bald Jedi, but not Samuel L. Jackson.
Samuel L. Jackson won't return my calls.
I can't, can't see...
How far?
Ah, whatever I'm just going, I'm going, I'm going.
Who are you?
- I'm Anthony Carrigan.
- Actor? - Actor.
- Thespian? - Thespian.
- You're so funny on Barry.
- Oh, thanks.
So I grew up with alopecia.
I got diagnosed with it when I was three years old.
And it was just spots, I still had hair
and eyebrows and eyelashes and everything,
but in the back of my mind, I always knew that like,
I really hope this doesn't progress.
So it did.
- Do you have embarrassing, hang-on-to-hair stories?
- Yeah, I certainly do. - Okay, go.
- I had injections, steroid injections,
and a lot of them would be in my eyelid.
- Whoa, really? - So needles in my eyelid.
But it was like I was in such a mindset of
this is what I have to do.
I have to do this.
- Right, I'm I being a baby?
- No, you're not being a baby at all.
I mean, it's hard to kind of feel super insecure
about something and then have
all of this societal pressure to be like,
"You should think about changing it."
And not to mention all the voices in your head
and when you wake up in the morning
and look at yourself in the mirror
and you're just like, oh, God!
You want to look at it and
you want to look at yourself and be like,
cool, great, yeah. - Hell yeah.
- Its going to be a fantastic day.
- Hell yeah. - Hell yeah, bro.
- Yeah, exactly. - Yeah.
- Totally, be a real cool dude in front of the mirror.
- Exactly. - You know what I mean?
- I saw that you said that you actually think
losing your hair made you a better actor?
- It certainly did.
Yeah, well, 'cause I wasn't hiding anymore.
It like kind of creates a schism in your brain
when you have to kind of be in front of a camera
and be present and vulnerable,
while also hoping that they don't actually see something.
You know what I mean?
- Do you feel that way, even beyond acting
just in your life too?
- Oh, yeah, especially in my life.
I mean, just socially, I feel so much more at ease.
I'm not expending all that energy to kind of cover it up.
You don't even realize how exhausting it can be.
It can detract from the important thing,
how you feel about yourself.
You kind of skip that step if you go straight
to hair plugs or something.
- Right, and so that one step
that you're kind of talking about
that is what some people might say
is what attractiveness is.
- Oh, for sure.
I think it's important, especially in this industry
to kind of just, to really celebrate
what makes you different.
I think you would look great with a shaved head.
- Thank you. - I really do.
- Thanks. - I say we just do it,
I say you shave it today.
- Maybe I'll do like a shaved head and go do comedy.
- I think that's a great idea, man.
- So this was great, thank you so much for doing this.
- For sure, man. - I feel great.
- Excellent.
- Can I ask you for a favor?
- Yes.
♪ Live a little, live it up ♪
♪ Lets get the party started and never stop ♪
♪ You know a get together will be too much good times ♪
♪ So we got to just live a little, live it up ♪
♪ Yeah yeah yeah yeah ♪
♪ Oh oh yeah ♪
♪ Live a little, live it up, live it up ♪
♪ Lets get the party started and never stop, ooh yeah ♪
♪ You know a get together be too much good times ♪
♪ So we got to just live a little, live it up ♪
- All right, we're backstage at the comedy show.
I'm going to go back here and when I come back out,
I will be a bald man.
I don't want to talk too loudly 'cause there are
a surprising amount of bald men back here.
- Hi, Jen. - I'm Charles, Jen.
- Nice to meet you.
So we're going to do a little smoothing out.
- Okay. - Flattening some of this
so it sits.
- So this is the final step.
Stand up comedy is already embarrassing enough.
I already had to degrade myself and my religion,
and besides a white penis to make people laugh,
and now I'm going to put on the bald cap
and get in front of 75 strangers
and just see how I feel up there.
I'm very nervous.
ohh, it feels weird.
- All right, then make some noise right now
for Charles Gould, everybody.
- I'm bald.
Did you guys hear about this?
It's a very good time to be a bald man though.
- Woo! - Yeah
I thought when I was loosing my hair
I thought I would be less attractive,
didn't realize I'd actually be more attractive
to a smaller, yes, but way more devoted group of people.
I'm like a cult movie from like the 80s,
less people like me but the people who do like me
they won't shut up about it.
But also you know the hottest man
in the world right now is bald, The Rock.
The best musician in the world right now is bald, Pitbull.
And the best basketball player in the world was bald,
until he got a hair transplant.
Lebron James, missed the playoffs this year
for the first time in 15 years.
Coincidence?
I think not.
Did I forget to mention that he is hot now?
Ever since he got that hair transplant,
he is so much hotter.
I mean he is so hot.
So, I think the question
we all have to ask yourself is, what's better?
Being the best you can be?
Or being the hottest you can be?
And I want your answer.
- [Man] Hottest, of course.
- Hottest you can be?
Yeah, I think you're right.
All right, thank you.
- [Announcer] Thank you guys so much for coming,
have a great night. - All right.
I don't know, I thought that went pretty well.
- What's up?
- Did you think the bald jokes went well?
- Yeah.
- I don't think it made a difference.
- No.
- You've seen me do stand up before?
- Yeah. - Seemed like the same?
- It feels like it's better by a pretty large margin.
- Okay, I--
- You did it.
- I think I learned that whenever happens, happens,
but it'll be okay.
I felt very close to other bald guys that were here tonight
and I feel like I could really relate to them,
and I felt like I had a whole new group of friends.
- So, what do you think you're going to let yourself go bald?
- Nah.
♪ Live a little, live it up, let's get ♪