Face-On! And off. And On!

Face-Off. A movie from the nineties starring John Travolta and Nick Cage. Long story short, they have a medical procedure that allows them to switch faces. Then they fight each other. As well as starring Travolta and Cage, this flick was pretty much the end of John Woo's U.S. invasion.

It was dumb. Impossible. Just plain bad sci-fi. Until recently.

Recently at Brigham and Women's hospital, right down the street from here, a man who had lost his face in an accident--that's right, his face-- was given an entire new face. The first full face transplant ** in history. Said the man, "I just can't wait to kiss my [3 year old] daughter."

A great story and a great reason to go through a difficult operation.

More importantly, a great step forward for me. Why, when the technology exists, should my wife and kids be forced to continue kissing this odd mug:

Endearing in an "awww, he tries so hard" kind of way.

They shouldn't. I'm not being vain or selfish here. I'm just using common sense. We have the technology. We can make me more handsome, more kissable.

And so we did. It took a lot of cajoling on my part. I had to promise the surgeon a shout out on the blog (Thanks Doc Pomahac!) but you are about to feast your eyes on the first ever cosmetic full face transplant recipient.

Behold, the New Homemaker Man:

If you look into my eyes, you can still see it's me. Right . . . there!

The original operation took 15 hours and 30 medical professionals. But with my easily manipulated features, in and out in 45 minutes. Glue had to dry.

Here's a sideways view:

Ciao, baby.

Even better, as the technology improves, so do my options.

For days when I'm feeling weird:

Notice the little arrows.  That's where they put in his crazy.

For sunny days:

All I can see in these things are my own eyes

For days when I don't feel like being found until I'm almost dead:

Our favorite kid's game for years: Where's Whitey? Where's Whitey? Where is he?
Whoops! There he is!

So there it is everyone. God Bless Science.

That concludes our Independence Weekend programming. Have a great holiday and remember, if you happen to hold that Roman candle to close to your face this year, no biggee!

*Not including that scene from Silence Of The Lambs when Hopkins scrapes off that dude's face and wears it as a disguise. Which doesn't count because the face wasn't actually attached. According to Doc Pomahac.

*Creepy note: After completing the surgery succesfully, the hospital was awarded a grant of 3.4 million dollars by the Dept. of Defense in order to perform 5 more transplants. They claimed it was because they wanted better techniques to help injured soldiers, but you know someone high up caught Face-Off on cable and was like, "A-Ha! The perfect spies!" There's probably 5 soldiers running around right now looking vaguely like Al-Zawahiri. Which could've been accomplished by simply growing a beard and tanning.

Author's even creepier Note: Had these pics prepared for a week.  The kids would get into them and then you could here me wandering around the house wailing, "Where's my Brad Pitt face? WHERE'S MY BRAD PITT FAAACE?!"

HM