Alright, pop culture, I have a bone to pick with you. Or rather, a hair to pluck with you. The mustache.

Why do you keep saying "it's back" year after year after year after year? Sure, it's a bold (if not regrettable) retro fashion trend rarely seen around the Hollywood symposium that's absolutely worthy of exploiting, I get that--especially when we're talking about the shorn-shaven porno 'stache. But c'mon! Something can only come "back" so many times before it's just plain old HERE. Did it really ever go away to begin with? In recent pop-memory, there has been the always popular 'got milk' stache, Ron Burgundy, Borat, The Killers, Super Mario, dozens of Cohen Brothers movies, anyone who wants to ape Tom Selleck, etc.

Seriously, not a year goes by--not a YEAR!--where I don't read somewhere on the internet about how [insert your favorite year in the 21st century here] is the year that the ol' stache made it's triumphant return to mal-fashion, for better or worse. How can it be the return of a fashion trend in 2008 if it already returned in 2007... and 2006... and 2005???!!!!

I think this started when John Oates and Alex Trebek shaved off their monumentally hip staches. Is there no one keeping a better record of where and when these mustaches are growing! Something needs to be done about this. The mustache is way out of control, and I think analysts writing about fashion trends at the end of the year don't have anything to really write about besides our most beloved and sensational staches. It must stop now.

And quite frankly, I've seen more beards this year in music and Hollywood than staches. Prince William anyone? Makes a better story than "Robert Downey Jr. grew a stache for his new role in Sherlock Holmes, and now it's everywhere."

When homeboys start growing Salvador Dali staches again, THAT will be something to write about. Until then, stop lathering up something that's already been growing for years.