The Original Beardo

Beard of the Day

2009-02-27T06:40:00.000-08:00

With his hat on he was seven feet tall. He freed the slaves. He kept the union together. He invented those great little logs loved by children the world over.

Some miscreants at work were recently bad mouthing Honest Abe. I threatened to notify Homeland Security. That shut their commie faces right up.

Happy (late) President's day, Abe.

Beard of the Day

2009-02-25T20:48:00.000-08:00

This is the banker Obama pointed out last night. The guy who gave all of his employees the 60 million bucks he made from the sale of his bank. I was gonna make him BOD even if he didn't have a beard.

Beard of the Day

2009-02-24T21:53:00.000-08:00

"The sixties" represent a lot of things, but around here it's known as the last real popular embrace of the beard. Hawkfoot is a child of the sixties and he's never really "grown up." Except for the long grey beard, which does kind of give away his true age. But he tells me that on the inside he's 17. Except for his prostate. Hawkfoot is the leader of his own cult in Tennessee;"The Gathering," as they refer to themselves, worship a 12 foot tall hedgehog named Davey. Members also believe that Hawkfoot is the keeper of their secret sacred texts: 7 small scrolls that Hawkfoot carries in his beard.

Beard of the Day

2009-02-23T18:25:00.000-08:00

Jack Black is a devoted beard man. Whether he sports the scruff, the fluff, or more than enough, he earns honorable mention every damn day. He presented last night at the Oscars and so today he's our BOD.

Some people might have been expecting Stiller. I have to give it to Stiller for growing so much so quickly. But it was really thin and wispy - amateur beard. My kids even thought it was fake! And he gets minus points for taking an easy shot (poor Joaquin, things just aren't going his way) and for mocking the beard... Mr. Stiller, maybe some day you will let your face bloom as God wills. But until then funny man, leave the beard jokes to Jack Black. Or Zach Galifianakis... or that English guy.

Show Us Your Beards!

2009-02-22T14:45:00.000-08:00

The Beard, and the concomitant lifestyle that it allows, in fact transcends socio-economic class, ethnicity, race, culture, gender, age, religion, politics, ethos, plurality, diplomacy, prison, the ramparts, regularity, even lifestyle itself; so that a man with a beard may seem one thing, but he is always another, and then another still. This is far different from that superstition of the simpleton: that a man with a beard always has something to hide. Rather, a man with a beard is always hidden, though in hiding he is less hidden than if he were trying - he NEED NOT TRY. He is hiding itself. And in so doing all is revealed.

For reasons such as these, and thousands more, I am going to attempt to document the undocumentable. I have said before that I would like it very much if readers would send us pictures of themselves or of the bearded men they love, admire, either/or, or both, I suppose, and even fear... yes, even that. Any photos you might have and I could then include these, when sufficiently impressive, in the Beard of the Day contest, the winner of which receives a week's supply of Jack Black Beard Lube Conditioner. Also, very soon the Beardo team will be hitting the streets in search of those oh certain someone's and their beards. Look out, you might be our next subject! (You won't receive any Jack Black Beard Lube, but you might find you end up in a little corner of the interweb that is becoming more and more distinguished every day). Yes, we're pretty proud of ourselves over here at O.B., proud to be endowed.

Let it grow, brothers!

Beard of the Day

2009-02-22T09:26:00.000-08:00

Doubtless you've at least heard tell of Joaquin's recent visit with Mr. "Late Show" Letterman. Notice that in the spreading of this most recent net-based video curio, in the telling of it, the speaker or writer invariably cites the existence of the beard, often before the description of Joaquin's erratic, possibly lunatic behavior. As if the beard also described and lent to that which is out of the ordinary, that which is not done, that which is an oddity, a freak, a criminal even, perhaps a surreptitious bagman of some sort. We'll leave to the social theorists the explanation of why one man's unravelling is often the peanut gallery's you tube laugh of the day. I have just two things to say.

First, I don't think Joaquin is a schizophrenic, paranoid type displaying ideas of reference and internal stimuli; I think he is shy, awkward, funny, ironic, and passionate. And he might have been seen as just that had it not been for beard discrimination. Bearded men can make great hip hop. Have we forgotten Rick Rubin?

Second, stultifyingly psychotic or not, Joaquin looks damn good in that beard. I mean, this beard is not only full, it nascently seeks luxuriousness while upholding the mystic allure touched off by the shades.

Keep it up, Joaquin! The O.B. is rooting for you, whether you pursue hip hop, acting, or jazz dance!

Beard of the Day

2009-02-21T11:48:00.000-08:00

The King Ad-Rock, all grown up. A Beastie Boy becomes a Bestial Man.

Beard Appreciation

2009-02-21T11:17:00.000-08:00

This young lady is a fine writer and a woman with sensibilities stretched far beyond her average sisteren's consciousness.

note: I enjoyed her single use of the word "hirsute," a word too often bandied about by the beardless when taking on the mysterious subject of beards and the bearded. She writes, "I prefer my men with hair... I like... hirsute arms." This made me imagine my own downy'd limbs entwining her in gracious complicity. For while not all bearded men enjoy hair in the nether regions of their aspects, many do, for it is this foreknowledge of what it means to be "hirsute" that directs us to encourage the natural flow of hair throughout the body.

The Contemporary Rennaissance Beard

2009-02-21T10:35:00.000-08:00

Today's bearded man is unhindered by societal prejudice and/or religious persecution. It's true that public awareness lags behind the current revolution; but isn't this always so? The general public is ill-equipped to register the fine notes chiming within the thrumming shock wave that is 21st century bearding.

I feel I must here make a distinction between the tired, horny adolescents one sees in the quirkier shopping districts and soon (once?!) gentrifying neighborhoods of our good cities - with their skinny pants and over-sized glasses, their mo-peds older than themselves or the bicycles with no brakes; and their illegitimate beards, being only months from their very first shave anyway, and without suitable history, evolution, or gravitas - and the gentleman pictured above - a representative of the cool, contemplative, natural, sporting man of spiritual depth born of difficult, bloodying, but ultimately transformative internal struggle. This man, our man, Richie let's call him, always keeps a bag packed, pays with cash, and is not afraid to smoke anything, though he's no slave to the tobacco companies: he'd just as soon chew yucca root in the mystic jungle for six weeks.

So if you're not of the "hair today, gone tomorrow" hipster crew of trendy boy-men, come along with Richie, Kris, Demetrius, Jesus, and I for the long haul, and let your beard do the talking, brother.

King of Beards

2009-02-21T10:21:00.000-08:00

Mr. Kristofferson made it so that any man who can grow a reasonably full covering of facial hair for the next one hundred years will do so with the benefit of some of the man's residual sexiness shaking off on to them.

Poor Man's Beard

2009-02-21T10:16:00.000-08:00

There are some people who just should never grow a beard, or even think about growing one.

Father of Beards

2009-02-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

This is Demetrius X. He was a singer-songwriter and a major ladies man from around the time of all things ancient.

Beardo

2009-02-20T20:25:00.000-08:00

There's a guy recording under this name, and really, that's cool. But I am the first Beardo, thus dubbed 26 years ago by a Jamaican piano man. Even then my beard would enter a room before I would. I just gave it the keys and let it drive. Don't forget to take me home, shaggy.

There are women who cannot resist beards. It is their sad misfortune that the beard has been largely out of favor for many years. It is their sweet delight that the beard is making a minor comeback, but most are still in the closet as their mainstream husbands and boyfriends are too ephemeral and maladaptive to grow a proper mannish beard. Though closeted they may be, the sight of a beard instantly turns their faucet, I can tell you this, and that's why this winter in San Francisco has seemed an awful lot like spring. It also explains the bee thing.

I will let you know what it's like to wander these streets with a majestic beard and I will teach you, if you will stop playing Rock Band, of the beard and of beard ways. So come on along to where the faeries and the nymphs and the satyrs still leap and play. Where music fills fleshy halls and the ladies do lie in deep abandon. I'm speaking of the beard life and I hope you'll grow with me.