Bands with Beards

Sharing my previously mentioned Band of Horses earwig with y'all. Seriously, I'm not going down alone.

And on that note I'm debating whether or not to get tickets to see Band of Horses on Sunday. You know what? Maybe I will go to Band of Horses if tickets are still available. I mean I don't know what's really holding me back...oh yea...money. Well, screw that, I can starve or live off of canned beans for a week to make this coming weekend officially "SUPER SUPER FACIAL HAIR DOUBLE-HEADER!!" what, with me seeing Gogol Bordello on Saturday and all. The beard enthusiast in me is super excited just at the mere thought of such a weekend of glorious face fuzz overload. Hell, since I'm probably going to see The Teeth in December with the High Strung, so if Chad from the High Strung still has his beard along with Peter and Brian from The Teeth (especially Brian), we might as well make it the Cold Weather Face Warmerthon.


(Bridwell vs. Hutz! It's the South Carolina Grizzly Adams vs. the Ukrainian Walrus/Handlebar! Who will wind up the mustachioed victor? It's a fierce two-day event! Find out, this weekend on SUPER SUPER SATURDAY AND SUNDAY!)

*sighs* I remember the days when I'd recoil in horror when my friend Steve would call me a "beardie", but you know what? I'm going to embrace it. I really should've seen it coming. I don't know why I denied it for so long. These roots (HA!) go deep, especially when you consider how one of my favorite cartoons/comics as a kid was the absurdist "Sugoiyo! Masaru-san". For those of you who don't know, the main character Masaru, and his Sexy Commando Club Manager Tomoe "Moemoe" Kitahara are both "hige-mania." Moemoe's own father dying and succumbing to the "evil mustache" that grew instead of the legendary blue one he was trying to grow. The only reason she joins the Sexy Commando Club is because she thinks it's a Mustache Club. I'm dead serious. Don't believe me? Watch the episode below.



Anyway, I don't care anymore, because I can't help but admire a lovingly cultivated 'tache, flavor saver, or full-blown chin carpet, but I do have tastes. Rule one, not everyone looks good with a beard. It's true, some people should just go clean-shaven. Don't force it. So Steve's "beardie" label is a slight misnomer since I don't just love all beards indiscriminately. If you've got like a sparse ronnie going on...I don't know. Well, then again, there's John Waters and his ronnie even if he does fill it in with pencil. However, the man works that thin bit of lip 'tache. Which brings us to rule two, you wear the beard, it's not the beard that wears you. There's a huuuuggeee difference between the luxurious facial plumage grown by a proud beard afficionado and the scraggliness grown simply out of laziness or tangle on that on a homeless guy who has no shaving equipment.

That does not mean there are not exceptions. Sometimes facial hair that has its roots in laziness is rescued when its owner realizes the potential in the mustache and believes it. Also "found facial hair art" should not be dismissed. The glorious bramble patch sported by a local habitat-challenged person might have the natural, regal and flowing lines that makes one think of Odin. Curls and undulating waves that simply cannot be compared to the cleanly manicured and maintained topiary used to trimmings and waxes.

Wait, where was I? Oh, oh yea. So the conclusion is beards are fuckin' awesome. I don't care how weird that makes me sound and how many guys I creep out when I compliment their facial hair and ask about upkeep, though I have a feeling that's making me sound like some creepy guy who walks up to girls with long flowing hair and tells them how soft and shiny it is and asks them how they take care of it with a weird maniacal gleam in his eye. I do not do that. It's a very professional compliment. Really, I'm not objectifying the beard in any way. I never ask to touch it or anything like that, nor do I have the desire to. It's really respectful.