Santa Claus? Rasputin? ZZ Top? Amateurs.
So I'm reading through the headlines on the NY Times' RSS feed this morning, and I come across a story * about two quarterbacks who have, for one reason or another, decided to grow beards over the past few months of the NFL season.
First: WTF? I go without shaving for a few days, no one notices (unless I'm home visiting, in which case my mother says, "you should shave."); in professional hockey, this sort of behavior is known as "the playoffs," and it is so commonplace that no one really makes a big deal of it. But these two yutzes do the same thing, and they end up on the front sports page of the freaking New York Times. Must have been a slow day at the sports desk or something. Edit: Now that the Steelers have won the Super Bowl, the victorious aforementioned yutz gets his beard shaved on Letterman.
Second: About a third of the way down the first page of the article, there's a quote from Phil Olsen, the self-appointed captain of Beard Team U.S.A. (Don't be silly–of course they have a blog.) And from this it's just a hop, skip, and a click to the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Which is enough to give you nightmares for weeks.
These people voluntarily travel all around the world to compete. They vie for prizes in such categories as Full Beard Natural, Imperial Moustache, and (my personal favorite) Freestyle Goatee. They even have strict rules as to the permissible use of styling aids, and a special category for anyone who wants to look like Salvador Dalí. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if a doping scandal broke out during some major upcoming competition.
Mostly, though, these guys look to me like someone stapled miscellaneous scraps of carpet to their faces.
I'm normally a pretty voluble guy, but these people leave me absolutely speechless. What on earth would possess someone to do this?
* Check out bugmenot if you want to avoid the registration nonsense. More on the beard saga here, since NYT articles automatically get archived a week or two after publication.
First: WTF? I go without shaving for a few days, no one notices (unless I'm home visiting, in which case my mother says, "you should shave."); in professional hockey, this sort of behavior is known as "the playoffs," and it is so commonplace that no one really makes a big deal of it. But these two yutzes do the same thing, and they end up on the front sports page of the freaking New York Times. Must have been a slow day at the sports desk or something. Edit: Now that the Steelers have won the Super Bowl, the victorious aforementioned yutz gets his beard shaved on Letterman.
Second: About a third of the way down the first page of the article, there's a quote from Phil Olsen, the self-appointed captain of Beard Team U.S.A. (Don't be silly–of course they have a blog.) And from this it's just a hop, skip, and a click to the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Which is enough to give you nightmares for weeks.
These people voluntarily travel all around the world to compete. They vie for prizes in such categories as Full Beard Natural, Imperial Moustache, and (my personal favorite) Freestyle Goatee. They even have strict rules as to the permissible use of styling aids, and a special category for anyone who wants to look like Salvador Dalí. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if a doping scandal broke out during some major upcoming competition.
Mostly, though, these guys look to me like someone stapled miscellaneous scraps of carpet to their faces.
I'm normally a pretty voluble guy, but these people leave me absolutely speechless. What on earth would possess someone to do this?
* Check out bugmenot if you want to avoid the registration nonsense. More on the beard saga here, since NYT articles automatically get archived a week or two after publication.
posted by Biff at 13:00
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