So D day is here -- F day probably is a bit crude -- Facebook is now public. You want in on the action, you want a taste of the hype, your chalice of koolaid is empty and you need a hit baaaaaaaaaaad... well, here's the inside scoop from the offices of Build-a-Beard CFO.
The FB stock wont do as good as you thought, or even as good as it should, for one simple fact we know (and you probably do too)... because of Mr. Zuckerber's (aka Zucks, aka Is that a question, aka FB CEO, aka I own your face, aka Richie Rich) facial hairlessness. A face that by all Google image research accounts has never even had as much as a stubble on his chinny chin chin.
For shame sir, you're public now... now more than ever you need to man up, grow up and like your ownership of Facebook, you need to maintain at least 53% of your face with hair. Consider this a challenge, we dare you to #proveit... or at least fund a facial hair charity like Movember, Bearduary or other facial hair cheerleaders like say... us... to help fight and stop pogonophobia.
You've probably seen this around all over the interwebs and the cyberspaces... and you had to know it'd get to this, right? If you're a beard wearing man (or beard loving woman), or not, you will nod your head in approval here... or not. If you're fed up with this meme, remember to not blame the beard!
If you know anything about us here at B-a-B is that we love to give back... like a good beard or mustache giving back is a feel good and frankly easy action that we should all do/grow whenever possible, especially since it means so much to others.
Facial hair growth and charity go together like beer and beards, like staches and wax, like chops and aviators, or like goatees and crumbs.
That said, we got approached on Facebook to support a campaign that's looking to raise money for Make A Wish Foundation, which is our favorite wish making organization, via a 3 month competition to grow facial hair!
Not innovative, but still something to commend and indeed support. So if you beardos and stache-mates have a few dollars to spare, think about giving it to any one of these three gents participating in the 2011 Commonwealth Beard Competition to make a wish happen for someone needy of that out there.
We dont often (actually never) re-purpose comments made on our posts by our bearded brethren... but god damn, when impeccable hairy passion shines through our pages... we must and always will call you out for such amazing displays of hirsute protection.
Anyway, enter Stephen Arthur Alexander Jr proud member of: The Gem City Gentlemen of the Gilded Beard... and with his antipogonophobic rant, he's proved it pretty hardcore. You sir, wear your passion like people should wear a beard... proudly. Kudos... also, nice burns bro, real nice.
"I must say this is a travesty, to not have a Bearded or Mustached president since 1913!! I won't stand for it, we need to raise up as one Bearded nation and take back the oval office and change these discriminatory rules and regulations that do not allow the Bearded to work certain jobs. We are people to gosh darn it!! We need to work and we want to be able to express ourselves while doing it, because after all isn't that what is nation was build on, freedom? God bless all of you Bearded men out there that are still trying to fight for your right to grow that Beard long and proud. Keep up the fight and who knows, maybe one day we will have a Bearded or Mustached President once more and all of the Beard hate will wither and die away and we can stand up and say: I have a Beard and I am proud to have it!" -- Stephen Arthur Alexander Jr
Oh, the wonders of our online communities! Every day it's something new, hairy (and at times blue) that we borrow from our legion of hairy fans. Today, it's an inside look at how the next generation of beardos is learning about facial hair. As always, Sesame Street is quite enlightening...
We stumbled on this awesome piece by way of our good friend Eric Harvey Brown (shown in his full BTUSU glory) none other than the 2nd place winner of the Partial Beard category at the first ever National Beard and Moustache Championships... and, he even makes a cameo in this stache filled segment (check him out at around the 4:50 mark).
Jack Passion entering a beard contest?! No... way...
Well, yes way. You heard it here first (3rd actually, counting Jack's and our earlier Facebook status updates)... all you competitive beardo enthusiasts, you may as well pack your bags now... to go to SAN FRANCISCO of course!
WHEN: TONIGHT (6/27), at 6-10PM PST ($5 at the door)
WHERE: Edinburgh Castle (950 GEARY ST., SAN FRANCISCO, 415.885.4074)
WHAT: "Art in Your Face": A Bay Area Beard and Mustache Benefit (aka Jack Passion's return to competitive bearding... for now)
WHY: Beards and Charity (to benefit Smile Train, a group that helps kids with cleft palates)... and to see Jack wipe the floor (and the competition) with his killer beard.
It may not be the National Championships... nor the World stage... but wherever Jack goes... the beards follow. As such, B-a-B will stay with the story, and keep you updated about the winner... though, I am wondering, maybe I can snag the B-a-B private plane to make it in time to report live... maybe, just maybe...
Earlier this week our good friend @Dissentertainer pointed us in the direction of an awesome post about poets ranked by their beard weight... and we thought, hey they wont out do us! So, here we are... and yes, while the post was great (see the compilation photo below and the link to the story) we will not stand idly by and wait for others to dictate their beardly decision to us!!
So, before you peruse their findings (which are excerpted and abridged from The Language of the Beard, originally circulated by The Torchbearer Society, London, 1913... with Commentary by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert) and can be found at the bottom of our post... take a look at our Top-3 Poetic Beardos, and of course... they are part of our community!
1) Magnus Holmgren(aka @poetisk)-- We've known Magnus since almost the first day we went live on twitter... and have been trying to get him on B-a-B ever since. He tweets very interesting stuff, and frankly, his facial hair style is nearly unmatched... we love him so much we are willing to look past the New York Yankees hat (dude you're from Sweden, you MUST root for the Red Sox!)
2) Johnny Park (of The Oh Eeks)-- A lady friend of Johnny's got in touch with us about using the below shot... we were smitten rather immediately, but Johnny can thank our Facebook follower Rachel Commerford for this inclusion (even though your beard is rather nice), as we're not even sure that you're a follower of B-a-B... Rachel, you get a gold star.
3) Michael Sesling (aka @poeticmindset) -- We came to know Michael (who resides in my home town of Brookline MA) by way of Magnus... and his Haiku's lighten up our day from time to time. He's a great addition to the B-a-B family, but alas, this short beard will only get you as high up as #3... grow it out, grow it proud!
I was somewhere around the office, on the east edge of Manhattan, when the fear began to take hold. I was headed to LaGuardia Airport just as I read a headline about flights to Canada being delayed or canceled because of the ash plume... I got worried for a second, I remember saying out loud "NH is not that high up north..."
Heading to Manchester for a 30 hour business romp, I jumped in a cab, got through security and to the terminal in record time... now facing more than an hour at the gate before boarding... So, as always, I was scouting beards... While there were surprisingly many there that day, for some reason, I wasn't on my game... the blame has to be the rigid environment of airports and the overarching loathing of travel that would preclude me from approaching other high strung beardos... or we can just blame Eyjafjallajokull.
That said, I did see a gent with an interesting and very neat beard style (thick but short trimmed side burns, with a twice as bushy goatee)... Finally, I get on the plane; a worn looking sucker with two propellers, with the landing gear that somehow folds in side them... Scary... Res ipsaloquitur… Let the good times roll.
Upon landing in MHT, and making a B-line to the men's room, like clockwork I came across that very beardo! Clearly, the beard gods were making me tell him about B-a-B and comment on his awesome facial hair DIY... it worked before... so we get to talking, and lo and behold Mr. JD Wilson divulges the secret to his tidy bushiness... it's a product called MANE 'n TAIL... yes, as in horse.
JD went on and on (about bees wax) and on and on (about mineral oils)... all to assure me that yes, while it's true this product was originally intended for horses, it does work wonders AND has a cult following, for HUMANS... all while we're standing in the men's room of the arrivals terminal.
And so dear B-a-B fans, I'm proud to present my bounty of beard scouting from New Hampshire... Search and ye shall find... Per their own Facebook group info:
Mane 'n Tail products were originally developed for horses. People started using the products to achieve the beautiful results they saw with their own horses manes and tails. This is where the legend of Mane n Tail products comes from, by nourishing, conditioning and fortifying the hair and scalp to aid healthier hair growth.
Wow, seriously? Yes, for real... The sages have spoken, the truth is here, the follicles will rejoice... Bushy, itchy, medium length beards need this product, bad! You can get it here, and by clicking on the magic jar below...
P.S. As hairy fate would have it, I had the seat right behind JD on the loud and bumpy ride up north. He was reading the whole time with the overhead light on, it was the right time to snap a candid... which I did, twice, not yet knowing the wisdom his beard was to hold. So I guess the trick is on you JD... cheers.
Whether from our posts on various sites (Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter), or your own hairy YouTube searches, by now you had to have heard of Rocky and Balls, The Beard Song, or at least figured out how awesome a ukulele can really be… We’ve been on this particular ‘Beard Folk’ bandwagon since connecting the seminal song to the overdub of Beardo: The Movie (another favorite) and swooning over it ever since that very moment on… but the story gets even better.
Seemingly following the Build-A-Beard 'all inclusive' philosophy, Rocky and Balls didn’t just want to recognize beards among the facial fuzz elite; to prove their true devotion to loving all things hirsute the duo went above and beyond their calling to raise money for Movember with The Mo Song… at that point the halls of Build-A-Beard were buzzing, we knew we had to find these two fair neighbors to the east, get into their heads and see what other fuzzy things we can uncover.
To scoop an EXCLUSIVE interview, Build-A-Beard’s own El Beardo gladly flew across the Atlantic over the weekend to sit down with Sophie Madeleine and Hannah Rockcliffe and get to the bottom of everything we and our readers were dying to know. Below is the resulting unedited conversation, and is our gift to you on this Monday, hopefully the three of us can make it a brighter day/week for y'all... and maybe, just maybe... the duo will love us for more than our beard now. Hopefully...
B-A-B: First things first, how did you meet and how long have you been singing together? What about the name… where’d that come from?
Rocky:I was flat-share-hunting because I was moving to Bath to start an MA in Songwriting. And, as fate would allow, I unknowingly came across the house of another prospective Songwriting MA-er, Balls!!
Balls: Yes, we met through a flat-share website, and I actually had to pay a membership fee just so I could message her back! She was worth it though!
Rocky: I moved in and we became great pals indeed. That was September 2007 and we've been "Rocky and Balls" officially for about a year now. The name is from our surnames and nicknames pertaining to our surnames. Rockcliffe and Ball.
B-A-B: I'd say it was worth it for sure, and a happy belated anniversary ladies! One of the pillars of your repertoire is The Beard Song, which is absolutely amazing, how did the idea come about?
Rocky: We had to write a song together for a University assignment, so we were thinking of all of our commonalities, the list was: fajitas, being a student, cats, and then beards! So we rolled with the beards idea.
Balls: Yes, a few weeks before the assignment I had just started writing songs on ukulele, and Rocky really liked what I was doing and wanted to write a song for ukulele too! I seem to remember it was a lazy Sunday and I was in my pajamas throughout the entire process. 'Twas a good day!
B-A-B: You say that the song was made by Balls to cheer up Rocky... what was Rocky so sad about?
Rocky: I was moving home from University early due to the terribly sad passing of my uncle (which helped inspire us to support the charity Movember with a song about Mustaches in aid of Prostate cancer) so Balls recorded a video of our song and sent it to me to cheer me up. And it worked!
Balls: I was in the middle of recording my album. I was getting a bit tired of it, but then I came across the lyrics to "that song about beards" that I had written with Hannah a few months before. It made me laugh so much that I thought Hannah should hear it because I knew she was going through a tough time.
B-A-B: Do beards always cheer Rocky up? or is it Balls' uke playing that puts a smile on Rocky's face? We'd think a kazoo session can always help too...
Rocky:Laughs "just the sight of a beard can cure a frown!" springs to mind! When we get together there is usually a lot of cheeriness.
B-A-B: The Beard Song was used in the trailer of Beardo: The Movie... is that a big and furry honor? I’m sure you can get a private invite to the World Beard and Moustache Championships now (the theme of the movie), will you take up the offer if it comes?
Balls: A very big honor indeed! And if we ever receive in a invite to go to the championships we'd happily accept! (hint hint)
B-A-B: The Mo Song was a great charity initiative for Movember; was that your first charity work with the organization? How much did you raise?
Rocky: Yes, 2009 was our first bit of charity work using Rocky and Balls. We felt we wanted to raise some money and awareness the best way we knew how, and that was to write a song. We posted it on http://rockyandballs.bandcamp.com for download for the week leading up to the charity's event in London and managed to raise £350. We were so pleased to raise so much in such a short time and all the proceeds went straight to the charity.
Balls: Also, my Dad had the most amazing mustache for all of his adult life. He sadly died of cancer when I was in my teens, so when Rocky suggested the idea, I had every reason to agree to it!
B-A-B: Rocky, we have to admit, you look awesome with a stache…you donned not one, but two fake staches for The Christmas Song Song... why not during The Mo Song?
Rocky: The tache's were a present and unfortunately I didn't own the mo's til after we had finished the video for the Mo song!
(B-a-B: Rocky used it also for The Mo Song 'promo' as seen in middle picture)
B-A-B: What is each of your favorite beard or facial hair style? Please say corporate beardos…
Rocky: I enjoy a dense but neatly trimmed beard on a man.
Balls: I concur, very much so indeed. I just visited the BUILD-A-BEARD website in order to research "corporate beardos", because neither of us had ever heard that expression before. And I THINK that is exactly what Rocky just described, no?
B-A-B: You just made me the happiest beard blogger alive! Let me compose myself, take a cold shower and switch topics… In The Gay Song you make it a point to say that your gay fans' beards are “always neat,” do you find that the straight beardos don’t upkeep their beards as much?
Rocky:Laughs some don't…
Balls: All the bearded men that I know have very neat beards, regardless of their sexuality. But our gay friends are very well groomed in general, and we wanted to express that in lyrical form. Plus, we love beards, so of course we're going to mention them at every opportunity!
B-A-B: ...And finally, what's next for Rocky and Balls? Any more opportunities for facial hair recognition in any future songs?
Rocky: It's difficult living so far away from each other to come up with regular videos. Although, we are brainstorming a new song at the moment, but its subject is a closely guarded secret! What other types of facial hair can we write about!? Eyebrows perhaps?
Balls: We're also traveling to Italy at the beginning of April to do a show in our respective solo guises, and the organizers have requested some Rocky and Balls songs as an encore!
Many of you are wondering whether the Tumblr site we created will take over B-A-B.com... the answer is a resounding and forceful : NO, it will not. This will forever (and always) be our long form home... but as you know, we love Social Media and community engagement, as such we must tap into the various opportunities out there to promote awesome facial fuzz goodness... as such, we have been building out our bearded site on Tumblr.
Look forward to many Q&As and longer features on this site, but if you need a quick bearded fix throughout the day, check out our Tumblr or Facebookand Twitterpages (all linked up of course... so look at all if you like double up).
I can't speak on behalf all of B-A-B community (or staff), but I've personally never been much of a comic book or super hero kind of beardo. However, I did always try to understand those around me that were/are completely obsessed with the trade, because real people are more fascinating.
That said, in comes Martin Fletcher (a fan on Facebook) and blows that whole perspective out of the water. B-a-B community, please meet Beardo, the bearded super hero (followed by several shots of the creator himself, with a fine style and chin mane of his own). Mr. Fletcher (can we call you Mr.?) what you did here is good, nay, great. Let this be a call to action for you to develop this character, and we'll post your strip on B-a-B... our door is always open for such talent and facial fuzz goodness. Think about it, and say yes.
Now, I will reiterate, i am by no means an expert, and yet Mr. Fletcher's initiative induced an interest within me to answer the burning question which superheroes have beards or other facial hair... I am not going to attempt to claim that i fully answered this question (you can see much more involved folks discussing it here, and here), but below are my top 3... I encourage a civil discussion.
By now you have likely seen the trend on Facebook today about girls posting colors as their status update... like you, bearded friends, Build-a-Beard also wondered what the hell is going on, and why are colors so hot right now?!
Well, the answer is BRAs, yes, bras... women have been posting the color bra they have on today, cool right? What's cooler is that they are using their Facebook status updates for a cause (Breast Cancer Awareness, duh, save the boobs!), new media FTW!
This is precisely why we want to make sure you know... a REAL man's bra color is (not blue) hair... see below, and thank you @hokiebill for alerting us to this. So, ya'll beardos make sure to post the word "HAIR" in your status (and maybe this link too, to explain).
Now go... do it... stop starring!
Update on 2010-01-08 02:19 by El Beardo
Oh, and don't forget this FINE example of a skimpy Beard/Hair Bra... (you may recall it from this post)
