Man, the gloriously hairy weekend in Bend seems further and further away... I'm saddened by the fact that I have to wait another year to see all the awesome people that i met and mingled with at the first ever National Beard and Moustache Championships... at least putting out these posts in piecemeal is making me relive the experience, over and over this whole week.
As such, I wanted to do a post on the judges that were the shot makers on June 5th, the people with the hardest job in the room... the ones that had to look through hundreds of competitors in 4 categories and narrow them down meticulously into the top 3 winners of each set. I would not want to have their job, but if Phil Olsen is reading this, I am available for judging next year!
Either way, they deserve their own recognition and thus this post... of course, I somehow managed to miss interviewing Captain Harry Lewis (aka Capt Big Dad of the FV Incentive crab boat, made famous on Deadliest Catch) though you can clearly see me walking and talking with him, here, via LA Times). As well as my new best friend Burke Kenny (former world champion in the full beard styled moustache category, and a member of As the Devil Dances), plus the local essay winner Laura Beverungen... if y'all are reading, drop us a line for a well deserved Q&A!
First off, Miss Oregon 2009 CC Barber -- Who's a small town girl with big city dreams. She graduated from Scappoose High School as a varsity athlete with an Honors Diploma in 2005. As a native Oregonian and a nursing student in her final semester at Samuel Merritt University, CC Barber, is a caring and driven young woman with a heart of gold... I asked her abuot beards and world peace.
Then comes Sirwan Singh -- he's the Guinness World Record holder for the world's longest beard... he really needs no other introduction... I had some fun with him and his translator talking about the god given gift of facial hair.
What would a bearding event be without a ton of beer? And what would beer be without a brewer... in comes Jason Buehler -- a brewer from the Shamrock Brewery in Pueblo, Colorado. In his plea to be a judge, Jason demonstrated proper beer drinking technique (3 gulps), and a nice set of chops. I asked him about, what else, beer and bearding.
Finally, perhaps our favorite judge (and one of only two to tell me I did a good job, thanks CC for the other nod), Seth Klein -- Seth's plea was perhaps the most significant... you see, Seth is a scholar on Joe Palmer and a his video was a treatise on bearded rights. Here's my quick interview with Seth on that very topic.
And since I did bring up Phil Olsen, the self appointed captain of Beard Team USA... here's a follow up with the man behind the whole shindig, while not a judge his hands were full (perhaps fuller) than anyone else last weekend. I talked to him about America's role in the world of bearding...