As promised, the second installment of our interview with Adam Lisagor has posted for your bearded enjoyment....
Q: Do a lot of your friends have beards? How does corporate culture impact your bearded decision (or not)?
Not many of my friends have beards, actually. And that may be for many reasons: their careers may preclude the option, their personal style may conflict with the ruggedness of a beard, but I think most often it's just that their sissy faces can't really support the follicular activity. Every time I have the beard conversation with a friend, it's always, "Oh, I can grow hair here and here, but it never comes in here." And all I can feel is sad for them, the way my friends felt sad for me when I was 15 and hadn't yet sprouted in my crotch or armpits.
I'm self-employed, and even if I weren't, I work in an industry that favors those who look like shit at all times (the sitting-in-front-of-a-computer industry). So I have no impetus to ditch it for the furthering of my career. I read once that as a CEO, H. Ross Perot actually forbade the wearing of beards among his male employees, which just strikes me as pure fascist bullshit and I'm glad he lost the election because I'M KEEPIN MY BEARD, H. ROSS.
Also, at 32, I've sort of settled into my level of stockiness and girth. I wouldn't like to see what my bare cheeks look like at my current BMI. This is always a consideration for any bearded man.
Q: What beard - throughout history - has inspired you? Do you have a bearded hero?
I've always admired Stanley Kubrick's beard, because he always looked like he cared just enough to get dressed and trim his beard to avoid overgrowth, but that he had enough on his mind to keep him from caring too much. And I think our growth pattern is very similar, even on the head part of the beard, which I guess, is just called hair.
My other bearded hero is this guy, and I don't know his name. The "show me you're nuts" guy from "Kentucky Fried Movie" (1977). It's the way guys in the 70s used to wear a beard—just classy.
Q: How do you feel about the current beard trend? Is this good for the movement? Do you feel there might be backlash?
How do I feel about the current beard trend? It's fine, I guess. If all the beards went away tomorrow, I'd feel better about having mine. It never feels good to look like everybody else out there. I get so dismayed when I go to a party, or am out in public in a major city like LA, where I live, or Portland, where I go often, and see so many dudes that look just like me. It comes down to Freud's narcissism of small differences, where the more they look like me, the more reasons I have to find to distinguish myself from them and hate them. Like, "Oh, that guy? His beard and glasses make him look so Jewy. Jew Jew Jew Jew JEWY JEW. [Note: I'm clearly Jewish, but there is no greater compliment to pay to a Jew than to tell him he doesn't look Jewish.]" Sameness breeds a lot of hatred in counterculture. No one wants that. So I'd be fine if the trend took its leave.
Q: Did you attend SXSWi? What did you think about the amount of beards that were there?
I was there for Interactive, but honestly, I didn't notice. Again, I live in LA where beards abound, so there was nothing out of the ordinary about Austin during SXSW.
Anything you'd like to tell us/share/link to?
Today on putthison.com, the men's style show I do with my partner Jesse Thorn, Jesse did a post about facial hair options which I found pretty good. Someone wrote in to ask us about facial hair and Jesse fielded the question (since I don't really contribute to the blog, but Jesse does an amazing job), basically instructing the dude to avoid goatees at all cost, which is a solid piece of advice, for sure.
I guess I've never asked my girlfriend of seven years, Roxana, how she feels about my beard, or whether she'd prefer me clean-shaven. I know for sure that it's better to be either clean-shaven or have a longer beard because a short beard or stubble is just irritating to the face of the person with whom you're necking, so that's a consideration. But she has a good sense of style, as the editor of the men's style site Nerd Boyfriend, and I trust that she'd tell me if I looked like a doofus.
Adam's sweet beard & iJustine