Just like after a wedding (or an engagement... read on), the party that was the NYC Beard and Moustache Competition has left me with the inevitable feeling of "well, now what?!" The copious amount of planning that went into it, the tons of anticipation this brought on, so many nerves and butterflies filling many a stomach, the myriad of press and out-of-towners with millions upon millions of hairs filling chins and lips and descending to my hometown of Brooklyn... sadly, it's all over now... so, what do we do?!
Sob stories aside, I'm glad that my wife (and future son) gave me the opportunity to attend this monumental event... which is my long winded way of saying that I am still an expectant father and didn't get "THE Call" on Saturday, and was able to cover and partake in the festivities.
Myk O'Connor's rallying call prior to the event (as reported here) rang truer and truer as each category was moving through judging... fake beards out of the way, onto goatees, straight into freestyle, recession beards and finally... the piece de resistance, the full natural category... Myk ran the show like a smooth yet hairy operator of sorts, taking shots and quoting bearded literature sages (achem) while boosting the matchups and giving the IFC "Whisker Wars" people plenty of competitive fodder for their storylines.
That said, the one storyline that we took away from the event was the expertise that Build-a-Beard has bestowed on us, and the insane amount of information we eagerly retained through our hairy tribulations over the last few years... I, like Riss, am now an expert on beards... insanity.
To exemplify this, just look at the winners and our predictions:
- Full Beard --
- Prediction: Jack Passion (unless Mark Krayenhoff enters and brings the Brooklyn thunder)
- Result: Jack Passion wins, shocker (Mark enters Freestyle, gets bronze), Aarne Bielefeldt garners 2nd place for his gnomish effort.
- Moustache --
- Ben Davidson (unless he hasn't been working out his arm strength and loses in the run-off arm wrestling)
- Result: Ben got 2nd place (should've exercised more...), a Ned Flanders lookalike steals the stache gold.
- Goatee --
- Steve Cline (since Paul Beisser is sure to have severe jet-lag)
- Result: Steve Cline takes the local gold as expected (surprisingly, Paul went the "ZZ Top" Route).
- Freestyle --
- A German Pretzel
- Result: No Germans in attendance, so a US Born pretzel got the prize (our favorite twisted beard of the night, Jon Rice, got robbed...).
- Recession beard --
- Someone from Detroit
- Result: not sure where that guy was from... but he had a great outfit.
- Fake beard --
- A girl with a bigger bosom than beard
- Result: her fake beard was so mesmerizing I forgot to look at her bosom...
The highlight of the night for me, other than being treated as said expert by IFC production team (and even by the one and only Thom Beers himself!), was the marriage proposal that Myk surprised his fiance Karolina Gwiazda with, it was adorable... see it for yourself below:
With the cutesy formality out of the way, below are the videos of all the winners being announced... it was our pleasure to report on this for you all, both here and live on twitter/facebook... so just know, the source of all your up-to-the-minute hairy news is right here, www.Build-A-Beard.com... Major thanks to all those that showed B-a-B love at the event (and for those that didn't, surely you'll change your mind sooner than later)... to quote an IFC exec: Thank you Big Apple, you've been delicious.
P.S. You can find our entire collection of photos from NYCBMC in our Hairy Pics tab, or just click here (you lazy ass).