goatees

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Yo Philly - Where's Your Soul... Patch?

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A little late here (forgive me, I've been in Berlin scouting beards - more on that soon), but Philadelphia’s School Police are implementing a new dress and grooming code that bans goatees and soul patches, but permits beards.  Besides the ban on goatees and soul patches, facial hair "just below the lower lip and above the chin," are also forbidden for men on duty.   

As reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, "District spokeswoman Shana Kemp said Patterson was seeking to address "ineffective past culture among school police officers" and establish "a sense of discipline among officers."

So why are beards allowed?  The same district spokeswoman noted, "beards are allowed in order to make allowances for those officers with religious preferences and those with skin conditions that are affected by constant shaving."

Michael Lodise, president of the union representing 635 part and full-time school police, stated that "I have guys calling me every day about the grievance. They want to grow it back." 

But Philadelphia School Police are not the only law enforcement (or city) enacting these "groom" laws. 

 

ZDNet - The Bearded Choice

Did you know that those who rock beards in traditional media and the blogosphere write better than their shaved colleagues?  It is true.  Why?  Simple put: beards are awesome and they impact every part of a person's life in a positive fashion.  Beards - by nature - push expressionism, they give those experiencing writer's block something to touch that helps them breakthrough to their next genius point, and beards can be used as a distraction - to get the hard hitting questions answered as the interviewee becomes memorized by the facial fuzz of the reporter. 

I stumbled upon this post by ZDNet (written in March 2010) and was completely impressed by how many people on their staff #proveit --

What other work places encourage the beard or goatee to such an astounding degree? No outlet can compete with such facial hair fury, which makes ZDNet Build-a-Beard's #1 choice for hairy tech gurus. 

Dana Blankenhorn proving it wisely: 

Mark McGwire's Curse of the Red Goat

The time has come... the baggage has become far to heavy to carry... the rumors have been swirling for far too long... *deep breath* Yes, Mark McGwire did steroids; and no, we are not shocked... but, you may be curious to know that we've loved his red goat since that magic summer in 1998... yes, while "go beard, or go home!" is our rally call, we do enjoy other facial fuzz as well and goatees are no exception... phew, what a weight off our chest!

We are inclusive as you can be, hair is hair and we demand respect and fight for the right of every space on the chin area (or lack thereof) to be filled with fuzz, and see no reason to judge or play favorites (note: we didn't call our blog build-a-goat or build-a-stache for a reason though). And even in Mark's case, the man (while disgraced) does not make the goatee/stache/beard... it is the other way around... now if only Mark's goatee had a better reputation than him, perhaps he'd have more to boast about than being the top story on Build-a-Beard... besides, mark's not our favorite baseball player... this guy is. #toughlove

Net net, don't blame the facial fuzz for the shortcoming of a man (this phrase will not work for women, sorry ladies...)


On the road: Beards of Pasadena

Being on the road in lovely Pasadena, California over the weekend, we sought the opportunity to post the inaugural Build-A-Beard’s west coast excursion photo-bonanza extravaganza. With the Pasadena population hovering around 150k, how could we not find enough of our own to result in a pictorial?

 This centerfold (named such because the photos being centered, duh) includes a dozen of hairy, warm-blooded and open minded gents who don’t need much introductions. Some are passing through; others are permanent residents of the City of Roses, but all of them are out and about getting down with their facial fluff all around town.

 While the order was informally determined by perceived overall surface area and length, please do not look at this as a ranking, rather only as a salute. This first shot, found on the campus of Caltech, represents an idealistic view of our kin: Integrity, Creativity, Tenacity...

As a side note, through this exercise we have found that there is no better ice breaker than asking strange men to take a cellphone photo of their chin... our results of this endeavor are below.



Thank you all for participating... rock on, and keep on rocking those kickin' styles!



























Do you want to send us your own facial hair hunting excursions? We would love to hear from you! Tweet at us or comment your hairy heart out.