I\u2019m a beard guy\u2014or, as some of us prefer to be called, \u201cwhiskered-American.\u201d<\/p>\n
And I have been for decades, long before the metrosexuals went lumbersexual. Back in New York, circa 2000, nightclub doormen routinely negged me. Once, while I sat on the stoop of my apartment building sipping coffee, a woman walked by and dropped a fistful of change into my cup. Not only was this insulting; it ruined a perfectly good mocha.<\/p>\n
In fact, beard friendliness was a major reason behind relocating to Alaska in the first place. Also, I figured it\u2019d be a good place to be for developing an Alaska-based reality TV show, where I chronicle my life as I do nothing but watch other Alaska-based reality TV shows. I call it \u201cDeadliest Couch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyway, here are a few reasons why I love beards:<\/p>\n
\u2022 They make great sunscreen. In fact, I wish I could grow one continuous beard all over my body. Then I could finally wear a G-string to the beach.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Beards are nature\u2019s balaclava, much like baseball caps are the poor-man\u2019s toupee.<\/p>\n
\u2022 My parents hate the beard. And for some reason, I still do stuff specifically because my parents hate it\u2014even though I\u2019m 40 now, with my own kids who do stuff specifically because I hate it.<\/p>\n
\u2022 I can\u2019t stand shaving. Why fight biology, that\u2019s my motto, which also explains my gut. And falcon toenails.<\/p>\n
\u2022 In the absence of hair on your head, a beard gives you something to twirl. Which brings me to my final bullet-point\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2022 There\u2019s nothing like a big, fat beard to take the sting out of going bald.<\/p>\n
You see, like millions of American men, I suffer from androgenic alopecia, aka male pattern baldness \u2014 in my case, full-blown by age 24, coincidentally the same year my beard finally started coming in all the way.<\/p>\n
While at 17 I enjoyed a mess of long, flame red dreadlocks \u2014 which my parents REALLY hated \u2014 the only facial hair I could manage was an incomplete goatee forming two devil\u2019s points on either side of my chin (I kind of looked like a Satanic leprechaun). Seven years later, the dreads disappeared \u2014 better to burn out than fade away, I guess. But as a consolation prize, by then I\u2019d cultivated a substantial Van Dyke and a crazy pair of Van Burens (no wonder that woman thought I was homeless).<\/p>\n
Turns out, there\u2019s science behind this. Male pattern baldness stems from genetic hypersensitivity to dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the same hormone responsible for beard growth. The more DHT, the better the facial hair; but, for us genetic unfortunates, that same DHT fries the follicles on top of our heads. Essentially, we trade one type of hair for another. Is it fair? No, but a deal\u2019s a deal. And at least I\u2019ve still got all my teeth.<\/p>\n
Some beards I admire: Charles Darwin, Jerry Garcia, Santa Claus, Billy Mays, Gandalf, Bob Ross, Walt Whitman, Professor Dumbledore, the dad from \u201cFamily Ties,\u201d Al from \u201cHome Improvement,\u201d Grumpy from \u201cSnow White and the Seven Dwarves,\u201d Dallas Keuchel, Rumpelstiltskin, 20th President of the United States James A. Garfield, Moses, \u201cAbby Road\u201d-era John Lennon, \u201cAbby Road\u201d-era George Harrison and \u201cAbby Road\u201d-era Ringo Starr (\u201cAbby Road\u201d-era Paul McCartney wore sideburns only, but his \u201cLet It Be\u201d-era beard may be my all-time fave).<\/p>\n
The thing is, in the face of these great beards \u2014 not to mention all the magnificent homegrown facial topiary you see around Juneau \u2014 I can\u2019t help but feel\u2026 well\u2026 inadequate. Oh, what I wouldn\u2019t give for just a few more inches\u2026.<\/p>\n
And so, periodically, I invest myself in growing out the beard: washing my face with Mane \u2018n Tail\u00ae, blasting ZZ Top, freebasing vitamin E, stuff like that. Indeed, I\u2019ve been at it all winter, and now, like every spring, I stand at a crossroads (well, actually, more like a roundabout). The beard\u2019s going rogue, exactly like my head hair when left to its own devices: it doesn\u2019t grow \u201cdown\u201d as much as \u201cout,\u201d a style my people affectionately call a \u201cJewfro.\u201d<\/p>\n
As such, I face the toughest choice in bearding: to trim or not to trim?<\/p>\n
Part of me thinks it\u2019s just at an awkward in-between stage, and with patience, all my beard-related dreams can come true. That\u2019s how I dealt with the Jewfro all those years ago. I waited out the Art Garfunkel phase until I wound up at the Robert Plant phase (which, with a little beeswax and a lot of poor hygiene transitioned into the natty dread phase). Similarly, if I can get past the Conan O\u2019Brien I\u2019ve got on my face right now, I\u2019m sure an awesome Leif Erikson awaits me on the other side.<\/p>\n
Of course, you can always cover up a bad hair day, or in my case total baldness, which isn\u2019t just a bad hair day, but the worst hair day, every day, until the day you die.<\/p>\n
Nope. I\u2019ve got no choice but to grin and bear these bad beard days no matter how long they last. I mean, what else am I going to do? Grow a moustache?<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cSlack Tide\u201d appears every second and fourth Sunday in Neighbors. Geoff Kirsch is currently working on an essay collection based upon this long-running column. The above piece comes from that work-in-progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m a beard guy\u2014or, as some of us prefer to be called, \u201cwhiskered-American.\u201d And I have been for decades, long before the metrosexuals went lumbersexual. Back in New York, circa 2000, nightclub doormen routinely negged me. Once, while I sat on the stoop of my apartment building sipping coffee, a woman walked by and dropped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21062"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}