superluminous velocity

I have a beard. That’s right, a manly rugged tuft of scraggle protruding from my face. It keeps me warm in the cold winter, and I can dip my face in a river when it’s hot (evaporation is a cooling process). Because I so love my beard, I have decided to dedicate this post to beards in all their glory.

To begin, lets examine some notable beards from history:

• Confucius’s Beard
• John Lennon’s Beard
• Poseidon ’s Beard
• Merlin’s Beard
• Abe Lincoln’s Beard
• Z.Z. Top’s Beards
• Queen Hatshepsut’s Beard

The list could go on and on, so I’ll cut it off there (the list, not the beards). With so many influential people of beard, one wonders what influence the beard itself had on history. Would things have turned out differently if Karl Marx was clean shaven? about Jerry Garcia? We’ll never know.

Did you know there was a World Beard and Mustache Champion? I didn’t until my friend Jack Passion won the coveted title. Now that is a beard to aspire to.

On September 1, 2007, at the age of 23, Jack Passion won 1st place in the highly competitive “marathon of bearding” Full Natural Beard division of the 2007 World Beard and Moustache Championships, held in Brighton, England by the Handlebar Club. [Excerpt from JackpPassion.com ]

In a startling turn of events, I have just now, whilest writing this post, discovered a band dedicated entirely to beards. They’re called ‘The Beards’ and they sing songs exclusively about beards. The best thing about them is that they actually rock pretty hard. All their myspace friends have beards and apparently they are the first registered team for the 2009 Beard and Mustache Championship in Australia.Check out this quote from the begining of the live recording of their song, ‘No Beard, No Good’:

We’re gonna do another one about beards. We checked at the door and two thirds of you have beards. That’s a good effort. Two thirds of you are doing a good job.

Now I know beards don’t leap to mind when someone mentions Dexter’s Lab, but for a small percentage out there this episode leaps courageously to mind.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxiot3TM6RE 400 400]
And here it is, your moment of Zen, my favorite poem.

-Shel Silverstein