The De-Bearding
April 13th, 2003When I lived in Utah pre-1998, I would grow out my beard for the winter months. It didn’t hurt that I was in a couple of bands, and the varied phases of beard experimentation helped the alt.rock image I was going for.
Recently, I grew out the beard again, after a 7-year hiatus. The wife loved it. My shaving time decreased by about 300 hours over the course of cultivation. As the weather has gotten warmer I have had the realization that it gets a lot hotter in Utah, for a lot longer, than Los Angeles. San Francisco is hot one or two days out of the year. A beard is a good idea in San Francisco. Plus, the beard is totally liberal. I digress.
Point is, it was time to remove The Beard for the impending home purchase/home improvement/summer. I’m a messy decorator and didn’t want to spend 70-100 hours cleaning various colors of DuLux Satin Luster Finish Acrylic paint from my beard.
Because this shaving event was going to be traumatic for my beautiful wife, I decided to give her a brief history of my beard in reverse, with a few fun steps to make the process less painful.
To wit:
1. Full beard. Mostly for verification purposes.
2. It might look like I am gay, but really I’m just going for something unusual.
3. The previous look was, in fact, very gay, so let’s go for something less so. This one might also be called “Country-Style Alt Boy”.
4. That damn moustache zone is problematic. There is nothing Alt or Rock about Number 3. I present: Satan, Jr. The sideburns are slightly preppy.
5. I never actually sported this one. It should be called “I wish I played the sax” or “Speed Metal Buddy”.
6. I wish I played sax II: Where’s my latte?
7. Clean n Easy. o
fun with norelco.
how does the lil woman like the new you? is she in mourning?
at least it’s not the gay biker, village people beard. that one scares me.
Awwww, I miss it already. I think I’m love with your beard. I’m going to just keep playing the pictures backwards and live in the past.
Man, if only my wife liked my beard. “I love it on you, not on me,” she says.
I’ve negotiated two beards per year: one for Pioneer Day and and the other for the Deer Hunt.
Hilarious.
A man’s gotta have a soul patch once in his life - even if it’s only for a few minutes. Your duty is done. Cheers.
Nice progression. By the way, the Dooce kisses nice lips.
My husband has number six. But we call it his Flavor Saver or his Bullion Cube.
my sweetie has #5, but he’s irish and all it looks like is that he dribbled some peanut butter just under his lip. you know, you have a very nice, evenly distributed lot of facial hair. you are a lucky man. i think the wifey was right. although if she dug the tickle factor, i’m thinking she will REALLY miss the beard. i, for one, am ALL OVER the tickle factor that my sweetie posseses with his little patch. mmmm……. insert devious grin here. well, best of luck.
What do you do if you are one of those people who can’t grow a proper beard. I can get 80% of a beard going, but there is always a 2 or 4 cm patch of hairlessness by the sides of my mouth, giving the impression of a seperate beard and moustache. It makes me look not cool.
as one of the gay folks out there, I thought number 4 was kinda sexy. 2 and 3 are just a little too common and we know you don’t want that.
Don’t ask me why, but I thought of your wife’s post about Spontaneous Waxing when I saw the pics. Who knew there were so many options with the hair not on your head?
my husband did the same thing with pictures when he shaved his beard. his were scarier than yours. yours aren’t scary.
alas, no mo’ flava savor!
thank you for the documentation!! what a riot
i shared it with my hubby… we call #6 a “soul patch,” my brotha - lol!
when i shaved my beard in Austria, I sported the Hitler for about five minutes. I felt truly evil.
Looking good.
I did something similar last summer after a failed beard experiment.
…a perfectly good opportunity to finally try out the handlebar moustache, wasted.
you’re a big guy, aincha?
Swami sez it is time for the eyebrows.
Man, I dread having to shave my beard. I think i’ll skip out until I’m a total wooly mammoth.
my boyfriend has the “speed metal buddy” beard. it’s beneficial for oral sex. and for hiding a surprisingly weak chin.
Where’s the porn producer goatee?
the question is: have you done any modifications to your eyebrows?
The only eyebrow work allowed is where the wife takes tweezers and turns one brow into two.
I wonder how many “The Various Stages of Beard” photo collections there are out there. I have my own somewhere around here. Most of my beard attempts just made me look like a hitchiking serial killer. I have stuck with #6 with shots periods of #7 for a while though. Oh well, enough talk — Where *is* my damn latte?
Ok, regarding the advance copy of Radiohead album on your wife’s website…how did you get it?
Hello. Apologies if I am abusing the system, but I am conducting a survey into the best fictional band name ever. As in, if you were in a band/pop group, what would you be called? There is no prize, but this is an important scientific study, so you will be doing a good thing. Please e-mail me your ideas.
Hey! I play the sax, and I don’t have a soul patch under my lip.
my site…a>
To be honest, I think your chin looks more gay *without* any facial hair. I promise that’s not wishful thinking. No. Really. It’s not!