When Beards Collide

Wednesday began with another walk downtown to acquire some sort of small amount of food to tide us over before the welcome picnic for all the competitors. I got myself a reindeer sausage off a street vendor. Delicious.


We had a nice time around the city again and met some local eskimo people who had been drinking and, what looked like, doing a few other extracurriculars. They ended up being very nice and telling us about magpies and how to pet a moose (all you need is a lot of booze for yourself and a tree branch for the moose, it's that easy!) We began to mill around the Egan Center, where some buses were supposed to pick everyone up, and slowly but surely the beards began to converge. We must have looked like quite the motley crew, a bus full of beards and moustaches. Once at the park, we mostly just talked to people for the next four hours. Free beer and food would have been a large enough draw on their own, but add in world class facial hair and you know that everyone was going to be there. And here we go with the hairiest pictures known to man...

This guy with the orange (I can't really remember a lot of these names because we met so many people) is from New Orleans and I thought he was in some kind of costume since he had on the orange jacket and was wearing sweat pants tucked into his tube socks, all locked down with velcro shoes, but no. That's his everyday outfit.


This German guy, Fritz, was a real character. He didn't speak any English, but basically hammed it up with everyone and was just loving it. He won third place at last competition in the Gerabaldi category. All the Germans were there singing and dancing... it felt like being back in a Munich for just a few minutes.

This little guy was possibly the coolest, most Grandpa like person around. He even has a small little squeaky voice that just adds to his miner look.

Albert Einstein's real name is apparently Keith and he hails from Cumbria. We talked to him a lot as he was there on his own and didn't really know anyone. He's got a very charming accent and, apparently, is planning on wearing a kilt for the competition. Mom can't wait.

Once this guy got there the party really began. His name is Gerhard from Germany and won third place last time in the full beard freestyle category. He's on a lot of posters downtown. I saw his ring and it's a diamond studded gold thing with a tiny pair of scissors in the middle of the diamonds.
This guy with the leather jacket was tromping around when we first got there with his aviators on he always carried his dark leather briefcase like he was on a mission. I pegged him for CIA, but definitely not undercover as I think most would remember his stache. If you look closely at it, it's curled in a spiral and has about four loops.
This was a highlight for me. This here is Frazer Coppin from England. The current World Champion in my category, the musketeer. He's a super nice guy and one hell of a snazzy dresser. He gave me many tips about maintaining and how to style. Lots of hairspray, homemade wax concoction (part beeswax and part vasoline), and small women's hair straighteners. His moustache and goatee were done up so much, neither moved even when the wind picked up. As we were talking I couldn't help but watch the end of his goatee almost reach the beer in his cup, which he was holding at the same level in the picture.

Here are a pair of twins who are only 22 years old and have been growing for two years. Sam has the straight out one (English style) and Devin has his up in a Dali. They also had tips on how to make homemade wax and Sam told me that if you wax your stache up super tight, you can still work in a deli because the wax is a kind of facial hair net.

This is Xavier Marvel. His sister Daphne met my friend Andrea in Spain and they both talked about us. We just happened to be standing next to each other in line to get beer and I overheard him introduce himself to someone. Just another example of the small world of facial hair.

This is Alex Antebi and he's the reigning champion of the Imperial Moustache category. We talked for a little while and he complimented my stache. He was carrying around a purse the whole time. Paul and I met up with him at a bar later and one of the girl bartenders commented on his "man bag" and he said, "No honey. It's a purse." He ended up giving Paul lots of advice on his stache and groomed him a bit.
Here we have Nick. We only talked for a few minutes, but last year Nick decided to drop out of college and go to log cabin building school, which he just completed and now builds log cabins for a living and has never been happier. He's going to do freestyle on Saturday and wouldn't tell me what his outfit is, so it'll be interesting to see what turns out. He's got a lot to work with.
There were cameras and film crews everywhere and pictures were being taken willy-nilly. Paul and I got interviewed by this guy from New York.
It's been a lot of fun to be in a room of facial hair contemporaries and all-stars. The main guys are very serious about it, but have a lot of fun in the process. They're celebrities in this world and this is the Oscars. Walking around it was funny how much beer foam you saw sticking to staches and being licked off. Everyone had a great time and talked to everyone else, but you know in the back of their minds they're sizing up the competition at the same time. I have to say, I've never had more fun in a room with bearded people.