Posts tagged ‘Terrible Beard OTW’

Late last night, let’s say 10:30 p.m., I found myself in a challenging and discouraging conversation about beards. It seems my dislike of finely trimmed facial hair walks the thin line of beard racism. Courtesy of Natsast fan and commenter Dblock in close conjunction with a handful of delicious stouts:

“Finely trimmed beards are what distinguishes us from the hobos. A finely trimmed beard (in the black community at least) goes hand in hand with a shape-up… do one and you must do the other. It’s ok to shave and neglect the shape-up, but never the other way around… now going back to David Ortiz, while the beard is finely trimmed and may not be “self sustaining”, further investigation would need to be conducted in regards to the state of his shape-up (nappy vs. sharp). I think you will see where I’m coming from if you compare David Ortiz and Kimbo Slice.“

Am I ignoring an entire culture by my dislike of finely trimmed beards? We need a name for this, by the way. Any suggestions? Does the beard go by its style or by the format when assigning titles? If the finely trimmed beard is in the shape of an Old Dutch, is it still an Old Dutch or a Finely Trimmed Old Dutch? Does it require the style component? I would never say “That guy riding the wagon is rocking a high-level Robust Old Dutch.” It just doesn’t fly. Why are we, as beard purveyors, placing restrictions on the nomenclature? There has to be a standardize taxonomy. Rack your brains, we must come to a conclusion.

Back to the topic at hand - the addition of a new rule to the Beard Growers Constitution - Amendment 8a states: If the grower of a beard wields a razor blade with such precision to trim perfect lines and symmetrical detail, then the negative marks associated with the format are nullified. Bonus points would then be applied for the craftsmanship.

Not only did this conversation completely eliminate my self appointed status of Beard Liason, but it created a deep rift in the space-time continuum. I spent the rest of the night going over the rules of bearddom. Without a common understanding of diversity, we are doomed to repeat history’s greatest blunder. The Terrible Beard of the Week is going into reevaluation mode, hopefully to be reconstructed from the ground up with a firm foundation - not one built on whimsical theories. Is this real? Am I real? Did I have a lobotomy? Do I need a lobotomy? I’m confused.

“You! You’re the same. No matter where you go, there you are. It’s always the same old you. Let me suggest that you take a vacation from yourself. I know it sounds wild. It is the latest thing in travel. We call it the Ego Trip.”

And I just had one.

Part 2 of 2. Initially, this week was scheduled to look at the more memorable facial hair follies in baseball history. Plans changed as I was having a very large internal debate on the validity of this particular post. Is there such a thing as a “bad beard” from the players in the 1970-80s? My answer is no. Going back to the first T-BoW and the discussion of beard entitlement for a moment - the truly atrocious beards have only occurred in the days of recent past. Too many people are growing beards, and the Conservationists like myself feel they are watering down the gene pool.

What is the saying? A schmuck is a schmuck is a schmuck? How can you ascertain the originality and the uniqueness of crap? There are so many terrible beards of the same quality, the search for an All-Star lineup seems futile. Basically it would be an arbitrary decision with no factual backup or structural analysis.

So instead of giving you an entire lineup of essentially the same junk, I will pull an especially terrible decision out of the archive for your viewing pleasure.

Designated (s)Hitter: David Ortiz

There is an argument out there that because Ortiz’s beard is so finely kept, it qualifies as a good beard. I find the finely tuned trim job to be the exact reason why his beard is offensive. I have serious doubts the trim job is self sustaining, and requiring the help of others is a mortal sin. I repeat: if you have someone trim your beard or side burns, then you have forfeited your legitimacy in beardism. And to top it all off, Ortiz’s beard is atrociously styled. I am not a fan of anything about this. Nothing.

Beard Title: I Pay Someone To Shave Me Daily.

So that’s it. We are accumulating a nice little queue of potential T-BoW’s - some courtesy of our colleagues over at Rockiescast - so stay tuned for the upcoming Friday features. Next week we get back to our regularly scheduled programming, thankfully leaving this My Eyes Are Bigger Than My Stomach endeavor behind. Have a good weekend.

As much as I wanted to discuss Jason Giambi’s “Magnum P.I.”, I decided against it. Too many people have been on the mustache ride - its crowded. If he was not producing, would it be so amusing? No, it would be a talisman of evil. And Giambi would be an outcast. Instead of children gluing fake follicles to their upper lip, mothers would be carrying oversized disposable razors, pointing them to the heavens and crying for justice. When I see morning highlights discussing someone’s Format of choice, I choose to go in the other direction.

While I was scouring the interwebs looking for greatness, I came across the 1993 Expansion Team series in Colorado. The Rockies won with walk-off, prompting the television crews to interview this wild specimen.

To stop wasting time, here is our Terrible Beard of the Week!!! (drum roll):

Ryan Spilborghs, Outfield, Colorado Rockies. Look at this mess.

How can you get any respect in your profession if you show up to work with this on your face? It is worse that coming dressed as a clown. With the clown you get the uniform face coloring and some pretty cool looking shoes. I bet this guy sits in the dugout isolated from his teammates, shunned from the communal showers, and has to take public transit to the team hotel.

Ok, lets break down the beard. Structurally speaking, the beard is very robust. You can’t even see the skin in some sections. It is splotchy, though. I mean, look at the right side of the face. How can hair grow in so thick on one side, and not on the other? This baffles my mind.

Is there a style? I am giving high marks for the pure white coloration. How does that happen? Those marks are taken away, however, because of the mutant factor. He is a white version of the Beast. And you cannot reward a mutant for having a genetically manipulated advantage of the rest of the normal people.

As for the format, The Orangutan gets major points. It takes stones to choose to look like our brethren in the Hominidae Family. In this era of finely trimmed beards, often times by stylists and not the grower himself, it is refreshing to see someone give a walking history lesson. The full forehead and bridge-of-nose coverage is phenomenal.

Adding up the tally, Mr. Spilborghs receives a C. The high grade in Random helps to offshoot the negatives, and we are left with a decidedly average beard. Unfortunately, there is nothing average about this. But you cannot argue with the math. It looks like the beard gods took a left to right sweeping motion with his face, pulling upwards towards the right temple. A once-in-a-lifetime brush stroke.

Grade: C Normal

Beard Title: Peter Venkman Post Stay Puff Marshmallow Man Destruction.

Since this is the first beard post, I will break down the categories:

Robustness: details the ability of the grower to fill out the beard. Low robustness would have splotches, or extreme distances between each cheek hair follicle. High robustness would resemble a brillo pad, or the amount of individual hairs in the beard would number in the thousands.

Style: obvious but deep category, bonus points for originality and trim work. Natural coloration is important as negative marks will be attributed to those that feel the need to dye. Long or short trim? Braided goatees? etc… It is hard to be objective with style, but that is what we strive for.

Format: for the growers preferred choice of appearance. Full beard, stubble, goatee, fu manchu, mustache (love them, especially The Push Broom), chin straps (hate them), sideburns, porkchops, soul patch (please, no Spiezios), or any combination of these or the dozens that I have yet to list. Another factor in this category is selecting the appropriate format for your attitude, and more importantly, your facial structure. Match what grows well with the way your face looks. Too many people are trying to grow beards. That is why we have a Terrible Beard of the Week. There was a time, not so long ago, when the Bearded Man was adorned with prestige. Now it is turned into an everyman thing. There are differing philosophies involved here on the front lines: the Libertarians and the Conservationists. Lets leave it at that for now.

Random: this is the catch all for things that are too minor to justify a dedicated category. This is definitely the wild card in the equation and is the most subjective.

SO, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE IS THE TERRIBLE BEARD OF THE WEEK!!! (drum roll):

Jason Marquis, Starting Pitcher, Chicago Cubs. With 6 wins on the year so far, that is 6 more wins than he would get if it was a beard contest. What is the saying? That a picture is worth 1,000 words? Could you come up with 1,000 words describing how poor this mans attempted beard is? What is that huge dry spot on his right chin? What is the trim job about? The decision to go with this format is insulting. I only pray that Marquis is trying to grow out a full beard and the resulting horror is stuck in the pre-pubescent stage.

With that in mind, he gets a D minus across the board. The only redeeming point preventing a hearty F minus is that he does indeed, have to wake up and look in the mirror in the morning.

Grade: D Minus

Beard Title: Bad Decisions and Poor Trim Lines.