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The link goes to a TV show video on the hulu.com site. I'm in the video and so are quite a few other longhairs, including one and maybe others from this board.
They misspelled my name, but you'll surely recognize me there.
As mentioned on this board last summer, I was a casual participant who perchance beat the world champion in one contest. This TV show reveals much of the rivalry that was going on leading up to the 2010 contests, matters I was wholly unaware of and that never got mentioned on MLHH back then.
Bill
Whisker Wars
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That kicks ass, what a great video, Bill. Now I may want to enter a beard contest. Other than yourself, at least three of those guys are on my facebook friends list. Jack, Arnie, and Myk.
Scott
Hi Bill,
Sorry, I cannot see the video, and all I get is a message saying that it is only visible from the USA.
Darned programming rights restrictions!
David
I had the same problem too! Cannot view if outside USA. Why limit viewing to inside the USA? Damn annoying it is !
Duncan
Yes David I don't think they want us to see it. Still check on you tube in a while. We have the smae thing with the BBC iPlayer.
Cheers,
John.B
Hi Bill,
Nice to see you on the board again:)I was able to watch the video,or at least most of it,as running it proves I sorely need to get a new comoputer.LOL.I've known for awhile that my vintage 2004 ibook G4 can't handle modern day computing but it at least works well on mlhh:)
I did watch enough of it to see you Bill and it sure looks like a fun event to participate in.Unfortunately the beard I have won't turn many heads but its something I suppose.
On a side note I will be visiting your area again this fall so hope to catch up with you.Until then trust all is well my friend:)Cheers
Mark
And fortunately most of us are not size queens when it comes to beards. Whatever beard you have can make a great statement.
(Although there were certainly some size queens at the beard contest. It felt more like a San Francisco drag queen contest than most of those men would have liked to have known.)
Cool! Look forward to seeing you then, Mark!
Bill
Thanks Bill, that was great. I saw some folks there that I remember from the beard forums from days gone by. Phil has always been dedicated to the cause! I used to have a long-ish beard but the sides were always a bit sparse - a condition that seems to have gotten worse with age - but I'll always have my mustache and goatee!
What a superb show Bill and of all places: BEND OR! (I have never been there but hear it is so much more sunny than where I am located.) Perhaps I should move?
You looked great in the video and I surely hope qualify for some sort of prize. :-)
Congratulations for being on TV! And, thank you for sharing this very unique event with the MLHH.
Hope you are having a great Summer.
Justin~
HA! "Sunny" and "Oregon" do not belong in the same sentence! ;)
We were in Oregon for about a week last month, and we saw some sun in the Willamette Valley, as well as in Bend. One day I climbed up the trail to the top of Multnomah Falls, and the hazy but yet sunny day was perfect. Another day when we were in Bend the morning was very still and sunny and they launched several colorful hot air balloons over the city. In Portland the sweet aromas rising from the sun-lit Rose Garden were exquisite. We had magical times in Oregon.
Oh, and high temperatures were around 70 every day. Most of you - eat your hearts out!
Bill
Glad you enjoyed it! Yes, Oregon has some great people, beautiful scenery, amazing wildlife, fantastic fishing, and delicious fresh seafood. Oh, and about two months (cumulative) of sunny days per year. ;) I am glad you had favorable weather for your trip, Bill. :)
Hi Bill, I did checkout youtube where i found a few trailers for whiskey wars and the Austin Facial Hair Club was mentioned. I didn't see you but if anything to go by maybe your segment may be already up floating around in the youtube universe somewhere. It sounds like a really good show coming up and I think Jack Passion has a lot of chutzpah, but every king has his day and who knows who may be the new beard champion of the world?
Reading your essay on Being a Longhair really inspired me and I wish you well along with Oren and others who may compete in the Beard Contest.
Kind regards,
Duncan
With this crowd it was more like "beer wars".... whiskey would have been a lot nicer to have licked off of our mustaches for sure.
Yeah, they are calling it "whisker wars". I did not know the extensiveness of the filming going on until I saw that clip. Nor did I know there was a rivalry between the Texas crowd and Jack Passion.
We had planned to go to Bend but just to watch it all, and when we heard there was to be a local contest running up to the Bend one, we said we'd spring for the two buck subway fare and go if it weren't raining. The rain stopped so we went. Then I got cajoled by those around me to enter the contest. I relented and I got in the very back of the line of entrants at the last minute as the line was vanishing at the processing table.
Jack is a local here, and we occasionally see each other. We are on good terms because he knows I have no designs on becoming a "beard professional". My appearance in his life was surely a large thorn in his side, but it was a fluke and nothing of my intentionally doing. I didn't think I had a snowball's chance in hell of winning, so I just kicked back to enjoy the ride. A lot of the crowd picked up on that vibe and liked it, apparently.
Jack Passion wrote a book on beard growing, and you just pointed out I wrote the one on hair growing, so it just occurred to me now that you stumbled onto one thing Jack and I do have in common, other than faces overgrown with fur.
As for future beard contests, they are few and far between, moving half-way across the planet from one to the next. I just don't have the interest in chasing that circuit around. I planned to go to the last one because we thought it would be fun to see, but weighing heavily in the decision was that Bend was just a day and a half's drive from here, and we really wanted to spend some time to get to know Bend.
Bill
Hi Bill,
The important thing like you implied in your post is to kick your heels up, and just have fun and go with along with the flow. I didn't think that such beard contests should be taken seriously anyway. I do own a copy of the aforementioned Beard Book by Jack Passion where the author has plenty of cheek (and overflowing beard) to go with it in what he writes about in growing and nurturing a good beard. In Australia there is a pub rock bank called "The Beards" and you guessed it they sing passionate songs about the glory of beards. I have heard them live and they come a few times a year to my home town of Canberra where they are popular. The band all have beards too and could be mistaken for a group of later day Ned Kellies, a famous or infamous (depends how you look at it) folk hero who was a 19th century Irish Australia bushranger.
Nice!
I did meet many of those guys, and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, at the event I went to in Austin last February. There was some footage from that event in the video.
The annual Austin event has become a birthday ritual as it takes place on or around my birthday.
- Oren
Here are some links to photos of the Austin event:
Photos from the 5th Annual Misprint Beard and Moustache Contest
Yeah, you Texas guys have about the only permanent and active U.S. local beard club around, it seems. When in Bend a couple of weeks ago, I learned the Bend club had mostly disappeared after they hosted the June 2010 national contest. Some had even taken off their beards. The horror!
Bill
Bill, that was awesome that you upset the champion ~ and as a walk in!!! You looked really happy in the video, like you were just having a good time and not worried about winning. :)
There were certainly some impressive beard lengths there, and the first thing I thought of was the guys in ZZ Top.
Thanks for sharing!
That was because I felt I had zero chance at winning! [grin]
My beard's length at the time was longer than one of the ZZ guys' beards and shorter than the other guy's. I've never been physically in the same place with them, but I compared some photos at about the time of the contest.
Bill
Hi Bill,
What a hoot!!! I remember you talking about winning this local contest last year, and how surprised you were that you beat the reigning beard champion Jack Passion that evening; but to see the event caught on film like this brings the reality of winning to a whole new level -- AWESOME!!
By the way, what bar in town was this event held at last year? (and are they going to have that contest there again next year?) I would love to see this contest live someday -- and if I know sufficiently in advance when the date will be, I'll request that day off from work (assuming if it takes place on a weekend day, which is when most fun things happen that I often miss - LOL)....
Thanks for sharing this, I really enjoyed watching!
Take Care,
Ken
I had no idea it was being videotaped at the time. It was cool this week to see that someone got some photos of it, and good ones at that.
Last week in Bend the guys said it was unlikely there would ever be another contest there, actually. Phil, the guy who runs the beard team, lives up at Tahoe but he likes to move the events all over the place and gives no preference to the West Coast.
Bill