Special Comment: Salman Rushdie should be more flexible with his grudges

The Daily Beast reported today that Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie criticized Jonathan Stuart Liebowitz for having Steven Demetre Georgiou sing at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear last Saturday. (I use their real names, not for political or racial reasons, but for silly reasons.) Jon Stewart had the artist former known as Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam has apparently dropped the 'Islam' because five of the five letters spell 'Islam', and some Europeans & Americans have islamic allergies) sing his beautiful song "Peace Train" before it was interrupted by Stephen Tyrone Colbert ("I will not ride that train") & John Michael "Ozzie" Osborne singing "Crazy Train."

Yusuf, when he was a fresh convert to Islam in the '80s, stupidly said he'd support the fatwa death sentence placed on Rushdie after he published The Satanic Verses. (As a side note, did you know book stores in Berkeley were bombed because they carried that book?) (Also, if you haven't read it, The Satanic Verses is a pretty dense postmodern novel containing many positive Muslim characters, and the scenes inspired by the life of the Prophet are in a feverish dream by a delusional character, not at all a simple direct criticism of Mohammad.) Today's 62-year-old Yusuf is a different man than the enthusiastic convert thirty years ago, and he's become a face of moderate peaceful Islam, and one of the handsomest beards on Earth or beyond. Witness this lovely performance of Peace Train at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring Muhammad Yunus in 2006:

Sir Salman, as someone who still has a fatwa on your ass, you should know better about holding grudges!

Department of Brian Wilson: New York Times Profiles Brian Wilson

Back to Brian Wilson. He was brought in last night (game one of the World Series in San Francisco) at the very end of the ninth, let a few more runs in, and then ended the game with the bizarre score 11-7. The New York Times today includes a profile of Brian Wilson, here's a lengthy excerpt:

Relief pitchers have tended to be odd, with closers typically occupying the far end of that spectrum. Brian Wilson, the San Francisco Giants’ closer, is one of the oddest.

Start with the easy stuff, like his physical appearance. There’s the hair, part mohawk and part mullet; the tattoos; and the perpetually unbuttoned jersey.

There are the bright orange spikes, for which he was fined $1,000 by Major League Baseball because they failed to conform to the standard of being at least 50 percent black. (He brought them up to code with a marker.)

And there is his preternaturally black beard — dyed several shades darker than the rest of his hair with what appears to be industrial-grade shoe polish — which has inspired five Facebook pages and a marketing campaign. The slogan “Fear the Beard” adorns any number of T-shirts in Giants souvenir stands.

It is what is behind the beard, however, that gives Wilson his edge.

He is an entertaining interview: on Jim Rome’s radio show this summer he claimed to be a certified ninja and a mental assassin. He has explored his roots in the off-season by backpacking through Ireland (staying at hostels) and India (where he showed cricket players how he throws a 95-mile-per-hour fastball).

More recently, he earned attention for interviews that could have doubled as performance art. In one, a nearly naked man strolled across the background as Wilson was interviewed live via satellite from his house. [...]

But what gives Wilson more depth and makes him more intriguing is his manner inside the Giants’ clubhouse. There he makes extraordinary efforts to fit in, and to draw in others. Notably, he is a regular at the Latino-dominated dominoes table in the locker room. On the outstanding and colorful Boston Red Sox teams of 2003 and 2004, Kevin Millar was the ringleader who went out of his way to make sure his Hispanic teammates were involved. A half-decade later, Wilson appears to have the same instincts.

“These are your teammates,” Wilson said. “It doesn’t matter what country they’re from. It doesn’t matter what language they speak. It doesn’t matter what they wear. It’s impossible for me not to say hello to everybody, not to have a conversation. It’s the way I am. It’s the way the whole team is. You have all the different personalities on all sides, and they’re all yelling at each other and meeting in the middle.”

If Wilson has his say, the Giants will win a championship sometime in the next 10 days, the first for the organization since 1954, four years before it moved to San Francisco.

That would leave one outstanding goal for their closer before next spring training.

“I’d like to be a crossword clue one day,” he said. “I want to be in The New York Times’s Sunday edition. Right now, the clue ‘Giants great’ is always Mel Ott. I want my clue to be down, not across. The down ones are usually harder. And when I’m the clue, I’ll fill it in — just that one — and frame it.

“How sweet would that be?”

Three Years Ago: Three Lamer Doggerels

And now, back to THREE YEARS AGO: this blog's ongoing series re-posting posts from EXACTLY THREE YEARS AGO, as a perpetual celebration of the fact that it has survived more than three years (with the occasional furlough.) From August 11th, 2007, we present Three Lamer Doggerels:

______________________________________________________

It's a shady Saturday, & I'm looking thru an old notebook before heading to a wedding reception. I found one old poem scratched next to a picture of a cowboy entirely of beard & hair, below bumpy onboard reflections of Futureman's MIDI percussion playing from the 90's (The "Synthax Drumitar").

Two men use their talents:
One buries his money,
The rich get richer,
but bees make honey,
& ain't that funny
if you're a bunny,
sonny?

I think I really solved some of life's mysteries with those rhymes. The second poem I collaborated with Mr Hadar Hart on a walk up to see a 70's b-movie about smart killer bees ("Phase IV" by Saul Bass), after discussing how it's too bad the Homeless Newspapers don't have creative writing:

Haiku About Homelessness & Heartlessness

Home's where the heart is,
Homes is where the heart is where,
Therefore, I'm heartless.

Kind of Gertrude Stein meets Wayne & Garth. This last doggerel is a fragment - instead of blabbing on about Orson Welles & the thinning of themes, as Christopher Hitchens did today in his review of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, I just wrote a short poem thanking our beloved author:

Thank You to J.K. Rowling

Thank you, J.K. Rowling, you've made the Bush years more bearable,
You've made 800-page novels more carryable,
You've made wizard cloaks more wearable,
And you've made Hollywood more Harry-able.

Department of Beards: John Steinbeck's Peacock Beard

On the famous mug of American author John Steinbeck we usually picture a thin private-eye mustache. But I've been reading his later non-fiction Travels with Charley, & in a section where he is describing his camping costume ("utilitarian if a bit bizarre"), he has a fine paragraph in praise of beard:

My face has not ignored the passage of time, but recorded it with scars, lines, furrows, & erosions. I wear a beard & mustache but shave my cheeks; said beard, having a dark skunk stripe up the middle & white edges, commemorates certain relatives. I cultivate this beard not for the usual given reasons of skin trouble or pain of shaving, nor for the secret purpose of covering a weak chin, but as pure unblushing decoration, much as a peacock finds pleasure in his tail. And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.

It's a little hard to find photos of Steinbeck's beard. For such a public figure, why is it so hard to find pictures of his bearded phase - is the anti-beard establishment deliberately repressing them? Here's one of Steinbeck lurking behind his son, John Steinbeck IV, a journalist in Vietnam, meeting President Johnson:


Charley is also a fine hairy man. We think of manly Steinbeck, roughing it around the continental United States with his camper & his dog, an American archetype. But Charley is not only a poodle, but a large black French Poodle born & raised in France. (His nationality especially shows in his skill with romance.) With his peacock beard & his French poodle, there's a nice redefinition of American masculinity.

Bearded Art: Bearded Panda Presidents

This artist, Alexander Barrett, has imagined all forty-four presidents as pandas.
INCLUDING THE BEARDED PRESIDENTS:

More at his website.

Department of Beards Special Update: David Traver wins 2009 World Beard & Mustache Championships

A local Alaskan won the 2009 World Beard & Mustache Championships! God Bless America, we can compete on the global beard stage!

From the Anchorage Daily News:

[David] Traver was among 300 competitors from around the globe who converged here over the weekend for the 2009 World Beard and Moustache Championships. His beard, dyed several colors and woven into the shape of a snowshoe, beat out more than 140 others to become the coolest beard in the world. He took home a commemorative gold pan and a salmon fishing trip. [...]

Along with his overall title, Traver took first in the freestyle beard competition, a category that's been dominated by Germany since the contest began in the early '90s.

"They have never lost in full beard freestyle, but not yesterday. Yesterday is the first time they got knocked off," he said. "They were humble, and you have to respect that."

Outdoing the Germans in the category for avant-garde whiskers took ingenuity, he said. Plus, they were getting predictable.

With his beard stylist, Ledjha Carson, Traver months ago started brainstorming a beard shape that was "out of the box," he said. They considered eagle wings, moose antlers and a sled dog team before settling on the snowshoe. It took Carson 90 minutes to weave it the day of the competition.

"She wanted it right. She was very meticulous," he said. "But my neck is still stiff."

Traver, who is 43 and works as a driver for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, got into facial hair competition locally about 10 years ago with the Mr. Fur Face competition during Fur Rendezvous. After that, he got involved with the South Central Alaska Beard and Moustache Club, which bid to bring the international championships to Anchorage this year -- beating out Liechtenstein. He dedicated his win to his father, David Traver, who died in September.

Traver enjoys being immersed in the beard-positive environment of the competition, he said.

Sadly, Travers is now going to shave it off. The next championship will be held in Trondheim, Norway, in 2011.

More from itwaslost's Department of Beards here.

Beards We Know, Part Two: Beards We Knew

Many of you have never met Mr Pete Zillman! However, I have, I have gone to high school with the man! Altho I have not seen him nor his beard in ten years, his larger-than-life performance of the hair-dryer solo in Danny Holt's composition Relief, will be forever burned into my brain. Mr Zillman lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, & in his spare time, travels to State Capitols. He has been to many, many of our fifty State Capitols! Today, in our special segment for the Department of Beards, Sub-Department of Beards We Know, where we honor & gaze upon the beards we have met - we sadly mourn the passing of Mr Zillman's Beard! Here are the before & after shot, posted on the facebooks this week.

How To Beard: Suggestions thru the Tweetosphere

samamidon
olaf mary, teach me about BEARDS
about 21 hours ago from TwitterGadget

OlafMary
we can start with the history of beards: beards go way back. before history.
about 19 hours ago from TwitterGadget

samamidon
thank you olafmary. question # 2: how do i grow one?
about 19 hours ago from TwitterGadget

OlafMary
I thought this might be the central "thrust" of your inquiry. Talk to genetic engineers. Go back in Time, make Peter eat more spinach. Wait.
about 19 hours ago from TwitterGadget

OlafMary
option 2: cut some hair from your head, apply one side of double-sided tape to upper lip, affix hair to other side. Wait for your cheeks.
about 19 hours ago from TwitterGadget

OlafMary
Wait for your cheeks to respond from the encouragement.
about 19 hours ago from TwitterGadget

OlafMary
from? to? of? also find out what brand of whiskey Ulysses S Grant drank and drink it. Wait.
about 19 hours ago from TwitterGadget

OlafMary
option 3: buy a floppy hat, a gray suit, and some big ears. then write a really long poem called, "Song of Myself." Wait.
about 19 hours ago from TwitterGadget

OlafMary
look to other parts of the body as possible beard habitats. perhaps your pubic hair is a "penis beard." maybe your armpit hair is
about 18 hours ago from TwitterGadget

SSandrigon
How to beard #5: Hold your cheeks against dry ice for 5⅞ hours. If this doesn't work, you are a damn fool.
about 15 hours ago from TwitterGadget

SSandrigon
How to beard #7: Apply to the circus & when the there aren't any openings for the pinheads or strong men, become the bearded lady.
about 15 hours ago from TwitterGadget

The Neck Beard

Bad Beard

February's not over yet. Let's do a Worst Beards feature.

I submit for your consideration: David Beckham's beard in late 2008. Ugh.



It includes an audio bit that I spliced for you from last week's World Football Weekly podcast on the BBC (20 seconds).

Paparazzi 2001: Great Lords & Ladies with Beards & Mustaches

Friend-of-the-Blog & good-woman-in-a-tight-corner Miss Annalee F. was photographed by undercover photojournalists at this SWANKY New York party, with a sequined woman on her arm & a fat bandito MUSTACHE on her face.

Scandalous! I trust the itwaslost.org treasury secretary will fully understand appropriating the entire spring budget to pay the paparazzi who snapped this shot.

When I was talking to the documentarian (mentioned below) who is just finishing her movie on the Beard Club, I asked if she met any bearded ladies. She said Jennifer Miller (pictured in an artsy Leibovitzy rendering to the right) of New York City's Circus Amok, is the most famous living bearded lady. More on this to come.

In the meantime, watch this classic Christian Rock from the 1980s.

Department of Beards: Conspiracy of Beards, The Beard Club, Bears

Two acquaintances of mine - a coworker & an Russian accordion player - are in a choir that sings around the Bay Area, The Conspiracy of Beards. While the title I presume is a Leonard Cohen reference, they don't necessary have much to do with the Department of Beards, except that many of them have beards, dress smart, wear hats, & sing choral arrangements of Leonard Cohen songs. "They know how to be men," stressed the gallery owner where I saw them. They'll be singing in the New York City area in April, stop by & see them New Yorkers!


I saw them do their thing at the Million Fishes Gallery last wednesday, & I struck up a conversation with a woman who was there to meet my friend, who had promised to play the accordion on the soundtrack to her upcoming film: a documentary about beards and mustaches! I of course told her about The Department of Beards at itwaslost.org, & we will be promoting this film to our blogospherical utmost. Unfortunately, the trailer isn't embeddable, but go here to the Beard Club website & watch it. The trailer has some nice interviews with the Handlebar Club in London, & of course San Francisco's own Bears (as in, hairy gay men & the men who love hairy gay men. The flag from Bear Nation is at the top of this post.)

The Sad Narrative of the Big-Ass Beard on that Rutherford B. Hayes

Happy Presidents' Day! It is too infrequently noted that we pay too too little attention to our leaders in this country. How about a little reverence for our great presidents once & awhile! The slick new whitehouse.gov website has a fancy feature with a SLIDESHOW of the 44 presidents, they are even kind enough to crop off the tops of their foreheads for our convenience. I wanted to combine all of the things we love on this blog - Lizard People, Presidents, Beards, Fashion, & History - into one spectacular historical doggerel poem in honor of bearded lizard presidents. Kowtow to us, & spend a few moments this Presidents' Day to learn about democratic leadership.

The Sad Narrative of the Big-Ass Beard on that Rutherford B. Hayes

There once was a man named Rutherford Hayes,
A metrosexual, he shaved three times a days,
Like a baby's butt, soft as a vagina,
You could ride that wave from California to Carolina,
And he knew if he rubbed it in just the right place,
He would grow up to be elected the President of the United States.

Now one day he was walking thru the amber maize,
That gay savant known as Rudy Be Hayes,
And he came across a humble wasp called Twitty van Titt,
Let me tell you about this Twitty, he was full of monkey shit,
A bumble in appearance, but inside an evil sorcerer.
All yellow & fuzzy, he was envious of Rutherford's virgin face,
The type of chihuahua pate, if you rubbed in just the right place,
It could be stamped on the currency of the United States.

That jealous Twitty van Titt, summoned all the spirits of the days,
And placed a huge curse on the face of Rutherford B. Hayes,
He could shave it twenty times with the sharpest of razors,
But his beard would grow thicker than a NASA space shuttle.
You need a 4-D map to get out of the jungle on that lengthy face,
And you'll never grow up to be elected the President of the United States.

But Rudy Be Hayes was a gay little turnip,
And had saved for the fates a few gay little tricks,
So when he ran against Sam Tilden in 1876,
The New York Governor, with his feminine cheeks,
Won the popular vote, but was caught in the lady's lavatory huffing a whippet,
And despite the buzzing voodoo of Twitty Van Titt,
Rutherford ushered in an age of wild bearded Presidents,
Garfield & Cleveland & Arthur & Harrison,
Men of action & courage, history written bold across their pates,
Bearded & handsome, & honored forever as Presidents of the United States.

Department of Beardicles: Joaquin Phoenix

Look, down to the left on the sidebar, is a twitter feed for the itwaslost.org contributers! It's the 21st Century, spacecats! The tweetosphere is meeting up with the blogosphere! Chose not to follow it at your own peril!

Poor Joaquin Phoenix, lost behind his beard. Some people use their splendid beards to accentuate their inner beauty, others hide behind it, Mr Phoenix's appears to be masking a sad nothingness. Is he channeling Jean-Michel Basquiat at his worst? 

department of beards- beard from below

anybody else have pictures of beards from weird angles?

Beards We Know, Part One: Special February Mustache Month Edition, Focus on Sierra Nevada Mountains

In our new segment in the Department of Beards, Beards We Know, we'd like to highlight a few of the beards we got to know in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In honor of February Mustache Month, I've tried to include a picture of the beard next to it in its mustache formation. I must note sadly that, like mine, many of these beards have now left us.




Mr Tomas, gambler & world traveler, cofounder of the Mimosas Witnesses, showcasing his Red Revolutionary Beard next to his Turkish Mystic mustache. Very nice.




















Mr Martineau, quite handsome in just a mustache...
















& also in his shaggy mountain look (here pictured with Mr Quill & Herr Liebwiener.)
















Mr Hermann, band promoter & Obama caucus organizer, the kindest soul, native of Naples, Vermont, where even the young girls have beards.















Mr Ficke, the angels still sing of your facial hair. Just yesterday, in the cold gutters of Santiago, you posted this memo on the facebooks:

Beard v. Chile. Chile VICTORIOUS.

Yesterday at 4:35pm

Yes, Mega-Beard #2 has taken leave of my face. I granted its freedom last night after I couldn´t shake the thought... ¨wait, why do I still have this beard?¨ At first I was just gonna trim, but you get few beers in me and I tend to start shaving things. This time, there is no photographic evidence of the process, but ohhh, there´s nothing like it. Using tiny scissors to take chunks out of something that has been lounging on my visage for about 6 months now.. holding the gnarly ball of red, beholding the glorious ¨butt chin¨that has been in seclusion for so long. As Eva Freeman would put it, I´ve reverted to ¨Nakey Bum-Face¨. Once again, it was astonishing to discover how small my face really is, and how much I lstill look like that high school marching band picture my mom has framed upstairs. Freaky.

My main ammo for provoking /shocking passersby in South America is gone. But I still secretly snicker at the disturbing proliferation of mullets. My god, man, I´ve discovered the nexus of the next mullet uprising, and I believe it to be a combined effort of Chile and Argentina. When traveling solo, you quickly realize one steadfast truth--you have TIME. Ever feel like you don´t have enough time in the day? Buy a one way ticket and go somewhere alone. Time will become, depending on your level of creativity and willingness to explore, your friend or your bane, but most likely a poignant combo of both. My point is, you develop little habits, or create games. One of my favorite pasttimes quickly became ¨Mullet Tabulation¨. There aren´t really any rules or points or winning, but beer is definitely recommended.

MULLETS.

So, instead of feeling slightly insecure in Latin America about my monstrous beard, now I´m self-conscious of the void hovering about my grill. It´s cool though, as I think that, maybe, quite possibly, a girl yelled (in Spanish) something that perhaps could be translated as ¨call me!¨

Sometimes its the random comments from passing cars that count the most.

Words from the Beard

Here's to the registrar at the National Beard Registry, a true gentleman.

Doug,

Nice to hear from you again! Great that you are still growing your hair.

Congratulations on the Guinness Record!

You registered in Nov 2003, your number was 807. (Doug Booty Williams) but you never sent me a picture. I’ll be happy to register you if you’ll send one.

As far as the donation goes – I have lots of folks who register for one penny. How hard is that? Others send me $25. Whatever it is I don’t care, I just want to keep the registry going, know what I mean? It cost money and I can’t afford it. Who better to help with the expenses than those whose picture appear on the registry. Believe me, I’m not making any money or getting rich. Just surviving!

There is a place for you at the registry! Since you’ve already registered – no donation required! Send me a picture!

Lima Golden is #805. Again, I never received a picture!

Get busy and send those pics today!

Registrar

National Beard Registry

May Peace Prevail On Earth

visit the National Beard Registry
--donate--

Come Together Over Beards

In the midst of all this beardery, I recalled something and wrote to a friend:

Dearest Douglas,

I recall a gentle evening. You phoned me in my room. We registered our beards. Someone registered in the 1/3 second that transpired between your registering and my registering. Do you recall your number? Two Hundred Something, I think. I went all the way back to the website of the National Beard Registry. It is different now. Our old hang outs are gone. I didn't recognize anyone. I could not determine how to search for my rightful place in beard registered history. What is more, one must "donate" in order to register. I am lost in this free market of beards. Won't you throw me a rope?

Always Sincerely,
Liam Joseph Olaf Worland Golden

He, in his infinite wisdom, composed this letter of inquiry:

Dear Registrar,

My friend Liam Golden and I signed up for the National Beard Registry back in the old days (at least 5 years ago). Since then our lives have taken many turns. I went on to focus primarily on nipple hair and earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/22/30_22nipplehair.html

Yes, I am that Doug Williams.

Liam has been through many periods himself. For a while his interests veered into the world of the lonely mustache but he is back from the brink.

I am writing to you because we've recently decided to come back into the fold over at the beard registry but we found that, much like us, the site has undergone changes. We can no longer find our names or beards on the new site. It appears that a donation is now required as well. We find ourselves with more questions than answers.

Is this the same beard registry of our youth?

Is it still welcoming and inclusive or has it become jaded and exclusive?

Is there still a place for us at the registry?

We look forward to hearing back from you. Thank you for your service.


-Doug
and Liam

Doug Williams


I will keep everyone informed. In the meantime visit www.dougisfamous.com.

Videos: World Beard & Mustache Championships; I love Jesus but I drink a little.

Ms Jessica Beer of Portland (pictured to the left conducting a choir of unbearded angels), today on the facebooks, called our attention to two videos. The first is from the 2003 World Beard & Mustache Championships in Carson City, Nevada.

Look! One of the men on the runway is the very mustache I posted below! In response to my "25 Things" note (which I'll probably post here tomorrow), she writes "There are only 107 days left until the World Beard and Moustache Championships. Do you have your ticket to Anchorage yet? http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/index.html."
The Department of Beards & February Month of the Mustache are bearing so much fruit!

The second video is a fine moment in daytime talkshow history:

A Collection of Hindu Moustaches

...which appeared in Cosmo's email box today, sent by one Ankur Bhatt