Totally stoked by Awesome bearded air guitar dude - my vote for Warriors new mascot.

08.8.2008 | 4:58 pm | Beard up Bay Area, Fine-Art Friday, Great Beards in History, Pogonophobia, The Warriors

Rarely do we here at FTB quote or comment on a San Francisco Chronicle article. Why? Because The Chronicle is the Minnesota Timberwolves of large market newspapers. Sure, we like Gwen Knapp and some of the other sports reporters, but overall, the paper is wack-arnolds.  And don’t even mention its deformed, online sibling, SFGate.com. I mean, c’mon, The Bay Area has the highest concentration of Nobel Laureates in the US, and that’s the best we can do for our paper of record?

However, for once, they did something brilliant. In today’s Datebook section (aka the litter box liner) there was pretty much the Pulitzer-caliber article I’ve been waiting for - a feature on the 2008 Air Guitar Championship in SF and a profile of local favorite, “Awesome” aka Shred Begley Jr.  Okay, to be fair, I didn’t actually read the whole article, but only the description of “Awesome” that he mostly wrote himself. For this alone, he deserved a job as staff writer at The Chronicle. Check out his description of his hair and beard:

“My hair is made of durable sulfur-infused polyfibers, strong enough to conduct 1.21 gigawatts of lightning, but also pliable enough to properly time head-banging cycles to avoid earthquakes. My beard is a powerful ward against flying skeletons/regular skeletons, and often intercepts food.”

Flying skeletons! Hell-to-the yeah - that’s exactly what I want to read about on my BART commute. “SF Planning Board approves rezoning plan?” Seriously? If you can’t spice that up with some flying skeletons or even some regular skeletons, then I’m already on to the Sports Section.

Now, if The Chronicle doesn’t hire this guy for his prose, then The Warriors need to hire him for his, well, Awesomeness. Just check out his look! He apparently wears tassels to defend against “any bacteria or smooth jazz that may be in the area.” If he can defend against smooth jazz, he can definitely defend against an even whiter and  lesser form of Jazz, The Utah Jazz.  Please, Please, Please, someone in the front office realize how bunk Thunder is and how totally rad this dude is. I would still go to games even if our whole starting line-up was on the DL, and Kosta Perovic was playing the point, just to see Awesome bang his head to some Priest. A venue nicknamed “The Roaracle” deserves this kind of a mascot.

M. Meschery