Mat Weddle’s version of “Hey Ya” is perfect for a wet and wooly Tuesday morning. It’s also a post that I’ve pulled from our “Rainy Day Fund” as the FTB crew has all been too busy tryin’ to make a dollar out of a nickel and a dime. Seriously though, this song makes me so f-ing happy. The fact that this Mennonite Hillbilly-lookin’ dude can flip Outkast like this, is enough to lift the worries right off of my shoulders - carried away by some chubby bearded cherubs. So, if you’re starting off your morning with a mini hate-fest on mother nature for the rain, just remember, “What’s cooler than being cool?” Yes, “ICE COLD,” so cool the hate and let Tuesday do it’s thing. Fine Art Friday is just around the corner.
It’s that time of year. That’s right, you guessed it, the Basketblog Header Playoffs. Sixteen sweet basketball blogs, one prize. So who’s graphic banner will reign supreme? It’s your call.
The brackets have been set and our friends at Pete Marasmitch put Fear the Beard as the number one seed in the “The Grimes Conference” (aka. the independent blog conference). Being the number one seed can be a lot of pressure. But we can handle it. We’ve been training for this moment since we launched this itch.
Here’s the first round match ups in the Grimes:
(1) Fear The Beard vs. (8) The Puns Are Starting to Bore Me
(2) Need4Sheed vs. (7) Both Teams Played Hard
(3) Blaze of Love vs. (6) Red’s Army
(4) Empty The Bench vs. (5) Basketbawful
In the end, there can only be one, so go cast your vote. Polls close on Thursday, April 16, before midnight ET.
As I go about my day sometimes I stumble upon images that, at the time, I think could lead to an FTB post. It doesn’t always work out. Given that I have a lot of this randomness in reserve, I thought it might be nice to share a few of my favorites. Oh, if you have any thoughts about something interesting or cleaver to write for these, please be my guest. The comment box is yours.
In no particularly order.
Enjoy, Gd.
Number 1: Barak Obama RUN DC t-shirt. Straight pimpin’.
What Jon Stewart did to Jim Cramer and CNBC, Berkeley author Michael Lewis has done to the entire nation of Iceland in his latest article for Vanity Fair magazine. One good thing to come out of the financial crisis is the entertainment offered up in watching people, companies, and now entire countries getting put on Global Economic Downturn Blast. In the case of Iceland, not only does Lewis portray Icelanders (well actually just Icelandic men) as inbred, naive, sexist, pushy, and reckless fisherman who had no business thinking they could get into the business of investment banking, but he also outed them as believers in elves. Yes, those elves. Mutha-f-ing Ice Elves! Apparently, in Iceland, they’re called “the hidden people.” Maybe they’re “hidden” because they don’t, you know, exist. Just like all that money the Icelanders invested.
With their banking industry eviscerated and world fishing stocks low, Icelanders are now staking their future on novelty winter wear. I’ve written about the Beard Cap before on this blog back when it was an emerging market, but now it’s gone mainstream, and beard hats are the new US fashion craze. One company “Beard Head” sells four different flavor of beard hat, “Pirate,” “Grandpa,” “Lumberjack,” and “Viking,” and they have a snowboard promotional tie-in. The beard hat phenomena is not a bubble according to many economists. Said one, “Basically, as long as Icelanders don’t sell each other beard hats for five billion dollars, the beard hat economy will remain stable.” So, if you feel sorry for the people of Iceland (and after reading Michael Lewis’s article, it’s hard to imagine you would) go out and buy a beard hat. It might be the only thing keeping their economy afloat. Those Bjork action figures aren’t quite selling like they used to.
Today, a colleague of mine informed me that an unfortunate plight has befallen someone close to him. The short of it. His friend Hollis Hawthorne has been gravely injured in a motorcycle accident in India. She is in a coma. She needs ICU transport back to the states, where doctors at Stanford University have pledged free treatment due to the nature of her injuries. But, alas the transport runs some two hundred large. But, as so often is the case, there is much more.
After following a chain of links, several things have become clear. But perhaps most surprising of all of them: Hollis Hawthorne is a scraper-bike dancer. What does this mean. Well, it means that first of all she likes scraper bikes. Second of all she is a dancer. She has combined these two interests into a form of street art that bridges cultural gaps a mile wide. I won’t even start to get glib about the situation, because it is serious and more than a little gravitas is called for. But I couldn’t help but be drawn to the plight of someone who sees the gaps in the social fabric the way I do, as space for artistic expression and unification.
Hollis is also a founding member of The Derailleurs, an all-female bicycle dance troupe. If you are so inclined, make the jump and see her at the “Scraper Bikes for Life” street fest. (Sure, the video is a little bit lo-fi, but don’t trip.) And if you are even more inclined follow this link and donate some scrilla against the $200,000 cost of airlifting her back to the states in an ICU-equipped jet. As of this writing, almost 20% of the funds have been raised, but time is short. Put what you feel on it and throw some good karma into the wind for a person who, by all accounts is someone who deserves more scrapin’ on her scraper bike.
I don’t know this Ash dude that created this mix for the MP3 blog, “Disco Horror,” but man, they must have been digging so deep in the crate they probably have some form of DJ Carpal Tunnel. Actually, “DJ Carpal Tunnel” isn’t a bad DJ name (”Let me get a ‘yes, yes y’all.’ This is DJ Carpal Tunnel on the ones and twos - owwwwwwww!) It takes a certain commitment to rumpshaking to find such obscure disco cuts from artists you’ve never heard of, released on labels probably run out of someone’s basement (Rusty’s Dusty Disco anyone?). Now, I’m not exactly sure why this is titled “Fear The Beard Mix” unless DJ Carpal Tunnel is a secret fan of the blog. Or maybe it’s because he spent so long looking for these songs and making this mix, he had a full-on scruffy by the time he was done. Whatever the reason, I’m glad he did because otherwise my homie, Sorcerer (another connoisseur of musica obscura), wouldn’t have sent it my way, and now I’m going to be slapping this all weekend, owwwwww!
Okay, I don’t know what to say about this. I think it’s bumming me out. This is like every bearded hipster’s wet dream, some cute ukelele-playing chick singing in her bedroom about how much she loves beards. Sorry to burst your bubble bearded dude, but Ukelele-girl is not going to sleep with you just because you have a face rug. It’s a facade. This is the type of chick who thinks hobos are cute. She probably carves little hobos out of soap, or knits baby hobo slippers and sells them on Etsy. But is she going to make out with a hobo? I don’t think so.
I know when many of us in the FTB crew decided to grow beards last year during The Dubs playoff push, many of our significant others weren’t feeling it - literally. Few ladies actually dig the full bearditude (unless they’re hockey fans or Hasidic or Hasidic Hockey fans), so that’s why I’m thinking this video is just a gimmick to get some dudes with beard-related blogs to write about it. The only way this video is any good is if Joaquin Phoenix comes in and drops sixteen bars, and then sticks his gum on her ukelele and walks off. Now, that would be worth watching.
Hell yes! Hell to the Y to the E to the S! I didn’t watch one minute of the NBA All-Star festivities because I spent all weekend watching this clip of Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman. Has silence ever been more awkward? The pause more pregnant? And, you know, it really does get better each time you watch it. After about view 20, you will really start to “hear” J.P. You know, like, what he’s really saying. By the 78th time, you will see the fairy hedgehogs appear in the NY backdrop behind Letterman. At some point, I think I saw little Nate Robinson in his green Knicks Jersey run out from underneath Joaquin’s beard and dunk a hard boiled egg into Letterman’s coffee cup. If you turn down the sound and start playing the clip at the exact same time with Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,” dude, I’m not even going to tell you what happens. You’re just going to have to try it. Tonight I was going to attempt to watch the clip in reverse, but to be honest, I’m a little nervous that I might not be ready for it yet. Baby steps man.
I’m thankful to J.P. for going on Letterman for so many reasons, and they’re not all metaphysical. For one, I have recently been a bit worried that beards were starting to get “trendy.” I mean, there are more celebrities and athletes out there growing beards, and more media outlets (like ours truly) contributing to the hype. But, man oh man, if Joaquin Phoenix didn’t just make thousands of poseurs go shave their beards off after that. Seriously, J.P. did as much for making beards scary again as did Manson in ‘69 - absolute movement killer right there. Yep, admit it, if you saw Joaquin Phoenix at the BART Station, you would probably move a little further down the platform to make sure you don’t end up on the same car as him. Love it. Now, just can’t wait for the hip hop album to drop. As Dave said, “we all want to be there,” but most of us will probably want to keep our distance.
Conspiracy of Beards is a men’s acapella singing group from San Francisco. Men’s acapella singing groups are a conspiracy of Satan. Therefore, Conspiracy of Beards (while I can respect their take on the acapella genre) can’t escape the fact that they’re taking part in a plot to destroy all that is good in the world. Just check out this video of them performing the Leonard Cohen song “First We Take Manhattan.” See what I’m talkin’ about? Satan’s plotting to take over Manhattan with acapella singing, and after that, Berlin. Berlin - I thought that was already taken by David Hasselhoff, but if you want to take it from him, Devil, be my guest. “Sentence me to twenty years of boredom”… yeah, listening to men’s acapella singing. That would definitely be one of the rings of hell for me. That’s the ring right next to The Hoff singing Christmas Songs in his underwear.
So, if you’re into, you know, evil, then you might be up for checking out Conspiracy of Beards perform tomorrow night at Johannson Projects Art Gallery in Oakland as a part of this Friday’s Art Murmur. At least you might get some free wine while you soul is being consumed by The Succubus. And one more thing, there’s, like, only one fully-bearded dude in Hades’ little hootenanny - Conpiracy of Norelcos is more like it.
Usually it’s pretty easy to tell if someone’s a bum or a hipster. But other times you have to turn on your Bumdar or Hipdar for maximum detection. In these tough economic times, the grey area (emphasis on grey) between bums and hipsters is growing, especially around these parts. I guess what I’m saying is that there might actually be some hipster bums out there. Well, if anyone would know, it would be the good folks over at Bumsters.blogspot.com. They’ve set out on a little urban anthropological research to catalog the bummiest hipsters and the hippest bums in The Bay. Apparently, the beard is often a variable in Bumster fashion. Take “Muni Bumster” (Exhibit A above) for instance.
Personally, I’m a much bigger fan of bumsters than their more elusive cousins, bumlebrities - you know, those paparazzi-avoiding celebrities who get extra bummy looking when they go out in public to avoid attention. There’s a million dollar blog idea in there somewhere, but who has the time? Perez Hilton, I’m giving you a freebee here. I want to see Keanu Reeves with a Pig Pen dirt cloud drawn around him in a future post. Let’s blow this up.
