I excused myself from dinner tonight to go and hack away at my beard. It had been bothering me for a while, and I felt that a change was in order. So I took a pair of scissors from the medicine cabinet and started cutting it away from my face in massive, white clumps. After a few minutes of this, I looked in the mirror and saw the following looking back at me. I hadn’t intended to develop a new beardstyle, but I think I came up with something pretty beautiful, a kind of bi-level construction comprised of a classic, pointed Van Dyke with a whimsical undergirding of neck beard.
My family, when I showed them, lost their shit. One cannot simply float a goatee above a neck beard, they told me. I thanked them for their input, but told them that I was going to wear it to work tomorrow. “I just want to try it out for a day or two,” I said to them. I must have been pretty convincing, because they believed me. They begged me not to. Clementine told me that she wouldn’t be seen in public with me. Linette tried a different approach. She just stared blankly in the direction of my face and silently shook her heard. I looked back at them like they were crazy. “I think it’s really nice,” I told them. “And I’m pretty sure the folks at work won’t even notice it.” I let it go on for way too long. By they time I told them that I was just kidding, they were almost in tears… For what it’s worth, though, I really did like it. I thought it looked distinguished. And why is it that neck beards are off-limits in the workplace anyway? Who decided that mustaches were alright, but that long, grey, neck beards weren’t? I’m too old to be at the forefront of this fight, but it needs to happen. For the sake of future generations, someone needs to pick up the cause of the Van Dyke neck beard combo and make it happen.
17 Comments
I am a coward. I should have kept it.
Damn…
I hate myself.
I’m going to grow it back and enter a beard competition. I’ve just decided.
Names for this style:
The cat snuggler
Depth percep-chin
Chin strap baldness
Adam’s Awful
You have no idea just how hard it is to make a name for yourself in the world of competitive facial hair.
http://cdn1.spiegel.de/images/image-563760-breitwandaufmacher-powp.jpg
Futuristic
But yet also old timey.
Transcendent.
We need to build a rail line between Ann Arbor – Ypsilanti – Detroit that runs along Michigan and Washtenaw Avenues. Moreover, it should be free for all people who make less than the national median income.
Mark, I agree with your family. Just looking at the picture makes me cry.
You should have asked Arlo. He gets it.
My daughter asked, “Why does Santa look mad?”
It would’ve been funny if you attached a GoPro to your forehead and recorded reactions from your office. I can smell a viral video… or maybe just the food that was stuck in your beard.
That bottom tier lends itself to braiding, curling, extensions, spiking (you know, a liberty spike beard tier). Maybe you can start something here, A man and his “beard’s-tier”! If you can get that thing long enough the possibilities are endless. And if you don’t feel like messing with your beard’s-tier for the day, wear a turtleneck and simply tuck the beard’s-tier into your collar.
And I agree, GoPro it, write it, post it!
http://instinctmagazine.com/post/heart-or-hate-it-men-are-dyeing-their-beards-vibrant-colors-2015
Men Are Dyeing Their Beards Vibrant Colors In 2015
Good lord that’s gross. God hates neck beards.
I think beard styles are slowly gaining more freedom. I just read in the news that prisons cannot force inmates to shave their beards now. Hopefully, the workplaces will follow suit…
I think my face is happier fuzzy.
http://imgur.com/fuxzzOB
My name is Rahela Begum, i live and work in Oxford shire, UK. My life is back!!! After 2 years with a man who had a beard much like yours, I felt like ending it all, i almost committed suicide because of him and his bi-level beard, i was emotionally down all this while. I found a spellcaster who freed me though. My message to your wife is that she can break free of your power.
I want to try that