... but I stopped. Now I'm a dad, and may blog again...

Sunday, April 22, 2012

577: Two Big Beards

On the night I saw Laibach I saw, separately, two of the grandest and most wonderful beards I have ever seen in my life. The first was on Moss Lane, and was crossing the road attached to the face of a man. The man had wild and long mousy-brown hair and one of those indistinct faded-to-grey band t-shirts. The beard growing from the follicles of his face was something so special I hope it will stay with me for the rest of my life. It jutted out of his face about 18 inches in all directions; bright, bright orange, looking like an explosion of carrot juice forcing its way out of his stomach and into space at 115mph.

Although the owner of this exciting new work in the field of beard sculpture was some considerable distance down the road when I sighted him, the stunning size and considerable colour of this fiery facial fuzz lent it more than enough power to function practically as a hi-vis beard. Its high visibility allows for the wearer to cross the road in near darkness safe in the knowledge that even the blindest of careless drivers will see that beard from a safe stopping distance away.

Still reeling from the religious experience of seeing a big orange beard on the face of a man without bright orange hair on his head, I didn't expect to be further gifted by the god of note-worthy beards. But gifted I was whilst waiting for Laibach to take the stage, one of the fellows who fiddles with the knobs and wires wandered about doing his job. As he lifted up this wire and moved it there, then plugged one thing into another, then slightly altered the positioning of a microphone stand, a room full of music fans suddenly became beard fans.

This man had no hair on his head, just the rays of reflected light, but from his chin ran a solid black hair-chain down past the neck, past the chest, oh my god past the belly-button, surely it can't keep going, past the waist, aww hell naww, past the knees! Not quite, but its other end was bobbing around his knees. He looked like the sort of bloke you see on TV programmes about world record breakers, like he should have been swinging concrete blocks around his head. When he knelt down to fiddle with the technology he swung the plaited beard around and threw it over his shoulder.

So know you know. Two people have beards. One is orange, one is long. Great, eh?

2 comments:

Leo Woodhead said...

There's nothing better than a cracking beard! My beard has never managed to reach the heady heights that you speak of, it's too patchy! Someone needs to develop a miracle grow for beards!

Unknown said...

Yeah, my dad's always been a beardy man. Someday I may join him in the Brotherhood of the Beard.