Today's beard today
As mentioned previously I almost always have a 3-day beard because I'm lazy about shaving. Only now and then do I grow a proper beard, but even then its upkeep is actually quite a bit of hassle; you have to trim it and shave around the edges, so it's almost as much work as the daily shave. One slightly weird habit I have is that I grow a beard whenever I have a bad breakup. Maybe it's some kind of weird defense mechanism, I don't know, but I've done it a few times without much thinking about it. After a now not-so-recent breakup I grew a beard, got my hair cut about three times in one month, and completely rearranged the furniture in my bedroom. I think I was trying to distract myself. Afterwards I was reading this thing online which was basically a guide to getting over a breakup and one of the recommendations was to rearrange your bedroom. Bizarre! I did it without even knowing it was a 'thing'.
Anyway. I don't want to grow any more beards because beards just don't really suit me. Some people can really pull off a beard, and some people really can't. Ché did it pretty well, as did Marx, while Coldplay's Chris Martin looks like a chump. Historically beards have been associated with revolt and non-conformity of one kind or another which is probably why Ché and Karl wore it better than poor Chris. Even today The National Beard Registry encourages "men in all walks of life, from every continent, to resist conformity, corporate culture, and androgyny by embracing the beautiful, unique and utterly personal habit of growing a full beard." Power to the (bearded) people.
If "beautiful", "unique", and "utterly personal" sound a bit over the top, well, you don't know the half of it. In Berlin they have beard parties. There exists a World Beard and Moustache Championships, a National Beard Week ("to promote beardy goodness and general facial hair awareness..."), and last but not least the Beard Liberation Front, "dedicated to the removal of a societal prejudice against the facially folically enhanced, or bearded." 
Ismail Haniyeh; 2008 Beard and Moustache Champion hands over the crown to the 2009 winner, Gerry Adams.
In recent years I've noticed that a lot of younger lefties look more like punks, having kind of spiked hair but no beards. This is in contrast to the old lefties who wore woolly jumpers and had big bushy (often ginger) beards. There are still plenty of the latter around though. The beard is still a useful tool for the revolutionary, making him look wise and concealing what he really looks like! But only if he can pull it off.
I have a feeling that my own rug repels the opposite sex, which is as good a reason as any to stick with the blade methinks.
Dreamer said...
"..facially folically enhanced.." hehe, nicely worded!
stubble can be quite attractive, i find sometimes! but a full-blown beard is debatable.
And the plan of your next adventure sounds awesome. I've only been to Istanbul, im sure you'll visit all the big touristic places (Aya Sofia, Grand bazaar, etc..), which are great. i would recommend going to princes' islands, too. They're 9 islands off the coast and can be accessed by ferry. we only went round Büyükada, which is the largest or one of the biggest islands. if you like cycling then it would be a cool way to see it.
hope the booking is on the horizon :)
8:10 PM
JG said...
Thanks for the ideas, Dreamer. I do like cycling so I'll keep that in mind.
9:01 PM
Aunty Helpful Dictator said...
Maggie Thatcher was a pogonophobe so if that's not a reason to grow a beard I don't know what is!
12:33 PM
JG said...
Aunty, excellent point. That's something I didn't know about ol' Mags.
12:53 PM
nadia said...
The scenesters here all grow really long beards and other stupid looking facial hair-or at least they did like a year or two ago, they are definitely not necessarily lefties. I do not care for it! Also Arab guys that grow goatees or like shave their facial hair into some other weird shape so there's just a thin line of hair going along their jaw and then circling their mouth-so bad.
3:46 PM
JG said...
Nadia,
I find most girls aren't huge beard fans. I'm not a big fan myself but that only applies to me... I think beards suit some guys well.
Facial hair doesn't necessarily imply leftism here either! I have noticed a lot of punk-looking people, although a lot of them would probably consider themselves anarchists rather than traditional lefties.
2:30 PM
nadia said...
I know quite a few girls that like them but they tend to be the girls that hang out with said scenesters anyways. Alot of white guys aren't hirsute enough to pull this off though which results in the unfortunate phenomena of the neckbeard which is not good for anybody:/
And I mean it's not a dealbreaker for me or anything, but I still think shaving looks good. As long as it's kept relatively short, i don't think they look bad tho.
11:12 PM
JG said...
Alot of white guys aren't hirsute enough to pull this off though which results in the unfortunate phenomena of the neckbeard which is not good for anybody:/---------
Unfortunate! A lot of Irish guys (myself included) have a ginger tinge in their beard despite not having ginger hair. This, too, is not good for anybody!
1:40 PM
nadia said...
I have seen that happen that doesn't seem so bad. For some reason I just noticed the last line of this post now I kind of feel like a jerk for my first comment! Most girls I find are ambivalent on this issue,, tho.
The neckbeard though is the combover philosophy in action-just growing what you have really long does not compensate for the fact that you can't grow real hair people it just makes things worse!!
and what's this you said about bad neocon blogs wrapping up is it true.
12:01 AM
JG said...
Nadia,
Don't feel like a jerk! Over the years I've had to coach myself to not do things like shave my head or grow big beards, or grow long hair. I always did these things because I felt like a change. Well, change is fine as long as it looks ok... but it didn't!
As for the combover philosophy, I will be bald in five or six years I'd say. This does kind of annoy me but I will NEVER have a combover! ;)
As for warmongering blogs, yes the sewer AKA 'IBC' is finishing up in less than a week.
10:08 AM
nadia said...
Shaved heads are punx, I would embrace it!!
And I can't say I'm not suprised that place was getting stupid to the point of hilarity. I won't reply to anything they say no matter how ridiculous tho because attention is obviously what they want. I love arguing about stupid shit but even I have to draw the line somewhere.
6:11 PM
JG said...
:) When the time comes I will imbrace it! As I said, a combover is out of the question. Anyway, I have lots of balding friends so we can start a support group!
You're right about that sewer. I take the bait too easily at times...
6:16 PM