Pardon me, but I notice
you do not have a Beard.
May I ask WHY?

? RADICAL ? CONSERVATIVE ? MODERATE ? LIBERAL ? The Stache has been here twenty-two months, since May 26, 1995. The beard above has been here six months (March, 1997) in these pictures.

To celebrate eight months (May, 1997) of not shaving, I waxed the Stache, which has reached an overall width of eleven inches since it was last trimmed on May 12, 1996. The beard above is four inches below the chin.

Now at the New Year, 1998, just over fifteen months, the beard is about seven inches below the chin and the stache waxes out to sixteen inches tip to tip.

I have found that as my beard gets longer, it is sometimes rather unruly when I get up in the morning, as you can see in the picture at left. Above are some ways (January 3, 1998) I have developed to regain control.

June 30, 1998, over twenty-one months and still growing, but not very fast. About ten inches below the chin. Forget about the stache now, it is just a small part of the big, hairy picture!

So now, on September 25, 1998, I celebrated my Second Bearded Birthday! DANG! Still not much over ten inches!

Christmas, 1998. 27 months without shaving, 11½ months without intoxicating! It just doesn't get much better than that! Plus, a new one: "You look like a Lumberjack!" The beard now hangs about eleven inches.

April 3, 1999 Over two and a half years. Haven't had a haircut in over a year, by the way. Beard has lengthened little if any. In fact it seems that the back hair is racing to catch up with the front! The bad thing about it is that the back seems to be gaining fast!

September 12, 1999 Two weeks short of my Third Bearded Birthday! Sorry I cheated by a few days, but I fear the real day will come and I won't have the time. Not much growth to show, thanks to an ill-advised "maintenance trim." So much for following advice! As I have heard (and said, AhHEM) INSANITY is doing the SAME THING time after time expecting a different result! All I got for that "maintenance" was a shortened beard which soon again had a few hairs outgrowing the rest! Not as bad a result as a SHAVE, but equally futile!

January 17, 2000

April 7, 2000 Over two years without a haircut, the top/back hair seems not to be growing now! And the beard has still not regrown what was lost with the ****trim!

September 25, 2001 The beard is still growing!

September 27, 2002

September 28, 2003

October 17, 2004

December 24, 2004

January 15, 2005

2006

September 22, 2007 The pic at left is me while Mike is tattooing my neck at the Meadowlands Tattoo Convention on September 21-23, 2007. The right pic is me after I won Best Overall Tattooed Person at the Meadowlands convention.

January 8, 2008

January 11, 2009

August 30, 2009 This is the first time I have EVER shaved my head! I never thought I would, but I really like it! ! And I particularly like the look of a shiny bald head with a beard! ! !

September 15, 2009 And I really like the look of a shiny bald head with a beard and a big tattoo! ! ! Why else would the BeardGuy want to shave it?

December 28, 2009 I don't know about you, but I like the look of a shiny bald head with stretched lobes, with or without big rings!

I have been growing my beard since
I QUIT SHAVING ON SEPTEMBER 25, 1996.

I had never grown a beard before.
In fact I had never even thought about it before.

You see I didn't set out to grow a beard.

A beard is just what happened when I quit shaving.

Sure am glad I like being bearded though
since the only alternative to being bearded or shaving
would be to pluck my face, and I don't wanna do that!

As for tactile feelings, I like the feel of my beard
blowing in the wind and the way it insulates me:
cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.
And it feels great when I go for a swim.
But most of all I enjoy not feeling that burning sensation
caused by sweat collecting in every bloody little shaving nick.

And what prompted my decision to head directly for biblical lengths?
Well, every time I start to think about trimming it,
I realize that growing has not been particularly hard work,
but it sure has taken a long time!
You can rebuild a burned-down house quicker than a whacked-off beard.

And as Billy Gibbons is rumored to have said,

"I wanted to see what God wanted me to look like."

Top, bottom, front, back, left, right, my head will always have
all of the hair God will let me have!

The only advantage to shaving that I can see
is that most people don't feel the need to share their opinions
with a guy with a conventionally shaved face.

I have noticed that everyone has an opinion about my beard.
And all of those people seem to believe I must be
DYING to know that opinion.

Even the moustache alone drew comments, e.g.

"I don't like it. It has too many colors."
(my son the first time he saw my ten day old stache)

"Dang boy, you better quit smoking before you catch that bush on fire!"

I was a candidate for county commissioner in the March 12, 1996, primary election.
I considered shaving the stache for the campaign, but decided against it.
May be why I lost. Who knows? Did it become an issue? Who cares?
As I was going door to door, one elderly lady invited me to come in and visit.
She said, "Of course I will vote for you. You have a beautiful moustache!"
Another lady answered the door and called out
"Honey there is a man here says he is running for commissioner."
A man answers, "Does he have a moustache?"
She replies," Yeah, says his name is Adcock."
The man says, "Hell Yes, I wanna see that big ole stache I been hearing about!"
He came to the door, took a card, said "nice to meet you,"
and closed the door. I do not think he voted for me.

The BEARD upped the ante, however.

"Damn you look really BAD!"

"I really like your beard."

"You really ought to trim it up a little."

"Cool Beard. Don't ever cut it. Let it GROW."

"Hey Mountain Man!" (probably a thousand times)

"Hey Santa Clause!" (also a thousand times, as it is kinda white)

"You really should shave your cheeks and neck."
(Some people have a real ATTITUDE on this subject!)

"Had a bizarre thought after emailing you last.
Maybe there should be a movement to grow hair only on the neck
and not on the face. Could be the next fashion statement.
And besides that, think of the comments that such growth would engender.
I can see it all now!"

"One of the main points of growing a beard and keeping it, is to STOP shaving.
I shave neither cheeks, neck nor any part of my face.
One thing I see on others which saddens me is that horrible deep
'sculpt' that some men do on their cheeks, as if they're ashamed
that hair is growing there! Often the sculpt is a razor-wide swathe
that completely ignores the natural shape and growth of the beard anyway.
Most men who DO do this would have really interesting
high cheek growth if only they'd let it grow."

"Gotta LOVE that radical look!"

"You look like a character out of the Civil War."

"Dan I think your beard looks just great.
Wish we see more of them. It's full and unique and
fits your face and probably your personality. Keep it."

"The beard looks great! Don't shave it!"
"I think I like the stache not in a handlebar,
but it looks good either way."

"wow! COOL handlebar!"

"You need to get dark glasses and a hat and you will look just like Z Z Top".

"Here's two dollars for some razor blades."

"You look like Charles Manson."

"You look like the Unabomber."

"Every BUM in the world can grow a beard."

One of my least favorite experiences
was when a guy approached my beard with
a lighted match with very obvious intentions.

One of my favorites, from a waitress at a restaurant where I eat a lot:
"I have never had sex with a man with a beard."
To which I replied, "So far as I know, that is true and shall remain true."

Another frequent question: "How long are you going to grow that Beard?"
My reply: "At least thirty or forty years, I hope!"

I enjoy chatting on the internet, on chat boards and IRC and have made a lot of friends.
When I started chatting, I adopted the handle "Stache."
Everyone wants to know where everyone else lives, so I changed the handle to "TexaStache."
So everyone still wanted to know exactly where I live and how big is the Stache.
So I posted a picture of Jim Mitchell that I had found on the net
and told them that was an old picture of me, that my stache was now a bit wider.
Then came the inevitable questions: "Doesn't it, you know, kinda Get In The Way?"
My reply: "Hell Yes it gets in the way! It is Four Feet Wide!"
Question: "So, you know, uh, what do you do about it?"
Reply: "Oh, I just throw it over my shoulders and tie it in a ponytail."
They all believed me! I had lots of laughs lurking behind my computer
enjoying the comments that one elicited!

One day over lunch a friend who is also a lawyer told me that some
of my "friends" were going to catch me and shave my beard.
I told him to explain to them that that would constitute assault
and that there is a criminal penalty and a civil remedy for assault.
He replied, "there is no penalty for abating a nuisance."

I recently ran into an old friend, a man (who is several years older than I)
who I had not seen in about two years. I shook his hand and said
"I bet you do not know who I am."
His reply: "Now I recognize your voice. I had been
wondering who that white-bearded old fart was!"

"Hey, it's GABBY HAYES!"

"HOLY MOSES!"

"You must be Rip Van Winkle's nephew."

"Hello, Father Time."

You look like a F*****G HIPPY!"
To which I replied, "Yep! Been There! Done That!"

At the twenty-one month anniversary of not shaving, I had really been thinking
about trimming the beard and getting a haircut. After all I *am* a lawyer!
Well, two episodes gave me the strength necessary to overcome such perverse thoughts.
I am a small town lawyer with a practice generally limited to civil clients. I recently accepted
a client who is in jail in a nearby city. I had visited this client in jail a number of times.
The second time I went to see him, when I arrived he was laughing more than I would be
if facing up to 25 years in the Texas Department of "Criminal Justice."
I asked him what was so damned funny!
Well, the visiting area where I met him the first time was not very private,
and many of his fellow jail guests had seen him talking to me.
He had told them I was his lawyer. He said they thought I was
"the coolest looking M*****F***ing lawyer they had ever seen!"
Happily for me he agreed with them.

A guy asked me if I was ever going to trim my beard or
was I just going to let it grow to my crotch like a mountain man.
This jerk is not exactly one of my favorite people.
I told him that as soon as it grew long enough I was
moving to the mountains to get away from dumb shits like him!

Those two episodes alone were enough to give me enough resolve to
stay away from the trimmer at least until well after the turn of the century!

Now, I am really beginning to get rather tired of the ZZ Top comments.
First of all, my beard is longer than theirs are.
Second, mine is brown/gray/white, not red.
And third, sorry, but they are really not at the top of my favorites list.
One would really think there was some original spark left in this world,
but I Damn sure haven't seen one in a very long time!

OK, never mind my bitching about the ZZ Top comments.
They were mild compared to this crap that I look like Osama Bin Laden!
I don't think they are at all humorous. After all, I am a Yellow Dog Democrat!
And ole Bin Laden acts like a damned on-the-rag-republican!

I grow curiouser and curiouser why a man would purposely scrape his face!
But PLEASE don't tell any of my more fanatical bearded friends!
I trimmed the beard some cause it kind of hides the tattoos.

I used to be able to cover all of my tattoos with a nice,
conservative suit and nobody could tell how colorful I am!

But now I never wear a nice, conservative suit. And I added a
full tattoo collar around my neck, and then tattooed my hands.
Then, just in case somebody hadn't noticed that I have a tattoo,
I shaved my head and got myself CROWNED with a tattoo. So now there is
no way short of a ski suit with gloves and a mask to keep from showing them off ! ! !

And as for shaving my head, my hair is beginning to recede and thin just a little,
and I like the look of a shaved head better than a balding pate.

And a shiney, bald, tattooed head looks great with a nice white beard ! ! !

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Last updated Saturday, January 2, 2010

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And if you do not have a beard, GROW ONE ! ! !