Matt Bearden – The Pleasurecraft

February 17, 2010

Mohawk

When you have failed at everything else in life, take heart. You may be succeeding in something you didn’t even know you were good at. Somewhere along the way you may have forgotten that you too are one of God’s infinite number of different yet perfect snowflakes, special in your own way even if you’re completely unremarkable in all others. Sadly, after kindergarten, being special has increasingly pejorative connotations. By the time you reach middle school, the only reward you get for being special is a ride on the short bus. From there the beatdown only increases in duration and ferocity. More than likely if you had a third nipple or an extra pinkie toe, by high school you had it discreetly removed. After all, it’s much safer to run with the herd than be trampled by it. Still, running with the herd has its costs: You might have to wax off your Wookie pelt; buy expensive contacts, huge silicone knockers; or get your teeth wired, capped, and bleached into flawless, sparkling symmetry. Beauty may be skin deep, but it ain’t cheap. You might have to go for the public option: being different. Not everyone has the financial wherewithal to mold themselves into aesthetic homogeneity. Even if you can afford the price of admission, you may not want to pay it. You might decide to go nonconformist, to nurture your lost specialness. Brave move, Sparky, but first you’re going to have to find it. Some people choose to devote a lifetime of intense meditation and introspection in this search. Others try to show their specialness in a variety of ingenious, yet ultimately superficial ways. That’s understandable. It is maddeningly difficult to get others to recognize your innate specialness, especially when it isn’t readily apparent … even to yourself. Not surprisingly, many people opt for some outward manifestation of their specialness: a flashy pull-target tattoo (that peeks seductively out of their muffin top), a ridonkulously large ear gauge that would make even an Ethiopian cringe, or maybe a cubic zirconium crusted grill from the jewelry store in the Fiesta Mart. Put on your mirror shades, bitches! Sparkles in the house! Here in Austin there are some really special people. That tribal armband tat that made you the rebel of your high school show choir doesn’t even raise an eyebrow around here. If you really want to stand out, you’re going to have to sport more ink than a Where’s Waldo? book and maybe tack on a few body mods like a bifurcated tongue, elf ears, genital beads, or maybe some subdermal devil-horn implants. Let your imagination run wild, but just remember that at some point your specialness may cross back into the short bus kind. If you get to obsessed with how you look, you may need to, in the words of Bomani Armah, “Read a muh’ fuckin’ book!” After all, specialness is mostly in your mind anyway. Fuck, it’s not even a word. Besides, as Joni Mitchell sings, “We are stardust. We are golden. We are billion year old carbon.” It’s true. We’re all pretty much the same, more or less, and sameness isn’t all that special. Really it’s what you love that makes you special. You might love big, epic tattoos or weiner dogs or raw food or the person you’ve been stalking for the last few years … doesn’t matter. It’s what makes you special. Everything else is just window dressing, a front. Take facial hair for instance. It takes either a lot of love or extreme apathy to grow the type of beards you’ll see in Misprint‘s fourth annual Beard & Moustache Competition this Friday at Mohawk. Either way, it’s fascinating – sort of like demolition derby or hot-oil wrestling, only vicariously a lot more itchy. This year’s competition is hosted by Matt Bearden and features music by DJ Andy and DJ Huge Cock, with live music (really Misprint?) by Diagonals. Do you have what it takes to win Best Groomed, Sweetest ‘Stache, Fiercest Chops, Gnarliest Beard, or Ladies? Who knows? Maybe you’re succeeding in something you didn’t even know you’re good at.

February 17, 2009

Suppose you finally decide you want to lose that middle-age hipster nut-duster. Here are some options: You can cream it, wax it, pluck it, or shave it … with one, two, three, four, and even five blades. Want to make your privates smooth and shiny like a polished apple? Semipermanently? You can hire someone to burn down that jungle with a laser. Then again, you may want to retain some vestige of your primordial muff … maybe a landing strip or an inverted pyramid or some sort of wacky, Edward Scissorhands pubic topiary art piece. Go for it. The world is your oyster, and with a dab of baby oil, your clam can glisten like one too. Truly, it’s amazing people still have eyebrows anymore. Nonetheless, if you look around, you’ll see that there are plenty of stalwart holdouts who refuse to give in to progressive pressure. Ahoooo … werewolves in Austin. You’ve seen them running down the hike and bike trail, chest hair shimmering with sweat, tufts of wiry black strands Adam’s apple high, never threatened by Gillette. Girls got it going on, too. If you keep your nose to the ground, every once in a while you’ll see an earth mama rocking some Clydesdale length leg hair. No shame in that game. It’s the way God made her – plus, it distracts you from obsessing over her dirty toenails. In fact, part of the danger of letting your hair grow is that you create the perception that you’ve let yourself go … sort of the hygienic equivalent of walking around in sweatpants and house slippers all the time. Sure, it may be easy … comfortable even … but most people like to think you put in a little effort on their behalf. Is that so wrong? You could make the argument that society has twisted something that is perfectly natural into something shameful, but really, are you willing to jump that far off the evolutionary bandwagon? Would you prefer that everyone walk around au naturel, with their junk clanging like church bells, dropping turds willy-nilly and copping squats whenever their bladders start to bulge? Before you traipse off into that deep end, spend a week at Kerrville. Of course, this is not to say that you can’t have body hair and still be treated as something that doesn’t smear itself with feces. There are plenty of men (and drag kings) who maintain a nicely manicured beard or moustache. Some would even argue that body/facial hair is an attractive and admirable characteristic. After all, there is a long list of facial-haired famous people to make their case: Abe Lincoln, Ernest Hemingway, Jerry Garcia, Tom Selleck, Robin Williams, ZZ Top, Frida Kahlo, and tragically, at times, Keanu Reeves. So clearly, you can make fur your friend, and you need not necessarily grow a Billy Gibbons-length, desert island Moses mop to do it, though admittedly, looking like you’ve shared a jail cell with Charles Manson probably has its benefits. Why else would the folks at Misprint magazine organize a whole beard and moustache competition? Yep, this Friday at the Mohawk, Misprint is hosting its third annual Beard & Moustache Competition. The event is hosted by local comedian Matt Bearden and features live music by Cavedweller, as well as DJ’d music by DJ Andy and DJ Huge Cock. Prizes will be awarded for Best Groomed, Fiercest Chops, Ladies, Freestyle, Sweetest Moustache, and Gnarliest Beard. Don’t even pretend you don’t want to go.