Taylor Weldon, VP Media & PR: Austin Facial Hair Club

by Bill Alley, Broadcast Host, Wordsmith and Beard Advocate

Getting to know Taylor is like opening up a box that arrives with great anticipation. It’s that order you’ve been waiting for with contents you can’t wait to enjoy. Here’s a guy who has the responsibility to get the word out about one of the most well-known and observed Beard societies on the planet. He’s got the duty of getting the word out so that Austin experiences an end of summer feast of facial hair over Labor Day weekend. He’s given Texans good reason to stay close to home for an event like no other.  Then, after the beard talk, we get down to business. Here is where Taylor is well known in an industrial universe of design and concept.

Industrial art and concept is a big fascination, and the need to speak with Taylor came together perfectly over an art rendering of the streamlined concept of the every day sneaker. I’ve been given a promise that if the concept is ever in an art exhibition he’ll send word where to see it. If the prototype becomes reality, there may be a pair of the most eye-fetching footwear I’ve ever seen landing on the doorstep someday.

Could You Compete?

by Bill Alley, Broadcast Host, Wordsmith and Beard Advocate

Since the announcement of the World Beard & Moustache Competitions coming to Texas, David Helms and I have been taking time with whiskered men we meet out and about. We’re always willing to let a bearded gent tell his story and connect him to resources for whatever is needed or desired—from advice here at the Gazette to the nearest club where whiskers abound, ready to welcome another beard brother.

Resource is an excellent tool in the arsenal. On those days where questions would nag about your appearance and a ‘need to change things’, every tip helps you along your intended whiskered goal. For those who ever considered competing, this advice is groundwork for the mental and emotional preparation toward making your mark on a big stage.

Beard satisfaction can be a fickle mood. Just as a woman would spend the time and money to style and embellish their hair to be attractive, there’s a need to impress for work, woo in courting, or stand out in a critical way to be noticed. We want our effort to create a gain in social and employment circles.

“Shakey” Johnson, one of our Beard podcast guests, gears up each day for challenges most of us don’t have to face. A Parkinson’s patient and beard competitor, he has overcome many obstacles to his disease and perceptions with a regimen of targeted exercise, balanced diet and the will to push limits. Recently he shared with me that the gym uses his expertise as instructor; his disease is being successfully beaten and the medical evidence corresponds. He also competed in Pittsburgh PA recently and took a 7th place ranking. Both events were milestones to conquering challenges.

Our interview with Taylor Weldon of the Austin Facial Hair Club echoes a similar moment where attempts have been made to compete against formidable contestants. Knowing his beard was good but nowhere close to those who could wow a crowd, he understood that part of the challenge was attitude. Warming to the crowd, one of those moments yielded a first place finish. Using what you have and connecting with people creates the big win—no matter how much attraction tries to persuade.

The Purposes of Jewish Beards

Sixth in a year-long series devoted to the ethnicity and culture of the Beard. by Bill Alley, Broadcast Host, Wordsmith and Beard Advocate

If any culture had a reason to uphold bearded tradition, the Jewish culture has a mandate. It’s one where faith and practice builds in very specific commands which appear in Biblical texts sporadically. Just how many Beard reference can a person find in Scripture? Depending on the Bible version, there are between 16 and 22 references, each revealing an important instruction for the ancients to follow in representing faith edits, practices done when facing skin diseases, acts outwardly showing mourning, and the shameful moments when derision, conflict and persecution brought about great embarrassment.

Like many cultures of old, the Beard’s hierarchy thrives on respect, honor, wisdom; in Israel’s existence the whisker is a thread with holy origin as God, the faithful of His teachers and dedicated men of the center of Jewish life—the Temple—were the primary men seen throughout society engaged in critical lessons which enforced the ways a man was to appear, adorn and gage each situation so as to be in a favorable way with his Creator. The result: laws were established by Adonai (God) to help men determine grooming, style, and practices where facial hair flourished—and when it was proper or commanded that removal of the hair and beard was appropriate. Taking firm hold in the Book of Leviticus and traversing through other parts of the Old Testament, a Jew who lived out his faith could not arbitrarily cut, mar or design his whiskers except in cases of mourning (as an outward sign showing grief), disease (to determine the cause and extent of plagues such as leprosy), or defamation (when enemies would overtake and shave a man’s facial hair against his will, often as an outward sign of power over him).

Specifics given in the Bible have been the guiding decision for centuries. Accounts of ancient armies scorned in battle would have returning troops injured with a great harm—their beards shaven on half their face. The commanders of armies would lean on Scriptural knowledge to let the men complete shaving and give time for their whiskers to grow back before returning to army duty. If a man (or woman) developed the whitish skin and hair disease marking leprosy, very specific prescribed actions were enacted to let the High Priest or other spiritual authority know if the affliction was accurate, spreading, healing or returning—and on those observances what was to be done to the diseased area on the body and in the home. The first account of leper colonies suggest the fear in the community, and the leper in that time was greatly shunned. A person stood to lose everything if the home was found to be the source, literally facing a total demolishing.

To the good, the Beard received great honor; accounts of determining a man’s religious practice gave way to nuances in hair and beard adornments which are evidenced in the religious ways of societies like the Lebovitch, one of the easiest to recognize by the overflow of beard growth and the curls flowing from the temples of the head. Psalm 133 is one point of Biblical record giving great honor to the unity of man surrounded with an outward sign: the pouring of anointing oil (from olives) over the hair and beard of the first high priest, Aharon (Aaron – the right hand designate of Moses) bearing a sign of blessing in life and its memorial moment on Mount Zion, most revered by Jews to this day.

Modern practices after the diaspora (Jews fleeing their homeland beginning the in mid-first century AD) began making rulings to help men determine proper beard condition based on the practices and allowances of the Synagogue and culture where they lived. Shaving by simple razor or scissors was permissible, and largely for specific duties like military service, hospital ordinance or times of mourning, but the use of electric razors were prohibited by much of Judaism.

As the calendar shows, this article appearing the first of August when the solemn observance of Tish B’Av is happening, some men have grown beards recently specifically for this time.