november beard club

Remember gentlemen, November is International Beard Month.


Actually it isn’t official yet, but there was (is?) a November Beard Club which:

“firmly believed that because men have the natural ability to grow beards, they should. At least for a month. And the chosen month is November, due to it’s chilly climate and the fact men seem to have a natural inclination to grow facial hair around this time every year.”


So no shaving until December 1st.


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via Uncle Tweed [link]

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17 comments

  1. Bit of trivia – I’m fairly sure this was started by a couple of co-workers of mine at Maxis (yes, the SimCity guys) back in 1998 – Kevin O’Hare was one, I can’t remember the other gent’s name offhand.

  2. This is *the* Kevin O’Hare.

    Actually, I learned about the November Beard Club tradition from Tahd Frentzel, but together we popularized it like crazy (on the AP newswire, live radio and TV appearances). This was back around 1993 or so. It was wild for a while.

    Tahd actually started the trend in his college days, he says.

    Even though we’ve been inactive for years, I still do grow a beard for at least the whole month of November, and probably will until the day I die….

  3. Well… I was doing an "ego-oogle" and saw my name on this site…

    Yeah… we were in college and it was November and we decided to create the "November Men’s Club" where everyone would grow a beard in November.

    Then along came Mr. O’Hare and that’s when it really turned into something interesting. In 1994 we said "This year, let’s try to get some media attention." And sure enough– we got it. We sent out a single press release and the AP picked it up. Must have been a slow news year, but we were everywhere– especially in Toronto Canada. I had friends call me from there and say "What the heck are you doing in my newspaper?"

    We went on to do the Charles Osgood show, a ton of morning radio interviews, and we were sponsored by "Just For Men" beard products to host a beard fashion show. Unfortunately, we didn’t know what we were doing. We held it at a pizza place in Berkeley and hardly anyone came, so we ended up going outside and telling anyone with a beard to go get free pizza and booze at Kip’s. Just For Men had sent photographers and video camera people and gave us $1500 for the event. They were not happy and wouldn’t return my calls afterwards. Heh heh.

    The next year we tried again, and landed a local TV show with Brian Copeland (who just wrote a book called "Not A Genuine Blackman" which is based on his solo show in SF– excellent book, fantastic show– read it, catch it if you can).

    but nothing like that one year. Subsequent years our media attention subsided and we just sort of gave it up… but I, too, continue to grow a beard every single November, and I have fantasies about starting it up again, but ultimately, I’m too lazy.

  4. Hi Tahd and Gang

    Lets get the november beard club going again
    I recall chatting to you about it around 96/97/98 time when I did some work with Tahd for ten.net now pogo/EA – MagnaUK/ GuideUK

    I’m heavily involved with Rotary and charity at the home of Golf St Andrews, Scotland these days and would be a fun way to spread this barmey, but great idea

    I recall you did have some web presence showing the daily growth, does it still exist, boy that was funny – surely it wouldn’t be difficult to get a blog via blogger.com started

    I got a mate who would do the media side of things who is based in oz

    Get back to me if there is any milage

    Regards

    Steve Cooke

    MD St Andrews Golf Vacations Limited
    134 South Street.
    St Andrews.
    Fife
    Scotland
    Telephone +44 1337 858888

    Manager Barbers Pole St Andrews http://www.cybersnips.com
    Vice president St Andrews Merchants Association
    Rotary Club St Andrews
    World Disaster Help http://www.worlddisasterhelp.org

  5. Actually, my friends and I established January as beard month, because it’s the perfect way to start the new year. And because January is by far the most bleak month of the year, growing facial hair serves as the perfect pastime to survive the holiday hangover.

  6. Gentlemen,

    I surfed November Beard Club’s website once in 1998. Since then, i purposely stop shaving facial hair in november. It’s kinda exciting thing to do in november eventhough I have been doing it alone. Tried to get friends to follow the movement but here in Malaysia, nobody bothers about beard as Malaysian generally have no or less facial hair and weather is humid all year. But this crazy idea really sticks with me after all these years. November Beard Club rules..!!

  7. one of my friends and the guys who lived in his dorm didn’t shave all month for november and then on december 1st, around 1am, they shaved themselves into hitler moustaches. so the next day there was a good half dozen guys walking around with the hitler moustache. it was pretty amazing.

  8. That’s pretty hardcore, shaine!!!

    I’ve been observing November Beard Month for about 15 years now.
    The last couple of years, I’ve hung on to the beard until the Winter Solstice rolls around.

    Even though I hold (held) the title of King of the November Beard Club, I’m not sure I have the fortitude to "never shave again". Best of luck to you, brother!

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