So, regular readers of this blog2 are probably aware that I'm in a play. I'm not going to complain about it here, as I think the flavor of how it's going can be found here and here.
I do want to point out that I am Super Not-Jewish. Like hilariously Goyish. I eat more pork and shellfish than anyone I know. I buy everything retail. And I've never sent a meal back at a restaurant in my life.3 And I've been asked to play a hasidic Jewish Satan.4
I assumed that that meant I would have a false beard in the show, which opened last Friday and prompted a Minor Binge Event. However, last Wednesday I discovered that the false beard was a no-go. So, I decided on the spur of the moment to grow a real one for the show. The show that opened in two days...
Needless to say, I didn't have one for the opening weekend. Which is where I squarely place the blame for my uninspired performance. I looked less like a dedicated yeshiva student studying the mysteries of the Torah, and more like someone who just bought The Miami Device5 And the white clothes did nothing to ameliorate things.
Of course, I am 32 years old, so I'm able to ALMOST grow a grownup beard. An itchy, hateful, Billy-Maysesque6 grownup beard. This marks the second time in three years that I have grown facial lameness for a play.7 The last time this travesty occurred I looked like a chubby James Brolin, circa Amityville Horror. And somehow, this time, I VOLUNTEERED myself for this hell.
A brief open letter to the Vice reading hipsters that might have stumbled onto this page looking for tight jeans to mail order (the rest of you can skip ahead a few sentences): ironic facial hair is not cool. Please shave. I would if I could.8
Okay, I'm back.
Another aspect of the beard that is annoying me is that I'm getting a couple of big white patches in the beard. My Advancing Age doesn't bother me altogether that much. I have no problem with the gray hairs in and of themselves. However, I have no desire to look in the mirror and be reminded of Mike-Freaking-Remlinger.9
My exceptionally vague resemblance to over-the-hill setup men notwithstanding, I figured The Slog would be a fitting place to chronicle this most marginal of my life's marginalia. So come with me on a month-long journey into my facial defilement, won't you?
Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of this travesty just yet. Or I would post it for your education. You'll just have to go with a sophisticated simulation of my progress, using the finest computer simulation 1988 had to offer:
Me, before Beard
Me, currently:
My goal:
Shalom, y'all.
- I don't, in fact, love the Beard.
- Seriously, there can't be such a thing as a "regular reader" of this blog. Unless it's a goldfish or other creature with a memory of less than 3-4 seconds.
- But I kid The Chosen People. Please don't report me to the Anti-Defamation League.
- No really, I'm not anti-Semitic. Stop looking at me that way.
- So...is The Miami Device real? It seems so fakey and standuppy.
- I can't be the only guy who wants to kill this douche with a tire iron, can I?
- Okay, I normally have sideburns, but those are cool. Right?
- See note 7
- Really, I doubt even Mike Remlinger wants this.
4 comments:
Suffer for your art, Grizzly Adamstein, suffer for you art.
You forgot to mention that your BOSS likes your beard. Guess I don't actually have to MEET him to know he's kind of a tool. :)
Some of us will also remember LIKING your Brolin-beard. And your Angry Glasses-Breaking Face.
But that is neither here nor there....
Oh, and upon reading Ali's comment: I suppose that makes me a tool.
Carry on.
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