...lost in your inner beard

What is an inner beard?  Why do some people have them while others do not?  Is an inner beard something given at birth or acquired off and on throughout life?  By the way, who asks these questions and even cares about this abstract metaphysical idea taken out of the ether with a visible hand like a cranberry company logo?  

...people who compete in beard competitions and spend hours upon hours twirling their mustaches do, or as Taylor Welden with the Austin Facial Hair Club says, even someone with a clean shaven face should care about her own inner beard.  

Do you know if you have an inner beard?  If not, you may not be alone.  You also probably do not have much choice.  

This bizarre dialectic conversation began intriguing me more after working in East Austin over the last three months in the Chicon Collective.  Immersing myself and spending at least a few days a week in the area enticed me to think about a unique subculture that exists existing around the Plaza Saltillo light rail station.  This geographic area in the entire Austin community houses the East Austin Beard Culture.  

Personal and perceptual looks are definitely deceiving in this subculture; or as East Austinite comic Matt Bearden says, oh you mean the Beardos.  We exchanged pleasantries in front of The Grackle, a Beardo safe house, while getting truck tacos after interviewing Taylor there.  

Walking back to my car, I began chuckling  as I thought about chuckles began bubbling in me thinking about baby Fozzie the Bear singing about being a weirdo.  He needs to think about rewriting that song, making it about around the Beardos.  

My curiosity began in earnest during my working time in East Austin.  At the Chicon Collective, Jeremiah Newton, the proprietor extraordinaire of the Bearded Bastard, caught my eye as an interesting fellow worth meeting to trade stories.  His burgeoning handmade beard oil + mustache wax utopia sits upstairs in the Chicon Collective, a safe haven for young male Ruby-On-Rails Ruby on Rails software programmers and other off the path types.  His space has kept moving and migrating as he unleashes pent up demand from many thirsty Beardos while he adds new staff and expands operations.  

Genuine business story dialogue invariably leads to engaging discussion on your personal life.  Jeremiah Newton was born in the great year of February 22, 1979 on February 22 and he definitely has the indigo child in him.  We both share We’re both a pisces sign; as another possibility, maybe the magnetar radiation blast two days before my birth not only affected me, but it affected him as well.  

We definitely see things a little differently than most people.  His business card says, “I do what the fuck I want.”  He genuinely believes it, and it shows through in his demeanor and style.  

Beauty captures his eyes.  My Seattle-based friend Marissa Castello, the remarkable co-director of the Creative Health Collective, noticed a sample of vanilla Bearded Bastard oil sample vial of vanilla extract beard oil while after hopping into my passenger seat recently.  She definitely locked onto noticed its uniqueness immediately and held eyes on it for a few moments.  Although that first sampling is long gone, his vial containers engage people with Each vial has a hand carved wooden labels and thoughtful design.   Jeremiah would say that Marissa captured an expression of his love of beauty.  

This engagement endears devotion to the product, not only to those within the Beardo subculture, but also to the world at large.  Jeremiah talked about people requesting his products in boutique bBohemian accommodations in Berlin via Airbnb.  Consumer devotion extends beyond many people throughout those part of the Beardo culture.  Confirmed this devotion while drinking out and about in East Austin.  

Jeremiah Newton loves making his friends smile and devours beauty in all forms, shapes, sizes, contexts, and emotions.  He believes that everyone you are human and should have passion, die happy, sleep well, stay excited, and love have the love of great friends, and, one day, die happy.  He also believes that too many of us hide from happiness that from ourselves and others.  You should share!

We met up on a windy friday in East Austin behind the Chicon Collective.  The trees have just come in with their nubs, just starting to tease ing out a spectacular green not to that won’t be seen but in for a few weeks.  Wind blown bleachers greeted us, as we heard the light rail’s whine coming down the tracks.  Stern wind licked up dust and pushed it across home plate.       

Jeremiah Newton had not thought about the uniqueness of the East Austin beard culture or even if uniqueness is the right word as a descriptive adjective.  His facial expressions honestly conveyed a possible belief so; then, his mood shifted, and he said, “Good question.”  

Newton’s bearded journey began five years ago when he deliberately and methodically started growing his mustache in a serious and methodical way.  He has not looked back since that time.  You can see that Jeremiah Newton genuinely feels that the Beardo culture is not afraid to look differently than the status quo.  He often wears thick, dark circular glasses — almost like motorcycle goggles— with his twirling mustachio and He sometimes sports a turban around his top hat with a jean jacket and lean, soft, colored jeans.  

Beardos challenge society in deconstructing stereotypes either through tattoos, unusual beards, piercings, and/or all of the above.  Jeremiah Newton thrives in that environment and loves that Austin is a community building focused city with a twist of hipness and flair.  Who you know goes a long way in his opinion.  He also confessed that this engagement is not in the usual annoying, snarky, and fake Austin way, but in a genuine way for those who embrace community.   

After buying a bottle of the Bearded Bastard’s signature pheromone loaded vanilla extract for my own mystically vigorous ginger black beard, its scent and feel has become a staple of my own grooming process.  My own beard has become more shapely and softer.  It smells and is beginning to feel amazing to the touch.  I absolutely only want mine to get better!

He sponsors beard culture events and stays active in the Austin Facial Hair Club, a 5,000-strong force of Beardos, Bastardos, a few ladies, and one shaven fellow.  His professional efforts offer products to enable men to look and feel their best.  Hands-on experience confirms this magic.  Repeated conversations with Beardos over PBR say so too!  

Jeremiah Newton  is a premier Beardo who seeks to own truth, make people’s dreams come true, and create cool products for his the facial hair community.  His vanilla extract packs juicy pheromones for Beardo admirers while his mustache waxes propel heavy-hitting mustachio competition slugfests.  

Some people are hip, and some people pay to be hip in his professional opinion.  He does not make or do things that he does not personally like to share with his community.  Community tops his list of priorities list and guides his decision to hand-make each beado product.  He bleeds himself into his company, seeking to build a craft, niche operation.  You should go big and change the model of operation, mode, philosophy, and entire being behind what you do in life.  

He said it felt strange paying someone more in a year than he’s been paid got paid for himself in the past 5 five years.  His insatiable energy and stamina behind seeking his own truth is evident in how he overcame significant challenges to create an amazing East Austin business.  His one passion is to die happy.  Creating a craft on your own terms is part of the package.  

Jeremiah knows that his product compliments a Beardo’s lifestyle because an unkempt beard is not fun.  He has a massage therapy past and knows that skin, hair care should not only smell good but absolutely improve personal well-being.  His business process focused on using essential 7 oils, and he frequently talked about the oil Holy Trinity.  He spent 6 to 8 months researching molecular weight and other fine particulars.

Making money off your passion is not quite as difficult once you grasp the concept and get it going.  He likes impacting people’s lives and feels that too many people are asleep.  His true passion focuses on inspiring people to be better and enjoy life more.  

His website claims that his father was a mystical Beardo, and in many ways, he was a 1,000% inspiration according to him.  Mr. Newton had an amazing mountain man beard and inspired the woodsman theme built around the Bearded Bastard.  He always wanted the best beard as a child and not until Jeremiah was 30 did he start growing one in his opinion.  His unique style is bohemian Southern gentleman.  

Many, many different people inspire his drive.  He immerses himself in everything around him and creates things that people would like best.  His personal interest in veneer drove his decision to create wood labels on his product lines.  Surrounding himself with amazing people helps drive his decision making.  

Scents are appealing to him.  He vividly recounted walking in a Moroccan bazaar deep in a Casbah and gesticulated while smelling the spices, as if actually recounting the exact moment again.  I began to see how he devours beauty.  

Being an enigmatic visionary, he does not see an exit from the Bearded Bastard in a traditional sense of creating and selling a company.  He desires a Bearded Women line within the Bearded Bastard brand.  He shrewdly spoke about parent company with subsidiary organizations built on a house of beauty with limitless brand equity and international growth.

He stays inspired with everything and everyone around him.  There is a resurgence in tidying up yourself in many ways.  He feels good knowing that no one has done before what he is doing with the Bearded Bastard.  People feel special about oil and that makes him smile.  

Thinking is most important to him in his life.  He ingests beauty, curiosity, friends, and travel and likes staying on the bleeding edge, expecting something unrealistic.  

He fondly remembers while growing his Bearded Bastard, he had the business ah-hah moment validating his decision to not get lost in the 9 to 5 life.  He feels that the even though the ubiquity behind Austin beards is a trend, as shown by Whisker Wars on IFC, you will have core players who will always maintain the Bearded Bastard lifestyle.  

He wants to get into soaps and shaving oils as the pendulum swings back and young men begin shaving again.  The Bearded Bastard is not not just bearded oil or mustache wax.  It is much more than what meets the eye.  He wants brand awareness and solidity.  

Although Jeremiah did not talk much about the inner beard, it became evident on the IFC show.  The Austin Facial Hair Club represented itself boisterously and talked about your inner beard, the one inside you.  We will ask one of the club's most winning members...

While gathering information on the inner beard, my research took me to the Shangri-La Bar on east 6th street in East Austin.  Conversation with the happy hour bartendress, Echo, revealed that the Beardos hang out at the Grackle and the Yellow Jacket Social Club.  My comfort and familiarity with all three locations spurned my interest more.  She did not know about the inner beard.  

"The Last Starfighter" raged on with laser blasts and screeching wild alien fucks while talking with a fellow about beards and the faddiness around the beard in general.  Confirmed more details about the Beardos with Matthew Helveston, a fellow Beardo who makes boutique furniture out of the Woodshed in East Austin. We all had a gut check about our passion for the beard.

Jeremiah Newton suggested Taylor Welden with the East Austin Facial Hair to help me understand more about the Beardos.  Taylor met me at the Grackle on a hot, windswept day.  The Grackle is off 6th street behind a taco truck in a dusty parking lot.  While preparing for our meeting, I ordered a beer and sat outside under the balcony.  The dimly lit bar boasted a 1991 Battlestar Galactica and Ms Pac Man game between a lone pool table and a dartboard area.  

Taylor Welden works, lives, and plays in East Austin.   He practices industrial design and has racked up many significant wins in beard and mustache competitions over the years for the Austin Facial Hair Club and himself.  His favorite Bearded Bastard oil is the opium den, a line exclusively made for select Beardos.  You can verify its sold out status online.  

His bearded journey simply began back to his father, a fellow aptly named Rex.  Rex had a bright red beard, similar to Taylor’s red beard, and mostly all older men in his family sported a beard.  He began growing his at age 12 unwillingly and felt somewhat uncool having to shave so early while his peers could barely muster nothing more than a wispy mustache.  Wispy mustaches were inside shit back in those days.  At age 17, he began to realize his future Beardo powers, above and beyond mundane.

He has grown his mustache over the last 4 years and has had several different styles over the years, beard only, mustache only, chops, you name it.  

When asked about the inner beard, he paused, grew silent, and leaned back while dragging a powerful puff off his cigarette.  He describes his inner beard as similar to his outer beard.  His inner beard is red, soaked in whiskey, and made from friendship.  There is a common thread among all of us, but within the thread, you can see uniqueness and glimpse into someone’s personality and character.  We talked about my ginger, dark-haired, and gray beard and find commonality.  

The essence of the inner beard was a good topic to discuss in his opinion.  He talked about another Beardo named Bryan Nelson who feels most natural with a beard.  Taylor feels naked without one too.  This thought never really crossed my mind for some reason.  

The Austin Facial Hair Club embraces being young, weird, going against the grain, and doing what they fuck they want to do.  They won most represented group in 2011 while competing in Norway.  He feels Berlin was the city to beat, but now, he believes that the Austin Beardos have much to offer competitively.  

Taylor feels like he does not have a beard and surely knows it when he does not have one.  He says that all facial hair is valid, even goatees. Beard culture in Austin should only get better.  The Beardos in the facial hair club lobbied the world championship to come to Austin, and they won in 2013, slotting our great locale for action in 2017.  He says that this event will be the biggest in bearded and mustache history.  

Even East Austin is home turf for the Beardos, he talked about how many other facial hair club members come from different walks of life throughout our Austin community.  You can see fellows sporting beards in the software programming and technology startup world; however, nothing compares to the pirate king spirit of East Austin Beardos.  

The facial hair club decided to include women in their festivities and competition back in 2010.  Even though one woman has decisively crushed any and all competition with a real mustache, most ladies invest hours upon hours into making realistic fake beards.  Taylor says that 40 hours of design and creation is not uncommon; however, real chick beards always trump handicraft work.  

He compares a facial hair showdown as a dog show with a bikini contest, and his beard is an ever evolving creation.  

He paused again asking for time to think on how he fits into the Beardos.  People view him as a figurehead for the facial hair club, even though he resists it, and the Beardos since not everyone gets to travel around the world promoting the subculture.  He is one key on the piano and does not feel especially important or unimportant.  We need all keys on the instrument.  

Short hairs on your mustache are hard for the ladies.  We talked about how some ladies especially love beards but do not necessarily like the short mustache hairs.  The beard oil has definitely helped me in many, many ways.

He recounted Myk O’Connor with the Gotham City Beard Alliance as a worthy competitor and Beardo comrade. Aye pirate kings! He also recommended Finley’s Barbershop on east 5th Street when asking about how to improve my beard above and beyond high quality Bearded Bastard oil.  

...that is all...