Beards Make a Man

“Grapes are sour,” said a physically challenged fox to console himself when he couldn't jump high enough to take some apparently delicious grapes into his mouth. Grapes might be sour to his taste buds but the general people who have had the luck to actually taste some ripe grapes will agree otherwise. Grapes taste good. But the point of this article is not the grapes, you can rely on the fruits' Wikipedia for all the information about that; rather the presence and absence of a beard, the latter of which might bring about a sour feeling to one's mouth. Because you see, beards make a man. And this is a men's world from here on.

Statistics are for idiots:
It fails miserably when involving abstract concepts, intangible fundamentalism, whatever that means. The glory of beards can't be dismissed by some statistics. The way of the heart is an unknown territory for the laws of mathematics, physics and chemistry. The connection we, men who are blessed with beards, feel with our beards is inexplicable. The first sign of a single hair on our chin made us ecstatic; we started seeing the world in a new way with a more mature chin. Chin up, the phrase never seemed more appropriate. One with a new beard will fervently shave not to get rid of the beard permanently, but to speed up the growth.

Joys and advantages of facial hair:
Those who sport beards, by which I mean real ones, not the minuscule one under your lips (David Villa-esque), know of the joys of beards. The feeling of ecstasy can't be described in words when you idly finger through your beard. Moments make seconds, seconds make minutes, minutes make half an hour; and through all this you just go on and on with caressing the beard. Ah! The joy!

Hairs are bad conductors of heat. So come winter we bearded folks enjoy a nice warm feeling on our cheeks. You can argue: then the opposite can happens in summer. Here's the best part: beards trap the water drops, originating from whichever source, and when there is a light breeze, you can only wonder how nice it feels. Even scratching the unshaven cheek with the SFX of “Ghash, Ghash” is satisfaction.

Exactly as my colleague had said a few weeks ago, beards trap chemical pollutants. Imagine them going through your nostrils to your lungs without being filtered, especially in some place as polluted as Dhaka. Clean-shaven men might look sexy to some, but remember kids, staying healthy comes before staying good looking.

Let's not go into “the male-female relationships and the effects of a beard”, (it sounds like the title for a documentary film) because yours truly is not fully clear about this himself. But one thing is certain: if someone loves you, she will love everything about you.

However, making fun of people for the sluggishness of their hormones is as bad as one can get. We should be sympathetic, for beards integrate compassion, gentleness of heart, calm features among many other things. They are trying hard, my comrades. We just haven't seen the results yet. But the fact remains:

Beards make a man. Period.

By Jawad
Illustration: Sarwat Yunus

Hating Lambert

Adam Mitchell Lambert - more commonly known as Adam Lambert - was the runner-up of last year's American Idol. Much to the annoyance of many, he is often mistaken to be the winner of the season; as sad as it is no one even remembers the actual winner dude. You should know all this stuff, unless, of course, you live under a rock or something.

Enough background information for the dummies; we shall now proceed to a more interesting issue: hating Adam Lambert. You are likely to find a whole bunch of people hating him. However, none of these people will be able to tell you where this hatred stems from. Controversial performances, being happy and 'different' these just aren't good enough reasons for hatred in today's day and age. After cyber-stalking Lambert and monitoring the activities of his evidently disturbed Glamberts, the reason behind this hatred is not obscure to us any more, and we have decided to undertake the responsibility of enlightening you folks on this issue.

First and foremost, Lambert has been corrupting the minds of old women. You'll find old women (aged 50 and above), dressed in faux fur and sprayed with body glitter, turning up at his concerts, leaving their old men locked up in their houses. You'll find them prancing around with Adam Lambert action figures (yes, those things actually exist), cackling their heads off and performing unsightly rituals involving those action figures. Go figure. Whatever happened to graceful aging? Moreover, these women serve as a bad influence on their daughters and granddaughters - talk about impending doom.

His…uh…dating preferences (to put it mildly) has been the cause of much distress amongst the younger segment of the female population - hate him or not, Lambert has definitely been bestowed with great looks, greater fashion sense and astounding vocals. Once the initial misery is over, the females go on to ruin the life of their significant other; if not Lambert, then why not a cheap duplicate? However, what the females don't realise is that they are making the whole situation even worse and eventually find themselves with useless, creepy Lambert replicas that have an unhealthy 'infatuation' for the original piece. Ultimately, Lambert is threatening to put the human kind on the list of endangered animals.

Lambert is also under the accusation of hogging up a large portion of the makeup supplies of the world, leaving very little for the female population. What infuriates the females even more is that men of all categories seem to have been inspired to put on makeup, which leads to an even greater dearth of the same. And the blame falls on Lambert. All of a sudden, the purpose of makeup is not 'hiding female blemishes' rather, it is all about the enhancement of male 'beauty'. And you were wondering what's up with the guys at RS and makeup.

So there you have it; you now know why people hate Adam Lambert. Why people fail to see such evident reasons is beyond us. Tsk tsk. Might be a lack of iodine in diets.

By Sarwat Yunu