bearded tits

I can't help about the shape I'm in,
I can't sing, I ain't pretty and my legs are thin.
But don't ask me what I think of you
I might not give you the answer that you want me too.

Oh well, indeed.

About forty one years ago I started growing a beard. It was a bit scrappy and probably didn't look too good. A friend's dad was a bank manager and took the piss out of me relentlessly - evidently I looked like a "Billy goat". I guess nearly half a century ago bank managers knew what was acceptable in respectable life whereas I'm expecting to meet a bank manager with facial tattoos and piercings any day now. I just had a small chin and felt a beard made me look a bit older and less immature.

Beards are very much in vogue nowadays, evidently. Comments about them and how awful they look seem to crop up regularly. I must admit that I still have a beard - as always, it's more of a goatee when I haven't taken it back to a five o'clock shadow - and am used to it. To me it's much like having a glass eye or a monobrow or some other vaguely unusual feature that people get used to you sporting. Like Owen Wilson's nose. But, ultimately, it's a choice.

Recently I have noticed that some of the comments made about younger men sporting facial hair have been quite vitriolic. I have, I must admit, noticed that large beards seem quite popular. The Amish look seems very popular amongst certain types. In the early Summer when I was in London a few times, particularly around Soho, I did have a slight flashback to Jerusalem in the late seventies. There were a lot of large beards - maybe in this current climate I should call it the 'Bob Hite' look. Mr Hite was the large gentleman who sang Going Up the Country with Canned Heat. And then during the Summer New York seemed awash with young men who certainly favoured an Amish look. The ones around Philadelphia were Amish so they don't count here.

When we got back to Blighty in late August beards became a major talking point. In fact, it was the look itself and the young men that wear them that became a major talking point. The newspapers started to run articles about them: the Independent and the Guardian particularly. Evidently - and it was news to me, these chaps are called "Hipsters". I always thought that was a style of trousers but I've been known to be wrong before. There is even a Wikihow on how to become a Hipster, should you so wish. Unfortunately, the opening paragraph sounds like myself and many friends but none of us would want to be "Hipsters" I'm sure.

One thing that I have learnt from these articles is that Williamsburg N.Y. is the "Hipster capital of the World" - would that be the Williamsburg N.Y. that we wandered about in on a very hot day in August? The very Williamsburg that I mentioned in my last post (cf Earwax Records)? Well I must admit to not seeing very many young men with large beards who evidently smell a lot. However, we did go into a clothes shop that had some very nice - and very expensive - clothes in. All made in the USA evidently. Now I think about it the clothes in there were aimed at a particular audience and, other than possibly the softest denim shirt I have ever felt, were not to my taste. Unlike the Bedford Cheese Shop which was definitely to my taste. A lovely place which we returned to  on the way home. The Crottin from California and the Juliana from Indiana cheeses were gorgeous. . .

Where was I? Oh yes, young hipster types with beards. It seems that one of the biggest problems is that the movement is difficult to market so the media has taken against them and decided to pour its opprobrium upon them. I'm sure that must be the reason. Or, as the Boots and Gloves video above  suggests perhaps they are just a natural enemy for all who see themselves as 'normal'. Evidently many of these Hipsters are rather wealthy which is another thing to hold against them, of course.

Well I don't really know but it must be near the end of Hipster-dom now that even Roy Keane has started sporting  a full Yusef- call-me-Cat set of facial fungus. I may not know much about what's hip but I do understand how to quickly kill off a youth movement. And as that older Hipster from another time siad:

Because something's happening here
But you don't know what it is,
Do you, Mr Jones?

Since posting this I watched the short film about the aforementioned Mr Stevens who definitely looks like the stereotypical Hipster in all but age - big beard, hat, sunglasses. However, it's a nice film that features the other former Island Record British Muslim musician of this parish. Well worth a view.