I made the decision to grow a mustache to support the children of San Francisco on November 15th. I had just returned from a two month soul-searching jaunt around the world after quitting my job of two years at Greenpeace. I'd been to France, Italy, New York, Vermont, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and New Orleans during my journey. I'd come windshield-to-sem-distant-face with a wild boar in Fontainebleau. I'd witnessed the flames and flurry after Cory Lidle crashed into an apartment building on an average rainy day in Manhattan. I'd gotten my hands dirty gutting houses in neglected post-Katrina New Orleans. And, I'd spent several days getting body-slammed and gently poked in the eyes, nose, and mouth by my baby niece Gwenyth in Colchester, Vermont. Kids are so great.



There are a lot of great causes in life. World peace. Ending poverty. Putting art back in schools. Fighting disease. Giving humans rights. Environmental protection. Stopping oil companies and politicians from roasting the globe and wiping out the whole of humanity for a quick buck. But for me this winter, it was time to support something new. It was time to give the little ones with no home in San Francisco a hand. What more appropriate sacrifice could there be than growing a spotty red sketchy mustache for a month? It was destiny.

The Mustaches for Kids experience really is all about the growing. Your indoctrination begins with a few witty emails from the emcees of the group, Jon and Alex. Jon throws in a quote or two from Abraham Lincoln or Colonel Sanders with the word "mustache" tastefully spattered within where appropriate. The details and rules of the contest are spelled out from the get-go - no Hitler 'staches, no growth or coloring agents, and everyone has a minimum fundraising goal of $50 for the kids. We kicked it all off with a check point meeting in a bar on a Wednesday night with 30 cleanly shaven "growers." Then, each week we faced the world, absorbed the feedback in the face, and went back to the bar for a support group check point and a picture for the website. Not everyone grew with the same speed or the same distance, but we all kept on growing. Then came the end.

Last Friday was Stache Bash 2006, the fifth annual Mustaches for Kids signature event at the Rickshaw Stop. Mustaches were everywhere. Sparse ones, thick ones, curly ones, flat ones. Guests pasted on a stache and competitors got decked out to highlight their follicular marvel. 21 growers were given numbers for the show. Some came pimp-style, some in leather, some in fur. One guy dressed up like a captain from Gilligan's Island. One grower had two big-haired women on his hip playing up his pimp motif. I played it clean and went for the San Francisco cowboy style. At the last minute my roommates and friends helped me deck out in too-tight red velvet pants, mini pink thin-toed cowboy boots, a big black cowboy hat, a plastic six-shooter, and a "What wouldn't Jesus do?" flask that my Greenpeace boss had given me and the other staff as a Christmas present last year. Once the get-up was applied, I filled my flask with Sparks and sauntered down Fell Street to the Rickshaw.

I could feel the electricity in the air the moment I stepped into the room. Okay, maybe that feeling came from wearing tight-crotch pants and pounding a highly alcoholic caffeine drink and scampering 15 blocks in boots two sizes too small on a Friday night. In any case, I felt electricity and I felt like I was born to compete in this contest. As soon as my roommates popped in the door at 7:15 I grabbed Alden and begged her to prep me for my stage time. When I was getting dressed and prepared for Stache Bash in my room 30 minutes earlier, my friend Shannon had read the procedures for the night to us. This was no model mustache runway competition. We were going to have to answer questions and pass tests!

Jon Wolanske was our emcee and fearless comic leader. There were three judges and Jon on stage at all times. Jon wore a sleek black suit, his three week black 'stache, and his usual casually-styled actor hair. He's tall. This first judge was the 2004 Stache Bash champion and was asked to purely judge on the basis of mustache excellence. The second was Traci, who was into style and seemed to be a friend of Jon's. She judged based on style and flare. The third judge was an experienced judge who had a 20-year curly mustache and judged on overall performance. He gave nearly everyone .5 at the end of their score.

Round 1

The first round was an interview with a random question from Jon related to our mustache thrown in at the end.

Jon - "What is your name?"
Me - "Josh the Kid." (gripping my holster.)
Jon - "Tell me something about yourself."
Me - "Well, Jon. I'm going to be honest with you (as I tip my cowboy hat). I'm originally from the South. I was born 10 miles South of DC with a police escort to the hospital. And since.. Well, I got this here corsage from a very special lady (winking and tipping my cap to my roommate Sarah in the crowd)."
Jon - (After spouting a witty comment about me) "Now time for the big question. If your mustache got angry, what would it do?"

For the sake of full disclosure I'll admit that at this point I'd consumed quite a bit of sauce courtesy of friends and guests who liked my mustache.

Me - "Jon! My mustache doesn't get angry (gripping my holster again)! (pause, not for dramatic effect, but to think of what to say next.) It get's even!"

At this point I started firing my six shooter wildly into the crowd, wheeled around, and fired a few rounds at the judges. I then took a swig of spiked energy drink from my flask and carefully (due to shaky small boots) swaggered off stage.

Jon - "Someone give that man some assistance."

I had no doubt that the crowd was on my side after Round 1 but was curious how the judges would react for two reasons. First off, although I have no problem growing a righteous and manly beard, my mustache tends to come across as scant and border-line criminal as a result of my red hair and general non-hair nature. Secondly, I didn't know if all of the judges would take kindly to my shooting them and drinking on stage. Luckily the crowd pulled me through that first round and I got the first 10 of the night (from Traci)!

Round 2

The second round was a test. The competition had been widdled down from 21 contestants to the top 10. The first part was a sexy kiss on the hand of judge number two. I was pretty sure that part was in the bag for me given my previous 10 score. Second, though, was the much-anticipated Guinness foam retention contest. For this Jon gave us a full glass of Guinness, which we had to sip and soak up as much foam as possible on our mustache and show it to the judges. I knew that anything involving straight-up mustache skill set me at a severe disadvantage. Still, the one thing I could never do was let the fear in my boots shine through.

The kiss went off without a hitch. Some guys slobbered all over her hand. Others had their two side-women cuddling up to the other judges while they made love with Traci's paw. I just tipped my cap, reached down, and gave it a classy smooch. Now it was time for the Guinness sip and retain. Of course, it wasn't that straight forward for most of us. One guy had taken a big gulp covering his nose in foam, showed the judges, and taken a dive back in to chug the rest of the Guinness in no time flat. This wasn't for me as my chugging skills are limited and I was already feeling more than sauced off of gin and tonics. I decided to go for a new take on cowboy flare with this one. I took a long sip, willing the foam onto my measly stache and pulled out. Then I took my tongue and swiveled it from one side of my mustache to the other highlighting the foam and looking as sexy as possible for the crowd. I then wheeled around and repeated the bold gesture for the judges. It was a risk, as there was a chance the licking would remove some of the foam prematurely, but at the time, I saw no other way into the final round. To the delight of me and my adoring fans, the showmanship paid off! I made it as one of five in the final round!

Round 3 - Final Round

The games were now over. No more strutting or talking your way out of a sketchy mustache. This time, for the final round, we had to use nothing but our quick wit and reading skills. Round three was a Haiku about our mustache. 5-7-5 syllables. We had two minutes to write the poem right there and then. I was scared out of my boots. At this point I had lost all focus and my brain cells were turning into gin. There was nothing I could do but suck it up and bleed that creativity out of me. So I wished the rest of the final five luck, grabbed a pen and paper and wrote. The first line of all five of our poems had the word mustache in it. People wrote about their identities, the children, and whatever came to mind. I wrote the thing in such a flurry that I don't remember the first two lines. All I remember was that I ended it with "Guns aren't for children", a five syllable statement intended to color my pistol flashing antics in the right light with the crowd and the judges. Because of the time constraint, my poem, as others did, left a lot to be desired. Still, the judges picked their winner on overall performance and the best pure mustache. It wasn't to be this year. I had no regrets about my performance. I'd given it my all and won over the crowd. It came down to genetics. The winner of Stache Bash 2006 had a beastly mustache with no gaps and a lot of punch. Mine was just too red and too sparse to get on the cover of the 2007 Mustaches for Kids calendar, assuming they do that again this year.

Though I didn't win it all, the night at the Rickshaw ended on a high note nonetheless, as Jon Wolanske announced the winners of the "Shave this mustache now!" auction. Two men had won the auction. The first, Gabe, had been the top fundraiser of the crew, generating more than $2400 for the kids by working it like nobody's business all month long. Somebody bid $500 to shave off his tash.

The second winner of the "Shave this mustache now!" auction was me with a bid of $250. Two weeks earlier I'd run into my good friend Ginger, a Forest campaigner at Greenpeace, at a celebration party full of activists with an open bar. The moment Ginger saw much mustache she looked like she had seen a ghost. She looked visibly scarred by the sight of it and wasn't shy about expressing it. She told me she knew that this was for the kids, but that she'd talk to me when the mustache was gone. She saw the mustache and thought, "this is beyond sketchy, this is criminal." Though I too was scarred by this incident, it was well worth it when I found out last Friday that Ginger had rallied more than a dozen of our friends in the bar to contribute to the $250 total in order to shave off old Red. The crew put me in a bar stool, slapped on some shaving cream, and gathered three people to shave the thing off at once. Later on I received photos revealing that I had gone on to preach to the crowd in cowboy speak, pointing and twisting, before being hoisted onto fellow grower, Chris Michael's shoulders for a victory twirl. It was quite a night. For the appeal of the mustache in San Francisco, for my friends, for the Rickshaw, for all of us growers, and for the children. A night to remember.



Next year I'm taking mustache growth enhancement classes and hiring a bodyguard who specializes in verbal abuse.