Eugene, My Former Home, Honors My Moustache and Efforts During Rally
One of my last trips to Eugene happened to be on the weekend that John Henry’s bar was throwing its annual Moustache Bash. I decided to go because I was in town and because I have a moustache and because I have fond memories of John Henry’s. They’re all of the old John Henry’s, not the new one downtown, but whatever, fond memories don’t always think that logically.
It is less and less common for me to randomly run into people I recognize in Eugene. Sometimes it still happens though, and on the night of the Rally someone at the bar said they recognized me from back in the day. From when
my moustache was new and I was a moustache evangalist. I don’t remember exactly why, but for a while I was telling everyone to grow a moustache. Males, females, annoyed, not-annoyed, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t hoping to gain anything, I
was hoping for them to gain. I told them to catch the moustache wave while it was cresting. Don’t miss out! I am a Holiday NeckBeard evangalist now, but I’m a lot more passive about it. I want people to decide on their own to grow a Holiday NeckBeard. That’s not how it was with moustaches. I wanted to make the decision for them, and I wanted the answer to be yes! yes! okay!
Anyways, this guy remembered me, back in the day, pushing him to grow a moustache. And now he had one. And it was much later, and it was after the moustache wave had crested, but now he had one, and it was because of me. And now he was
helping to put on the Moustache Bash at John Henry’s. He told me he’d give me props when he got back on stage, so I stuck around.
Well, it’s nice to feel that you might have had a positive effect on the world a few years ago, and nice to know that somebody listened. It’s nice to know that there are still traces of you in places you used to hang out, even if those traces happen to be hairs grown on the lip of some big dude you don’t remember. Now, I don’t remember ever telling anyone that November was Moustache Month and I don’t think I’d have advocated quarantining moustaches to one month. The dude probably just mixed up my speech with something else he heard about moustaches. Or who knows, maybe that was my technique. A precursor to the NeckBeard tradition?
Maybe I’ll go again next year, if I happen to be in Eugene on the right day.
Thanks to Julia for taping his speech.