By Ann Marie Trietley:
The first rule of Beard Club? Do not talk about Beard Club. Unless of course you are writing an article about their competition in Oil City, Pennsylvania. I traveled 140 snowy miles with the Buffalo Beards & Beer Social Club – and lived to tell the tale.
I’m in the back seat of a Hyundai chewing on beef jerky with Craig Lucas and his girlfriend, Jenna Jacoby. We are crawling along one endless, meandering road, and unable to see much through the darkness and snow. Through Titusville we go, past a gym that sells ammunition, taxidermy outposts, and Spanky’s Tobacco World. We creep through Union City, full of trailer parks and condemned barns. Following behind us are Erik Voelkle, Matthew Quirey, Adam Taber, Wilson (last named unknown; he joined the club after he rode his bicycle from Washington, DC to Cole’s, and fell in with the Beards), and Brian Haenszel. Haenszel deals with a flat tire on his Audi, and thankfully isn’t carried off by inbred hill-dwellers. Finally, the vast emptiness gives way to Oil City, with a modest population of about 10,500 and a giant, glowing crucifix casting a beam of light upon us all.
We check into our rooms at the Days Inn as bearded competitors strut about, showcasing their beautiful bristles. Participants have traveled from New Jersey, Richmond, Rochester, Pittsburgh, and Youngstown, Ohio for the event, to name just a few. They have all found sanctuary at this Days Inn, the solitary hotel of Oil City. We have come for the 8th annual WPBMA Beard and Mustache Competition, being held down the street at Billy’s Bar.
Lucas has a leather jacket stocked with makeup brushes and gold eyeshadow for his favored brass knuckles-shaped beard. Quirey and Voelkle tote arsenals of pomade, hair oil, and Brooks Brothers after shave. We raise a toast in our hotel room before departing for Billy’s – good luck to every beard, and let’s get weird.
Billy’s boasts $3 beers and a $10 all-you-can-eat wing buffet, so us Buffalonians immediately feel right at home. I decide to talk to some locals. What the heck does one do in the OC? A young, Oil City-based truck driver outside says “Big cities like Buffalo scare me; I like seclusion.” Another – an older guy in head-to-toe camouflage – says he “likes New York State prostitutes” better than his local Oil City variety. Finally, a curly-haired emcee in cranberry trousers and a bowler hat gets the competition underway.
The first category is Women’s Freestyle. One of the Whiskerinas of New Jersey places first with her blonde, faux beard and “Christmas Story”-inspired leg lamp skirt. Next up, the Five O’Clock Shadow category, in which Haenszel competes (and removes his shirt, to the judge’s delight) and Wilson claims second place. Taber wins second in the Mustache category with his youthful yet quirky panache. Quirey places second in the Garibaldi category; Voelkle is second in the Under 12’’ Full Beard Natural category, and celebrates by flexing on stage in his airbrushed mer-man tee shirt and tossing back a shot of bourbon. Lucas seizes second as well in the Freestyle category, while clad in a red kilt with nothing underneath (as is Scottish tradition), woolen socks, and leather boots. Other categories include Sideburns, Goatee, and Scruff.
The Buffalo Beards & Beer Social Club members show unique enthusiasm and crowd-pleasing antics on stage – perhaps more so than any other league there. Lucas wows the judges in rather daring fashion by twirling on stage and lifting up his kilt about halfway through the evening. We mingle a great deal with Rochester’s beard club, led by Trevor Cramer and with members Nick Jock, Sean Marianetti, and Jake “Juice” in attendance. Before co-founding the Buffalo chapter, Voelkle used to attend beard club meetings in Rochester.
The camaraderie and fraternity in the air is palpable. The revelry grows in intensity up until the wee hours of the morn. Some club members take a jaunt to a smoky nightclub nearby for bearded booty shaking. Upon their return, the Buffalo and Rochester clubs merge in the hotel room’s Jacuzzi tub, soaking and joking and hopefully not clogging up the drain with beard hair too badly (as Lucas contemplates during the drive home). Some may view the antics as extreme – but they didn’t get to witness Quirey’s talent for singing Michael Bublé. On that note, I must go back to the first rule of Beard Club – that what happens in Beard Club, stays in Beard Club.
The Buffalo Beards & Beer Social Club is accepting new members – and you don’t even have to have a beard of your own. I mean, I don’t. For being around less than two months, BB & BSC is rapidly growing and hosts new events all the time. See “Buffalo Beard and Beer Social Club” on Facebook.