826michigan's Third Annual Mustache-A-Thon

2009 MAT--The Finale!

2009-04-15T02:26:00.003-04:00

And, the Saline Fire Department!

Kevin "Backs" Cornell

Russ Girbach

Tim Newell

Click here to donate to the collaborative efforts of the Saline Fire Department!

Mustache-Inspired

2009-04-02T16:16:00.008-04:00

This Mustache-A-Thon is picking up steam. We've already raised $6,000, which is a lot for just a bunch of mustaches. The growers are getting creative with their fundraising tactics, too. Here's Tony Trease's mustache haiku:

My mustache is pride
Soaring like a bald eagle
Across these chapped lip

And KC Colwell's own blog, dedicated to his lovely stache:

KC's blog

Vote for your favorite mustache by making a donation today!

2009 MAT--Week 5!

2009-03-31T00:15:00.006-04:00

And, the Saline Fire Department!

Kevin "Backs" Cornell

Kevin "The Flash"

Russ Girbach

Willard Girbach

Click here to donate to the collaborative efforts of the Saline Fire Department!

2009 MAT--Week 4!

2009-03-27T18:13:00.004-04:00

And, the Saline Fire Department!

Kevin "Backs" Cornell

Kevin "The Flash"

Russ Girbach

Willard Girbach

Click here to donate to the collaborative efforts of the Saline Fire Department!

2009 MAT--Week 3!

2009-03-17T23:19:00.009-04:00

And, the Saline Fire Department!

The Chief

Kevin "Backs" Cornell

Kevin "The Flash"

Russ Girbach

Willard Girbach

Click here to donate to the collaborative efforts of the Saline Fire Department!

What’s this about?

2009-03-13T09:42:00.003-04:00

If you’re one of the guys growing mustaches this March, you’ve already been asked more than once. If you got an email from one of them, you’re probably wondering even more. This guy couldn’t possibly be growing a mustache for fun. Could he?

He’s not.

826michigan is a nonprofit writing and tutoring center, serving about 1750 kids every year with free literacy programs. We help with homework of all kinds and teach kids that writing is important, fun and within their grasp. Since all that we do is totally free, we need contributions to continue. Every March, dozens of guys help us by growing money-making mustaches. Visit www.826michigan.org to learn more about 826michigan and click on your favorite photo below to support a mustache farmer!

Saline Fire Department--Week 2!

2009-03-11T08:44:00.003-04:00

The Chief

The Flash

Russ

Willard

Click here to donate to the collaborative efforts of the Saline Fire Department!

MAT 3--Week 2!

2009-03-10T21:54:00.004-04:00

Please support your local mustache farmers.

Week 1, continued: Saline Fire Department

2009-03-05T11:12:00.010-05:00

Several guys from the Saline Fire Department got wind of our plan to grow mustaches and raise money for 826michigan's literacy programs. Even though they're usually at the firehouse Monday nights during Mustache Meeting time, they were undeterred. They had to mustache with us! Here are these brave firemen and paramedics, eagerly hoping you'll choose their crew over the rest of the mustache farmers who are competing individually.

We are so grateful to Sandra Andrade, Craig "The Chief" Hoeft, Willard Girbach, Brett, Brandon Sears, Kevin Cornell, Kevin “The Flash” Dillen and Russ Girbach!

Brandon

Brett

The Chief

The Flash

Kevin

Russ

Willard

Click here to donate to the collaborate efforts of the Saline Fire Department!

March is Mustache Month

2009-03-04T18:06:00.000-05:00

Thanks for visiting 826michigan’s s.t.a.c.h.e.b.l.o.g., a document of our favorite 36 guys and their progress growing facial hair for 826michigan this month. Vote for your favorite by making a contribution. The funds these mustaches raise support all the work 826michigan does in the community: afterschool tutoring, creative writing workshops, in classroom writing activities in public schools, field trips, and lots more. Did we mention that we make all this happen for 1600 kids every year at no cost?

Support our free literacy programs! Support your local mustache farmers!

MAT 3--Week 1!

2009-03-03T18:26:00.022-05:00

Please support your local mustache farmers.

Announcing...your 2009 Mustache Farmers!

2009-02-27T14:03:00.003-05:00

Andrew Moran
Ben Bloch
Carter Glass
Chris Swinko
Christopher Taylor
Connor Timmons
Dan Smith
Duncan Riley
Eli Robb
Eric Hill
Frank Uhle
Ian Fulcher
Ivan Mayerhofer
Jacob Anderson
Jason Gardner
Jeff Gaynor
Jim Dowling
Josh Barnhardt
Josh Cohen
KC Colwell
Kelan Thomas
Ken Mazur
Mark Kneisel
Matt Lewis
Michael Gorwitz
Michael Stepniak
Michael Wyzywany
Mike Kessler
Moshe Kornfeld
Paul Marinec
Rick Weise
Sean Hillson
Steven Rajewski
Tim Newell
Tony Trease
Tyler Brubaker

And Steve Rockwood, Mustache Mentor

Let the Countdown Begin!

2009-02-24T11:32:00.003-05:00

It’s just seven days until Mustache Madness 2009. Are you ready? Quick rules refresher for mustache growers who are still confused by this:

-Show up Monday night at Arbor Brewing Company with a clean shave at 8:26 p.m.
-Drink a beer on us!
-Pose for a head shot with Photographer Angi.
-Check your email Tuesday. We’ll send you a link to your lovely photo with a paypal button underneath.
-As the weeks go on, your mustache will grow. Your friends and family will see the progression of that lovely stache online and they’ll be compelled to not only ask why (826michigan’s free programs for kids!) but also to support this crazy project with a donation.
-No beards.

Not planning to grow this year? Here are your guidelines:

-Show up Monday night at Arbor Brewing Company at 8:26 p.m.

-Buy a beer from the good folks who are sponsoring M-A-T III.

-Pick your favorite guy or your favorite mustache and make a donation via this website, in person, or by mail.

We have 23 confirmed growers! I want to offer my warmest, most heartfelt thanks to: Carter, Chris, Christopher, Connor, Dan, Duncan, Frank, Ian, Ivan, Jeff, Jim, Josh B., Josh C., KC, Kelan, Ken, Mark, Matt, Michael, Mike, Moshe, Rick and Tyler. Once the staches grow in, I’m a little worried that the disguise effect will cause me to confuse you, especially with all the Joshes and Chrises and Mikes. Mustache growers should remember to attend this meeting with your most distinctive personality traits on full display so you will be recognizable in subsequent weeks of the a-thon.

Week 6!

2008-04-29T18:51:00.002-04:00

Please support your local mustache farmers.

Week 5!

2008-04-22T20:02:00.003-04:00

Please support your local mustache farmers.

Week 4!

2008-04-15T16:21:00.002-04:00

Please support your local mustache farmers.

Haiku Two: More Mustache Poetry

2008-04-15T10:27:00.004-04:00

Josh Cohen:

i coo for mustache
your tomentose passion strip
haiku's hirsute muse

relic of the past
testosterone harbinger
mustache time returns

craniofacial
duplication bless me, so
I can grow two staches

Pervert, white trash, creep
gigolo, romeo, brute?
Don't judge the mustache

i am not a creep
if you should stop and wonder
the stache helps children

hirsute lips behold
bold and so mysterious
stroke my manly fuzz

not all can grow one
it lurks beneath the dermis
when freed, man awakes

Mike Kessler:

Ignorant children
Struggling to read and write
How will a 'stache help?

Mustache Haiku: Three Growers' Poetry

2008-04-11T13:55:00.002-04:00

Duncan Riley:

darkened by Kool-Aid?
dirt stained - perhaps skin fungus?
um,,,,,,,, no............ my "mustache"

Carter Glass:

A few days later
I can still taste your nice sauce
When I lick my 'stache.

Do I tickle your
fancy, miss? Brushy sweet love
don't try to resist.

I sprout up, outward
from a waiting follicle.
Today I breathe free

You were on TV.
Magnum, Wilfred, Stacey Keach
I know you solved it.

Under the nostrils,
A strip of furry warmness,
sits over my lips.

Matt Lewis:

The orange blossoms sway
In the now empty courtyard
Mustache, mustache, 'stache

The crime is not that
I have a mustache but that
You reject my love

In the towering
Shadow of my hairy lip
The woman trembles

Teach the kids to write
But not write so well as to
Alarm the censors

Week 3!

2008-04-08T01:11:00.004-04:00

Please support your local mustache farmers.

Mustache Essay: A few words from First Time Grower Matt Lewis

2008-04-04T10:10:00.003-04:00

On the last day of March in 2008, supported by only a week's growth of facial hair, I shaved myself a mustache. I attempted nothing fancy—just a face shaved clean everywhere except above the top lip. I had never done this before, and in those first moments, staring back at my new face in the bathroom mirror, it was hard to imagine how it might affect my life.

I asked my wife if she liked it, and she said I looked like a Duke of Hazard, which I of course took as a compliment.

By way of a second opinion, I asked my two-year-old daughter if she liked "Dad's new 'stache". She said nothing, but handed me a light beer.

The reception at the Mustache weigh-in was warmer by far. Beer and camaraderie (but especially beer) go a long way to making you realize that, far from having made an appalling personal hygiene decision, growing a mustache is possibly the coolest and smartest thing you have done with your life up to this point. Not only do you not look like a Duke of Hazard, but your handsomeness is indeed amplified. You are Errol Flynn; you are Tom Selleck; you are Ernest Hemingway. You are your own man, a man of substance, wit, duty, and honor. If only such evenings were endless.

But the next morning, when I happened to catch myself in the mirror, I was alarmed. It was not Papa Hemingway who stared back, but my own father, from that brief period in the 1970s when my mother permitted his mustache, as he looks in the few photographs that survive of those, as my mother still describes them, "sad, dark months of our marriage."

Fortunately this genuinely unsettling feeling, this sense of being suddenly displaced in time or profession—I am (full disclosure) neither a state trooper, nor an antebellum gentleman of leisure—is quickly replaced by an overwhelming sense of power.

Because you see them look. As I walked around the halls at work that morning (April 1st, by the way—oh what cruel joke they must have thought I was playing!), I started to realize that people were noticing. No matter how they tried to hide it, you could detect recognition twitch across their faces: "Hey, something is new with Matt, did he get a hair—OMG, he has a mustache." And if you work as I do in a towering, repressive bastion of corporate American values, no one says anything, possibly because HR has a rule about how you can't comment on 'staches. So you feel the tension in their eyes as they struggle not to look at the 'stache, and the anxiety in their voice as they force themselves not to ask something like, "why… why, I just want to know why would you do that?"

But all this is really beside the point, or, rather, below it. My mustache is a commitment, a courageous stance against prevailing trends of fashion and good sense, and for me personally, evidently also a commitment to six weeks of celibacy. But importantly, this mustache growing is not some pointless, unavailing effort. It is in support of the noble causes championed by 826Michigan and writers everywhere. So when my smug colleagues smirk or comment, however wordlessly, on my 'stache, I calmly ask them why they hate children. Because ultimately that is what this mustache stands for: children. And thereby the future of our species.

-mjl

Week 2!

2008-03-31T23:48:00.001-04:00

Please support your local mustache farmers.

Our Heroes!

2008-03-28T13:14:00.000-04:00

Do you love 826michigan? Do you believe that every kid should have the chance to learn writing skills and improve their chances for a great future? Do you want to be part of making that possible? Of course you do! And so do the 20-odd mustache growers on our 2008 Mustache-A-Thon Roster. These guys are heroes! Check out their photos below and watch their staches grow between now and April 28. Donate to your favorite (or to each of them if you can’t decide).

You can read all about 826michigan on our website.

Or you can see one of our tutors in action here:

You can honor our amazing tutors and other volunteers and support our students by donating to these staches!

Week 1!

2008-03-25T16:16:00.000-04:00

Please support your local mustache farmers.

2008 Mustache-A-Thon: Son of Stache!

2008-03-21T15:08:00.000-04:00

They’re back! Mustaches. Soup strainers. Those hairy, itchy upper lips. After the big shave last April, most of the 2007 Mustache Farmers thought they’d never see another one.

After raising about $5000 in five weeks for the First Annual Mustache-A-Thon, we decided to press our luck by adding a week and trying for $10,000 this year. (The mathematicians in our writing lab figure that’s about a dollar per whisker.) Jay Howe and his mustache picked up a trophy from 826michigan Program Director Amy Sumerton last year.

This spring, every Monday, starting March 24, mustache farmers, supporters, friends and followers meet in Arbor Brewing Company’s Tap Room at 8:26 p.m. If you’re a grower, you get a free pint of delicious beer each week. You also get to spend about six weeks answering the questions, “Did you forget to shave?” and “Why are you growing a mustache?” It’s your perfect opportunity to tell your friends and family about 826michigan’s free writing programs for kids and ask for a donation to support the organization’s ongoing work.

We’ll wait until after Monday to reveal the full 2008 Grower Roster on this blog. If you want to join in, email amanda@826michigan.org.

And Now, a Few Words From Silverstache Award Winner and Volunteer Extraordinaire: Josh Fischel

2007-04-24T17:44:00.000-04:00

We were talking about this last night at ABC: the evolution of our mustaches in a social context. At first, we grew stubbly beards to hide our true purpose. When it became more obvious, after that first shave, we were subjected to (gentle?) ridicule from our friends. "I thought you were growing a mustache," some would tease. Jerks. I liked to imagine that my mustache would function much like that Play-Doh accessory that allowed you to extrude the dough through some strainer-type thing to make linguine or maybe spaghetti. But it didn't work like that. It took more patience.

The next stage was two weeks in or so, when I would walk down the street and nod to passers-by, as is my custom. Except that now, the return nod was usually interrupted by a double-take and a clouded expression. "What is that fellow with the mustache looking at me for?" I read that thought maybe a dozen times during my daily constitutionals. "I'm growing it for the children!" I wanted to call after them.

Finally - and this is the really interesting part to me - I started seeing mustaches where I had never noticed them before. These facial-haired fellows were now my closest peers, but it is unlikely that they were growing their mustaches for charity. This led me to wonder: how was the decision made? Do people - men - wake up one day, look in the mirror, and say, "Yup - time for a mustache"? Is it part of a kind of boring mid-life crisis? Is it suggested by a loved one? To cover a mole so people do not confuse you with Cindy Crawford? What is it that drives men to mustaches?

This is what I want to know - those who have chosen this lifestyle (is it even a choice???), I encourage you to comment - how did the mustache come about? And what does it mean?

Week 5!

2007-04-24T11:11:00.000-04:00

Please support your local mustache farmers.

WEEK 4: Weigh-In Wrap-Up/Volunteer Appreciation Love-In Jamboree

2007-04-18T12:59:00.000-04:00

Did Doug Henning have any idea how creepy he was?

Or, to pick a slightly-more culturally relevant D-list celebrity, how about Yanni?

Neither was ever accused of being overly fashionable, but their appearances beg the question: has there ever been a time when this wasn't an actively creepy look to cultivate??

Forgive me. I'm ahead of myself.

Monday night began WEEK 4 of the 826michigan Mustache-A-Thon. Once again, mustache farmers and well-wishers gathered at Arbor Brewing Company for documentation and camaraderie. Perhaps more importantly, the event doubled as a volunteer appreciation night honoring the hardworking and delightful people who help make 826michigan the amazing place that it is.

I claim no knowledge of your emotional landscape, dear reader, but I have insight into my own: I am a fellow who is usually slightly uncomfortable in his own skin. I'm self-aware in all of the worst ways, particularly when surrounded by strangers and casual acquaintances.

"They're noticing how stupid my hair looks," I think to myself. "They see that my pants are too short. They're noticing my yellowed tooth. My shoes don't match my belt. I'm ten pounds overweight, and I'm carrying all of it in my puffy, broken-out face. Also, I think I have a booger in my nose. God, I can hear it! It's a whistling booger! I'm a freak."

These are the thoughts that distract and dominate me while mingling. It's a personal failing, and an ironic one at that, considering how infrequently I notice when I've said something deeply offensive or unspeakably awful in mixed company.

Marvel then at my shift in attitude while in mixed company, as opposed to my time spent with 826ers:

When I am at a party, or a rock show, or waiting in line at the Secretary of State, I am surrounded by strangers with unknown and potentially nefarious agendas: "Is that guy going to spill his drink on me?" "Did that girl think I was hitting on her?" "Will this woman accept my library card as one of the secondary forms of identification required to obtain a fishing permit?" (yes, yes, no.)

Contrast that with a gathering of volunteers:

When you're in a room full of individuals who are inclined to freely donate their time and energy toward an organization like 826michigan, you are surrounded by goodness and decency. Volunteer nights are great boosts for flagging self-esteem, as it's difficult to feel bad about yourself while in such company. A quick glance around the room reveals extraordinary people from wall to wall: Teachers, tutors, techies, designers... all of them smart, driven and united in that they choose to involve themselves with something that they deem worthwhile and important. Time spent with them is time spent in a hug, a non-stop high five. (I slipped into metaphor there.) Volunteers! Huzzah!

That was my attitude on Monday evening: High spirits and good cheer! Then, just as I was feeling a little too self satisfied for associating with such fine citizens, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror of the bar. The sight shocked me straight back to self-loathing and revulsion as I marveled at the hairy behemoth nesting on my upper lip. It is loathsome and grotesque. It is my mustache, and I hate it.

Now, instead of seeming slightly uncomfortable in my own skin, I have the appearance of one who would probably be more comfortable in someone else's: The paperboy's. The mayor's. Jodi Foster's. I look like a sociopath. I am abhorrent. I look like Doug Henning.

We're entering the final days of the Mustache-A-Thon. Please consider joining us at our grand finale on Monday evening! Pledges will be tallied, awards handed out, and upper lips will --finally, mercifully-- be liberated from this hirsute nightmare.

Pledge Your Support! | Relive The Magic! | All About Yanni!