The practice of Movember was started in 2003 by a group of burly Australians -- the manliest nationality, aside from American, if Steve Irwin was any indication -- who came up with the idea while drinking beers and shooting the shit about trends. One trend that had failed to make a real resurgence since its heyday in the '70s, they noted, was the mustache. So, as a joke, they got 450 people to grow mustaches and ended up raising $54,000 -- no chump change. Having experienced great success in that first year, they solidified the cause and it began to grow like so much hair in the region of the labii superioris, appearing stateside in 2006. If it were a mustache, the cause would now be Rollie fucking Fingers: Last year, it raised some $81 million.
But fundraising aside, according to Ro-Bro spokesman Aaron Brost, who's been doing the outreach for (and participating in) Movember for the last three years, the Movember campaign serves an even more important function: "I think the biggest thing I've noticed is that when you have mustache growth, it prompts people to ask the question -- why is that mustache on your face?" he says. "I get asked about it countless times throughout the month -- the mustache stands out. It starts the conversation. Being able to talk about things like prostate cancer and getting that yearly check-up we all need, that's a really powerful thing. Awareness is our priority number one, even if we don't raise a dollar."
Friends, raising awareness is what I do best, and while normally I'm primarily concerned with raising awareness of myself, this month I'm going to raise so much awareness of prostate cancer it's going to blow your fucking dick off. More awareness, in fact, than anyone else, a feat I will accomplish by growing the most awesome mustache the world has ever seen. First, though, I feel it's important to dispel a couple of popular myths about me:
1. That I was born with a mustache. I was not born, in fact, but rather rose fully formed on the Aegean coast from the seafoam-sperm of Poseidon, god of the ocean. I grew the mustache a short time later.
2. That the mustache is the source of my power. Unlike, say, Samson, who relied on his hair and was made weak like a little bitch when Delilah cut it, I am invulnerable to the various fluctuations of my hairstyling. I have no Achilles' heel. I also grow a better mustache than either Samson or Achilles.
As a gesture of fairness, I have leveled the playing field by shearing my lips clean on this first day of Movember. True, my mustache will have fully regrown roughly three hours from now, but I can't help it if I'm genetically superior at producing mustachios. What's important is that people are going to be aware as hell.And you can join me this evening in wiping the slate clean, so to speak, this evening, at the Denver Movember Shave-Off Party from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Rackhouse Pub. Because even though you're doomed to fail in the face of my unbelievably mustache-adorned face, if you can raise even a little awareness, it's not a futile gesture. In fact, it's a proud one.
In the meantime, I'll talk to one venerable institution of mustachioedness each week this month and keep you updated on my facial hair's progress, so stay tuned!
