Month: January 2016

The Big Short

/ fearsomebeard / 7 Comments

The Fearsome movie disclaimer: We are NOT critics, professionals nor anywhere near movie literate and in no way claim to be.

Three movies, in a theatre in a month? That just doesn’t happen around here. The last time we saw three movies in a theatre in a year? A long, long time ago, so three in a month is a record. Fearsome and I actually went with The Better Half and our niece Adrianna who is a freshman up at UC Irvine and is down for the weekend. We went to the theatre I experienced The Peanuts Movie in. If you read that entry it was the one where a matinee was $16.50, but it’s the nicest theatre I’ve ever experienced and now there’s no turning back as far as I’m concerned.

Oh the movie? From the title of this post you guessed it, The Big Short. Good flick, academy award nomination is deserved.

However the story line…I felt dirty after watching it even in the cleanest cinema I’ve ever been in. Having lived that era as a Real Estate agent selling the very thing that was at the core of the housing debacle…houses. Now I wasn’t a banker nor a lender so I wasn’t selling the problem. I was selling the product that the Problem was used to purchase. The saving grace for me is that vast majority of my buyers were not using subprime loans to purchase. Thus the vast majority of my buyers stayed in their homes and didn’t foreclose. Yet I still felt dirty.

The big question that comes after the flick has finished is this: Did we as a culture learn from that? As a culture did we change the practices for the better? I recommend giving this flick a gander for a history lesson at the very least.

My favorite takeaway I can share from The Big Short  is a quote shown on the screen that went something like this: “Truth is like poetry,  most people fucking hate poetry.”….overheard in a bar off Wall Street.

Homeless LGBT youth

/ fearsomebeard / 8 Comments

Many LGBT youth from all walks of life find themselves rejected by their families. Some end up homeless just because they are different from what their families believe they should be. Many of those homeless youth end up on the streets of large cities.

The Ali Forney Center in New York feeds, houses, counsels and mentors youth from the streets of New York. Without the AFC many of these youth end up abused and lost in situations that most of us wouldn’t be able to even imagine.

Joe Jervis over at Joe.My.God posted earlier this evening that the Ali Forney Center has launched a capital campaign to buy a church on a prominent Harlem corner to house part of and expand its services. This church is particularly desirable to turn around the years of hate that have been spewed at the residents and youth of Harlem who just happen to be gay.

If helping homeless youth off the streets of New York and onto a path to a productive life as contributing members of an accepting society is something dear to your heart then click HERE to learn more. Yes …go ahead click HERE to make a donation. Click HERE to make a difference for someone who needs a hand up. Click HERE to send a message to a rejected youth that they are not rejected but accepted and loved. Click HERE and share on your blog or Facebook page to gain even more support from your circle.

Together we can trample hate from the past with love for tomorrow. Together we can do this. LET’S DO THIS!

We made our donation and would be honored for you to join us.

 

About that Beard

/ fearsomebeard / 5 Comments

Fearsome reminded me when I was reading an article that a dear blog buddy sent over that I haven’t posted a darn thing about beard care of recent. While we post plenty of Inspiration and Bearspiration, we ain’t been helping out with the actual beard care subjects of late.

The article that our BLOG BUDDY sent us can be found HERE. It’s a good read about a book appropriately named ‘Of Beards and Men’. I found it on both Amazon and iBooks and am deciding if I want electronic or traditional but definitely will be ordering it. Sounds as if it’s a good read. No worries as it will get a review once read.

To give us a push into the beard care posts, I turned yet again to you tube and found this short informative vid on one minute beard care. It comes from our friends over at Beard Brand. It’s worth the watch just for the Beardspiration of Jeff alone.

Fearsome gets a similar quick groom every morning. His emphasis of combing followed by brushing is key. The boar bristle brush is the best present I ever bought Fearsome. We add just a small amount of leave in conditioner just after the beard oil. We find the conditioner gives a light hold to keep Fearsome from getting too outta hand as the day progresses. We also spread the excess beard oils and conditioner onto our face, hair and neck for moisturizing.

Snowmaggedon 2016

/ fearsomebeard / 7 Comments

As the Mid-Atlantic into the North East gets hit with snow, the weather newscasters are falling all over themselves each trying to out-story the next. Fearsome is finding some of them quite humorous.

One certain one we caught by accident this morning was running around with a yardstick. She was holding up up talking about the copious amounts of snow on this park she was in. She took her time in selecting a spot she thought would be good for her most impressive reading and poked her yardstick into the described enormous snow bank. As I was noting that the snow she was standing it was not far above her ankles she exclaims “Oh, seven inches”. Her build up to this would lead you to think it was waist deep, but it was her exclamation that gave us Fearsome and I a chuckle. Her “Seven Inches” came out of her mouth in a way that seemed like while she was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t more, seven would do.

Ok you can imagine where my mind went. I bet yours would have gone there too.

If you are one of our readers that is a Snowmagedon 2016 victim, have fun and stay warm. If your one who’s not, have fun and stay warm!

Why get stuck?

/ fearsomebeard / 8 Comments

“In three words I can sum up everything about life. It goes on.”  …………….Robert Frost

(one of my favorite quotes, I’ve probably used it before and will probably use it again)

Change is constant.

Why get stuck on an event or a feeling and not let it go? It’s gone, it’s done, it’s over….and the world has moved on.

Take every opportunity to learn, grow, change, enlighten and live.

 

 

Beard of the day

/ fearsomebeard / 22 Comments
Fearsome Himself Fearsome had a big trim back in the fall for a corporate job interview. The one fluent alone would have netted him his average year;y income in one client. Unfortunately the news came yesterday that a developer was hired instead of a marketing agent.

Fearsome Himself Beard

Back in the fall Fearsome got a big trim. He lost six inches in length.

We had an interview with a corporate client for a rather large listing. The one client would have represented our average yearly income in one fell swoop. We got the call yesterday, we didn’t get the listing. We lost to a professional developer that is going to take the project over as the client decided that they didn’t want it any longer. We aren’t upset, it actually frees us up to move on to many more clients in our area of expertise, residential re-sales of high end homes. It also frees Fearsome to start growing again. We are very happy about that.

Living, blogging and commenting with compassion

/ fearsomebeard / 9 Comments

Yes Virginia the video is 22 minutes long. Yes Virginia it is worth your time.

Growing up the awkward, overweight, effeminate nerd of a boy I was led to the obvious bullying so prevalent among confused insecure children. I’m just glad that I grew up before the Internet. As hard as it was to deal with the bullies, at least it stopped when I closed myself into the safety of my room with my homework done on paper and out of books.

This TED talk is given by someone who knows first hand what internet bullying can do to a young insecure woman. Her message is one we can all use to remind us about good etiquette, respect of others and our ability as individuals to do good in the world. We can uplift our brothers and sisters rather than tear them down. In uplifting each other we only improve humanity.

She is not someone that I would have picked out to give me a message of inspiration and self growth. After watching this I will always give her my time. She has taken lemons and is making lemonade. Through this TED talk she is sharing her lemonade and not selling it to make a buck. I tip my hat and give Fearsome a stroke in her honor. Thanks Monica, well done.

Every time we are online we have the ability to make good comments, uplift others and share some love. I challenge myself to make at least 5 positive and uplifting comments a day on others blogs daily for one week, no matter how busy I am. Who wants to join me?

I can never leave

/ fearsomebeard / 11 Comments

My high school years and rural mountainous upbringing in the late 1970s means that a big part of my life soundtrack was The Eagles. I enjoyed them as they played on car radios and at parties I attended. I wasn’t a huge fan in that I couldn’t even name one of the members by name. In fact I didn’t know they were still alive, until one passed away a couple days ago.

This is not a memorial. This is an acknowledgement.

I write this post simply because I wish to honor the part of my life soundtrack that included The Eagles at this appropriate moment. I never truthfully understood the lyrics of Hotel California until I moved here. My interpretation morphed into the realization that they sing not of a woman or seductress in the human form. The seductress is the life that is the life as a Californian. A life that I came to know 25 years ago. A life that I was meant to live, enjoy, experience and express. After coming here I will never be able to go back to the place, nor am I the same person, I was before.

When I moved here 25 years ago, I came home without even realizing it. I was born a Californian in the wrong location. While The Eagles had many popular tunes, this one always intrigued me. I came to appreciate it fully once I finally drove the dark desert highway that led me to where I live today.

In 1994 The Eagles took what was a signature song of theirs to a new level. A higher level of beauty. I heard this version the first time sitting in a dark bar in the middle of the day with my best friend Clayton. We were in one of the most beautiful and pristine places in the world located just 24 miles off the coast of Newport Beach. We were on Catalina Island and had stopped into The Marlin Club for an afternoon cocktail. Clayton played it on the old jukebox. It was at that moment I realized that I could never leave.