Meryl, Julia and the beards and Ben...

A few blogs ago I mentioned my oscar contenders, both men and women. There were enough men but only two possible female contenders; Bullock for Gravity and Kate Blanchette for Jasmine.

But as of today, a whole slew arose, and in one movie; The movie is August: Osage County.

And battling it out will be Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. Should be interesting. But that's only four women. Maybe Mary Steenburgen for the routine comedy Last Vegas but maybe someone else in the fall.

Then there are the beards;

I didn't really catch on to the male beard thing; was it Ben Afflec in Argo? All of a sudden a lot of young male actors have sported beards. Even my friend's son attempted to create a beard and since he's a millennial, I realized this must be "trending". I even noticed it today when I took my car in for an oil change and walked home. A millennial passed me on his trendy bike and he too had a beard.

Everything old is new again goes the saying.

Nobody seems to know where that saying came from, there are a few possibilities but nobody in particular except for Peter Allen, who was a famous Australian song writer back in the 80's.

So what's so new about beards?

It was a big thing back in the hairy 70's and even had me with a beard when I was working on a TV news film crew. Hard to believe I had that much hair. I don't really remember why I grew a beard, I think it was simply because I didn't want to shave and the TV station allowed me to grow one. Even my then-wife Brenda didn't mind it, calling me "Beardsley".

It once got me past some security people who were handling Jane Fonda who refused to

have an interview or photos from the media. It was mostly because I looked like most of the guys in her entourage.  And here's one of about 90 pics I took of her in appropriate anti-establishment clothes and that great hair from Klute. She was quite cooperative and very nice as they say. 

Another aspect of beards was skiing which offered the "frozen beard" which, at the top of the mountain was soft but by the bottom it was a forest of icicles and it burned against the skin.

So, beards are back. Although since I noticed it, the trenders are off to another trend by now.

Now that I've said a Monday blog, I can get to work. All of this was the final stalling before I start that screenplay.