Williamsport Crosscutters

51

I rarely get perturbed by new words and phrases. While others lament that words like "twerk" and "selfie" are somehow destroying the English language, I see them as temporarily useful additions to the language that will probably be viewed as hopelessly dated in a few decades, in much the same way that we now view "groovy", "my bad", and "bitchin'". But once in a great while, some phrase will come along that is so phenemonally stupid that I can't help but comment. One such phrase now gaining currency is "peak beard". "Peak beard" is of course a riff on "peak oil", itself an odd term for the point where we reach the maximum level of how much oil we can pull out of the ground. (Surely we were at the maximum level of how much oil we could pull out of the ground before we pulled any of it out, weren't we?) The idea is that once we pass "peak oil", we'll have to get used to a world where there's less and less oil available. "Peak beard" is slightly different. At least, I assume it is; I don't think anyone believes we're going to run out of access to beards any time soon. Rather, "peak beard" is the point where men, after years of growing beards, collectively decide that they look better clean-shaven.

The phrase grates me on as couple of levels. First, unlike "twerk", I fail to see a need for a term to refer to the maximum moment of facial hair on men in Western countries. (Please note I'm only saying I see a need for a term to refer to the act of twerking, not that I see a need for the act of twerking itself.) Second, the structure of the phrase sounds like something that comes out of business jargon. If you're going to have a word for a concept as ridiculous as the moment when men in Western nations have the most facial hair, then the word should have an origin as ridiculous as the concept. Rather than sounding like business jargon, the word really should be one of those ludicrous-sounding German phrases-crammed-into-single-words, along the lines of Schadenfreude or Bezirksschornsteinfegermeister. I'm thinking AussehenZZTopmitgliedzeit would work. I would definitely prefer the media types who want to write articles about this concept use AussehenZZTopmitgliedzeit instead of "peak beard", if only because having to type AussehenZZTopmitgliedzeit over and over would make them think twice about writing the article in the first place.

Supposedly, the current trend towards really thick beards began somewhere around 2006, which coincidentally is around the time the Williamsport Crosscutters adopted their current logo. Their previous logo also featured a lumberjack, but that lumberjack only had a mustache. I'm not suggesting that the Crosscutters in any way started the current trend, but you do have to wonder if they didn't have some kind of insight into where we were heading as a culture. The amount of facial hair on their current lumberjack is astounding. Forget the beard for a moment, just check out those eyebrows! They don't look like eyebrows so much as bushy mustaches above the guy's eyes. His bizarre, open-too-wide eyes. I don't think you can properly get the effect on the little logo on this page, but go do a web search on the team's logo to see what I'm talking about. There is something very disturbing about this character. Those wide eyes and that subtle smile? This dude doesn't use his saw to cut down trees, people. In fact, you can look at his saw in the logo (which is also the word "CROSSCUTTERS") and see that the bottom half of the sawblade is red. That's not artistic license, people. That's blood. This guy is a psycho killer. And if he doesn't use a saw to cut you in half, he'll take the baseball bat in his right hand and beat you to a pulp. Or maybe he'll use the log in his left hand instead. Why is this guy holding a baseball bat in one hand and a log in the other? You know what? Don't answer that. Let's just back away slowly. No sudden movements. He's looking off to the side, so maybe he won't even notice until we're gone. That's it, friend. Keep backing away slowly. As long as we move slowly and he doesn't see us, there won't be any violence.

Did those eyes just move?

Fuck it. RUN!

Final Score: 51 points.
Penalties: Equipment, 13 pts; Diamond, 16 pts; Name, 10 pts; Logo, 12 pts.
Bonuses: None.