• The first is that hundreds of thousands of West Virginians are currently suffering the effects of a massive chemical spill that has proven to be the most hazardous environmental crisis in the United States since the BP Gulf Oil Disaster, and that this crisis has garnered a collective “meh”, from the national news media who prefer to spend their time speculating about who’s running for President in 2016 and what specific drugs Jacqueline Bisset was on during her Golden Globes acceptance speech.

• The second is that I cannot grow a proper beard to save my life.

Now, to the untrained eye, it would seem as though these two things have absolutely nothing in common. On the one hand, you have an environmental disaster wherein up to 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane, a chemical used by coal companies in washing off all of the waste particles that cling to newly mined coal, was leaked into the Elk River, almost immediately tainting the water supply of about 300,000 West Virginians in and around Charleston. On the other, you have a genetic makeup that does not allow me to grow a full, lush, Grizzly Adams type beard, but rather, a patchy, vaguely post-pubescent facial abomination that looks like a Chia Pet that hasn’t been watered properly. And, up until today, that untrained eye would have been right in thinking these facts to be unrelated…but not anymore. Because today is the start of the:

First Inaugural Mountaineer Bad Beard-Off for Clean Water

I, ANDREW CHARLES GIBSON, AM GROWING A BEARD! A HIDEOUS, SCRABBLY, PATCHY BEARD FOR THE PEOPLE OF WEST VIRGINIA!

(http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-1st-inaugural-mountaineer-bad-beard-off-for-clean-water/x/6139230#share)

“What is the First Inaugural Mountaineer Bad Beard-Off?”, you conveniently and theoretically ask.

Well! It is an epic battle betwixt man and nature, in which I don’t shave for 30 days and post pictures of how ridiculous and unfortunate I look in exchange for your hard earned Samolians, which will then go to The West Virginia Clean Water Hub (https://www.facebook.com/WVCleanWaterHub) and the Keeper of the Mountains Foundation (http://www.mountainkeeper.org/), who will then use that money to buy for thousands of West Virginia residents such essentials as:

• Bottled Water
• Hand Sanitizer
• Gallons of Drinking and Spring Water
• Disinfecting Wipes
• Did I mention that they need water?

Right now, even after the West Virginia American Water Company and West Virginia State Officials have removed do-not-use orders on the areas affected by the spill, the water supply is still causing harmful side effects such as nausea and skin irritation, and the lack of research on 4-methylcyclohexane means that we have no idea what the long term and teratogenic effects of these chemicals are.

So, my fellow Americans, support your brothers and sisters in West Virginia by supporting the slow disappearance of anything remotely approaching attractiveness on my face by giving money in proportion to the amount of unsightly facial hair I am able to grow.

What will you get for your support, I mean besides the satisfaction of knowing that you have provided the most vital element of life to people in need of charitable assistance?

Well, for starters, you will get daily updates of my progress (or regress, depending on your point of view) on my long journey to bearddom, most of which can be found at this site and on my blog (www.virallysuppressed.com). You will also receive updates on the situation on the ground in West Virginia, including a chance to see exactly where and who your generous donations are going to help.

My own little vigil for those without water in West Virginia AND my last day as a clean shaven man…at least for the next month.

Oh, and for those of you donate enough to make the 1st Inaugural Club for Mountaineer Bad Beard-Off for Clean Water Badasses, which I may have just now made up, you can receive any number of bizarre prizes that range from old daguerreotype photos with creepy inscriptions on the back of them to a tour of Kayford Mountain, the epicenter of environmental activism against Mountaintop Removal Mining in West Virginia.

So, what are you waiting for? Come on down to the First Inaugural Mountaineer Bad Beard-Off For Clean Water webpage at (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-1st-inaugural-mountaineer-bad-beard-off-for-clean-water/x/6139230#share) and help in whatever way you can.

Categories: Environmental News, Fundraising, Social Justice

Tags: 4-Methylcyclohexane, beards, Coal, Crude MCMH, donations, Earl Ray Tomblin, Environment, Freedom Industries, fundraiser, indiegogo.com, Keeper of The Mountains FOundation, MCMH, Water Rights, West Virginia, West Virginia Clean Water Hub, West Virginia Water Crisis