How I Became a Beard

by Evan Rehill
First published in Kitchen Sink Magazine #8

I could tell you all about my first exposure to Leonard Cohen, nights when my father would sing 'Suzanne' for my brothers and I on an acoustic guitar he had kept since his days playing trumpet in the army funeral band. How that song, when I got older, seemed incredibly deep and dark to be singing to your young children. Or how an old roommate, Bobby, used to visit me from Seattle: Bobby, who had been institutionalized on and off and on for his entire life. Bobby, who when he wasn't shooting speed in the trees of Dolores Park or eating leftovers in Mission taquerias, would sing you any given Leonard Cohen song, dancing across my living room, his eyes rolled back into his head.

But no, those are different stories altogether, and they are not how I became a Beard. The first door I walked through toward Beardom came when I read Cohen's fantastic, oversexed masterpiece of a novel, Beautiful Losers. The book haunted me. Each time I have finished reading Beautiful Losers (three now), the world shifts in focus. I look out the window and the sky has turned itself inside out, and I want to walk out into the streets naked, armed with only a tambourine. I have experienced a similar reaction upon hearing Conspiracy of Beards, a 15-20 member all-male chorus who sing a cappella versions of Cohen's songs in three-part harmony. I knew right away that this was the next door to Beardom. I am Conspiracy of Beards' self-admitted biggest fan, but when I was asked to join the group, my heart broke in two. I had secretly wished the Beards had been my idea, and now I was faced with the dilemma of making a choice between joining in the song or keeping Cohen all to myself. I worried about how good I was with sharing.

Leonard Cohen is a Canadian writer and musician whose work first became popular in the mid-'60s. His popularity continues to this day. Peter Kadyk dreamed up Conspiracy of Beards a long time ago, and died at the age of 32, without ever seeing the group manifest. Peter's brother, Pat, is the closest survivor to the band's visionary. 'The idea was to get together a group of men who were our friends and sing Leonard Cohen songs,' Pat tells me, 'We were very into Cohen's music at the time.' This was in 1993, and the idea for a Cohen choir would continue to haunt the Kadyk brothers from then on. Pat uses the word 'we' almost exclusively when talking about his brother. He also refers to friends and family he has chosen to include in the group as 'Beards.'

I tell Pat that Conspiracy of Beards has been a door for me. We talk at length about the concept of doors. A door, I tell him, is a situation you walk into and come out the other side changed. Pat smiles while I explain this.

I have tried many times to convey my deep connection to Cohen's novel Beautiful Losers. There are masturbation scenes in speeding cars, lusting after a woman dead for over 300 years, and a strap-on dildo that crashes through windows and crawls out to the beach before diving into the ocean. I consider all of this part of Cohen's genius. I often wonder: Would Leonard Cohen appreciate the fact that I once stayed up all night on drugs in Seattle with my best friends and read them the entire 'constipation soliloquy' chapters from his novel? That I ruminated over one line for months'I cannot understand why my arm is not a lilac tree' because it seemed to sum up everything in my life?

Daryl Henline was a friend of Peter's with a lifelong experience in choir singing. He was the perfect man for the job of becoming the group's conductor/arranger, and in June of 2003, Peter's wife asked Daryl to bring Conspiracy of Beards together as a tribute for a show at the Lab in San Francisco.

'We only had a few weeks to learn this stuff, and I honestly almost didn't show up,' Daryl says, 'I mean I didn't think any of the Beards were going to show up. We hadn't sung the songs right until the day of that show. We all arrived at the Lab and warmed up, singing our songs right there on the sidewalk of 16th Street. And it worked. People stopped on the sidewalk to listen. Then we went inside and did the first Beards performance.'

The original nine members of the group were close friends of Peter Kadyk. At present, Conspiracy of Beards has twenty members, and the group is still growing. Peter named the group right after he dreamed up the concept.

Daryl recalls the night Peter told him the name: 'I had this vision of a Russian male choir cast with tall men wearing long beards, singing Leonard Cohen songs in deep voices.' (Incidentally, a current choir member, Jeff Anderson, fits this description almost perfectly.) 'My roommate was already in the Beards and they all came over to practice at my house. I was up in my room, stoned, singing 'The Girl from Ipinema.' I came downstairs and Daryl said, 'You should be in this group.' So I joined.' Three others, Malcolm, Greg and Jeremy (often referred to as 'the young kids') are big Cohen fans who asked to join the group after witnessing a Beards performance.

I was at the show that night, drinking steadily in a dark corner. Greg tells me, 'I thought you were in the group. You were wearing a tie and a hat.' The Beards' public performance get-up bears an uncanny resemblance to my own literary ensemble: dress shirts, ties, jackets and good hats. The group has an open-door policy to anyone who wants to participate. It is also a revolving door for Beards like myself, who crash practices and then disappear for months.

As far as we know, Leonard Cohen is still not aware of Conspiracy of Beards. When I first heard of the group, I thought, how perfect, how fitting, this homoerotic tribute to Cohen in the form of men literally singing his praises. Much of Beautiful Losers is unabashedly immersed in homoerotica. The novel's anonymous protagonist and his best friend (the novel's hero, known only as 'F.') spend as much time jerking one another off throughout the book as they do talking about the women they love and want to fuck. I try to explain this concept to Jeff Anderson, who likes the idea, and tells me in return, 'I think that there is a real dispossessed element of masculinity in this society. Masculinity has a negative connotation attached to it. And this group is a good, healthy, fun way of being communal with other men.'

I crashed a Conspiracy of Beards rehearsal during a San Francisco heatwave, in a dance studio on Valencia Street. There is something about choir singing that is unbelievably moving. I sang bass beside Jeff Anderson, and there were moments when all the voices became one voice, and I wasn't sure if I was even singing, the sound was so intense. Daryl tells me in complete seriousness, 'That kind of singing, it vibrates your heart, it really does.' At present, Conspiracy of Beards functions like a big family. There are multiple layers of reason for everyone's involvement: those who love Peter Kadyk, those who love Leonard Cohen, and those who love Conspiracy of Beards'or any combination of those three.

'As he sang each sound he saw it change and every change was a return and every return was a change.'
Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

While working on this piece, I receive a letter from Pat Kadyk, who writes, 'There's something real taking place here, something beyond what I've guessed and I think you may have gotten a closer glimpse even. I'm grateful.' Although I have only crashed one Beards practice to sing with the group, I still tell people I am in the band. And when I see these Beards at their shows, inevitably some of them will ask me, 'Where's your suit?' or 'When are you coming back?' And I tell them that I am wearing my suit, that I have never left.

As summer approaches, Conspiracy of Beards is doing its last few shows before taking a two-month break. Daryl is optimistic about the future of the group. He tells me about his plans to record the Beards, with all members standing in a circle, their arms around eachother's shoulders in an infinite embrace. He also has plans to create a 'choir camp' in the fall. The camp will include daily singing lessons, a library room of Cohen's writing for study, and the chance of a lifetime to experience what it really is to be a Beard. I tell Daryl to sign me up.

By the time Conspiracy of Beards gets back together, Daryl expects to be working on at least five new songs. He has encouraged others to take a stab at arrangements. The center is widening. I tell him that Scott Velardo and I have made plans to arrange my favorite Cohen song during the summer, and Daryl looks pleased. For me that is the next door. Imagine 8 or 20 or 10,000 beards singing the 'ah ah ah ah ah ah's' at the end of Cohen's 'One of Us Cannot Be Wrong,' and that last line where his voice breaks and the world comes undone. Consider the potential for us all if a faction of men in shirts and ties and good hats hit that broken note in unison, three- or six- or eight-part harmony of a crack in time, their arms stretched out like lilac trees, the song vibrating in our hearts.

Evan Rehill’s short fiction has been published by Watchword Press.