"Occupy the upper lip! Occupy the upper lip!"
One day prior to the charitable Stache Bash 2011, those chants will be heard in the lip sweater-rich confines of Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood. Staff members of the American Mustache Institute, members of Chicago music act The Flavor Savers, and Mustached Americans will march to promote greater professional opportunities for people of Mustached American heritage across Chicago.
The protest march will take place from 6-7 p.m. at the corner of Milwaukee and North Avenues in Wicker Park on Thursday, October 27. It occurs as Mustached Americans from across the U.S. and Delaware descend upon Chicago for the American Mustache Institute's Stache Bash 2011 on Oct. 28 at Joe's Bar, a charitable benefit kicking off the Movember moustache growing campaign raising funds and awareness for The Prostate Cancer Foundation and LiveStrong.
"It's an atrocity that just two of the 25 highest paid CEOs are Mustached Americans and it's time our voices were heard and mustaches fully savored," said Kissimmee, Fla.-firefighter Brian Sheets, the reigning Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year. "What better place to do it than Wicker Park, where Mustached American hipsters run wild in their scarves and skinny jeans?"
Chicago was recently named "America's Most Mustache-Friendly City" by the American Mustache Institute. And despite that, employment rates for Mustached Americans in white-collar professions still lags behind clean-shaven workers by 38 percent. The number nearly doubles to a 69 percent deficit when the Mustached American suffers from dwarfism.
"Yes we are winning battles, but the war is not nearly over," AMI chairman Dr. Aaron Perlut and Rodney BelAire of The Flavor Savers sang in unison while riding a Brown Line train Monday. "We welcome Mustached Americans and sufferers of Bare Upper Lip Disorder (BULD) alike to demonstrate with us in Wicker Park and set a militant yet sexy tenor for 'Stache Bash Friday night."