One Brick Short

There is a small teapot tempest whirling about Charlottesville involving former City Councilor Rob Schilling, the rock-singing Republican who has taken to the airwaves at WINA-AM in a talk show that has—surprise, surprise,—generated talk. (The Schilling Show) The real question, however, wasn’t answered in the story or the interviews.

The question is, how do you describe Rob Schilling’s facial hair? It’s not a simple goatee like the one sported by Bob Denver as Maynard Krebs in the old “Dobie Gillis” television series. That would make him a kind, but fumbling, foil to a good friend who would pretty much do anything for you and then clean out your ‘fridge.

It’s not a full-fledged goatee like Duke’s devil, which would make him a heck of a basketball player but lousy on the gridiron. It’s not, technically, a Van Dyke or van Dyck—depending on how true to the original Dutch you want to be—with a moustache and chin-covered fur spot. Those were popular in the late 1700s along with colonialism and running roughshod over surfs and peasants.  Sure, that’s all very Republican, but somehow it just doesn’t match with Rob’s visage.

If it isn’t a van Dyck, neither is it a traditional soul-face, a moustache with soul patch, favored by so many of the literary elite.

Still, his combination of tightly trimmed moustache and racing stripe beard is not unheard of nor unseen.

The Daily Progress officially referred to it as the Col. Sanders look, which no doubt roasted his chicken.

Personally, I think it more closely resembles that of the late blues harmonica man Sonny Boy Williamson.

Considering Sonny Boy’s interesting past, (check out Wikipedia, unless you’re a student at UVa, in which case I’d use the library, just in case) I doubt that their paths, or even their ancestors, likely passed. Still, the facial fuzz does say something and it gives the otherwise clean-cut guy a touch of mystery and imagination. It hints that, quite possibly, he’s capable of behind the scenes bad-boy behavior.

Tune in tomorrow when we’ll discuss Mayor David Norris’s car…..