If growing a pitiful excuse for a beard will help raise money for prostate and testicular cancer research and treatment, then a pitiful beard I will grow!

The e-mail came in Monday from my General Manager. It was a forwarded message from a representative of Deaconess Hospital wanting to know if any of the DJ's in our building would be willing to participate in their annual "No-Shave November" event. Knowing full well that genetics are against me, but feeling that the cause trumped however awful this thing will look at the end of the month, I hit 'Reply All' and said, "My 8-year old son can grow a better beard than I can, but what the hell, I’ll give it a shot."

So here's the deal, I have never been able to grow decent facial hair. It comes in patchy and for whatever reason, its a few different colors (blond, brown, and a few specks of inexplicable red — no one in my family has red hair). This inability to be a man is not confined to just my face. My arms and legs are also, for the most part, barren. In high school, the running joke was that I shaved my legs.

Ryan O'Bryan Body Hair
Like the Sahara (Ryan O'Bryan / 106-1 KISS-FM)
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OK, maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself. As you can see (if you zoom in close enough), there is hair there, just not much. At the risk of disclosing T.M.I., I'm not exactly Ryan Lochte or Michael Phillips smooth as there is hair in places where God apparently decided it needed to be.

Ryan O'Bryan Chest Hair
Try to control yourself ladies. (Ryan O'Bryan / 106-1 KISS-FM)
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I come from a long line of hair-deficient men. My dad has never had any decent amount of facial or body hair, and on my mom's side, her dad was bald, and even her mom was thin on top. However, her brother has a mustache that he's had for as long as I can remember. My guess was that once he was able to get one to grow 30 years ago, he vowed to never shave it in the event it was fluke and wouldn't grow back.

To give you an idea of how pathetic this may turn out to be, I only shave about once every three to four days. Not really because I need to, more because I want to feel like some semblance of man. I did let it go a few years ago, only trimming around my neck and trying to shape it somewhat around my cheeks. Here's the result:

Ryan O'Bryan Beard
This took six weeks...seriously (Ryan O'Bryan / 106-1 KISS-FM)
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Fortunately it had been about three days since I last shaved when I got the e-mail so I'm not starting five days late. I'll be posting photos of my progress on a weekly basis beginning with this one.

Ryan O'Bryan - No Shave Week 1
5 days since my last shave. (Ryan O'Bryan / 106-1 KISS-FM)
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