Streets of gold

CAITLIN CURRAN — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:53:05 GMT

Who is that stashed man?
The mustache seems to be making a comeback — in the popular imagination if not on upper lips.

VIDEO: Caitlin Curran on her night out with Goldenstash

The mustache seems to be making a comeback — in the popular imagination if not on upper lips. In August, Radar magazine’s Web site ranked the world’s wealthiest mustachioed men. “The mustache has never been more out of favor,” they lamented, supplying a list of high-earning facial-hair heroes, such as Ted Turner and ’80s-era Nintendo icons Mario and Luigi.

On August 26, Britain’s Sunday Telegraph wrote about the American Mustache Institute’s uphill crusade to “restore well-tended facial hair to the noble status it enjoyed in the Seventies.” On the Institute’s own Web site, the AMI counsels men to “Stand up for yourself and let your mustache grow.”

Around Boston, one mysterious, epidemic figure boldly sports a prominent handlebar mustache as if it were his entire raison d’etre. Goldenstash, the Hanna Barbera–esque cartoon creation of a local street artist, has been popping up everywhere — most prolifically on the walls and street signs of Allston and Cambridge, though he’s been spotted downtown, and in Jamaica Plain.

Goldenstash most often decorates street signs and light poles where he’s depicted, on a sticker, as a black-and-white clip-art head— resembling a pimped-out Fred from Scooby-Doo — with a coruscating gilded ’stache and matching gold chain, emblazoned with the letters “GS.” Other times, his mustachioed profile’s shown rampant across a wallpaper-like grid of shrunken Goldenstashes, gift-wrapping the city’s utility boxes.

Sometimes, Goldenstash is shown full-figure and suited, seducing an adoring, scantily-clad female, or shirtless and reclining above the slogan READ MORE BOOKS. Occasionally, the icon is represented in absentia. A sticker plastered on a red Phoenix news-box shows only two long-haired beauties, with one saying via speak-bubble: “Sure! I’ll make out with you, but I’ll be thinking of Goldenstash.”

The Goldenstash presence also has a “ ’stash-only” incarnation — a well-placed golden mustache added to billboard figures or pre-existing street art. And following the Great Embarrassing Mooninite Mix-Up of 2007, Boston light poles became festooned with stickers featuring the words RELAX IT’S JUST A STICKER and a black Mooninite who had, naturally, a gold mustache.

He says he isn’t, but kinda is
So who is this comically seductive, unapologetically womanizing figure?

“I really want to make it clear that I’m not Goldenstash,” explains the local street artist and Goldenstash mastermind, who, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous.

We’d first corresponded by e‑mail. The first message I received read: “Thank you for your interest in Goldenstash. I will have one of my representatives contact you soon.” Next, said “representative” called me, which lead to a face-to-face at a Central Square coffee shop on a recent sweltering Saturday.

Scarlett's web

CAITLIN CURRAN — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 00:48:51 GMT

Photos: Hasty ladies plant piggie, Pudding Pot on 2007 Woman of the Year Scarlett Johansson

Midlake

CAITLIN CURRAN — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:26:17 GMT

The Trials of Van Occupanther | Bella Union
This foursome from Denton, Texas, met while studying jazz at the University of North Texas, but they went off in a totally different direction as Midlake.