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Jedediah P. Aaker (born May 22, 1975) is a film extra in Portland, Oregon.[1] He is also the cofounder of the Portland Beardsmen.[2]
Career
Aaker was a background actor on several episodes of Portlandia and was described by Willamette Week as "that guy in underwear and a leather jacket,"[3][4][5] By season four, Aaker had appeared in almost two dozen of the 37 episodes then filmed.[2]
Additionally, he served as Kumail Nanjiani's assistant on webisodes of IFC's travelogue series Kumail Tours Portland.[6] When the series finished its eighth and final season in the spring of 2018, its network IFC estimated that the collective number of Aaker's various performances ranked below only co-founders Armisen and Carrie Brownstein.[7] He has worked as bartender for a failing club featured on the fourth season of Bar Rescue and as host of Barfly Bus Tours.[8][9][10]
Aaker has been involved with several NW rock bands playing bass.[11][4][12][13]
Aaker has been cultivating his beard for more than ten years.[14] He's become a notable figure in competitive bearding events, winning several freestyle awards, and can be seen in the first season of IFC series Whisker Wars.[15]
At the 2014 World Beard and Moustache Championships held inside Portland's Keller Auditorium, which hosted 300 contestants from ten countries, Aaker emerged as a fan favorite.[16][17] In 2012, Aaker helped found the Portland Beardsmen.[18] The nonprofit group raises funds for transportation to far-flung tournaments, and they also organize charitable efforts such as beard-wielded car washes.[19][20]
In a 2018 feature article titled "Twilight of the Hipsters", the French edition of Rolling Stone introduced Aaker as an "actor, concert booker, chauffeur for rock stars, and distributor of the Lucky Egg vending machines that he installs in bars."[14]
Portland Beardsmen
On the evening of August 28, 2012, Aaker was among 13 bearded men detained at gunpoint by officers from the Portland police on the Burnside Bridge during what the Oregonian termed "a military-themed photo shoot for breast cancer awareness."[21] After an unnamed observer's 911 call alerted authorities about suspicious characters wearing camouflaged body armor, both sides of the bridge were closed for nearly an hour as the police investigated the situation. Two men were taken into custody for disorderly conduct and carrying an (unloaded) AR-15 assault rifle through a public space.
According to KPTV News, the group was organized by Aaker to aid a national fundraising campaign entitled "Beards for Breast Cancer" that was assembling a calendar featuring pictures of boarding groups from around the country.[22] Since the Portland contingent was designated to appear alongside July, Aaker thought the resulting photo should feel especially patriotic, which led several of the beardsmen to don militaristic garb.[23][24]
