This recipe is from one of my buddy, Evin.
4 bottles of red wine
2 litres of Ginger Ale
8 oz vodka
8 oz rum
4 oz Grande Marnier
2 cinnimin sticks
You can add some sugar. But I left that out because I add peaches later.
Add all of the above and then let chill/set overnight (24hrs).Before serving: take out sticks. Add fresh fruit.I like sliced peaches frozen in sugar water and then broken/chopped just before adding. Also fresh sliced apples, oranges and frozen blue berries.
This blog has moved to Wordpress. I’m an environmentally conscious writer/hairdresser with a heart. I may write fiction, non-fiction, and anything my clients talk about. Read my eBook novels, Mafia Hairdresser, and, The Glow Stick Gods or I'll cut you! MafiaHairdresser.com Watch for my non-fiction humor eBook, "50 Days of 50," and my How-To book: "Social Media for Stylists, Salons & Spas."
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Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Brunettes Save Money between Color Appointments
I know I’m going to get flak from my own profession for telling you this. All of us hairdresser’s know that the client cannot color their hair at home and get “salon results.” Celebrities hocking the at-home color kits wouldn’t even dream of using the products they are getting paid big bucks to tout without their own hairdresser, at least, applying the hair color to them. But I’m going to tell you that, sometimes, it’s going to be beneficial, economic, and even professional to recommend that a client use an at-home color. You’re just not going to buy it in the grocery store. You’re going to get it at a beauty supply store, and you might even get the blessing of your hairdresser. I’ll try and convince your stylist with my words that you will be doing both of you a favor and that color touch-ups at home are part of keeping you happy as a client.
There is the new normal in the hair business. It doesn’t matter how rich or what economic bracket our clients are in, they do not book ahead like they used to. Of course, this is due to the economy. Every business is feeling the new norm there; the average sales being down 10%- to 30%. Another reason that clients don’t book ahead is that a lot of regular color clients are also of the age and income that they are having kids. The old axiom has applied here, when there is a recession, people have more kids. And kid's schedules make clients walk around with "roots" a lot longer than before the little time-usurpers arrived.
In the salon where I work, there is another added reason that our clients can go longer between visits. We use new color lines that don’t fade and they keep their shine. [They have no PPD’s and are low-ammonia which keeps the integrity of the hair: better for your body & the environment. But that’s another article.] One of the major reasons people rush back into the salon to get there hair re-colored is the fact that older hair color lines have a shine shelf-life and will fade. Old colors used to get dull, and get lighter and warmer. Old colors always a huge contrast in the 4 to 6 weeks between the new growth and the colored hair. But now, if the hair color doesn’t fade and it is still shiny, clients can get a few more weeks of growth and they do not have to revisit us as much as they used to. Good for them.
Now, let’s us imagine, Ms. Brunette. She’s working and has two small kids and a husband who used to work for the banking industry, but now Ms. Brunette's husband has been laid off. Ms. Brunette has been coming to me for ten years. I did her hair for her wedding and I do her husbands hair and I’ve even started doing the kids hair. Ms. Brunette feels that her hair makes her sexy and that her salon-colored hair gives her the mojo and youthful appearance to be competitive at work. But, she’s not stupid; she’s got a family and responsibilities. In the coming year, she’s got to tighten up her Prada belt. In fact, she stopped buying Prada when she got married and she’s been buying Banana Republic accessories. So now she’s bummed because she thinks she’s not going to be able to buy any new belts in the near future at all.
Ms. Brunette has brown hair with about 20% gray. Unless she gets more gray, say, 40% to 50%, she’s going to want to stay brunette. I would probably give her some lighter gold or caramel highlights where the gray was poking out, and then color the rest a rich brown. The highlight will distract the eye from incoming gray and soften a solid brown color. But after she leaves the salon, that gray hair starts screaming look-at-me! - around week three. So, is Ms. Brunette going to come in again in three weeks? Good for me.
The new norm for me is to tell Ms. Brunette to walk down to the corner beauty supply after her salon appointment. I tell her to buy a 3 oz. bottle of hair color. A color that is in-between the high-light color and the brown color that I’ve just put into her hair. I tell her to also buy a bottle of 20 volume peroxide that goes with that color line. (usually comes in 8 oz. or more) The last thing that I want to her to pick up is a bag of disposable mascara wands.
Note:The added benefit from buying products from the beauty supply is that you are buying more product for less. You are not paying for wasteful mark-up and packaging.
And this is how I tell her how I want her to use the products at home: at week 2 or 3 or 4… pour a quarter sized portion of each the peroxide and the hair color into a bowl. Fine china is fine. The color won’t hurt ceramic, porcelain or glass. Then cap both of the bottles for future use.
Mix the two products in the bowl with one disposable mascara wand and then apply to those cursed aging grays that seem to want to poke out in the part and around the face. Don’t worry, this is not an exact science here. You will overlap a little on my highlights and browns. But just try to do only the grays. The color quality will not be as good as my hair color application but you’ll be in soon enough to get the better quality color. The eye won't be able to tell.
Now, if you are doing this in the morning before work or at night, let it sit on the hair for, at least, fifteen to thirty minutes. The hair colors that I recommend are never progressive. They just color the hair to the level I chose and then they stop and become impotent. Leaving it on past the time will not fry your hair. Leaving it on under 30 minutes just means that the color might not be as full-coverage as it could be – but it will stain the gray. And just remember to jump in the shower after, at least, fifteen minutes, and don’t get it in your eyes when you are shampooing it out. Please use professional shampoo from your salon! It will neutralize and keep the color from fading.
Ms. Brunette can do this again the next week and in two more weeks, up until the grays from the sides and crown really start singing. So, I’d say, she could probably visit the salon every 8 to 10 weeks now, like the blondes.
And what about blondes? What about red heads? Well, I really only recommend this for the brunettes because they have such a contrast between the gray and the browns. It’s such an economic and time hardship to try and keep on top of their hair color. I know I would loose my some of my brunettes to the box colors in the grocery stores if I didn’t share this information with them. They’d still come in for haircuts, but I’d probably get blamed for her color not being as beautiful as it had been and someone’s going to know that short cuts were taken. But blondes could do the same trick. And so could redheads. The only difference is that I cannot give you a general formula to buy like I can for brunettes unless I’ve seen your hair personally. Some blondes come out too warm if you use a level of color without added ash in it. And some red heads are blue-red or orange-red. Only your own stylist could tell you the exact touch-up colors to use between colors. Sorry. I’m still a hairdresser. But I do want to keep your business and I know that these are tough times. I truly believe that we are in this together and I hope this information helps a few people.
I blog about the same things that I talk to my clients about. Martini's/Tips/Life/Hair.
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
There is the new normal in the hair business. It doesn’t matter how rich or what economic bracket our clients are in, they do not book ahead like they used to. Of course, this is due to the economy. Every business is feeling the new norm there; the average sales being down 10%- to 30%. Another reason that clients don’t book ahead is that a lot of regular color clients are also of the age and income that they are having kids. The old axiom has applied here, when there is a recession, people have more kids. And kid's schedules make clients walk around with "roots" a lot longer than before the little time-usurpers arrived.
In the salon where I work, there is another added reason that our clients can go longer between visits. We use new color lines that don’t fade and they keep their shine. [They have no PPD’s and are low-ammonia which keeps the integrity of the hair: better for your body & the environment. But that’s another article.] One of the major reasons people rush back into the salon to get there hair re-colored is the fact that older hair color lines have a shine shelf-life and will fade. Old colors used to get dull, and get lighter and warmer. Old colors always a huge contrast in the 4 to 6 weeks between the new growth and the colored hair. But now, if the hair color doesn’t fade and it is still shiny, clients can get a few more weeks of growth and they do not have to revisit us as much as they used to. Good for them.
Now, let’s us imagine, Ms. Brunette. She’s working and has two small kids and a husband who used to work for the banking industry, but now Ms. Brunette's husband has been laid off. Ms. Brunette has been coming to me for ten years. I did her hair for her wedding and I do her husbands hair and I’ve even started doing the kids hair. Ms. Brunette feels that her hair makes her sexy and that her salon-colored hair gives her the mojo and youthful appearance to be competitive at work. But, she’s not stupid; she’s got a family and responsibilities. In the coming year, she’s got to tighten up her Prada belt. In fact, she stopped buying Prada when she got married and she’s been buying Banana Republic accessories. So now she’s bummed because she thinks she’s not going to be able to buy any new belts in the near future at all.
Ms. Brunette has brown hair with about 20% gray. Unless she gets more gray, say, 40% to 50%, she’s going to want to stay brunette. I would probably give her some lighter gold or caramel highlights where the gray was poking out, and then color the rest a rich brown. The highlight will distract the eye from incoming gray and soften a solid brown color. But after she leaves the salon, that gray hair starts screaming look-at-me! - around week three. So, is Ms. Brunette going to come in again in three weeks? Good for me.
The new norm for me is to tell Ms. Brunette to walk down to the corner beauty supply after her salon appointment. I tell her to buy a 3 oz. bottle of hair color. A color that is in-between the high-light color and the brown color that I’ve just put into her hair. I tell her to also buy a bottle of 20 volume peroxide that goes with that color line. (usually comes in 8 oz. or more) The last thing that I want to her to pick up is a bag of disposable mascara wands.
Note:The added benefit from buying products from the beauty supply is that you are buying more product for less. You are not paying for wasteful mark-up and packaging.
And this is how I tell her how I want her to use the products at home: at week 2 or 3 or 4… pour a quarter sized portion of each the peroxide and the hair color into a bowl. Fine china is fine. The color won’t hurt ceramic, porcelain or glass. Then cap both of the bottles for future use.
Mix the two products in the bowl with one disposable mascara wand and then apply to those cursed aging grays that seem to want to poke out in the part and around the face. Don’t worry, this is not an exact science here. You will overlap a little on my highlights and browns. But just try to do only the grays. The color quality will not be as good as my hair color application but you’ll be in soon enough to get the better quality color. The eye won't be able to tell.
Now, if you are doing this in the morning before work or at night, let it sit on the hair for, at least, fifteen to thirty minutes. The hair colors that I recommend are never progressive. They just color the hair to the level I chose and then they stop and become impotent. Leaving it on past the time will not fry your hair. Leaving it on under 30 minutes just means that the color might not be as full-coverage as it could be – but it will stain the gray. And just remember to jump in the shower after, at least, fifteen minutes, and don’t get it in your eyes when you are shampooing it out. Please use professional shampoo from your salon! It will neutralize and keep the color from fading.
Ms. Brunette can do this again the next week and in two more weeks, up until the grays from the sides and crown really start singing. So, I’d say, she could probably visit the salon every 8 to 10 weeks now, like the blondes.
And what about blondes? What about red heads? Well, I really only recommend this for the brunettes because they have such a contrast between the gray and the browns. It’s such an economic and time hardship to try and keep on top of their hair color. I know I would loose my some of my brunettes to the box colors in the grocery stores if I didn’t share this information with them. They’d still come in for haircuts, but I’d probably get blamed for her color not being as beautiful as it had been and someone’s going to know that short cuts were taken. But blondes could do the same trick. And so could redheads. The only difference is that I cannot give you a general formula to buy like I can for brunettes unless I’ve seen your hair personally. Some blondes come out too warm if you use a level of color without added ash in it. And some red heads are blue-red or orange-red. Only your own stylist could tell you the exact touch-up colors to use between colors. Sorry. I’m still a hairdresser. But I do want to keep your business and I know that these are tough times. I truly believe that we are in this together and I hope this information helps a few people.
I blog about the same things that I talk to my clients about. Martini's/Tips/Life/Hair.
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
My dog, Daughter
My dog had me. Completely. As long as she needed me. She had me as soon as I parked and got off my motorcycle at the City of Long Beach Animal Shelter on a lunch hour. Once inside I could have been the Grinch with a millimeter-sized heart. But when I saw her pleading jet browns begging me to let her out of her doggy jail cell, my heart grew in my chest and it sprouted wings. At that moment, I vowed to take care of her forever or the rest of her life.
Leslie, a fervent dog lover and the owner of the salon I had been working at, knew that I was only beginning to entertain the thought of getting a dog myself. Thinking she was going to ask me to take one her more taxing clients that day, she instead came at me on the stylist floor and handed me a handwritten piece of paper that had a code number on it. I’ll never forget it. SW30. Leslie had been secretly keeping her eye out for me. And she watched The Pet Place, a Long Beach cable-access program that showcased adoptable dogs and cats from the local shelter. “Go there on your lunch break,” Leslie commanded, “instead of getting skin cancer.” Leslie was not only the sweetest of animal lovers, she was also very motherly to me and the rest of the staff. She didn’t like me taking my lunch hours and tanning my skin at the beach, which happened to be only a few blocks away from her salon. SW30 was the code to the dog at the pound that Leslie wanted me to check out.
I did not expect to take my dog home that day. I told her that it was just a look-see to appease Mama Leslie. I hadn’t even warned my new roommate that I was even thinking about getting a dog. As the female dog-warden escorted me down a long aisle in the dog prison, I kept my chin and eyes up. I knew enough not to look at any of the dogs that yipped for my attention from the insides of their six foot high chain link fence cages. If I saw too many of their pleading puppy and doggy faces I’m not sure I would have come home with only one special dog.
Luckily, the numbers were affixed to the outside of the cages, just above eye level. I could count down to the number code that matched the mutt that Leslie wanted me to see. Taking a breath, I abruptly stopped a few feet in front of the cage with the engraved metal plate that was stamped 30 in the Southwest building of the pound. Taking a deep breath, I let my eyes scrape down the chain links to look at, for the very first time, my little terrier-mix, Daughter. She certainly wasn’t a purebred, but she was very pretty. She had evenly curled light multi-colored fur that looked soft instead of course, like a pure-bred. A blonde Toto, is how people used to describe her. In her cage she was silent, which was the opposite of all the other dogs. But the veil of her dog bangs let me see more than enough of her beseeching, hypnotic brown eyes that looked like they were lined with mascara. She reminded me of one of those Life magazine photographs of a hungry orphan of war in the devastated streets was a war-torn country.
“You have to be mine,” this dog was saying to me with her eyes. “You have to be mine because I don’t think that I can take it in here anymore. I have been through so much – you don’t want to know. If you don’t take me out of here, I will not live another day. I just know it.”
She looked directly at me and paid no mind to the dog-warden who was at my side as if she knew the woman was useless to her on the subject of her release.
I choked on my breath and did an immediate about-face. I suppressed only my visible tears from the dog-warden who had to follow me quickly. Walk-running back to the main office house, I informed her, “I’ll take that dog.”
“I’m so glad,” the dog-warden-woman said, not a bit surprised. “That little dog seemed to smile as you ran away. Like she knew you were going to sign these papers.”
“She’s a little dirty now,” I sniffed. “But her fur looks so pretty that after I condition it with a little bit of Nexxus and style her she’ll be the Veronica Lake of dogs.” I always babble when I’m emotional or drunk.
“She’s intelligent too,” the dog-warden said. “But people seem to want the more playful, loud dogs.” Behind a counter, she began shuffling papers and then guiding my hand around a pen and made me sign things. (I couldn’t see clearly because there was a film of happy love-tears in my eyes.) “And, you’re in luck. She has had all of her shots so you can take her home right now.”
“Oh,” I said, astonished and apprehensively happy at the same time. “I thought you had to, you know, get her fixed or something. Aren’t there some kind of adoption papers I have to fill out?”
“You just filled them out.”
It all happened so fast. No time to think. No time to tell my roommate that we had a dog.
“This dog has already been spayed,” she informed me. “We do that for all the dogs on The Pet Place. But you’ll have to take her today because this is her last day here. You understand.”
“Why is it her last day?” I asked, thinking that I was going to have to try and outbid someone else. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s been here for awhile…” She bounced her head back, from side to side. “She hasn’t been adopted so …”
“Because people want the loud stupid dogs?”
Dog-warden shrugged.
“Can I pick her up after work? I get off at seven.”
“We close at five. After that …” Her head bobble-headed again.
At first I was appalled and I took personal offence. My dog was on The Pet Place, for god’s sake, and there wasn’t a line of people to adopt her? The whole world must have been stupid, because they wanted loud stupid dogs.
And yet there was something else that needed to be brought up.
“But, I’m on a motorcycle,” I said. “And I’m only on my lunch break.”
“Ok then …” Left to right… Then right to left – went the warden’s head.
After I screamed for her to get my dog, the dog-warden brought her to me, with a complimentary rope to use for a leash. The rope slipped off of the dog’s neck just as I began to lead her out the office. But she did not run off. In fact, she had paid no mind to the temporary leash when it was on her. She stayed well-heeled by me all the way to my parked motorcycle in the parking lot. A stupid dog would have run off. But not my smart dog. My dog knew she was coming home to the best home in the world and that we’d be the best pals and live together forever. We both just knew. We were fated for each other. It was the perfect time in my life for a dog. This dog. I had had my last break-up with my high school sweetheart and we had been together for eight wonderful turned sour years.
“What do you think?” I asked her, as we stood looking at my motorcycle.
She looked me, like the situation was pretty self explanatory. Duh, she said.
I picked her up and put her in one of my saddle bags and zipped her up to her neck. Of course, she was a perfect fit. And she rode back with me to the salon with her nose to the wind and a flapping tongue that hung from her smug-mug smile. We looked at each other many times while waiting at stop lights or at left-hand turns. We noticed pedestrians, bike riders, and drivers and passengers alike that looked at us. They all smiled at the new dog owner taking his dog for her first ride home on a motorcycle.
I named her Daughter, after the dog of the man who mentored me in the hair biz. His toy poodle, Daughter, had passed away of old age only a few months earlier. My friend was more than touched when I asked him if I could make my dog his dog’s namesake. And, like a mother, Brooke was happy that I was going to have unconditional love for a very long time.
Daughter never became a clingy lapdog and she never licked my hand or used a leash. She never had to beg me for another thing after that day I adopted her. With only a simple look or a long patient and demanding stare, she has conveyed to me whether it was time to go outside for a walk-and-sniff. Or that she just would appreciate a rub on the bum as well as to tell me how she didn’t appreciate me leaving her too long whenever I got home too late from work. Most dogs were a little more forward and vulgar. They used their paws or barked their needs or defecated. But not Daughter. Without a scratch or a whine, Daughter has been able to assure me that a piece of chicken off of my plate would not upset her stomach at all. Maybe all terriers were like that, sophisticated. Ever since she begged me with all her soul from the inside of that doggy jail, I have been able to understand her like I will never understand people.
Our friendship has been more than a fair relationship and we would be companions for as long as her life would allow. I accepted the awful responsibility of alleviating any suffering that Daughter might ever have to go through. I had minor practice many times over the many years; taking her to the dreaded doctor to get a tooth pulled or get treated for a parasite or get stitches as a result from an imprudent scuffle with a German Shepard. She always sat still while I blow dried her fluffy fur near a sunny window after a bath. She’s was mine. I was hers.
I don’t think anyone can trust people who don’t like dogs—especially my dog. My dog used her eyes to speak and I know that can be very intimidating, like she was looking into your soul. But, if you didn’t got nothin’ to hide, then you didn’t have nothin’ to worry about. Being a dog person made me a better person.
My last human love-relationship did not make me a better person. In some ways it made me bitter – for a long time. And Daughter went through those two years with me. Oh, not patiently. She let me know that he was not so good for me. And I should have known that the relationship was doomed when I moved in with him to Canada, where he lived, and he suddenly informed me that he was allergic to her and she had to sleep at night in the hallway, and not at the foot of the bed, which had been her place for the last fifteen of her eighteen and a half years.
To give my lover some credit, he simply didn’t know how to have a real pet and was afraid of Daughter and her soulful eyes. According to his growing up, animals only communicated by bleating, barking, mooing and oinking to convey they were uncomfortable, hungry or acknowledging his presence. He grew up on a farm. If Daughter acknowledged him at all, she would just stare at him as if she couldn’t believe her own eyes that he could have put on such a tragic outfit combination. Or maybe she was asking him, “So, you’re leaving when?” It didn’t help that he kept trying to win her over by talking baby talk to her or bringing her treats like the ones from Canada that were actually made in moose shapes. She didn’t eat anything he bought for her.
“That’s the way terriers are,” I kept trying to tell him. “They’re smart and finicky. Just don’t talk baby talk to her. She knows what you’re saying.”
“She’s a dog,” he would say. “She’s a spoiled city dog who doesn’t like dog food.” It was like talking to a tree. He continued to talk baby talk to her and kept trying to feed her moose-shaped things.
“She’s an American and only eats things that look processed like Jerky Treats, and Puperoni’s, and Science Diet,” I argued. “She’s never even seen a moose to know if she even wanted to taste one.”
“I suppose she told you that?”
Well, neither of us Americans in the room had to say anything. He could see it in mine and Daughter’s eyes. Of course she could talk. Duh. And she continually communicated to us both that she had no use for him.
After my latest break-up and a return to my latest home-city, Chicago, we had the best three years of Daughter’s life. I had felt so guilty that I dragged her though that last relationship that I promised her that I would take her to the dog park by my new apartment, rain, snow or sun-shine for one hour a day until the day she died. And as she grew older, she became more socialized, more secure and came into her own person, if you will. She had old dog friends and she taught young dogs and new dogs how to play and behave in the park. She was like the sweet and firm granny that everyone loved to see yet everyone knew they couldn’t get away with anything in front of. Everyone loved Daughter and she attracted so many new friends to me as well. These people were my new posse. The dog-people who listened to the story of my break-up and patiently watched me heal.
Those three and a half years were the best of her life. She was the life of the party and the center of my universe and she was certainly the most popular girl in the park. On the last day of her life she woke with a little bit of arthritic pain. I had already made an appointment with her vet to drive up at 3 p.m. to just talk about pain meds for her. I did not plan to take her because she had not been suffering from pain very much, she just had a few rusty days, every once in a while.
When she wet the carpet that morning, she knew I wouldn’t scold, but she just looked at me, as if to say, “Really? Is this what getting old is all about?” She looked mad and I could tell that she wanted nothing to do with this age thing anymore.
That was the first and only day that I carried her to the park across the street. We were an hour early for our regular 8 to 9 a.m. peeps. But we got to see the 7 to 9ers. We loved them too. Daughter didn’t run and play, but she just stood on all fours, while all the other dogs came up to sniff noses with her as they always did, to pay their respects to granny. She stood there for the entire hour and it was so amazing to see the reactions of the other dogs. They said hello and then their heads went down and then they walked away.
One of the 7 to 8 a.m. people had tears in her eyes and said, “Is she saying goodbye?”
“I think so,” I said. I had never seen anything like it.
By the time our 8 to 9 regulars began to trickle in, Daughter just splooge-plopped onto the pavement. She had been standing and receiving for a full hour. I scooped her up and held her in my arms like a baby. As she let her head lull over my arm, for the next hour, she said her goodbyes to her very good dog friends from her human cradle and I comforted my friends with my words and kind smiles. They were shocked to see such a touching moment as this and they knew, from the past three and one half years, this dog was never a clingy lapdog. At the time, I don’t think I was fully letting the emotion of the situation sink into my heart, but I was very thankful that I had until 3 p.m. to make sure that Daughter was ready.
Oh, the responsibility ... I took it on and I think I kept my vows to alleviate any suffering. I drove through McDonalds and bought and fed her a whole hamburger on the way to the vet. She appreciated the treat but she knew what her last dog-job to me was. It was to give me long patient stares of love which assured me that she was, indeed, ready. That last day was the day that she picked to go. Most dog-people and dogs would never be so lucky.
She’s was mine. I was hers. We trusted that this was the constant and the commitment of our relationship (something I've never been able to do with humans) and I think it’s made us both better people.
I blog about the same things that I talk to my clients about:Martinis/Tips/Life/Hair
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Coca-Cola, I'm on your side.
Dear Coca-Cola,
I'm on your side. Retailers should not be able to put so much pressure on companies like yours to lower your wholesale prices to the point that you cannot make a fair profit. If retailers, like Walmart, K-Mart and grocery stores did that, it would force you American manufacturers to move your production of products out of the United States. Which, in-turn, would put many Americans out of work. Which, in turn, might make that out-of-work American start looking for lower prices of products they like to buy. Which, in turn, would probably force retailers to compete for those out-of-work American's pennies which would lead to those retailers to ask companies like you, Coca-Cola, to lower your wholesale prices. Whew. What to do...? What to do...?
Look, why don't you decide what is a fair profit from your product? Not exorbitant. Not outrageous. You don't need to pay your executives enough to buy themselves five houses. I'm sure you could use that money for raises and benefits for your lower-paid workers who, in turn, are consumers. And why don't you take some of that profit to train the American public? We are not dumb. But not all of know that if you are forced to lower your profits you'll move your company to a country where don't have pay fair wages and you're allowed to pollute their environment. (That's who's really paying for the price of Coke.) We will pay a fair price for a product we like and we expect you to make a fair profit. We also expect that would keep your company in the United States, and that you don't pollute while making your quality product.
I'm a Coke drinker who's on your side.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
I blog about the same things that I talk to my clients about:Martinis/Tips/Envrionment/Hair
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
I'm on your side. Retailers should not be able to put so much pressure on companies like yours to lower your wholesale prices to the point that you cannot make a fair profit. If retailers, like Walmart, K-Mart and grocery stores did that, it would force you American manufacturers to move your production of products out of the United States. Which, in-turn, would put many Americans out of work. Which, in turn, might make that out-of-work American start looking for lower prices of products they like to buy. Which, in turn, would probably force retailers to compete for those out-of-work American's pennies which would lead to those retailers to ask companies like you, Coca-Cola, to lower your wholesale prices. Whew. What to do...? What to do...?
Look, why don't you decide what is a fair profit from your product? Not exorbitant. Not outrageous. You don't need to pay your executives enough to buy themselves five houses. I'm sure you could use that money for raises and benefits for your lower-paid workers who, in turn, are consumers. And why don't you take some of that profit to train the American public? We are not dumb. But not all of know that if you are forced to lower your profits you'll move your company to a country where don't have pay fair wages and you're allowed to pollute their environment. (That's who's really paying for the price of Coke.) We will pay a fair price for a product we like and we expect you to make a fair profit. We also expect that would keep your company in the United States, and that you don't pollute while making your quality product.
I'm a Coke drinker who's on your side.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
I blog about the same things that I talk to my clients about:Martinis/Tips/Envrionment/Hair
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Fall/Winter Check your Vitamin D Levels
Last year, one my clients, an M.D., F.A.C.P., (I dunno), and I were talking while I was cutting and coloring her hair. She was telling me that either or both the
lack of fall and winter sunlight and/or the lack of vitamin D was creating a mini-epidemic for her
female clients. She informed me that a lack of either could cause minor or major depression and
a loss of energy in the coming winter months.
As the best hairdresser in Chicago, (thank you, yelpers) I feel I have a responsibility to pass on valuable information like this to my clients.
"Get your iron checked," I have always said, for the tired vegetarians and poor eaters.
"Drink more water," I would tell my clients who broke-out and had dry skin.
But this one needs to be told, again and again, to everyone, every fall and winter: if you are tired, rundown, low-energied, or if you think that you might not be feeling as good as you should
emotionally: get your 25 hydroxy Vitamin D level (or Iron level) checked.
But do not just start taking mega-doses of these vitamins if you only think that you need them, as they can cause havoc on the liver if you overindulge and you don't need them.
Only a doctor can prescribe the right amount. And only a doctor can do the proper tests.
Also, if you are suffering from a normal case of lack of sunlight: A few simple minutes with a full-spectrum light in the mornings might be all that you need. These units can sometimes be paid for with a prescription from you doctor and good insurance.
Go see your own doctor. Or you can go to a facility like the The Northwestern Center for Integrative Medicine and Wellness is at 150 E Huron Ave, Suite 1100, Chicago, IL 60611. Phone 3129263627
www.nmpg.com
This client I was telling you about? Well, she admitted to me that even she had been feeling tired and rundown. She's a busy gal with a family. So she took the time to take the Vitamin D test in her own office and she was stunned to learn that her levels were way below the proper levels. Just like many women who take care of the home, multi-task, raise the kids and run a medical practice etc, she ignored her fatigue and kept on going! Look, if it can happen to her. It can happen to you. Now she is using full spectrum light from a unit in the mornings, but, more importantly, she takes the proper dosage of supplements.
I blog about the same things that I talk to my clients about:Martinis/Restaurants/Hair/Life
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
lack of fall and winter sunlight and/or the lack of vitamin D was creating a mini-epidemic for her
female clients. She informed me that a lack of either could cause minor or major depression and
a loss of energy in the coming winter months.
As the best hairdresser in Chicago, (thank you, yelpers) I feel I have a responsibility to pass on valuable information like this to my clients.
"Get your iron checked," I have always said, for the tired vegetarians and poor eaters.
"Drink more water," I would tell my clients who broke-out and had dry skin.
But this one needs to be told, again and again, to everyone, every fall and winter: if you are tired, rundown, low-energied, or if you think that you might not be feeling as good as you should
emotionally: get your 25 hydroxy Vitamin D level (or Iron level) checked.
But do not just start taking mega-doses of these vitamins if you only think that you need them, as they can cause havoc on the liver if you overindulge and you don't need them.
Only a doctor can prescribe the right amount. And only a doctor can do the proper tests.
Also, if you are suffering from a normal case of lack of sunlight: A few simple minutes with a full-spectrum light in the mornings might be all that you need. These units can sometimes be paid for with a prescription from you doctor and good insurance.
Go see your own doctor. Or you can go to a facility like the The Northwestern Center for Integrative Medicine and Wellness is at 150 E Huron Ave, Suite 1100, Chicago, IL 60611. Phone 3129263627
www.nmpg.com
This client I was telling you about? Well, she admitted to me that even she had been feeling tired and rundown. She's a busy gal with a family. So she took the time to take the Vitamin D test in her own office and she was stunned to learn that her levels were way below the proper levels. Just like many women who take care of the home, multi-task, raise the kids and run a medical practice etc, she ignored her fatigue and kept on going! Look, if it can happen to her. It can happen to you. Now she is using full spectrum light from a unit in the mornings, but, more importantly, she takes the proper dosage of supplements.
I blog about the same things that I talk to my clients about:Martinis/Restaurants/Hair/Life
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
Holiday Martini's
I made this one up for a holiday party a couple of years ago. My peeps luuuved it! And it was easy to make.
Mafia Hairdresser's Holiday Ornaments
1 part Ginger Ale
1 part Cranberry Juice
1 part Apple Pucker (in liqueur section)
2 parts Absolut Vodka
1 Cinnamon Stick
Mix all together and Chill for 1 to 2 hours and serve straight-up in martini glasses.
Then add a few FROZEN GRAPES or/and FROZEN RASPBERRIES or/and FROZEN BLUEBERRIES to each glass to keep chilled and Ornament your drinks.
This one is light and crisp tasting. Cucumbers were last years rage.
Mafia Hairdresser's Winter Snowflake Martini
This is the latest and bestest.
In a Martini shaker add;
1part Absolut Citron
1part White Cranberry (Dominic's or Jewell)
Ice
1 slice of peeled cucumber
AND SHAKE
Pour into a martini glass and add 1 sliced & peeled cucumber to float on the top and you got yourself a winter refresher!
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
Mafia Hairdresser's Holiday Ornaments
1 part Ginger Ale
1 part Cranberry Juice
1 part Apple Pucker (in liqueur section)
2 parts Absolut Vodka
1 Cinnamon Stick
Mix all together and Chill for 1 to 2 hours and serve straight-up in martini glasses.
Then add a few FROZEN GRAPES or/and FROZEN RASPBERRIES or/and FROZEN BLUEBERRIES to each glass to keep chilled and Ornament your drinks.
This one is light and crisp tasting. Cucumbers were last years rage.
Mafia Hairdresser's Winter Snowflake Martini
This is the latest and bestest.
In a Martini shaker add;
1part Absolut Citron
1part White Cranberry (Dominic's or Jewell)
Ice
1 slice of peeled cucumber
AND SHAKE
Pour into a martini glass and add 1 sliced & peeled cucumber to float on the top and you got yourself a winter refresher!
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Fine Hair gets Thicker
You can go to the Best Hairdresser in Chicago and they may never have heard of this product: Nexxus Aloxxi Polymeric, formerly called Emergencee.
We don’t even officially use in my own salon but I buy it myself and laminate it on my clients who have fine, wimpy, never-grows, wispy-weak hair.
This product is a polymer that coats the hair, thereby thickening it. And once the diameter of the hair is increased it is also stronger, shinier and more reflective of light. And “Emergencee’d” hair also accepts color better and the product keeps your color lasting longer. Does your hair seem to grow a certain length past your ears and then just look too thin? Does it just break off after a certain length? Not anymore! You can order it yourself online from HairCareChoices.com, and do the treatment yourself. Or you can bring it in to the salon and have your stylist do the treatment on you, if he or she doesn’t mind. We can do many other treatments over Emergencee’d hair, they always work better when we do. Nexxus Aloxxi (Emergencee) Polymeric Reconstructor
Here’s the Nexxus explanation:Stops hair breakage, repairs and strengthens severely damaged hair.Dramatically improves hair's health, condition and shine.Contains a renewing blend of Polymers, Elastins, Amino Acids and Collagen.Creates an internal framework within the hairshaft to restore integrity.Strengthens internally and externally.Repairs and smoothes damaged cuticle; restores flexibility.Magnifies shine and depth of colour.Improves body and stylability.Acidifies hair, pH 2.5. (Closes and fills in cuticle.)Excellent pre-treatment for delicate hair prior to all chemical services.Great nail strengthening treatment. (I wouldn’t know this one but interesting.)How to do the treatment the way I do like to do it:
On the bottle, it does not say it needs heat, but it does! On wet clean/towel-dried hair, I put about a 1/4 ounce amount (Quarter sized) of the product on and work it through. Since it goes on like honey, you will not be able to get a comb through it. Then I put a layer of foil on each panel of a flat Iron with a control setting. I would use a 2 out of 10 range. So not too hot! Then I just laminate the product right on the hair directly with the foiled iron, section by section, root to ends. Five to ten sections all over the head. No need to "linger" on the hair with the iron. Just run the iron quickly through the hair shaft. The foil is the "buffer" that insures you are not boiling the hair. When done, rinse with cool water and follow with your regular (salon bought) conditioner. When you start out, do Emergencee 3 times in one month then one time per month after that. Once the hair is coated up well, there is only so much more thickness you will achieve.
Good luck. That’s how I do it. I just wanted to help ya’ll fine haired gurlz and guys. Especially the ones who need color for body but are so tired of “trashed” hair.
No, Nexxus does not endorse me or my way of using their product in anyway. And please don’t sue me if you burn your head off.
This is a tip I learned from some of the Best Stylists in Chicago.
We don’t even officially use in my own salon but I buy it myself and laminate it on my clients who have fine, wimpy, never-grows, wispy-weak hair.
This product is a polymer that coats the hair, thereby thickening it. And once the diameter of the hair is increased it is also stronger, shinier and more reflective of light. And “Emergencee’d” hair also accepts color better and the product keeps your color lasting longer. Does your hair seem to grow a certain length past your ears and then just look too thin? Does it just break off after a certain length? Not anymore! You can order it yourself online from HairCareChoices.com, and do the treatment yourself. Or you can bring it in to the salon and have your stylist do the treatment on you, if he or she doesn’t mind. We can do many other treatments over Emergencee’d hair, they always work better when we do. Nexxus Aloxxi (Emergencee) Polymeric Reconstructor
Here’s the Nexxus explanation:Stops hair breakage, repairs and strengthens severely damaged hair.Dramatically improves hair's health, condition and shine.Contains a renewing blend of Polymers, Elastins, Amino Acids and Collagen.Creates an internal framework within the hairshaft to restore integrity.Strengthens internally and externally.Repairs and smoothes damaged cuticle; restores flexibility.Magnifies shine and depth of colour.Improves body and stylability.Acidifies hair, pH 2.5. (Closes and fills in cuticle.)Excellent pre-treatment for delicate hair prior to all chemical services.Great nail strengthening treatment. (I wouldn’t know this one but interesting.)How to do the treatment the way I do like to do it:
On the bottle, it does not say it needs heat, but it does! On wet clean/towel-dried hair, I put about a 1/4 ounce amount (Quarter sized) of the product on and work it through. Since it goes on like honey, you will not be able to get a comb through it. Then I put a layer of foil on each panel of a flat Iron with a control setting. I would use a 2 out of 10 range. So not too hot! Then I just laminate the product right on the hair directly with the foiled iron, section by section, root to ends. Five to ten sections all over the head. No need to "linger" on the hair with the iron. Just run the iron quickly through the hair shaft. The foil is the "buffer" that insures you are not boiling the hair. When done, rinse with cool water and follow with your regular (salon bought) conditioner. When you start out, do Emergencee 3 times in one month then one time per month after that. Once the hair is coated up well, there is only so much more thickness you will achieve.
Good luck. That’s how I do it. I just wanted to help ya’ll fine haired gurlz and guys. Especially the ones who need color for body but are so tired of “trashed” hair.
No, Nexxus does not endorse me or my way of using their product in anyway. And please don’t sue me if you burn your head off.
This is a tip I learned from some of the Best Stylists in Chicago.
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Mafia Hairdresser
MAFIA HAIRDRESSER
BY JON-DAVID
REGISTERED WRITERS GUILD EAST
Chapter One
"On the main floor of the salon, hair stylists and hurried assistants scuttle for hurried clients--throwing them into gray muumuu smocks, fetching them coffee and then shampooing them while smearing the clients’ first makeup application of the day. The clients then surrender their hair to be twisted into tin foils or plastic rods doused with chemicals, after which the stylists will hack at the completed synthesized product. For a final polish, it’s wrenched around aluminum brushes and torched with supernova heat from dryers and curling irons. During this temporarily unsightly beautification process, it will be a contest between service person and client to see who gets more talking time. That‘s what we stylists do. We talk. This is a social job.
It was Saturday morning, at the crack of 10 am, and I was in the lab where we stored our hair supplies, which was also where we ate and relaxed amongst bottles of peroxide-based “magic potions” that made blondes out of mouse-burgers and gave full-body to those who previously had only wimpy wisps. The lab is where we could freely talk about our clients without worrying about being rude and shrinking our expected generous tips. “Can you believe what she was wearing?” “Her husband slept with my mechanic.” “Stretched tight as a drum…” As this day had only begun, there wasn’t a lot of high-quality gossip yet. It wouldn't take long. I could wait. I had nothing to do but skulk by the water cooler. My first client didn't show up for her scheduled appointment and had a called-in forgivable excuse of “my dog ate my Valium.”
Paco was a cross between Iggy Pop and Ichibod Crane: skinny and usually ornamented in too many zippers or ruffles. He was the salon manager, a proper fair and fey guy and our resident Master Stylist. Paco was rinsing his gloved hands under the tap in the sink after applying a color. On the opposite end of the lab (and scales), sat stylist Carmen Scraper, who was eating a plain grapefruit with a spoon. Carmen's large form always looked cramped in the modest staff booth amidst the shelves of perm rods.
The coffee I was drinking was basically espresso with the liquid filtered out, and seeing the stains at the sides of my mug reminded me that I had just spent two weeks of evenings bleaching my teeth by soaking them in lethal-tasting acid-filled plastic trays. Liz-Beth, the new receptionist, had made the coffee, and worse, she had been slow to catch on to our fast-paced salon ways. My boss had hired Liz-Beth just because “Liz-Beth needed a family.” I thought she needed de-programming. Liz-Beth was a New-Ager who didn't drink coffee or any other “toxins,” hence her lack of coffee-making knowledge, and she was always muttering astrological nonsense. According to Liz-Beth, my moon was “in Saturn,” so that meant I shouldn't make any sudden decisions. So, I thought, slowly, how I was going to repay her in-kind for the russet color that, I‘m sure, was now my teeth.
As I was contemplating adding a fourth spoonful of Creamora into my cup, Brooke McFarland, my boss, came whooshing by us all, grocery bag in one arm and her neon lime Hyper Color coat sliding off her opposite shoulder. Brooke, a former professional beauty pageant contestant (she never placed but always won “Miss Congeniality“), was always running in late for her clients. She was what one would call over-committed. Brooke spoiled her son and daughter, put up with her ogre husband, fawned over her five dogs, ran our salon, and constantly tried to fix all of our personal problems. In literal, yet true, martyrdom fashion, Brooke’s only personal time and hobbies consisted of buying and doing her own makeup, which was extreme or, what I liked to call, four-dimensional.
“Jessy,” she said, while trying to catch her breath, “what are you doing just standing there?”
“I had a 9:00 no-show,” I said, hesitantly. “And then I had a 9:30 that did show. But she was bad for me.”
"You dismissed another client?"
"I ‘dismissed’ her taste in haircuts. We couldn’t agree."
Brooke put a plastic-covered bowl of what looked like baby diarrhea into the small refrigerator and spun around to face me with one hand on her anorexic hip. Archeologically speaking, my boss looked quite amazing. She had to be at least 40 but she never missed an aerobics class and she ate little-bird portions of puréed healthy foods which, I recently noticed, gave her a fabulous glow that managed to radiate up through her layers of foundation.
"I can't just do a trim,” I explained to her. “I have a reputation at stake, ya-know. I mean, she was going to, like, wear her hair in a ponytail for God's sake! Barf me out."
Carmen stopped eating grapefruit to butt in. "And you let her go? Nice."
I was less distracted by Carmen’s interruption than I was to see her eating something natural. Carmen usually only ate microwave popcorn and Herbal Life products. The latter for which she was a distributor/"pusher." That is not to say that Carmen's figure didn't belie at least three thousand calories a day.
Paco snapped his reusable gloves off of his milky white soft hands.
"Well," I said, "I offered to cut her hair so it looked like it was in a ponytail. You know, like, shave it around and leave a Hari-Krishna thing? That would be kind of cool, but not a ponytail! She lacked individuality and style. Let her go to Polly’s Pretty Palace.”
They all stared at me, the misunderstood artist. Pissy, most would say.
“You are a shit, Jessy,” Carmen said, “Your head wouldn’t fit in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.”
I directed a squinted eye to the fatty in the booth to imagine what else wouldn’t fit where. Carmen growled and then pounced all her attention onto Brooke. “Brooke, I apologize, once again, for recommending the little monster to our salon. If it wasn‘t for me, we wouldn‘t have to put up with Jessy’s insolence.”
I hated how Carmen’s shoulders raised when she said “insolence.” But it was true. Carmen had got me my job at Beautious Maximus and I should have been more thankful. And, at one time, I could have been more thankful. But that all changed when I realized out that she had once slept with my boyfriend.
“Don‘t use big words in the morning,” Brooke said, exasperated. “And please, just get along.”
Paco, the most rational and "matured" one of us (sometimes he wore leather ties), chimed in with his usual coolness. "Jessy," he said to me, while wiping his perfectly arched eyebrows with the tips of his spindly middle fingers, "I don't care how much you play at being the Hollywood Hairdresser, you are not that cruel. Nor do you own a tiara. You are a nice young man and I do not believe that you would intentionally hurt someone's feelings."
"Okay, you know me,” I said, smiling demurely, “I just told her that I didn't think I should be paired up with her. Doing someone's hair is a two-way street.” I nodded my point home. "I have to be comfortable with her hair as much as she has to. Besides, rubber band." I experienced a touch of vertigo even thinking about a ponytail.
The way I saw it was that this place where I worked was a SALON. Pronounced like the French: SAAALon. We offered foil color-weaves (not caps), hair extensions, spiral perms, manicures, fake nails, pedicures, facials, makeup applications, and massage therapy services. Our name said it all: "BEAUTIOUS MAXIMUS - A Full-Service Salon."
I was the youngest stylist. But I was one of the best and busiest. Our saaalon catered to a high-rent clientele in Naples Island, California, and I was young. Impressionable. So, naturally, a little of our clients' high-brow attitude would rub off on me. Besides, stylists with bigger personalities always made more money.
Brooke looked at me and shook her head.
“You better get that ego in check, Mister,” she said.
I nodded non-committedly.
Brooke heaved a relieved sigh like she had just settled the war in the Middle East. That was one of the things that I loved about Brooke being my boss. No stomach for discipline. If I ran this place, I would have fired myself. But Brooke decided that she had had enough quality time with all of us, her children, so she started toward the swinging doors of the salon’s main floor to her waiting client. She paused only long enough to gaze at what I was wearing. Today: white Reeboks and black parachute pants. Punk fashion had morphed into New Wave. I had successfully side-stepped Preppy. But it was my sleeveless white sweatshirt which had a Japanese flag printed on the front that Brooke disapproved of. In sunburst rays were strategically cut slits to show a teensy-teasing-bit of my beach-tanned torso, yet none of my excess baby fat. (It had been a few weeks since my last gym visit. This was due to a few busy work weeks and home stress, which begot hamburgers.)
Brooke flung her wedgy bob of copper red hair off her face and looked up at the ceiling as if to seek divine guidance. She reminded me of my real mother and I couldn’t help but feel a rascally wave of accomplishment.
"Would it save any time if I just went insane now?” she asked. And, before she left, she informed all of us that "there's homemade cauliflower soup in the fridge for everyone. Dig in."
I chewed on my coffee and said, “Someone better check the linoleum after lunch to see how much I liked the cauliflower soup.”
Carmen took a bite of her sour fruit and pointed a fork at me. “Your ego is out of control,” Carmen slurped.
"’He's the ego-monster,” I protested as I pointed at Paco. “He makes his clients wait for hours, teases them like hell and then charges them an arm and a leg.” Paco smiled proudly. “After all that,” I said to him directly, “they tell you how wonderful you are!”
I really loved Paco and he had been my mentor since I began working at Beautious Maximus. Paco also made more money than Graceland and had an endless clientele list who waited weeks and sometimes months to get an appointment with him. He owned a fabulous condo and two convertibles and traveled all over the world on his vacations. I worshipped him. This was L.A. A million-dollar home, an E-type Jaguar, and a platinum American Express Card were compulsory. The whole population was “pauper-impaired.” But how long would I have to work on my feet to get the Barbie Dream House too? I was 21. Paco had been in the business for 25 years!
Paco put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Jessy, it’s time you and I had a talk. After your last client today, hmm? We‘ll call it a meeting.” His smile was both teasing and condescending. “For now, let me say, my dear boy, you are mistaking age and seasoned campiness with youth and boldness. We are alike in that you are a wonderful artist, and a good listener, but you must wear your abrasive behavior with an air of humor. You see, clients just want to be able to feel like they are in capable hands and then when one provides that security, they are very, very thankful. Even I find it difficult to keep a grasp on reality when every client tells me that I have saved their life simply for doing their hair. You must try."
"Yeah," Carmen said, between chomps of a dry looking rice cake she pulled out of nowhere. (Her ass?) She must have been onto yet another new California diet. I wanted to mention that I didn't think it would work, but Paco struck a pose to change the subject. He was wearing all white except for a black vest that was made of rubber, and his bony mass mingled with our space-age/Art-Deco wallpaper to look like checkerboard tiles after a 7.5 earthquake. He claimed he was one of the first Caucasians to ever have bleached-out colorless hair and he left his beard its natural Irish red. I didn’t know where he got the name Paco, but it was essentially cool to have a single name, ala Cher, Madonna, and Sting. Bonus cool if hyphenated, such as Ann-Margret. He was a hairdresser so, to me, that explained everything.
"I have a juicy piece of Scandatatattle,” Paco said. “If you beg me, then I must render it you, my fanzzzz."
When a group of hairdressers get together to casually talk about other peoples' lives and secrets for judgment and desecration it is not simply called gossip. We called it “Scandatatattle”: a little bit of scandal, data, and tattling. Paco made it up and it was a Beautious Maximus exclusive. I knew it wouldn't take long to get some dirt on someone this morning.
"Okay. I bite," Carmen said half-heartedly. "I saw your driver’s license and I'm going to tell everyone your real age if you don't tell us what you know."
Paco feigned exasperation, then shot off, "I lied on my drivers license. But I have three words for what I found out about a certain silly someone... Fab-u-lous!"
"Spill it will you?" Carmen said, with her usual tact and grace.
Paco pretended to be offended. Paused. Then lithely flew to land and perch beside her.
"Wee--ell,“ Paco lisped, “remember my last client, Peter?”
"The drag queen?" asked Carmen.
“Honey, anyone who wears a uniform, baby-blue eye shadow, pin-stripe suits, has a cartoon character tattoo, or talks Valley Girl is a drag queen. Anyhoo, he, I mean she was out at the Red Onion last night. You know, that breeder place where girls have fried perms and you can’t get a decent white zin?”
"Carmen goes there,” I said. “A lot.”
"Oh hisss," said Paco. “Well, Peter, I mean, Muffy, was dressed in a blue beaded number. It sounded gorgeous.”
"Isn‘t Muffy a lesbo name?" asked Carmen. “Lesbos can’t be drag queens.”
"Anyhoo! Muffy saw and set her sights on, none other than, our Donovan."
Paco rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue.
The Scandatatattle had taken an ugly turn. Donovan, another stylist, started at Beautious Maximus about the same time I did and he was my best friend. Donovan was originally from Australia, a little older than me, but we both came from Catholic families and liked to go out drinking and dancing, and we both worked extra hard to make it big as stylists. Our professional differences were that I learned my craft from Paco, such as cutting, coloring and styling, and Donovan learned just enough to pick up girls in his chair. When we went out, that’s when he worked his hardest. But what he was working on would be trying to convince girls that he was straight once they found out he was a stylist especially if he was hanging out with me, someone who is transparently and categorically gay. And my poor Donovan was extremely heterosexual. A man-slut for the ladies. The thought of Donovan in a bar, probably after a few beers and near a seemingly willing female, allowed my imagination only one conclusion.
"This is goood!" Carmen cooed to encourage Paco to keep going with his Scandatatattle.
With a smirk on his face, Paco took a deep, energizing breath before he went in for the kill. “Muffy,” he said, “told me that Donovan kept on buying her drinks before inviting her to his Porsche for a little surprise. When the heroine of the story finally did get a wobbly Donovan into his love-mobile, she said he began to get very amorous with his hands. Muffy began to fear that Donovan might find out her true identity. Her un-Muffyness, if you will. But she wryly played the offensive and decided to cop a little feel herself and, low and below, Donovan has a little dick.”
"Aaahh!" All three of us yelled.
In the main part of the busy salon the continuous hum of uninhibited chatter and blow dryers suddenly dropped a decibel or two because we were yelling so loud.
"Yes!" Paco exclaimed, “Indignant, not knowing what to do with such a small portion, Muffy stormed out of the Porche and went back to trolling inside the Red Onion.”
Paco, flung his wisp of a wrist and snapped his fingers triumphantly.
"That does explain why he doesn’t have a lot of repeats…” Carmen said, rubbing her chin. “He does drive a Porsche.”
These were the days before Viagra and clipping your pubic hair to make your penis look bigger. And Donovan was my buddy. I had to say something in his defense.
"That is totally bogus," I said. "Donovan does not have a little dick."
Once again, my co-workers turned on me.
"Well, call me Nancy Reagan!" Paco exclaimed as his pinkies swept sinuously over his clavicle. "I doth hear protest regarding genitalia girth fromith best friend!"
I looked at Carmen for a little help. Some support.
"Don't look at me, Jessy," she said. "You're walking on tar again and we might have to ask you how long is Don Juan's schlong?"
"I wouldn't know!" I said. "I mean, I've never seen it! I just don't think he has a little one."
Almost on cue, Donovan walked into the lab, returning a "roll-about" with tint cups and foil strips. He was humming and then stopped to look at all of us, who were looking back at him, only lower.
In his low-rent Aussie accent he rhetorically asked, "Did ya guys see the cute little blonde chicky oim doin'? Oim makin' her even more blonde than she was before. Gawd, I love this job!"
What was he doing going out without me, his main mate, looking for chickies? “What’s your damage?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you call me last night?”
“Mate,” Donovan said, “you were in my heart, just the same.”
Not caring how I knew he went out last night, and totally oblivious to our scrutiny, Donovan whistled as he left us to go back to his chicky client.
"Bummer," I said, unconsciously.
Paco and Carmen busted up laughing. Again, at my expense.
***
By 5:45, my 5:15 appointment was officially another no-show (an old excuse of “caught in traffic,” which was called in from a mobile phone, a new phenomenon), so I thought I would just go home and see if I could catch a glimpse of my boyfriend before he had to run off to his job. I was pulling the plugs on my blow dryer and curling irons when Liz-Beth shuffled over to my station with her head down, like a puppy who had wet the carpet.
“Uh, Jessy, I know how you feel about no-shows,” she said, “and this is your second one today, but there’s a man up front and he needs a haircut.”
“I don’t take walk-ins,” I said, struggling to stay focused on getting home and trying not fixate on the moon and star design printed on her hemp peasant blouse.
“Yes. Um, I know. But everyone else is all booked up right now, and this man can't wait.”
If she had any idea how much her words and blouse were stinging my senses, I would have totally respected her for it.
"He said his limo driver has just enough time to get gas and fill up the bar if you can cut his hair," she said. “He wanted someone really good.”
“Well …” I said, re-plugging in my irons and blow dryer, “if he wants someone good ...”
Just then, Donovan walked from the reception area with one of his whorey looking clients.
“He does look like your kinda client.” Donovan said to me, “Obnoxious.” Then he slipped me a less backhanded compliment as he passed: “But I wish I could have half yer confidence, mate."
"If only you could have half of my -- nevermind,” I shouted.
Twirling around, I turned my attention back to our receptionist.
“What's it going to hurt to have one more new client?” I said to Liz-Beth. “I'm a Gemini, as you have pointed out, and I can let my benevolent twin rule today, hmm? Tell him to wait for me, Liz-Beth. I can't have him thinking that I need a new client."
I turned my back on her again.
"Yeah. Right," she said, behind me and with a just a hint of a patronizing tone.
She was making fun of me. I immediately coiled, ready to strike with my provoked fangs of payback, when my shoulder was strongly tapped from behind.
“Ahem,” came a man’s voice into my ear.
Startled, I turned around to chastise whomever had interrupted what would have surely been a glib and slightly cruel comment on Liz-Beth’s peasant blouse, but I was instead shocked to be face to chest with a mutantesquely tall man. The man steadied me from falling backwards on my hot irons by grabbing my right hand. Behind the big guy, I could see Liz-Beth shuffling and chuckling back to her front desk.
"Heeey, bud-buddy,” the tall man billowed, “are you Jeffery?"
I caught my balance as my hand was vigorously shaken and released. As any stylist would, I backed up and took the offensive and smiled in my most “you are putty in my hands” way.
"I'm Jessy," I said, through gritted teeth to make it obvious that he had slaughtered my name. (I had not yet legally chopped off my last name like Paco, but to the clients I had no last name -- and no middle name. There was no reason to fuck it up.)
"I really appreciate you taking me on such short notice," he said, belying a softer personality than his girth would suggest.
"Well, I guess I'm ready for you now," I said, motioning for him to follow me. “I'll shampoo your hair. All the shampoo assistants are busy, with scheduled clients.”
As the man followed me to the shampoo lounge, I tried to fire a glare at Liz-Beth as we passed near the front desk. But she would have none of it and never looked my way, and I realized that the bitch might be acclimating faster than I thought. We had all better watch our backs or we might end up being booked with a highlight at 7PM on a Sunday by “accident.”
He was wearing a black satin jacket with the latest Star Trek movie logo embroidered on the right pec and a centered, much-larger version on the back. It was one of those jackets a studio gives to the staff and crew that had worked on the set of a movie. The tall man looked like a producer. A time-is-money type, anyway. Not so much artsy but antsy. This guy, I sensed, was probably a little pushy and, in my opinion, successful people probably had to be. I’d make sure I got a new client card made out on him if he tipped well.
After shampooing his hair, I commanded him to follow me to my chair. As we passed Brooke, she was combing out one of her geriatrics who looked either asleep or dead. Paco’s chair was empty because he went home, half way through the day, due to coming down with a cold. I made a mental note to self to call him. Then, on second thought, I made a mental note to scratch the last note because I remembered that we were supposed to have a meeting, obviously canceled, about my attitude after work.
When I walked by Carmen's chair she was telling the same blonde joke to her latest client that she had been telling everyone else (except the dumb blondes) all day. "You can tell that she owned a vibrator because of her chipped teeth!" This time I heard only the punch line but it finally tickled a nerve so I laughed and she glared at me like I had spitefully eavesdropped. Geez.
Donovan seemed to be consulting with Whorey on what he was going to do to her hair. But I knew he was just toying with her as he massaged her head before she put on a smock or a cutting cape. Donovan once told me that massaging women’s heads made their tits pointier. As I passed him, I experienced a slight flash of rage at his unprofessionalism.
When we got back to my station, the tall man sat in my styling chair as if he owned it. He moved the products on the counter so he could see more of me and the whole salon in the mirror, as if casing the joint. Then he adjusted his cape so not a pinhead size of clipped hair would fall on his arms or clothes.
“I've got a real important meeting tonight, Buddy,” he said. “Real important. So just trim it into what I already have, but shorter. But not too much shorter."
“Okay,” I said, as I jumped right into the haircut. “But are you sure that this is just a business meeting? Could it be a possible date? It sounds very important."
After I realized that he hadn’t replied and I saw that he was squeezing the arms of the chair, my scissors stopped cutting. Instinctually I backed my torso away from the wrenched arms of the chair and looked up to see that he was glaring at me through the mirror. I eeked out a smile.
"Heyee," he said, and then finally laughed. "You are a wise guy! Hey-hey. I think I'm going to like you, Jess-boy. Yeah. You're all right."
I exhaled, feeling as if, for a brief moment, I had been in real danger for moving in too personal, too fast. Regaining my mental balance, I continued to trim his dirty-blonde hair into the surfer look that he came in with.
"My hair is very important to me, Jessy-boy," he said. “I gotta warn ya, the last guy who cut too much of my hair off, got somethin' of his cut off. Hey, hey, hey."
Male clients always came back to me because I never cut too much and I always clipped the hair on their ears and eyebrows without asking and I never made their hair over-poofy. So I wasn't worried about cutting his hair too short but I kept more of a distance from the arms of the cutting chair.
This guy was they type of client who let me do most of the talking, which I was happy to do after a day of mostly listening. He seemed like a nice dude who liked to laugh and paid attention to my chatter well enough. And he must have been okay with my forwardness at our introduction. But he loved his finished haircut because he tipped me with three crisp one hundred dollar bills. When he slapped them down in my palm, my jaw dropped in happy surprise and for the sting in my hand.
"If I didn't like it," he said, "I would have given you ten times that much and then run ya down in the street just so you couldn't spend it." He always ended his sentences with the same smirky laugh. "Hey-hey-hey."
"Say, Buddy,” he said, “I have an associate, who, just might need your services. To do his wife’s hair. She could use your help. Mind if I pass on your good name? You'll make a lotta dough."
"Sure," I said, still rubbing the sting in my hand. "Any friends of yours are friends of mine.” And any associates’ wife’s hair that will make me a lot of dough are definitely friends of mine.
Before he walked out to his gassed-up limousine, I invited the new big-guy client to fill out a client card at the front desk and to grab one of my business cards."
Chapter One
"On the main floor of the salon, hair stylists and hurried assistants scuttle for hurried clients--throwing them into gray muumuu smocks, fetching them coffee and then shampooing them while smearing the clients’ first makeup application of the day. The clients then surrender their hair to be twisted into tin foils or plastic rods doused with chemicals, after which the stylists will hack at the completed synthesized product. For a final polish, it’s wrenched around aluminum brushes and torched with supernova heat from dryers and curling irons. During this temporarily unsightly beautification process, it will be a contest between service person and client to see who gets more talking time. That‘s what we stylists do. We talk. This is a social job.
It was Saturday morning, at the crack of 10 am, and I was in the lab where we stored our hair supplies, which was also where we ate and relaxed amongst bottles of peroxide-based “magic potions” that made blondes out of mouse-burgers and gave full-body to those who previously had only wimpy wisps. The lab is where we could freely talk about our clients without worrying about being rude and shrinking our expected generous tips. “Can you believe what she was wearing?” “Her husband slept with my mechanic.” “Stretched tight as a drum…” As this day had only begun, there wasn’t a lot of high-quality gossip yet. It wouldn't take long. I could wait. I had nothing to do but skulk by the water cooler. My first client didn't show up for her scheduled appointment and had a called-in forgivable excuse of “my dog ate my Valium.”
Paco was a cross between Iggy Pop and Ichibod Crane: skinny and usually ornamented in too many zippers or ruffles. He was the salon manager, a proper fair and fey guy and our resident Master Stylist. Paco was rinsing his gloved hands under the tap in the sink after applying a color. On the opposite end of the lab (and scales), sat stylist Carmen Scraper, who was eating a plain grapefruit with a spoon. Carmen's large form always looked cramped in the modest staff booth amidst the shelves of perm rods.
The coffee I was drinking was basically espresso with the liquid filtered out, and seeing the stains at the sides of my mug reminded me that I had just spent two weeks of evenings bleaching my teeth by soaking them in lethal-tasting acid-filled plastic trays. Liz-Beth, the new receptionist, had made the coffee, and worse, she had been slow to catch on to our fast-paced salon ways. My boss had hired Liz-Beth just because “Liz-Beth needed a family.” I thought she needed de-programming. Liz-Beth was a New-Ager who didn't drink coffee or any other “toxins,” hence her lack of coffee-making knowledge, and she was always muttering astrological nonsense. According to Liz-Beth, my moon was “in Saturn,” so that meant I shouldn't make any sudden decisions. So, I thought, slowly, how I was going to repay her in-kind for the russet color that, I‘m sure, was now my teeth.
As I was contemplating adding a fourth spoonful of Creamora into my cup, Brooke McFarland, my boss, came whooshing by us all, grocery bag in one arm and her neon lime Hyper Color coat sliding off her opposite shoulder. Brooke, a former professional beauty pageant contestant (she never placed but always won “Miss Congeniality“), was always running in late for her clients. She was what one would call over-committed. Brooke spoiled her son and daughter, put up with her ogre husband, fawned over her five dogs, ran our salon, and constantly tried to fix all of our personal problems. In literal, yet true, martyrdom fashion, Brooke’s only personal time and hobbies consisted of buying and doing her own makeup, which was extreme or, what I liked to call, four-dimensional.
“Jessy,” she said, while trying to catch her breath, “what are you doing just standing there?”
“I had a 9:00 no-show,” I said, hesitantly. “And then I had a 9:30 that did show. But she was bad for me.”
"You dismissed another client?"
"I ‘dismissed’ her taste in haircuts. We couldn’t agree."
Brooke put a plastic-covered bowl of what looked like baby diarrhea into the small refrigerator and spun around to face me with one hand on her anorexic hip. Archeologically speaking, my boss looked quite amazing. She had to be at least 40 but she never missed an aerobics class and she ate little-bird portions of puréed healthy foods which, I recently noticed, gave her a fabulous glow that managed to radiate up through her layers of foundation.
"I can't just do a trim,” I explained to her. “I have a reputation at stake, ya-know. I mean, she was going to, like, wear her hair in a ponytail for God's sake! Barf me out."
Carmen stopped eating grapefruit to butt in. "And you let her go? Nice."
I was less distracted by Carmen’s interruption than I was to see her eating something natural. Carmen usually only ate microwave popcorn and Herbal Life products. The latter for which she was a distributor/"pusher." That is not to say that Carmen's figure didn't belie at least three thousand calories a day.
Paco snapped his reusable gloves off of his milky white soft hands.
"Well," I said, "I offered to cut her hair so it looked like it was in a ponytail. You know, like, shave it around and leave a Hari-Krishna thing? That would be kind of cool, but not a ponytail! She lacked individuality and style. Let her go to Polly’s Pretty Palace.”
They all stared at me, the misunderstood artist. Pissy, most would say.
“You are a shit, Jessy,” Carmen said, “Your head wouldn’t fit in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.”
I directed a squinted eye to the fatty in the booth to imagine what else wouldn’t fit where. Carmen growled and then pounced all her attention onto Brooke. “Brooke, I apologize, once again, for recommending the little monster to our salon. If it wasn‘t for me, we wouldn‘t have to put up with Jessy’s insolence.”
I hated how Carmen’s shoulders raised when she said “insolence.” But it was true. Carmen had got me my job at Beautious Maximus and I should have been more thankful. And, at one time, I could have been more thankful. But that all changed when I realized out that she had once slept with my boyfriend.
“Don‘t use big words in the morning,” Brooke said, exasperated. “And please, just get along.”
Paco, the most rational and "matured" one of us (sometimes he wore leather ties), chimed in with his usual coolness. "Jessy," he said to me, while wiping his perfectly arched eyebrows with the tips of his spindly middle fingers, "I don't care how much you play at being the Hollywood Hairdresser, you are not that cruel. Nor do you own a tiara. You are a nice young man and I do not believe that you would intentionally hurt someone's feelings."
"Okay, you know me,” I said, smiling demurely, “I just told her that I didn't think I should be paired up with her. Doing someone's hair is a two-way street.” I nodded my point home. "I have to be comfortable with her hair as much as she has to. Besides, rubber band." I experienced a touch of vertigo even thinking about a ponytail.
The way I saw it was that this place where I worked was a SALON. Pronounced like the French: SAAALon. We offered foil color-weaves (not caps), hair extensions, spiral perms, manicures, fake nails, pedicures, facials, makeup applications, and massage therapy services. Our name said it all: "BEAUTIOUS MAXIMUS - A Full-Service Salon."
I was the youngest stylist. But I was one of the best and busiest. Our saaalon catered to a high-rent clientele in Naples Island, California, and I was young. Impressionable. So, naturally, a little of our clients' high-brow attitude would rub off on me. Besides, stylists with bigger personalities always made more money.
Brooke looked at me and shook her head.
“You better get that ego in check, Mister,” she said.
I nodded non-committedly.
Brooke heaved a relieved sigh like she had just settled the war in the Middle East. That was one of the things that I loved about Brooke being my boss. No stomach for discipline. If I ran this place, I would have fired myself. But Brooke decided that she had had enough quality time with all of us, her children, so she started toward the swinging doors of the salon’s main floor to her waiting client. She paused only long enough to gaze at what I was wearing. Today: white Reeboks and black parachute pants. Punk fashion had morphed into New Wave. I had successfully side-stepped Preppy. But it was my sleeveless white sweatshirt which had a Japanese flag printed on the front that Brooke disapproved of. In sunburst rays were strategically cut slits to show a teensy-teasing-bit of my beach-tanned torso, yet none of my excess baby fat. (It had been a few weeks since my last gym visit. This was due to a few busy work weeks and home stress, which begot hamburgers.)
Brooke flung her wedgy bob of copper red hair off her face and looked up at the ceiling as if to seek divine guidance. She reminded me of my real mother and I couldn’t help but feel a rascally wave of accomplishment.
"Would it save any time if I just went insane now?” she asked. And, before she left, she informed all of us that "there's homemade cauliflower soup in the fridge for everyone. Dig in."
I chewed on my coffee and said, “Someone better check the linoleum after lunch to see how much I liked the cauliflower soup.”
Carmen took a bite of her sour fruit and pointed a fork at me. “Your ego is out of control,” Carmen slurped.
"’He's the ego-monster,” I protested as I pointed at Paco. “He makes his clients wait for hours, teases them like hell and then charges them an arm and a leg.” Paco smiled proudly. “After all that,” I said to him directly, “they tell you how wonderful you are!”
I really loved Paco and he had been my mentor since I began working at Beautious Maximus. Paco also made more money than Graceland and had an endless clientele list who waited weeks and sometimes months to get an appointment with him. He owned a fabulous condo and two convertibles and traveled all over the world on his vacations. I worshipped him. This was L.A. A million-dollar home, an E-type Jaguar, and a platinum American Express Card were compulsory. The whole population was “pauper-impaired.” But how long would I have to work on my feet to get the Barbie Dream House too? I was 21. Paco had been in the business for 25 years!
Paco put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Jessy, it’s time you and I had a talk. After your last client today, hmm? We‘ll call it a meeting.” His smile was both teasing and condescending. “For now, let me say, my dear boy, you are mistaking age and seasoned campiness with youth and boldness. We are alike in that you are a wonderful artist, and a good listener, but you must wear your abrasive behavior with an air of humor. You see, clients just want to be able to feel like they are in capable hands and then when one provides that security, they are very, very thankful. Even I find it difficult to keep a grasp on reality when every client tells me that I have saved their life simply for doing their hair. You must try."
"Yeah," Carmen said, between chomps of a dry looking rice cake she pulled out of nowhere. (Her ass?) She must have been onto yet another new California diet. I wanted to mention that I didn't think it would work, but Paco struck a pose to change the subject. He was wearing all white except for a black vest that was made of rubber, and his bony mass mingled with our space-age/Art-Deco wallpaper to look like checkerboard tiles after a 7.5 earthquake. He claimed he was one of the first Caucasians to ever have bleached-out colorless hair and he left his beard its natural Irish red. I didn’t know where he got the name Paco, but it was essentially cool to have a single name, ala Cher, Madonna, and Sting. Bonus cool if hyphenated, such as Ann-Margret. He was a hairdresser so, to me, that explained everything.
"I have a juicy piece of Scandatatattle,” Paco said. “If you beg me, then I must render it you, my fanzzzz."
When a group of hairdressers get together to casually talk about other peoples' lives and secrets for judgment and desecration it is not simply called gossip. We called it “Scandatatattle”: a little bit of scandal, data, and tattling. Paco made it up and it was a Beautious Maximus exclusive. I knew it wouldn't take long to get some dirt on someone this morning.
"Okay. I bite," Carmen said half-heartedly. "I saw your driver’s license and I'm going to tell everyone your real age if you don't tell us what you know."
Paco feigned exasperation, then shot off, "I lied on my drivers license. But I have three words for what I found out about a certain silly someone... Fab-u-lous!"
"Spill it will you?" Carmen said, with her usual tact and grace.
Paco pretended to be offended. Paused. Then lithely flew to land and perch beside her.
"Wee--ell,“ Paco lisped, “remember my last client, Peter?”
"The drag queen?" asked Carmen.
“Honey, anyone who wears a uniform, baby-blue eye shadow, pin-stripe suits, has a cartoon character tattoo, or talks Valley Girl is a drag queen. Anyhoo, he, I mean she was out at the Red Onion last night. You know, that breeder place where girls have fried perms and you can’t get a decent white zin?”
"Carmen goes there,” I said. “A lot.”
"Oh hisss," said Paco. “Well, Peter, I mean, Muffy, was dressed in a blue beaded number. It sounded gorgeous.”
"Isn‘t Muffy a lesbo name?" asked Carmen. “Lesbos can’t be drag queens.”
"Anyhoo! Muffy saw and set her sights on, none other than, our Donovan."
Paco rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue.
The Scandatatattle had taken an ugly turn. Donovan, another stylist, started at Beautious Maximus about the same time I did and he was my best friend. Donovan was originally from Australia, a little older than me, but we both came from Catholic families and liked to go out drinking and dancing, and we both worked extra hard to make it big as stylists. Our professional differences were that I learned my craft from Paco, such as cutting, coloring and styling, and Donovan learned just enough to pick up girls in his chair. When we went out, that’s when he worked his hardest. But what he was working on would be trying to convince girls that he was straight once they found out he was a stylist especially if he was hanging out with me, someone who is transparently and categorically gay. And my poor Donovan was extremely heterosexual. A man-slut for the ladies. The thought of Donovan in a bar, probably after a few beers and near a seemingly willing female, allowed my imagination only one conclusion.
"This is goood!" Carmen cooed to encourage Paco to keep going with his Scandatatattle.
With a smirk on his face, Paco took a deep, energizing breath before he went in for the kill. “Muffy,” he said, “told me that Donovan kept on buying her drinks before inviting her to his Porsche for a little surprise. When the heroine of the story finally did get a wobbly Donovan into his love-mobile, she said he began to get very amorous with his hands. Muffy began to fear that Donovan might find out her true identity. Her un-Muffyness, if you will. But she wryly played the offensive and decided to cop a little feel herself and, low and below, Donovan has a little dick.”
"Aaahh!" All three of us yelled.
In the main part of the busy salon the continuous hum of uninhibited chatter and blow dryers suddenly dropped a decibel or two because we were yelling so loud.
"Yes!" Paco exclaimed, “Indignant, not knowing what to do with such a small portion, Muffy stormed out of the Porche and went back to trolling inside the Red Onion.”
Paco, flung his wisp of a wrist and snapped his fingers triumphantly.
"That does explain why he doesn’t have a lot of repeats…” Carmen said, rubbing her chin. “He does drive a Porsche.”
These were the days before Viagra and clipping your pubic hair to make your penis look bigger. And Donovan was my buddy. I had to say something in his defense.
"That is totally bogus," I said. "Donovan does not have a little dick."
Once again, my co-workers turned on me.
"Well, call me Nancy Reagan!" Paco exclaimed as his pinkies swept sinuously over his clavicle. "I doth hear protest regarding genitalia girth fromith best friend!"
I looked at Carmen for a little help. Some support.
"Don't look at me, Jessy," she said. "You're walking on tar again and we might have to ask you how long is Don Juan's schlong?"
"I wouldn't know!" I said. "I mean, I've never seen it! I just don't think he has a little one."
Almost on cue, Donovan walked into the lab, returning a "roll-about" with tint cups and foil strips. He was humming and then stopped to look at all of us, who were looking back at him, only lower.
In his low-rent Aussie accent he rhetorically asked, "Did ya guys see the cute little blonde chicky oim doin'? Oim makin' her even more blonde than she was before. Gawd, I love this job!"
What was he doing going out without me, his main mate, looking for chickies? “What’s your damage?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you call me last night?”
“Mate,” Donovan said, “you were in my heart, just the same.”
Not caring how I knew he went out last night, and totally oblivious to our scrutiny, Donovan whistled as he left us to go back to his chicky client.
"Bummer," I said, unconsciously.
Paco and Carmen busted up laughing. Again, at my expense.
***
By 5:45, my 5:15 appointment was officially another no-show (an old excuse of “caught in traffic,” which was called in from a mobile phone, a new phenomenon), so I thought I would just go home and see if I could catch a glimpse of my boyfriend before he had to run off to his job. I was pulling the plugs on my blow dryer and curling irons when Liz-Beth shuffled over to my station with her head down, like a puppy who had wet the carpet.
“Uh, Jessy, I know how you feel about no-shows,” she said, “and this is your second one today, but there’s a man up front and he needs a haircut.”
“I don’t take walk-ins,” I said, struggling to stay focused on getting home and trying not fixate on the moon and star design printed on her hemp peasant blouse.
“Yes. Um, I know. But everyone else is all booked up right now, and this man can't wait.”
If she had any idea how much her words and blouse were stinging my senses, I would have totally respected her for it.
"He said his limo driver has just enough time to get gas and fill up the bar if you can cut his hair," she said. “He wanted someone really good.”
“Well …” I said, re-plugging in my irons and blow dryer, “if he wants someone good ...”
Just then, Donovan walked from the reception area with one of his whorey looking clients.
“He does look like your kinda client.” Donovan said to me, “Obnoxious.” Then he slipped me a less backhanded compliment as he passed: “But I wish I could have half yer confidence, mate."
"If only you could have half of my -- nevermind,” I shouted.
Twirling around, I turned my attention back to our receptionist.
“What's it going to hurt to have one more new client?” I said to Liz-Beth. “I'm a Gemini, as you have pointed out, and I can let my benevolent twin rule today, hmm? Tell him to wait for me, Liz-Beth. I can't have him thinking that I need a new client."
I turned my back on her again.
"Yeah. Right," she said, behind me and with a just a hint of a patronizing tone.
She was making fun of me. I immediately coiled, ready to strike with my provoked fangs of payback, when my shoulder was strongly tapped from behind.
“Ahem,” came a man’s voice into my ear.
Startled, I turned around to chastise whomever had interrupted what would have surely been a glib and slightly cruel comment on Liz-Beth’s peasant blouse, but I was instead shocked to be face to chest with a mutantesquely tall man. The man steadied me from falling backwards on my hot irons by grabbing my right hand. Behind the big guy, I could see Liz-Beth shuffling and chuckling back to her front desk.
"Heeey, bud-buddy,” the tall man billowed, “are you Jeffery?"
I caught my balance as my hand was vigorously shaken and released. As any stylist would, I backed up and took the offensive and smiled in my most “you are putty in my hands” way.
"I'm Jessy," I said, through gritted teeth to make it obvious that he had slaughtered my name. (I had not yet legally chopped off my last name like Paco, but to the clients I had no last name -- and no middle name. There was no reason to fuck it up.)
"I really appreciate you taking me on such short notice," he said, belying a softer personality than his girth would suggest.
"Well, I guess I'm ready for you now," I said, motioning for him to follow me. “I'll shampoo your hair. All the shampoo assistants are busy, with scheduled clients.”
As the man followed me to the shampoo lounge, I tried to fire a glare at Liz-Beth as we passed near the front desk. But she would have none of it and never looked my way, and I realized that the bitch might be acclimating faster than I thought. We had all better watch our backs or we might end up being booked with a highlight at 7PM on a Sunday by “accident.”
He was wearing a black satin jacket with the latest Star Trek movie logo embroidered on the right pec and a centered, much-larger version on the back. It was one of those jackets a studio gives to the staff and crew that had worked on the set of a movie. The tall man looked like a producer. A time-is-money type, anyway. Not so much artsy but antsy. This guy, I sensed, was probably a little pushy and, in my opinion, successful people probably had to be. I’d make sure I got a new client card made out on him if he tipped well.
After shampooing his hair, I commanded him to follow me to my chair. As we passed Brooke, she was combing out one of her geriatrics who looked either asleep or dead. Paco’s chair was empty because he went home, half way through the day, due to coming down with a cold. I made a mental note to self to call him. Then, on second thought, I made a mental note to scratch the last note because I remembered that we were supposed to have a meeting, obviously canceled, about my attitude after work.
When I walked by Carmen's chair she was telling the same blonde joke to her latest client that she had been telling everyone else (except the dumb blondes) all day. "You can tell that she owned a vibrator because of her chipped teeth!" This time I heard only the punch line but it finally tickled a nerve so I laughed and she glared at me like I had spitefully eavesdropped. Geez.
Donovan seemed to be consulting with Whorey on what he was going to do to her hair. But I knew he was just toying with her as he massaged her head before she put on a smock or a cutting cape. Donovan once told me that massaging women’s heads made their tits pointier. As I passed him, I experienced a slight flash of rage at his unprofessionalism.
When we got back to my station, the tall man sat in my styling chair as if he owned it. He moved the products on the counter so he could see more of me and the whole salon in the mirror, as if casing the joint. Then he adjusted his cape so not a pinhead size of clipped hair would fall on his arms or clothes.
“I've got a real important meeting tonight, Buddy,” he said. “Real important. So just trim it into what I already have, but shorter. But not too much shorter."
“Okay,” I said, as I jumped right into the haircut. “But are you sure that this is just a business meeting? Could it be a possible date? It sounds very important."
After I realized that he hadn’t replied and I saw that he was squeezing the arms of the chair, my scissors stopped cutting. Instinctually I backed my torso away from the wrenched arms of the chair and looked up to see that he was glaring at me through the mirror. I eeked out a smile.
"Heyee," he said, and then finally laughed. "You are a wise guy! Hey-hey. I think I'm going to like you, Jess-boy. Yeah. You're all right."
I exhaled, feeling as if, for a brief moment, I had been in real danger for moving in too personal, too fast. Regaining my mental balance, I continued to trim his dirty-blonde hair into the surfer look that he came in with.
"My hair is very important to me, Jessy-boy," he said. “I gotta warn ya, the last guy who cut too much of my hair off, got somethin' of his cut off. Hey, hey, hey."
Male clients always came back to me because I never cut too much and I always clipped the hair on their ears and eyebrows without asking and I never made their hair over-poofy. So I wasn't worried about cutting his hair too short but I kept more of a distance from the arms of the cutting chair.
This guy was they type of client who let me do most of the talking, which I was happy to do after a day of mostly listening. He seemed like a nice dude who liked to laugh and paid attention to my chatter well enough. And he must have been okay with my forwardness at our introduction. But he loved his finished haircut because he tipped me with three crisp one hundred dollar bills. When he slapped them down in my palm, my jaw dropped in happy surprise and for the sting in my hand.
"If I didn't like it," he said, "I would have given you ten times that much and then run ya down in the street just so you couldn't spend it." He always ended his sentences with the same smirky laugh. "Hey-hey-hey."
"Say, Buddy,” he said, “I have an associate, who, just might need your services. To do his wife’s hair. She could use your help. Mind if I pass on your good name? You'll make a lotta dough."
"Sure," I said, still rubbing the sting in my hand. "Any friends of yours are friends of mine.” And any associates’ wife’s hair that will make me a lot of dough are definitely friends of mine.
Before he walked out to his gassed-up limousine, I invited the new big-guy client to fill out a client card at the front desk and to grab one of my business cards."
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Mafia Hairdresser Issues a Fatwa on Flip-Flops
"Just say no!
Your feet need to breathe, you say? Bullshit. Your feet are an appendage, not an organ that usurps air.
Easy to slip on? So is a Banana peel.
Fashionable? Yes. Some even have rhinestones. (Regretfully, I wish I thought of that.) But shoulder pads were in fashion once and we all regret that one. And no, shoulder pads are not coming back.
You like the freedom you feel in Flip-flops? This is America. Your freedom is an illusion. But nothing will prevent you more from attaining the new American dream of looking cute, climbing up the social ladder and being on a reality show more than looking dowdy and walking shlumpy.
Exposing your hooves to city dirt makes your pedicure choke and you'll end up galloping from The Water Tower to Saks like a farm animal while trying to avoid getting stepped on. And if you wear the damn things the country, you’ll get thorns up your toenails, weeds under your heels, or bitten by a rattlesnake.
Flip-flops are supposed to be worn to separate your feet from the athlete’s feet fungus on the gym shower floor or for walking on the hot sand at the beach. Wearing flip-flops outside the gym or the beach is like taking a "Mr. Grumpy" in front of your boyfriend. Not too many women can get away with that without stripping away what little bit of mystery one can only try to maintain in this void-of-privacy world.
Flip-flops force you to hunch with a Sasquatch-like squat while you loudly scuff the sidewalks all because you've been curling you toes to hold on to the damn slap-pads to the bottoms of your feet. Are you exercising your toes to work like monkey claws? Because you will certainly be able to snatch up lost change from the floor of a bus.
But hey, maybe the whole look does go with the short frilly skirts and crop tops that show "muffin." At least stop the accessorizing of these chiropractic contributing contraptions by adorning them with tacky Hello Kitty pusses that look up from the plastic that separates your big and second toe. A big peach-colored, plastic flower will just make your feet look like that of a fat androgynous forest hobbit. Men do not think dirty women’s feet with scrunched up toes with flowers on them, look hot. Men want to sleep with a classy woman in a simple black dress with nice flats or open-toed heels. They like fit sporty women who wear Nike’s which leaves her feet a sexy ambiguity. Think Jessica Biel in the daytime. Loud sneakers with a pair of pompom socks isn’t too cute either. But at least you’ll look a little athletic instead of resembling a dirt-poor peasant who has had to work in the diamond mines, and who also apparently has to take a dump by the way you are scuffing, hunching and walking in your fucking dirty flip-flops.”
I know, I know... But this is what the hairdresser in my second book writes about. (A writing hairdresser?!) I know, I know.
Anyway, subscribe/read my blog and keep up with what this hairdresser talks about behind the chair in Chicago.
or come get your hair done
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
http://www.mafiahairdresser.com/
Your feet need to breathe, you say? Bullshit. Your feet are an appendage, not an organ that usurps air.
Easy to slip on? So is a Banana peel.
Fashionable? Yes. Some even have rhinestones. (Regretfully, I wish I thought of that.) But shoulder pads were in fashion once and we all regret that one. And no, shoulder pads are not coming back.
You like the freedom you feel in Flip-flops? This is America. Your freedom is an illusion. But nothing will prevent you more from attaining the new American dream of looking cute, climbing up the social ladder and being on a reality show more than looking dowdy and walking shlumpy.
Exposing your hooves to city dirt makes your pedicure choke and you'll end up galloping from The Water Tower to Saks like a farm animal while trying to avoid getting stepped on. And if you wear the damn things the country, you’ll get thorns up your toenails, weeds under your heels, or bitten by a rattlesnake.
Flip-flops are supposed to be worn to separate your feet from the athlete’s feet fungus on the gym shower floor or for walking on the hot sand at the beach. Wearing flip-flops outside the gym or the beach is like taking a "Mr. Grumpy" in front of your boyfriend. Not too many women can get away with that without stripping away what little bit of mystery one can only try to maintain in this void-of-privacy world.
Flip-flops force you to hunch with a Sasquatch-like squat while you loudly scuff the sidewalks all because you've been curling you toes to hold on to the damn slap-pads to the bottoms of your feet. Are you exercising your toes to work like monkey claws? Because you will certainly be able to snatch up lost change from the floor of a bus.
But hey, maybe the whole look does go with the short frilly skirts and crop tops that show "muffin." At least stop the accessorizing of these chiropractic contributing contraptions by adorning them with tacky Hello Kitty pusses that look up from the plastic that separates your big and second toe. A big peach-colored, plastic flower will just make your feet look like that of a fat androgynous forest hobbit. Men do not think dirty women’s feet with scrunched up toes with flowers on them, look hot. Men want to sleep with a classy woman in a simple black dress with nice flats or open-toed heels. They like fit sporty women who wear Nike’s which leaves her feet a sexy ambiguity. Think Jessica Biel in the daytime. Loud sneakers with a pair of pompom socks isn’t too cute either. But at least you’ll look a little athletic instead of resembling a dirt-poor peasant who has had to work in the diamond mines, and who also apparently has to take a dump by the way you are scuffing, hunching and walking in your fucking dirty flip-flops.”
I know, I know... But this is what the hairdresser in my second book writes about. (A writing hairdresser?!) I know, I know.
Anyway, subscribe/read my blog and keep up with what this hairdresser talks about behind the chair in Chicago.
or come get your hair done
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
http://www.mafiahairdresser.com/
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Von Bitch: A Mellow Drama
VON BITCH
An original screenplay by
Jessy
Scene: Twelfth floor hallway in a Toronto high-rise apartment complex. A door opens and TERRY a dead ringer for an uncreepy bald Tom Cruise walks into the hall and quietly shuts the door. He is wearing a lime-green tank top which has the words “VonBitch” stenciled across the chest and shows off his fabulous tan and defined workout body. Over one shoulder he has slung a meshed pet carrier with his cat, KITTY HOLMES inside. In his opposite hand he holds the leash connected to his dog, DAUGHTERGIRL. With his chin up, TERRY carries his cat and walks his dog only a few doors down to the elevators and pushes the button.
KITTY HOLMES is fussy and is mewing loudly. She does not like being out of the only apartment she has ever lived in.
TERRY taps his foot as minutes begin to pass. Suddenly, without warning, TERRY bursts into tears. TERRY and KITTY HOLMES seem like they are competing.
The same door which TERRY had just come through opens up and DICK, a tall, haggard and nervous looking man in a conservative gray suit (think Dr. Smith from the original Lost in Space series, in earth clothes) pops his head out to look at TERRY. This man is now TERRY’s ex-boyfriend, who is ten years younger (but yet who looks ten years older), than TERRY. DICK has tears of regret and guilt bleeding through his scheming, pallid blue eyes.
An original screenplay by
Jessy
Scene: Twelfth floor hallway in a Toronto high-rise apartment complex. A door opens and TERRY a dead ringer for an uncreepy bald Tom Cruise walks into the hall and quietly shuts the door. He is wearing a lime-green tank top which has the words “VonBitch” stenciled across the chest and shows off his fabulous tan and defined workout body. Over one shoulder he has slung a meshed pet carrier with his cat, KITTY HOLMES inside. In his opposite hand he holds the leash connected to his dog, DAUGHTERGIRL. With his chin up, TERRY carries his cat and walks his dog only a few doors down to the elevators and pushes the button.
KITTY HOLMES is fussy and is mewing loudly. She does not like being out of the only apartment she has ever lived in.
TERRY taps his foot as minutes begin to pass. Suddenly, without warning, TERRY bursts into tears. TERRY and KITTY HOLMES seem like they are competing.
The same door which TERRY had just come through opens up and DICK, a tall, haggard and nervous looking man in a conservative gray suit (think Dr. Smith from the original Lost in Space series, in earth clothes) pops his head out to look at TERRY. This man is now TERRY’s ex-boyfriend, who is ten years younger (but yet who looks ten years older), than TERRY. DICK has tears of regret and guilt bleeding through his scheming, pallid blue eyes.
DICK
Are you going to be alright?
TERRY attempts to hold in his emotions.
TERRY
You’re the one who’s going to feel
guilty for, like, about a zillion years.
DICK
Are you going to write about this?
TERRY
I’m a writer, Dick. It’s who I am. It’s what I do.
A dam bursts from deep inside of TERRY. He did not want to cry and show his searing pain in front of DICK.
The elevator doors open. NUMBER ONE MAN in a business suit with briefcase is in the elevator. Bravely, TERRY takes a last look at DICK who appears like he just might hang himself after TERRY is gone. TERRY takes his screaming cat and silent dog into the elevator. The elevator door shuts.
Scene: Inside elevator.
Embarrassed to be crying in front of NUMBER ONE MAN, TERRY pulls it together for a moment. KITTY HOLMES’ cries are overwhelming and TERRY lets out brief burst of tears before he is startled quiet again as the elevator doors open up. DAUGHTERGIRL sits smugly on the floor.
Scene: high-rise apartment complex hallway in front of elevators: tenth floor.
NUMBER TWO MAN in a suit with briefcase stands at the opened elevator doors. Wet-eyed TERRY, mewing KITTY HOLMES, DAUGHTERGIRL and stunned NUMBER ONE MAN stare at the new would-be passenger. TERRY wipes his tears, assuring NUMBER TWO MAN that it is okay to enter the elevator. NUMBER TWO MAN reluctantly enters the elevator and turns around and exhales while facing the closing elevator doors.
Scene: Inside elevator.
TERRY, KITTY HOLMES, DAUGHTERGIRL, NUMBER ONE MAN, NUMBER TWO MAN in uncomfortable silence, until...
TERRY
I just broke up with my boyfriend.
NUMBER ONE MAN nods. NUMBER TWO MAN frowns.
KITTY HOLMES begins to meow loudly again. DAUGHTERGIRL wags her tail.
Scene: ninth floor hallway in a Toronto high-rise apartment complex.
NUMBER THREE MAN in a suit holding a newspaper views the following as the doors open: TERRY in a lime-green “Von Bitch” tank top sniffling with a duffel bag over one shoulder and a mewing KITTY HOLMES in a cat carrier over his other. NUMBER ONE MAN stares straight ahead and NUMBER TWO MAN rolls his eyes. DAUGHTERGIRL moves to the back of the elevator and sits down.
NUMBER TWO MAN slightly shakes his head to NUMBER THREE MAN who decides to get onto the elevator anyway. The door closes.
Scene: Inside elevator.
TERRY begins to cry again. NUMBER ONE MAN, NUMBER TWO MAN, NUMBER THREE MAN all startle. KITTY HOLMES mews. DAUGHTERGIRL yawns.
NUMBER ONE MAN
He just broke up with his boyfriend.
NUMBER THREE MAN
Oh.
TERRY nods in agreement as he cries.
NUMBER TWO MAN
You were with Dick, on twelve, right?
TERRY
(nods)
I’ve wasted months of my life. Months.
NUMBER ONE MAN
Maybe you’ll get back together?
TERRY
Yeah. No.
Number Three Man
I know Dick…
NUMBER TWO MAN rolls his eyes again.
The door opens again. In the hall facing the elevator, NUMBER FOUR MAN in a suit with briefcase looks in.
NUMBER FOUR MAN gets into the elevator and turns around.
TERRY
He was selling Ecstasy. Ecstasy!
The elevator doors close.
Scene: sixth floor hallway in a Toronto high-rise apartment complex.
NUMBER FIVE MAN views the following as the doors open:
TERRY bawling, KITTY HOLMES mewing loudly, DAUGHTERGIRL barks once. NUMBER ONE MAN ignoring all, NUMBER TWO MAN shaking his head, NUMBER THREE MAN man rubbing his chin, NUMBER FOUR MAN scowling.
NUMBER TWO MAN
I was wondering how he could afford
to live in this building at his age.
Scene: Inside elevator.
TERRY cries. NUMBER ONE MAN, NUMBER TWO MAN, NUMBER THREE MAN, NUMBER FOUR MAN all take a few side glances to each other and then look straight ahead.
NUMBER FIVE MAN tries to be inconspicuous. KITTY HOLMES suddenly stops mewing. DAUGHTERGIRL lays down on the floor and sighs.
TERRY
I’m going back to Chicago where it’s warm.
And I never want to see a small dick again.
TERRY stops bawling long enough and begins to smile at what he has just done and said in front of these men on their way to work. YVETTE MEW MEW starts mewing again.
NUMBER FIVE MAN shrinks into a corner as the rest of the standing men in the elevator begin to chuckle.
NUMBER ONE MAN
He just broke up with Dick on twelve.
NUMBER TWO MAN
Dick has a small dick.
NUMBER FIVE MAN nods.
NUMBER FOUR MAN
So, Dick sells Ecstasy?
NUMBER ONE MAN frowns. NUMBER TWO MAN raises his eyebrows. TERRY starts laughing through tears. NUMBER FIVE MAN cowers. All the men in the elevator, except for NUMBER FIVE MAN giggle and laugh.
TERRY
He was too young for me anyway.
NUMBER TWO MAN
Small dick.
NUMBER ONE MAN
So you really think Chicago is warmer than Toronto?
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Monday, October 12, 2009
S.O.L. & S.O.S. from the 80's
"On rare occasions, I was allowed to walk freely on the grounds. I can’t remember how many times I had tried to escape (it’s all so hazy now). But now there are too many tattooed guards with guns to think about it, even if I could still think clearly. Some of my fleeting thoughts are really only faint recollections of desires to get outdoors. To stretch. To breathe fresh air, and not this re-circulating oxygen that blends with the strawberry reek of crack cocaine buildup on the walls.
This was my home until something happened. Something else. I “lived” in a bathroom, sitting, days on end, on a pink rococo vanity chair, with hardly enough concentration to digest page one of yesterday’s newspaper. Maybe it’s Wednesdays‘?
Possibly soon, Big-Don, my host and the owner of this house, might return. Then I’ll pilfer a hit off his crack bong and cut his hair with my shaky hands. I’ll pretend to listen to his bragging deliriums of how he made the company millions and I’ll laugh at his gay jokes. I’ll pretend to care about his grand delusions of his immense indispensability to the company while I trim the fifty-four hairs on his head and the abundant crop growing out of his nose. He likes his hair "just so" and I‘m a good listener when there is coke are crack are around.
I really just want to sleep. But I hardly did that anymore and I didn’t seem to need to. It’s the crack.
Even though I was docile and numb from being a “kept boy,” somehow I knew that Brie and Kelly were on their way to rescue me. The girls would karate chop their way through the tattooed guards and then they’d cut through the chain around my ankle that connected me to the toilet. Then the three of us would kick Big-Don’s big ass. After some quick repartee (and a stint in re-hab for me), the Angels and myself will meet at the office, the place where we got our assignments from a voice from a speaker phone and Lee Majors who would, hopefully, replace ugly Bosley. Then Lee Majors will announce that he is gay and getting a divorce from that skank, Jill, who quit being a team-playing Angel before I got there.
But my Angels were not here yet. And my real friends, my lover, nor my family knew where I was. I'd done such a good job at hiding my "other life" from them, my secret life as an undercover dude-Angel, that they wouldn't have had a clue. Literally and figuratively I was in the crapper."
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
This was my home until something happened. Something else. I “lived” in a bathroom, sitting, days on end, on a pink rococo vanity chair, with hardly enough concentration to digest page one of yesterday’s newspaper. Maybe it’s Wednesdays‘?
Possibly soon, Big-Don, my host and the owner of this house, might return. Then I’ll pilfer a hit off his crack bong and cut his hair with my shaky hands. I’ll pretend to listen to his bragging deliriums of how he made the company millions and I’ll laugh at his gay jokes. I’ll pretend to care about his grand delusions of his immense indispensability to the company while I trim the fifty-four hairs on his head and the abundant crop growing out of his nose. He likes his hair "just so" and I‘m a good listener when there is coke are crack are around.
I really just want to sleep. But I hardly did that anymore and I didn’t seem to need to. It’s the crack.
Even though I was docile and numb from being a “kept boy,” somehow I knew that Brie and Kelly were on their way to rescue me. The girls would karate chop their way through the tattooed guards and then they’d cut through the chain around my ankle that connected me to the toilet. Then the three of us would kick Big-Don’s big ass. After some quick repartee (and a stint in re-hab for me), the Angels and myself will meet at the office, the place where we got our assignments from a voice from a speaker phone and Lee Majors who would, hopefully, replace ugly Bosley. Then Lee Majors will announce that he is gay and getting a divorce from that skank, Jill, who quit being a team-playing Angel before I got there.
But my Angels were not here yet. And my real friends, my lover, nor my family knew where I was. I'd done such a good job at hiding my "other life" from them, my secret life as an undercover dude-Angel, that they wouldn't have had a clue. Literally and figuratively I was in the crapper."
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Hairdresser's Guide for Hicks
"For the most part, I like people. But I know that sometimes I might come off like I’m judging people. I am. But I’m not. The perception that I might be at all critical is because I feel that I am a student of life. I like to know how people tic. I do people’s hair and we talk and I collect the data in my head and compare them with other people. Or me. Add that to the fact that I’m well traveled. And I have a moderate sense of fashion. (At least I can tell what is in and what’s out.) I’ve practically memorized all of Miss Manners’ books on etiquette. And, if you were to ask me, Florence verses Venice, Tappas versus Sushi, Grade 7 leather versus 5, or Cuisinart versus Calphalon, I would have an opinion because I am educated. It’s natural to compare things. And people. Some are just better than others.
I know. I know. This sounds a little snotty. But, fundamentally, I own up to this. I’m a hairdresser.
To further explain my snotty, I was not spoiled and I didn’t come from well-to-do’s. My parents taught me not to reach for the stars and that I will never be one. Yes, I was loved and was told that I was special, but no more special than anyone else. I didn’t think it was my divine right to receive a car on my sixteenth birthday but I was taught to work on any engine (pre-electronics), should I ever own one. My parents were strapped for money when it was my time for college and that’s how, thankfully, I ended up in beauty school. I painted my own apartments. I helped friends move. I wouldn’t care if there was sand in my shorts at the beach. I wouldn’t complain if a roommate used up the hot water.
Alas, I was not raised to be, or have, or do the things that I have had or done since I became a hairdresser. But, because I hung around people who loved traveling and spending money and people who partied around town and different cities, I began adopting and learning what they knew.
But there is a group of people that exists, in another spectrum of living, that I simply do not like. They might have money. They might be any color. They might be religious or spiritual. But this particular group of people are non-learners, small-minded, less-traveled, and definitely out-of-fashion people. And they all have bad manners. I call them hicks. I judge them harshly because that is one of the things I adopted from people whom I have hung around with. Harsh judgeing and hick-hating are snotty-people pastimes.
Hicks are those people who live in small towns in states that start with the letters M, W, I, or K. These people are nothing like city people in dress, education, manner, or attitude. Hicks look like Jerry Springer guests and are proud of what they don’t know. They spout bastardized Bible versus as defense of their lack of experiential expansion and fear of anyone different from them.
I have always been leery of hicks, especially in their own environment. I think that hicks want to kill us city people. I would see it in their eyes if I wore my Diesel shredded faux leather Daniel Boone shirt, my low-rise True Religion jeans and Frye boots while walking down one of their local town streets. I know if I wasn’t on my guard, I’d have a pillowcase thrown over my head and be tossed into the back of a ’58 Ford and driven to an old abandoned barn and beaten up and left to die. The last thing that I would hear is, “You will die faggot. Because you had the nerve to show your devil gayness with your pretty little muscles poppin’ out of your fancy tank top.”
I had an aunt who retired and moved to a small golfing community in Kentucky. In this town they still used words like “nigger,” “faggots” and “Kikes,” as well as phrases like, “I think they’re Jewish,” “Those people,” “The colored girl,” and, yes, “that way.”
I am me. I have a high voice. And I am really gay sometimes. On my first impression to drunk guys in sports bars, or a few of the faith-based Green Groups I belong to, I know I do not blend in. But I do expect people to like me after a while because I’m fun to be around and I like them. And I have amusing friends and I’m polite. But when I used to drive the seven hours to Kentucky to visit my aunt (when she was still alive), I felt unsafe in that small Kentucky community. The townspeople weren’t used to me or “my kind.”
I have to admit that, just like hicks, sometimes I used my own words and phrases and labels without thinking which might make hicks uncomfortable with me. Trashy. Tacky. Trannie. Slutty. Whorey. Fab-boo and Fabulous! Words like that slipped out of my mouth just shopping with my Aunt. You can imagine what I'd say if I was provoked.
And I've alway resented hicks in my city, just as much as I think they resented my kind in their smaller towns. But I am not afraid of the hicks that are in my city. This is my jungle and they are the minority here. I don’t even mind the hicks that move here, because then they are forced to get to know me, or a Jew, or an African American, or Polish American, or Mexican, or any other type of big-city person that they previously feared and might have beaten up in their small towns. In the city, they have to grow. They have to learn. They have to get with the program. Sooner or later, they will become like us, open-minded people in the concrete jungle. It’s the nature of the city and probably one of the reasons I only like to travel to other cities or places where only city people go. I have always felt safe in my own jungle and with other jungle people.
But it might be time to raise the white-flag, or maybe even a paisley one. Both big city people and hicks should call a truce. Because one of us might have to venture to each others’ territories to visit a family member or, yes, even take a vacation. Or, we just might want to explore and see what things are like on the other side or experience another spectrum. The following handy guide is to help hicks have a better time in the big city. This is my olive brach.
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
I know. I know. This sounds a little snotty. But, fundamentally, I own up to this. I’m a hairdresser.
To further explain my snotty, I was not spoiled and I didn’t come from well-to-do’s. My parents taught me not to reach for the stars and that I will never be one. Yes, I was loved and was told that I was special, but no more special than anyone else. I didn’t think it was my divine right to receive a car on my sixteenth birthday but I was taught to work on any engine (pre-electronics), should I ever own one. My parents were strapped for money when it was my time for college and that’s how, thankfully, I ended up in beauty school. I painted my own apartments. I helped friends move. I wouldn’t care if there was sand in my shorts at the beach. I wouldn’t complain if a roommate used up the hot water.
Alas, I was not raised to be, or have, or do the things that I have had or done since I became a hairdresser. But, because I hung around people who loved traveling and spending money and people who partied around town and different cities, I began adopting and learning what they knew.
But there is a group of people that exists, in another spectrum of living, that I simply do not like. They might have money. They might be any color. They might be religious or spiritual. But this particular group of people are non-learners, small-minded, less-traveled, and definitely out-of-fashion people. And they all have bad manners. I call them hicks. I judge them harshly because that is one of the things I adopted from people whom I have hung around with. Harsh judgeing and hick-hating are snotty-people pastimes.
Hicks are those people who live in small towns in states that start with the letters M, W, I, or K. These people are nothing like city people in dress, education, manner, or attitude. Hicks look like Jerry Springer guests and are proud of what they don’t know. They spout bastardized Bible versus as defense of their lack of experiential expansion and fear of anyone different from them.
I have always been leery of hicks, especially in their own environment. I think that hicks want to kill us city people. I would see it in their eyes if I wore my Diesel shredded faux leather Daniel Boone shirt, my low-rise True Religion jeans and Frye boots while walking down one of their local town streets. I know if I wasn’t on my guard, I’d have a pillowcase thrown over my head and be tossed into the back of a ’58 Ford and driven to an old abandoned barn and beaten up and left to die. The last thing that I would hear is, “You will die faggot. Because you had the nerve to show your devil gayness with your pretty little muscles poppin’ out of your fancy tank top.”
I had an aunt who retired and moved to a small golfing community in Kentucky. In this town they still used words like “nigger,” “faggots” and “Kikes,” as well as phrases like, “I think they’re Jewish,” “Those people,” “The colored girl,” and, yes, “that way.”
I am me. I have a high voice. And I am really gay sometimes. On my first impression to drunk guys in sports bars, or a few of the faith-based Green Groups I belong to, I know I do not blend in. But I do expect people to like me after a while because I’m fun to be around and I like them. And I have amusing friends and I’m polite. But when I used to drive the seven hours to Kentucky to visit my aunt (when she was still alive), I felt unsafe in that small Kentucky community. The townspeople weren’t used to me or “my kind.”
I have to admit that, just like hicks, sometimes I used my own words and phrases and labels without thinking which might make hicks uncomfortable with me. Trashy. Tacky. Trannie. Slutty. Whorey. Fab-boo and Fabulous! Words like that slipped out of my mouth just shopping with my Aunt. You can imagine what I'd say if I was provoked.
And I've alway resented hicks in my city, just as much as I think they resented my kind in their smaller towns. But I am not afraid of the hicks that are in my city. This is my jungle and they are the minority here. I don’t even mind the hicks that move here, because then they are forced to get to know me, or a Jew, or an African American, or Polish American, or Mexican, or any other type of big-city person that they previously feared and might have beaten up in their small towns. In the city, they have to grow. They have to learn. They have to get with the program. Sooner or later, they will become like us, open-minded people in the concrete jungle. It’s the nature of the city and probably one of the reasons I only like to travel to other cities or places where only city people go. I have always felt safe in my own jungle and with other jungle people.
But it might be time to raise the white-flag, or maybe even a paisley one. Both big city people and hicks should call a truce. Because one of us might have to venture to each others’ territories to visit a family member or, yes, even take a vacation. Or, we just might want to explore and see what things are like on the other side or experience another spectrum. The following handy guide is to help hicks have a better time in the big city. This is my olive brach.
- The number one thing hicks have to know about the city is everything is more expensive than in your small towns. That’s because of supply and demand. There are more people squished into a smaller space. We are taxed for the pleasure of being squished on top of each other, and there is a heavy duty we pay just to bring goods into the city. So get used to it. It will be worth it. Then you can go home and brag that you paid $14 for French Fries that had parmesan cheese on them with a truffle mayo dipping sauce. You can conversate that your beer is only $1.70 at your hometown bar, and that same beer in the city is $7. Just don’t make the mistake and think that you can flask-it or bring your own. We are a very proud civilization. And, even though many of us have no savings and rent a peapod of an apartment (because it has a view that makes us feel like we have space), we don’t like looking like we don’t have money ourselves. So we distrust cheap people and we will do anything to ridicule or avoid them.
- When in Chicago, please refrain from shopping only at The Disney Store, Bed Bath and Beyond, The Gap, Nike Town, Macy’s or Filene’s Basement. I believe you have these stores in or near your own hometowns. They are all the same. That’s like going to Paris or Rome and eating only at McDonalds. There is the Ralph Lauren store — a fabulous shopping experience — and Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdales’ Home. Even if you don’t buy anything in these stores, you might rub elbows with Michael and Juanita Jordan, Oprah, or even Jerry Springer — whom you also might know. And, by the way, unless you have children, don’t just eat at The Rain Forrest Café, the Rock ‘N’ Roll McDonalds, and The Cheesecake Factory. There’s Le Colonial, Adobo Grill, Pizzano’s and more, more, more!
- And forget about pick-pocketers! It’s not the people with green hair and pierced noses that you have to watch out for. It’s the friendly, normal-looking people who ask you where you got your gaucho pants and bedazzled sweatshirt from that you have to worry about. Ignore anyone who invades your personal space and anyone to whom you have not been personally introduced. They are the bad people. Nice people in big cities don’t talk to each other and we don’t like to touch each other. We’d never get anywhere if we stopped to talk to people and we’d be creating new strains of viruses.
- Don’t give money to the homeless! If someone is saying, “hey, excuse me…,” he’s going to ask you for money, or set you up for a real pick-pocketer. And never believe that anyone has “just run out of gas…” or says, “I’m a vet,” or “my wife and I have just enough to make it home if …” These people will be on the same corner the next day saying the same thing to the next off-the-bus sucker. After ten or twenty times of taking the time to dig through your change purse, you’ll get it. But you are a chump if you give anyone a dime the first time. De-chump yourself ahead of time and just give your money directly to a homeless shelter in your own hometown or whichever city you are visiting.
- Men: who cares if you have everything in your wallet? One credit card and a driver’s license in the back pocket is enough. If your pants or overalls are too loose and someone can reach in and get at your big target of a thick wallet, then you need a man-purse. No big bulges except for the good one in front.
- Women: don’t clutch your stupid old ugly purses so tight. And don’t carry one of those huge reach-inside types of beach totes that hold everything your fearful of leaving in the motel. You don’t need to take all of your plastic jewelry, free bathroom amenities and Handywipes. In fact, just blend in and buy a Coach bag that will last forever, the kind that has many buckles and pockets to put your new Wallgreens glasses and traveler's cheques in. Believe me, when you pay $1000 for a purse, that purse will grow nerve endings and you’ll know if a gnat lands on the strap.
- Please don’t clog the sidewalks by looking up at the tall buildings. There is a people-traffic flow and we are trying to get to our favorite Starbucks for our thrice-daily caffeine injections. Move to the side, near the pretty planters, to take your pictures so we won’t have to run into you or sneer. Better yet, just look up at the buildings when you are crossing the street. People driving in cars in the city are used to people in crosswalks taking their time and texting, long past the don’t-walk light coming on. This is for your own good and safety.
- Do not wear traffic-stopping inappropriate fashions and seasonally-wrong outerwear. Sometimes it is impossible to believe that hicks show current films in their hometown theaters or even have television sets in their homes. Do your post offices deliver your Vogues and Cosmos twenty years too late? How else can you explain the fact that the women and young-girl hicks from these small towns are still getting 1978 frizz-perms and cap-frosted, bleach-burned streaks in their hair? And why are you wearing bedazzled Flash Dance sweatshirts in forty-degree weather or ever?! Hint: before you come to the city, rent a contemporary (means current) movie that was made in the current year that you are going to visit the city. (All Friends reruns are fine as well.) No one in current films and television are sporting white-girl cornrows, wear baggy sweatshirts, Birkenstocks or windbreakers tied over tank-tops. A good rule of thumb is, that if the characters in the movie have great apartments and a lot of money, that’s who you want to look like.
- Keep walking once you get to the top of an escalator “ride.” Use your brain. There are people right behind you! Revolving doors: two people should not go through a revolving door in the same section of a revolving door – it just makes sense.
Snotty? Nooo. I’m just a person with common sense who has learned the hard way too. When I first moved to Chicago from L.A., I took the ground-floor escalator in the Saks building at Christmas time. I wasn't used to one store haveing seven floors. And everything was decorated so pretty, for tourists and newcomers like me, that I was stunned at the top and I froze, my eyes glazed over by shiny expensive trinkets in the windows. I caused a six-person dog-pile on myself and a security person had to dig me out of shoppers and shopping bags. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t go back to that building till I had a new hairstyle and new coat and sunglasses from the New Years’ sales. And in California, where I grew up, you didn’t need to keep the temperate air out or in, so I wasn’t very used to revolving doors. It took me a couple of times of practicing my timing — and practically dry humping a few complete strangers — till I finally learned to breathe and calm down and just go through them as singularly and fast as the city experts. The point is, that I learned, and so can you."
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Friday, October 9, 2009
Choking on the 80's
"We had shoulder pads, Gucci stripes, Joan Rivers, “Dress for Success,” and parachute pants. For our minds, we read about astral-projecting actors and considered UFOs and ESP. For play: Rubik‘s Cube and Nintendo. Bio-feedback, L. Ron Hubbard, “Color Me Beautiful,” and workshops like The Forum or The Experience offered promising inner-and outer-beauty transformations to those who had excess cash. The cost of communicating on mobile phones (which weighed less than ten pounds), was becoming affordable to more than just the millionaires and agents. Academy Award winning actress Jane Fonda convinced the Golden State and the rest of the nation that five aerobics classes per week was minimum, and most of us ate only two meal supplements a day plus a “sensible meal.” Weekends were for binging on cigarettes, drugs, Thai food and carbohydrates, sans MSG and (of course) “blow.” Alcohol was out because it made you fat. Wine was fine.
For a while, gay was “in” and everybody wanted in on the fun. Straight guys began experimenting sexually, got coiffed at hair salons, and pierced their ears. Most civilized men watched “Dynasty” every Wednesday on projector screens at the Silver Fox and sipped complimentary Champagne during commercial breaks. The principal indicator that our cultural development had reached the zenith in the evolutionary curve was that any guy could proudly buy their Calvins in every major department store. Before, we were shamefully relegated to purchasing our designer jeans at a singular men’s rack at the rear part of women’s boutiques as if we were secretly buying women‘s apparel. But so what if we were? Our rock stars said we could look like fey pirates, have bows and braids in our shoulder-length hair and wear eye liner. Women cut their hair like marines and sported tennis shoes with evening gowns. Some chose to wear underwear as outerwear. And yes, bustiers were for everyone.
The Fall/Christmas season of ‘83 introduced Cabbage Patch dolls and a singer named Madonna. Both stressed parents and created pandemonium at malls.
Luke and Laura or Tad and Jenny were soap opera couples for yuppies to emulate. The jury was still out on Charles and Diana.
The “Me Generation” was living up to itself in a synergy of science, wealth, fashion and good old American consumerism. We were the first generation to automatically get credit cards at the mature age of 18. Southern California, where I grew up, was so cool and caught up with ourselves that we made a historical fight to excommunicate the more bohemian top half of the state to horde all of the water rights we still own from Colorado and keep the movie-industry taxes as well.
Luckily, I came from parents who reared me with unconditional love and primed me with a self-interest character drive which spot-on coordinated with the early 80‘s, like plaid and platforms--loud and too high. And, by the time mom and dad discovered my homosexualist lifestyle and began dolling out only Catholic categorical love, I was already proud, gay, and Republican. My parents did not embrace the eighties.
After I was on my own, I moved in with my high school sweetheart and we hung out with my work friends. My boyfriend was still in college but my cosmetology career paid well and certain events helped it merge toward lucrative.
But the afore-micro-synopsized decade was built on weak tax shelters and people like me who thought the party would never end. The decade was about to turn on all of us. Looming up ahead was a California see-saw recession that would last way past when every SAG actor in the state could run for Governor. A deadly plague would kill many people; a fact which Jerry Falwell and his kind would use as an excuse for preaching hate for the next two decades.
But had the 80’s kept going on the trajectory it had started out on, you wouldn’t be hearing a peep out of me now. I’d be rich, skinny, and a politically correct drug burnout without the motor skills to even type this memoir. But I bit into a get-rich-quick banana, and by the time the 80’s got serious, I was already choking."
"Jessy"
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For a while, gay was “in” and everybody wanted in on the fun. Straight guys began experimenting sexually, got coiffed at hair salons, and pierced their ears. Most civilized men watched “Dynasty” every Wednesday on projector screens at the Silver Fox and sipped complimentary Champagne during commercial breaks. The principal indicator that our cultural development had reached the zenith in the evolutionary curve was that any guy could proudly buy their Calvins in every major department store. Before, we were shamefully relegated to purchasing our designer jeans at a singular men’s rack at the rear part of women’s boutiques as if we were secretly buying women‘s apparel. But so what if we were? Our rock stars said we could look like fey pirates, have bows and braids in our shoulder-length hair and wear eye liner. Women cut their hair like marines and sported tennis shoes with evening gowns. Some chose to wear underwear as outerwear. And yes, bustiers were for everyone.
The Fall/Christmas season of ‘83 introduced Cabbage Patch dolls and a singer named Madonna. Both stressed parents and created pandemonium at malls.
Luke and Laura or Tad and Jenny were soap opera couples for yuppies to emulate. The jury was still out on Charles and Diana.
The “Me Generation” was living up to itself in a synergy of science, wealth, fashion and good old American consumerism. We were the first generation to automatically get credit cards at the mature age of 18. Southern California, where I grew up, was so cool and caught up with ourselves that we made a historical fight to excommunicate the more bohemian top half of the state to horde all of the water rights we still own from Colorado and keep the movie-industry taxes as well.
Luckily, I came from parents who reared me with unconditional love and primed me with a self-interest character drive which spot-on coordinated with the early 80‘s, like plaid and platforms--loud and too high. And, by the time mom and dad discovered my homosexualist lifestyle and began dolling out only Catholic categorical love, I was already proud, gay, and Republican. My parents did not embrace the eighties.
After I was on my own, I moved in with my high school sweetheart and we hung out with my work friends. My boyfriend was still in college but my cosmetology career paid well and certain events helped it merge toward lucrative.
But the afore-micro-synopsized decade was built on weak tax shelters and people like me who thought the party would never end. The decade was about to turn on all of us. Looming up ahead was a California see-saw recession that would last way past when every SAG actor in the state could run for Governor. A deadly plague would kill many people; a fact which Jerry Falwell and his kind would use as an excuse for preaching hate for the next two decades.
But had the 80’s kept going on the trajectory it had started out on, you wouldn’t be hearing a peep out of me now. I’d be rich, skinny, and a politically correct drug burnout without the motor skills to even type this memoir. But I bit into a get-rich-quick banana, and by the time the 80’s got serious, I was already choking."
"Jessy"
Don't forget to supscribe to this blog and order Mafia Hairdresser, the novel at MafiaHairdresser.com on sale 1-1-11
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The Hairdresser's Guide to a Clear Head
"Over the years, I’ve had to cut (no pun intended), a few of my men clients loose. The fact was that I refused to do any more comb-overs, and “Gallagers” (silly forehead-less mullets). These were things that I simply did not want to do (anymore) and was cause for me to fire a client, or two, from my services if they requested such a style. Yes, I still cut men who are balding and losing their hair. I still take their fifty bucks for the fifteen minutes of my time and cut or buzz what is left of their hair into what looks best. But no more camouflaging.
All men fear losing their hair. When they’re younger they fear loosing it before it happens. And when they're older they frettingly count hairs at the bathroom mirror and then secretly cry themselves to sleep. What a waste of time, and yet, it’s understandable.
There are three main reasons that men fear this eventual and reverse evolution so much.
1. Men with hair tease men without hair. We men constantly poke at each other’s masculinity, virility and manhood by calling each other fag, pussy and old man etc. And we all get tired of that, but we cannot stop being teased and we cannot cease teasing others. To compensate for the taunts, we swagger a little more like John Wayne, hold our cigarettes with our thumbs and forefingers, and grunt to scare off aggressive types. And we pick on the guys who let on when our teasing gets to them. Baldies are just good easy targets.
2. Men don’t like change. Most of us would keep the same style we had in high school or hold onto the hairstyle that we had when we first started getting laid. “If it’s not broke, baby, why fix it?” It’s a man’s mantra.
3. Most men are not sure which women/men like men with hair or which women/men like men without hair. With hair—there is the safety net. Everyone can like someone with hair. But without? I think only about 30% of people really seek out shaved or bald men. (I know someone has done a scientific study. 30% sounds right.) And because of society, and different parts of the country, a bald or shaved head can stand for a skinhead or a Dr. Evil or a Lex Luthor kind of a guy. It could also mean old to someone not trained to look at the weatheredness of ones neck instead of the head palette.
The fact of the matter is that we cannot protect ourselves from hair loss. Once we lose our hair, we will be fair game for various comments for the rest of our lives. “What are you trying to do, look like Michael Jordan?” “What happened? Your hot rollers get too hot?” “Yeah, I want a bald man to cut my hair. Not.” Now, that gets tiring. To bring back our hair once it is gone we would have to join a hair club, which would open up something even worse than razzing. We'd get those look-away looks. The "pretend he doesn't have a rodent-skin on his head" look. Thankfully, hair replacement is repugnant to most men. Seriously, hair plugs and pieces hardly ever look normal.
Some people believe that only African-American men have the right to and can look good with a shaved head. To some people, me included, a shaved or bald head can mean that the person is so cool and so without vanity that he has shunned the trappings of self pride and media-driven, fashion-styling aids. A bald man goes out into the world every day saying, “here I am world. I’m a guy with lots of testosterone. I like who I am. I will not hide behind a moppy veil of head whiskers to fit in with all of you losers. This is me. Accept me. See my knots and sun-burned scalp, I have earned them. I am a true man. I'm just wearing a cap because of the air conditioning.
Now, will I get laid as much as when I had hair? That will probably always depend more on how much hair is on my back than on my head; and also depend on how much of a beer gut I've developed, and how much confidence I've lost or gained by loosing my hair or by being a man.”
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
All men fear losing their hair. When they’re younger they fear loosing it before it happens. And when they're older they frettingly count hairs at the bathroom mirror and then secretly cry themselves to sleep. What a waste of time, and yet, it’s understandable.
There are three main reasons that men fear this eventual and reverse evolution so much.
1. Men with hair tease men without hair. We men constantly poke at each other’s masculinity, virility and manhood by calling each other fag, pussy and old man etc. And we all get tired of that, but we cannot stop being teased and we cannot cease teasing others. To compensate for the taunts, we swagger a little more like John Wayne, hold our cigarettes with our thumbs and forefingers, and grunt to scare off aggressive types. And we pick on the guys who let on when our teasing gets to them. Baldies are just good easy targets.
2. Men don’t like change. Most of us would keep the same style we had in high school or hold onto the hairstyle that we had when we first started getting laid. “If it’s not broke, baby, why fix it?” It’s a man’s mantra.
3. Most men are not sure which women/men like men with hair or which women/men like men without hair. With hair—there is the safety net. Everyone can like someone with hair. But without? I think only about 30% of people really seek out shaved or bald men. (I know someone has done a scientific study. 30% sounds right.) And because of society, and different parts of the country, a bald or shaved head can stand for a skinhead or a Dr. Evil or a Lex Luthor kind of a guy. It could also mean old to someone not trained to look at the weatheredness of ones neck instead of the head palette.
The fact of the matter is that we cannot protect ourselves from hair loss. Once we lose our hair, we will be fair game for various comments for the rest of our lives. “What are you trying to do, look like Michael Jordan?” “What happened? Your hot rollers get too hot?” “Yeah, I want a bald man to cut my hair. Not.” Now, that gets tiring. To bring back our hair once it is gone we would have to join a hair club, which would open up something even worse than razzing. We'd get those look-away looks. The "pretend he doesn't have a rodent-skin on his head" look. Thankfully, hair replacement is repugnant to most men. Seriously, hair plugs and pieces hardly ever look normal.
Some people believe that only African-American men have the right to and can look good with a shaved head. To some people, me included, a shaved or bald head can mean that the person is so cool and so without vanity that he has shunned the trappings of self pride and media-driven, fashion-styling aids. A bald man goes out into the world every day saying, “here I am world. I’m a guy with lots of testosterone. I like who I am. I will not hide behind a moppy veil of head whiskers to fit in with all of you losers. This is me. Accept me. See my knots and sun-burned scalp, I have earned them. I am a true man. I'm just wearing a cap because of the air conditioning.
Now, will I get laid as much as when I had hair? That will probably always depend more on how much hair is on my back than on my head; and also depend on how much of a beer gut I've developed, and how much confidence I've lost or gained by loosing my hair or by being a man.”
Please order your copy of Mafia Hairdresser, the novel about my life as a hairdresser to a mob couple in the 80's, and subscribe to this blog!
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