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.
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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.

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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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.

• 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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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.”
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