Miracle Whip Contest--I don't qualify.

I saw on Twitter that Miracle Whip has a Youtube contest where you tell how Miracle Whip has helped or hindered a relationship of yours and you could win $25,000 for you wedding or divorce. That’s cute right?
Well, I hate Miracle Whip. So I cannot write a Youtube script that would ring true or be endearing, and I’m not getting married or divorced. But I have a Miracle Whip story that’s worth telling and it’s the reason that I still flinch and gag whenever I even think that Miracle Whip might be in a sandwich I’m about to bite into.
It was the 80s and I was traveling north on the 405 freeway from Long Beach, California, (where I lived) to Azusa, where I was finishing up Beauty School. I’m sure I was talking on my “brick” phone with one hand and eating my Jack in the Box breakfast sandwich with the other, while steering my ’68 Plymouth Barracuda with my knee and going 80 miles an hour with traffic. (I live in Chicago now and I miss driving alongside my fellow “pro” freeway drivers.)
About 2 miles up ahead was the 91 east to west onramp overpass to the southbound 405 and a huge freight truck was on it. The truck’s cargo must have been packed to the top of the refrigerated interior because, as it took the curve on the overpass, the whole truck, minus the driver in the cab, tipped over and fell onto all of the northbound lanes. Luckily, it was early morning in the middle of summer so as cars approached the freight compartment as it was falling they were able to avoid being crushed or hitting it. Not so lucky for people in cars like me who saw what was happing up ahead: we witnessed the top of the freight compartment popping off like a squeezed frozen juice container as it hit the pavement. Only no juice squirted out: just boxes containing thousands of jars of Miracle Whip. And those jars of white fluffy spread popped and broke and began to spew its sploof all over the freeway so the next “wave” of fellow Los Angelino fab drivers began to slip and slide all around like bumper cars at a carnival; only we were all such good drivers that we had slowed down by the time we came to the Miracle Whipastrophe that we never hit each other.
I had never had a problem with Miracle Whip before the incident. I usually bought Best Foods mayo but if Miracle Whip was in the house--I liked it just as well. But after I spent that whole summer smelling the sun cooked Kraft product in my car, it’s a wonder I have not had trauma therapy for that condiment calamity. That whole summer was spent washing and power washing the underside of my muscle car: in the wheel wells, the undercarriage, engine... Miracle Whip, I don’t qualify for your $25,000 but is it too late to ask for a new car?

jon-david is the author of, Mafia Hairdresser, available on all eBook formats and Smashwords.com. His second book will be on sale this fall and can be previewed with book 1.

Original Twitter post from @MiracleWhip
"Tell us how MW affects your relationship for a chance to win $25K for your wedding or divorce @ http://t.co/JrhSnEk. No purchase necessary."

I'm a hairdresser who writes. Take your tech and shove it.

I've just wasted hundreds of dollars, many hours, months, stress and lots of karma points trying to apply tech blogger savvy to my writing. I have a damned good book to sell, Mafia Hairdresser, and I will do everything it takes to make sure that as many people read it as possible; BUT I am throwing in the towel trying to become a professional blogger to do it. By the way, this is my #TechWeek “tribute,” and my hats-off-to-bloggers, and my shitty apology to my BF & social media friends who said they’d love to help me.
If you know me, I hang around a very cool group of Chicago social media specialists. They have thier own companies, are paid handsomely for thier blogging or Twitter services, and they have all learned how to utilize their posts to drive search engine rankings to thier benefits and connect with other bloggers. It is my understanding that WordPress is now the ultimate blogging application and that it is magic and a must for linking people to your product, profile and services. All my friends use it and they strongly recommended that I use it. It only took me two months to discover that it’s not a website or host and that my website’s builder is not compatible. I had to learn what a MySQL, SEO and figure out File Transfer Protocol (FTP) was and why I needed it. I also learned there is a whole inner-sanctum of WordPress users that remind me of the Dungeons & Dragons clubs of the past: I just don't want to learn how to delve into the different levels--I just want to play!
You’d think that I would have asked my friends for some help after I bought a hosting service from Bluehost to replace my GoDaddy service and couldn’t figure out a new dashboard. But my BF is an IT specialist. Not a website builder, mind you, but he knows a hellava lot more about how to build a website and move a blogging application into it. Well, it turns out, it was the last thing he wanted to do and I tortured the poor man for two months so, by the time I had time to start asking help from friends, I was so brain-fried and frustrated that I got my money back from Bluehost (they were sweet & I'll be back!) and trashed the idea of using the culty Wordpress application and now I dare anyone to console me or tell me that they’d be glad to help me until I cool down. “I will cut you,” may not just be my motto.
I have read Smashwords Marketing Guide and WordPress All In One For Dummies, and countless manuals on how to upload my book for Kindle and iBook formats. I am as savvy as I’m going to get right now and I'm going reject anymore tech related material that comes my way. This Bloggy Blogger Blogspot will have to suffice for a while and now I will blog once a week here. I will still blog weekly for The Local Tourist magazine under my Twitter handle @mafiahairdreser and, hopefully, bloggers will blog about me. It’s enough, right?
So now, my immediate to-do list: I have book 2, The Glow Stick God, to get ready to be available on eBooks, Smashwords.com and MafiaHairdresser.com. That means promotional videos, press, social media and cover design before November. I am also writing book 3, Murder There’s An App For That, about the murder of a good friend and the sometimes dark and funny side of being plugged in all the time being a “social media expert.” Yes, friends, I’m writing about you. But, if you’ve read, Mafia Hairdresser, or the preview to The Glow Stick God on the eBook version, you wouldn’t worry-I'm nothing but a pissy hairdresser & an ex-professional party boy who writes--AND I fictionalize the truth & I don’t like to hurt anyone with my writing except, of course, myself.

Description of Mafia Hairdresser

I need a short Description and a Long Description for my book.
Can you read these and tell me ANYTHING in the Comments? Open to suggestions.

It’s the get-rich-quick 80s and a young hairdresser climbs the L.A. social scene ladder to get more than he bargained for by moonlighting for a cocaine trafficking couple. Cars made out of coke, Hawaiian vacations, new clothes & lots of money makes a fabulously dangerous lifestyle that becomes murderous. Based on the author's own fabulous life. Book 1 of a series.



Southern California in the 1980s was the apex of the universe for the pauper-impaired. Dynasty, Madonna, designer-everything, mobile phones and cocaine ushered in the Me Generation’s appetite for addictive living. In Los Angeles, a young hairdresser named, Jessy, dressed for success and wanted to get rich quick and got more than he bargained for by moonlighting for clients like, Big-Don, who owned a chain of auto-repair shops and supplied drugs to the Hollywood elite. Big-Don’s wife, Claire, whose habit of employing young hairdressers for more than her fashion appetite gets Jessy hooked on more than a new lifestyle.
Jessy’s day-job, at an upscale salon, Beautious Maximous, becomes strained as his co-workers and employers try their best to keep the boy grounded despite the manager being the town’s “queen” of gossip and his friends having to deal with the oncoming age of compulsory condom-sex due to a new un-named plague.
This Mafia Hairdresser is gifted cars, clothing and coke. Vacations to Hawaii, attending music & movie industry parties, and all-you-can-snort cocaine from the mob couple only temporarily mask the fact that Jessy had become part of the crime family where there is no such thing as quitting or leaving. Must this Mafia Hairdresser resort to drugs, blackmail and a possible accidental manslaughter?
Mafia Hairdresser is Book 1 in series and based on the author’s own fabulously dangerous lifestyle.

Mafia Hairdresser is already available for Kindle. After these descriptions of the book are finalized, I'll be able to make the book available on all Ebook formats such and Nook and ibooks.

Vote for Chicago's Anti-Cruelty Society.

The Anti-Cruelty Society LOCAL CHARITY, Needs Area Support in Effort to Win $500,000 from Chase Community Giving.
Did you know that the Anti-Cruelty Society is Chicago’s oldest and largest private animal welfare organization and helps OVER 50,000 pets and people every year? I adopted my cat, Yvett MewMew, from them and it’s the one of the best facilities and has the best trained staff.
Today the Anti-Cruelty has the chance to receive a much needed grant from the Chase Community Giving program running on the Facebook platform. And they will be just 1 of over 100 other non-profits reaching out for some of the 5 million being given to non-profits across America. Anti-Cruelty needs this money to pay for the transportation of over 3000 animals out of abusive situations and prevent cruel animal deaths in our community.
Won’t you help them receive this money? It’s so easy. Just go to http://www.anticruelty.org/vote and follow the directions or go to the Chase Community Giving page and "Like" their page and then ON THE LEFT SIDE OF PAGE YOU WILL SEE CHASE GIVING: visit The Anti-Cruelty Society's Chase Community Giving voting page to place your vote! You can only vote once for a charity.
Voting begins on Thursday, May 19 at 12:01 a.m. and ends Wednesday May 25 at Midnight..

More Help for Fine or Weakened Hair

If you know me as a hairdresser, you also know that I am the go-to guy if you have fine or weak hair. You know, the kind of hair that doesn’t seem to grow past a certain length? It’s always fly-away. Never shiny. And it’s the kind of hair that is often mistaken for dry hair and yet, if you load it up with moisturizers, it goes limp and looks like you’ve used olive oil for a styling product.
You also might know that I have, for years, used a little known product (among others) called, Emergencee, by Nexxus to help me bond a polymer to weak hair shafts in an effort to increase diameter, strengthen, add body and allow my clients to have longer hair. Well now I’ve found my new favorite product(s). It’s made by Kérastase, a French brand that the salon, where I work, just partnered with. I’ve been aware of the line for years but I had never worked in a salon that used it. But now I’m very impressed Kérastase and pleased to tell you about its treatments for fine or weakened hair and that it’s now available at Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa.
The entire staff was being given the in-salon product knowledge class where we got to work with the products and see, first-hand, what the treatments lines can do for our clients. These types of classes are great for stylists because we get to use the products on ourselves to touch, feel, work with and experience them before we even apply them to our daily repertoire of hair remedies for clients.
Since I don’t have any hair no one picked me to be their partner for trying out our new Kérestase treatments.
But I got the last laugh because I had the opportunity to see everyone else’s results from the different treatments for varied hair problems each staff member was asked to address. All of the results were instantaneous and substantial, from dry or curly-rebellious, to mature hair.
But the fine weakened hair of my friend & co-worker, (& part-time gorgeous model—she’s on the cover of my book!) Eileen was definitely the most dramatic. Eileen has the kind of hair that looks fine yet straight when it is blown out and flattened with a heating tool. It is long and appears to have body due to the blond demensional highlights. But when it’s freshly shampooed, it feels dry and tangles easily and no amount of conditioner seems to make it feel nice until most of the water is blown out of it. This is the exact type of hair that I used to coat up with the polymers or weightless oils so that can be thicker and not flimsy once it’s styled.
The stylist who did Eileen’s treatment shampooed her hair with Kérastase Bain De Force shampoo. It’s made specifically for hair that is weak or damaged (highlights!) and hair that doesn’t have a lot of elasticity (think: stretchy = bad). A good fine-hair shampoo will not over-cleanse the outer layer of the hair shaft but should leave a top-coat of protection and this one does just that. If a person has dry and weakened hair you would use Bain Age Recharge and Eileen could easily also have used this one too. Both are available for home use.
The in-salon treatment that was used on Eileen was called Concentré Age Recharge. It would cost a client $35 in our salon to have it done and it’s worth every penny. The stylist applied the strengthening liquid on her hair and suddenly her hair was smooth, shiny, radiant, and it looked like younger and naturally colored hair. But the proof was in the blow dry. Her hair was easy to blow dry and the length had bounce and shine.
How long will it last? I tell my clients that their treatment lasts as long as they keep on supporting what I did in-salon at their very own homes. That means using the right shampoo, hair masques, and strengtheners vs. moisturizers and/or thermal protectors. Everyone is different and has different lifestyles. For Eileen, she’ll use either of the shampoos I mentioned and Care Volumactive, an at-home conditioner.
I hope that you check out the Kérastase line. I’m going to be blogging more about the results I get in the future and I want to hear from you too.
jon-david is a professional writer as well as a Master Stylist at Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa.

If you are anti-Social you will probably poo-poo Social Media

My friends and people I know and don’t know tell me all the time, “I don’t get Foursquare,” or, “I won’t waste my time on Facebook.” And I know there are cavernous voids in many people’s brains about Twitter and LinkIn and more. Unless you are like me and have learned what they are about, people simply don’t know what they don’t know about all of these “social platforms.”
Think of these platforms like walking into a room. If you walk into the Facebook room you are going to “see and hear” the friends whom you have accepted. You will get invitations and see pictures of them riding their bikes along the lake and you can also share whatever you like with them, including what restaurants you’ve been to and the charities that you are associated with. Over time you will know what to expect from each friend and they will get to know what you like presenting to them and if you like responding to their information. Are you are a church person? Do you play online games and like to interact with other gamers?
Twitter is like walking into the conversation room. There is much dialogue and information being furiously passed across the room. And the room for business conversations & connections is LinkIn. But every single platform has one thing in common: they are all social.
It’s not the unknown part of using social media that makes people pause from becoming participants; it’s the social part that intimidates. I’ve given up training my friends in social media because I find that everyone wants to put out information to prospective clients over social media platforms—but they don’t want to receive any input, invitations, requests or information from others. The social media specialists, like me, who have been using Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, CitySearch etc. know thousands of people and have many connections. Who wouldn’t want to promote their restaurant, church, charity, political thoughts to thousands of people who might support their individual endeavors? The problem is that for you to put out your information into the room or conversation, you have to participate and “speak” as well as listen—people have to learn that you are here to stay and that you or you business has integrity--and you have to be willing to take the conversation offline as soon as possible.
The cardinal rule for any Social Media Specialist is to “take it offline” as soon as possible. Social is the first word and that’s exactly what we must try to do: We meet each other after our initial conversation in that room full of others, and it is offline where we learn how much we have in common and how much we can help each other. And, let me tell you, you will meet your new best friends whom you have the most things in common with. People may meet through a media platform by common interests and the relationships that are gained can nurture a business or a cause. Social Media is just a new way of taping into your community to mingle, prosper, help, create and change the world but it’s still about people. So, it’s really about connecting with people you’ve been trying to attract to you and that sounds personal and professional and very wise to me.
go to www.MafiaHairdresser.com to continue the “conversation.”

I don't see Breast Cancer.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of reuniting with one of my dearest gal-pals from High School. We were on the same weapon-wielding squad, sort of speak, in our senior year, and we had a great time, back then, so it was fun to catch up and embrace our friendship anew. I will not say how long it had been since we had graduated. I fear my body would finally succumb to gravity and hasten itself back to dust should I even utter my age to myself or to the public. Barbara was on the Banner & Saber team and I was on the Riffle twirling team at Glendora High school in Southern California. She carried the letters in front of the marching band and twirled actual (blunted) sabers when the band performed at competitions and halftime shows at football games. I was one of the six maniacs who tossed heavy mock-rifles around and the Riffles and Sabers were always intermingling our acts. At our high school the Saber girls had to be a certain height and, that year especially, they were all athletic and gorgeous. And we were the very first Riffle squad and most of us were on different athletic teams so we were treated like cheerleaders with guns. Not to mention: most of the band members were award-winning & talented musicians, as well as lunch-time parking-lot stoners, so all of us were not unpopular. We met at the famous Drake Hotel for high tea and Barbara, who had taken the trip from Glendora to Chicago with her sister, caught me up on her family and children and her husband’s business etc. My partner, David, and me, talked about our dogs and jobs and my book which was just published. Our time together reaffirmed our like and love for each other and I know we will be in touch and see each other again soon. When David and I got home, David mentioned how I had “side swept” the conversation when it was brought up that Barbara had just been treated for breast cancer. I told him that I would have talked about it if I felt that it was something she wanted to talk about, or if it interested me while I was enjoying her company, fancy scones and Chai tea. Now, don’t judge too fast here: You see, as I explained to David, I hear the words breast cancer almost every day in my line work. As a hairdresser, most of my women clients have come into contact with the subject, directly or indirectly in some form or fashion. I’m not shy to the subject but I think I know when someone wants to talk about it or not. In fact, Barbara, who was sporting a very cute short do at Tea asked if I liked it (loved!), and that’s when she told me she had just been able to grow some hair back after the loss of it due to radiation and chemo treatments. Frankly, I went straight to the gushing about her hair because it had only dawned on me, just then, that she always had had long hair in high school. What had she been waiting for to go short? Cancer? I said that too and she laughed and then the dis-ease subject did never surface again. In retrospect, I can only hope that Barbara knows that I am aware of what she has gone through. While I may not have had cancer I know all the steps she had to go through to be healthy and to be able to visit Chicago and I'm aware of the emotional toll her health journey has taken on her and her family.

Feeling like I do not need to actually talk about the elephant in the room stems form being a haidresser. It's my job to see the person one is on the "inside." Not the outside nor what is litterally reflecting back to me in the mirror. I don't see hair, daily drama and certainly not cancer; and most people are not of the words they choose. I look and listen and then my job is to reflect back to my client the real person inside -- and I try to make the hair represent that too. At the Drake, I was talking to and enjoying my friend who had been living a great life and who, just recently, had battled cancer. She is the sum of her whole life and she is delightful.

If you ask me my age, I hope that you see the person on the inside, not the number. I can tell you that I’m a lucky guy who has never had a life threatening illness but I can support you if you do. I’m a great listener to whatever you are going through because I know, whether you make it through this lifetime to a ripe age, or get stopped in your tracks, I know you are the always-perfect timeless spirit-person on the inside and everyone is beautiful.

Now, If you'll excuse me, I’m going to call my friend, Barbara, right now, to ask her how she is doing. I won't be walking this year but I always give to my friends and clients who ask me. The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is such a great event. "IN IT TO END IT" June 4th and 5th in Chicago http://www.avonwalk.org/chicago/ Go to the website for your city.