Hair Part II

Once again, not my version of the musical sequel to “Hair” in which Claude rises from the dead to find his hippie friends have turned into yuppies - My hair. If you actually care you can read part one so the story has “fluidity”.

When high school was over I had found the hairstyle that suited me most- "The Caesar". However, the expense of 150$ haircuts was weighing on my pockets and I began to cut my hair myself. People, this is NEVER a good idea. Sure you can do the front fine and maybe the sides but definitely not the back. I gave myself so many bad haircuts it makes me cringe; it is also why in almost all photos from freshman year of college I am wearing flat caps backwards. The final straw for home hair cuts came when I gave myself what I like to call “The Corky St. Claire”. Yes, the gay community theater director created by Christopher Guest in “Waiting for Guffman”- I had that freaking hairdo- for a moment. After a month of this disaster the “straight” guy I was pining over told me I looked like a Dodo bird. I was crushed. He then came out to me. I was ecstatic. I threw up and then shaved my head.

When you shave your head you get treated like a person who gained a lot of weight suddenly and people pretend not to notice (I only know this as I had that experience as well). You get a lot of “Oh MY! Well at least you have a nice face and a normal shaped head…” as they look away in fear. I was “hardcore” at the time and did not care. I had dropped out of musical theater and was now attending art school. I was free to finally go nuts and do whatever I wanted without worrying about casting or needing it to be manageable. Everyone had fucked up hair in art school- in fact I think it is a requirement. There were so many options open to me now I didn’t even know were to start other than noting to myself “GROW YOUR HAIR BACK”. Thankfully it grows very fast.

I knew that I could maintain a low cost buzz cut with clippers and that style looked OK but was so pedestrian for art school. I was becoming more interested in alternative scenes at the time, attending rock shows, going to Goth nights and actively partaking in counter culture. The only question was how to express my inner person on top of my head like everyone else so I would be unique… like everyone else? I decided to bleach and dye my hair. It started innocent enough with a punky bleach kit from Newbury Comics. 45 minutes of agonizing scalp torture later and I had a nice yellow white hue on my head. It was pretty hip, especially when the roots came in. I however could not let it be. Every season I had to have something new about me, whether it was the way I dressed, my music, or my hair, it was always SOMETHING. Soon I was sporting bright purple hair, then blue, then pink (it was an accident). Soon my head hurt so much I couldn’t think and my hair was like straw; I had to call it quits. I decided since my soul was now black from the Goth scene my hair should be too and I went with blue-black like superman.

Note: This is not a good color for someone who is prone to put too many products in their hair; it highlights all the flakey weird shirt that happens when gel dries.

Note 2: NEVER dye your hair “purple black” it looks like mulled wine old lady hair when you do.

I settled into the color after a few months and I was off to England where bad haircut number… whatever… happened. I had grown my hair over the summer a little bit and was looking forward to a year of hot British boys with even hotter accents. I knew I had to get a new look for my solo life. I wanted to wait to cut my hair until I got to London where I had visions of fantastic outlandish haircuts existing everywhere. I mean, it is the home of the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie Sue, Morrissey, people with GREAT hair. I thought any expensive place would do as long as it looked cool (still had not learned the cost/quality lesson). I walked into a hip saloon in Soho and was greeted with excitement over being an American (obviously this was before the war in Iraq). I was hooked up with a bleached out older gay man who tanned too much and was wearing all black. My dream hair at the time was the “Edward Scissorhands”. I knew that was not possible with my hair so I thought that if I told him “spiky, cool and edgy” it would get me close. It did not.

I was spun around in the chair in the dramatic “look at you now!” fashion reserved for make over shows and I cried. Yup, I really cried this time. There before my eyes was my head- buzzed to the scalp on the sides, with a messy pile on top sculpted into a peak in the middle of my head. How could he have done this to me! As I continued to blubber he tried to comfort me with tea and kept saying “It’s the HEIGHT of LONDON FASHION! All the cute boys have it, trust me, you go out tonight and you will see- Its called the pile up or faux hawk if you will- look Daniel has it” ; a waif of a boy dressed in bright colors with limp wrists traipsed out from the back room with a broom. I sobbed.

This was 1999. The Faux Hawk had not hit ANYWHERE in the USA. It would not surface for at least another three years on any indie rocker, New York fag or hipster. In retrospect I now consider this a “cool” haircut that I got WAYYYYY before anyone else (yeah I am that petty). However at the time being ahead of fashion was not what I had in mind, I wanted to just be in fashion, not defining it. The funny thing is I eventually took to this haircut and kept it for a little while. The hairdresser turned out to be right and it got me laid like nobodies business.

Over the course of my year in England I started going to Toni & Guy’s hair school for discount cutting edge hair cuts. I was given three cuts; “Monkey Boy” or as they referred to it the “Vidal Sassoon Coif”- but don’t tell Vidal. The “Fuck Up”- which resulted from a student cutting my hair who had coke nostrils and was so frazzeled they couldn’t finish - the teacher ‘Made do” with what I had left (which was buzzer tracks and a front bouffant, I wore a hat for a month – thank god my hair grows quickly) Finally- “The Mess” which sounds like a bad thing but it was not. It was essentially a choppy cut mullet that I just put tons of wax in so my hair stood on its short ends. It worked really well with my hair texture and curl. I finally got my “spiky & edgy” hair cut.

When I came back to the states all the boys were growing their hair getting ready for the next big rage on cute indie boys, the 70’s shag hair. I knew inside I could never have this hair as I had already seen its cascading curls on my shoulders and triangle head. This however did not stop me from growth spurt number 2. I grew it out again and it looked AWFUL growing out this time (I mean WORSE than high school if at all possible). I recently found some old videos of me acting ridiculous for an installation project and was horrified when I saw this pasted down parted, long in the back short in the front grown out mullet mess on my head. That combined with my confused clothing aesthetic (black jelly bracelets, orange polyester shirt, grey flash dance sweater, spiky belt and tight black jeans) was enough for me to chuck that video across the room and then laugh at my poor choices.

When my hair did finally reach my chin, I knew how to care for it. Sure I often slept with a stocking on my head to flatten it and still played with it every night in the mirror. However I gave into the curl and was very careful with it. I became the person who every woman came up to and asked about my hair. I heard things like “Oh my god it’s like Nicole Kidman’s hair!” or “How the did you get it so shiny” (umm Vaseline and olive oil treatments - gross but it worked) and even “I wish I had hair like that” which usually came from my mother. It really was pretty, girl pretty, but still pretty.

The season changed- I got impatient and got it cut again. This time I was willing to shell out money and went to a Jean Pierre David on Newbury Street. I was sat in front of a Latina woman with brown lip liner and white pink lips. I made the mistake of not having a picture and the other big no no of “what do you think?” Well she thought “Latino Pop Star”. Basically it was short on the sides with lots of curls on the top, dripping onto my forehead. I looked like I was ready to hop on stage at the Latin Grammy’s (I was also into tanning at the time, don’t ask). It was actually a good haircut when I relaxed on the product, but that was rare as I was still a product whore, ruining pillow case after pillow case.

Well patient reader, another season came and yes another look. From this point forward the hair is a blurry mystery. History repeated itself, I fell back on old tricks, buzzed, shaved, even had a faux hawk again. I eventually settled on a haircut that was very similar to “the mess” cut that I got in London. This time given to me by a fantastic hairdresser at “Frenchy’s” in Burbank California(yes as in the character from “Grease”- the place was all pink and black and the girls who worked there were rockabilly pink ladies… of COURSE I got my hair cut there). This very fitting cut lasted me until last summer where I once again repeated the growth. Stupid, stupid growth. Once again when it was cut everyone applauded and told me how great I looked and how the long hair didn’t suite me. (This was after two haircuts- the first I freaked out when I left the Salon- no crying, I bring a hat now. I was given my middle school “George Michael/ Wham” bouffant again, she even had me under the fucking dryer! I don’t know why I didn’t say anything. I quickly hopped into another salon down the block and had it fixed.)

Now I wear my hair pretty much the same, subtle changes here and there but it is the same short haircut. I carry a picture of myself with the haircut at its best for whenever I am faced with a new hairdresser. It must be a good one because no one has fucked it up yet (well excluding the incident with break ups and haircuts- see blog). I have also learned that “thinning” only makes me look like I am losing my hair. It does not prevent the inevitable poof that happens with curly hair; it just rips your hair out and makes it grow in funny. It also does not work for someone who piled on product like no tomorrow in an attempt to control the uncontrollable. It merely exacerbates the situation.

This brings me to my final hair realization- product use. My head supplies enough natural oil that I do not need to load on the products causing clogged pores, itchy scalp and ruined sheets. My friends gently started telling me my hair looked greasy. I have one friend who referred to my hair as “Extra Crispy or Original recipe” depending on how much goo I piled on. Then one day my best friend (the very one who first encouraged me to grow my hair long) asked me why the hell I put so much shit in my hair. I did not know the answer. Enough taunting and a few days on a vacation when I ran out of product taught me that I really did not need to put stuff in my hair nor wash it everyday (sorry but its true, you really aren’t supposed to. I wet it but I only “wash” it every few days). I must admit this realization was the hardest and I still struggle with it on the days I wash my hair.

Hair is a very strange thing. It expresses a lot about someone; people make assumptions about personalities, lifestyle and interests based on it. It can be a source of rebellion or conformity. People grow it on weird parts of their bodies while “training” it not to grow on others. Men mourn its loss on their heads and grow it on their backs. Women style it to no end and it can drastically change the way someone looks. Trends and time periods are defined by it! It is amazing when you talk with people about their hair because everyone has at least one “what was I thinking” story- it’s a common bond. I have learned to like my hair despite the struggles, the growing amount of grays and the strange blonde highlights on the side of my head. It’s my hair, all mine. I thank my body everyday for deciding not to turn on me and make it all fall out. I can assure you when that day comes I will look at my past hair pictures, realize the fun we had, and say goodbye forever, shaving it off... hopefully I won’t be fat, adding insult to injury when I hear “OH MY! Umm well you have a nice face…”