Hair, Baby
For guys, it’s been a defining issue since at least when I was young.
I saw the Broadway musical HAIR (in Chicago) when it first came out in Chicago in 1969 at the Schubert Theater. I did not have long hair. I wanted to have long hair, I had a long hair attitude, and I think I was born with a long hair attitude.
Who am I kidding…I also wanted to see the nude scene.
But that’s not the point. Ever since the Beatles came to fame when I was 5 years old, I wanted to grow my hair longer. I was 5. My father took me to the barber shop where there was a line of barber chairs, each with a barber of varying ages, but my dad had a favorite and his name was Tony, so I had a favorite who was the same Tony.
Tony put a padded board across the arms of the barber chair (are any of you remembering this?) and draped the plastic cape across the front of my body. The headrest on the chair dug into the small of my back, but I was supposed to obey when Tony told me not to move around. I liked Tony because he knew my name. Chief. “What are we gonna do for you today, Chief?”
And I said in as low a voice as possible while still being audible, “Just try to keep it long. Pretend you’re cutting, but don’t cut.”
Sitting in a chair directly across from me…facing me…part of a chorus line of the exact same chairs filled with men and boys waiting their turn…my dad said in a loud voice, “Don’t listen to anything he’s telling you, Tony. Give him a ‘regular boy’s haircut.’”
I cringed at the words ‘regular boy’s haircut’ because it meant short and being mocked the entire next day of school. I wasn’t even allowed to get a haircut like my brother, Alan. He wasn’t into the longer hair, yet. He had a crew cut.
Having a crew cut meant you got to use cool hair products to keep it looking that way. There was Old Spice Stick or (what my brother used) Brylcreem.
Even at 5 years old I wanted ‘gals’ to chase me like the girl in the ad; and that guy doesn’t look like he’s trying to get away that hard.
These were barber shops. As far as I knew, there were no such things as stylists. When a comb dropped on the floor the barber wiped it off on his pants and continued to comb what was left of my hair. Only if it dropped on the floor and got kicked around a few times did it go into the jar with the blue liquid. Barbicide. That shit scared me.
That stuff looked like if Tony used a comb from there, my hair would just come out in clumps. Little did I know that 50 years later, my hair would do exactly that, but not because of Barbicide; just because I’m 61 years old.
My ‘regular boy’s haircut’ cost around $2.00. As I got a little older, they offered something called a ‘style’, and it cost $5.00. There was no way I was going to get whatever that was. But someday when I was grown and had lots of money I was going to lay down some cash for that ‘style.’ Cost be damned!
Hair was a topic of discussion and argument between my parents and myself for as long as I can remember. Thinking back on it, the hair was only the enigmatic symbol of what went on underneath the hair.
The Age of Aquarius was on its way and I wasn’t going to miss it. There was alcoholism to be had!
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