New Blog

I don't know how well I'll keep up with it, but here it is, the new blog: shortstoryreader.blogspot.com. Mostly just an attempt to share great reading with others.

Interview with Guy Fresh from Barber

Got hair cut?

Yep.

What do you think about it?

Eh, I've had one before.

Are you going to do it again?

Probably.

Okay. Thanks for talking.

The Deal

Dear Big Hair: What's the deal with hair? --Scottie

Dear Scottie: You tell me.

Clearly, you're don't get it.

Take a look at something as simple as a music video. I'll reference two from the eighties that I saw just this evening: A-ha's "Take On Me" and Kraftwerk's "The Model." Now, back in the eighties, which band was IT? That's right. A-ha. Kraftwerk, while nice "musik," was nerdy. Now take a look at the hairstyles of the two groups. A-ha--big, well-crafted doos. Kraftwerk--clean-shaven, clean-cut, might as well be your dad.

In "Take On Me" a girl drops in to a cartoon she's so enamored by the band leader's hair. Later, she takes the cartoon home just to lust after his picture.

In "The Model," by contrast, the band stands around a clean studio making "musik." They sing about models, women models, with big hair--who they can't have. Clearly, the women got it here, but the men didn't. Kraftwerk should have taken a page out of A-ha's notebook. If they had, the model would have been a song of seduction rather than of longing and loneliness.

That, my friend, is the deal with hair.

True Love

Dear Big Hair: Will I ever find true love? --Mandy

Dear Mandy: What do I look like? Your horoscope? Tell me something about your hair. Maybe I can tell you.

By the way, Mandy, if you want to know about love and hair, a good place to go is the movies. I've been checking out quite a few lately, and hair has played at least a part in each. Last weekend, for example, Nick Nolte in Off the Black, in a crucial scene near the end of the film, put on his umpire costume and . . . quaffed his hair. It had to be perfect under the cap. Think about that next time you watch the ballplayers out on the diamond. They've probably spent not only hours in batting practice, but probably another few minutes in front of the mirror with a brush and comb--and their cap.

The thing about baseball hair is it's got to look good with a cap. For hair advice and questions, write to No1bag@gmail.com.

Famous Fears Fear Not

Dear Big Hair: I don't need advice, but I have a question you might be able to answer: Do famous actresses have straight hair because they're famous, or do they get famous because they have straight hair? Put another way, do you have to straighten your hair to become famous (as an actress), or, once you're famous, is it just understood that you'll straighten your hair? A related question is, Can you think of any actresses whose "before" hair is straight while her "after" hair is curly? I can't. --Not Wanting to Become Famous; Just Wondering

Dear Not Wanting to Become Famous; Just Wondering: That you do want to become famous is evident from the question. Your uncertainty about your abilities to do so is evident in your name, which straddles two identities, not wanting to commit to anything too wholehearted. Fear not, you curly-haired woman. There is plenty of room for you in Hollywood. You are forgetting the many curly-haired women who have come to our screen. Most recently would be Kate Hudson, of Almost Famous fame and of that other movie about her being an aunt to two kids she inherits and doesn't want (yeah, I know, you didn't see it, like I didn't and like so many others). In the seventies, there was Shirley Henderson or whatever her name was, the woman who played the owner of the diner on What's Happening? Now those were some curls. More impressive than her, though, is the greatest actress of ALL TIME, Shirley Temple, who was absolutely famous for her curls. What would she have been without them? (I will admit that curls tend to go better on the kid actresses, but if you're relatively young--say under twenty-five--you should have no problem squeezing into roles down to age ten.) As for whether I can think of any actresses who curled their hair in fame when they had straight hair before fame, the answer is I haven't know any actresses before they became famous. Do you think I'm a stalker or something?

And let's not forget the many fine actors with curly hair as well, like Carrot Top.