The original plan for this week was to continue looking at 2008 through acid-flashback eyes by writing about how the Barack Obama campaign is the Clean for Gene crowd of 40 years ago finally having their shot at the brass ring. But the story needs a bit more gestation and perhaps a bit of investigative reporting.
To get started on the investigation process, the first step was have brownish-grey locks sheered.
As mentioned last week, for the first time in many Presidential votes this reporter is supporting a major candidate who actually has a shot at winning.
In 1968 Eugene McCarthy ran for the Democratic nomination for President against the sitting Democratic President, Lyndon Johnson. Plenty of kids pissed off at LBJ about the Vietnam War jumped to the chance to oppose the hawk Johnson and supported the dove McCarthy. They cleaned up their act so they could canvas for McCarthy, hence the catchy phrase, Get Clean for Gene.
Additionally, Mom turned 75 on Friday and she claimed all she wanted for her birthday from her loving son was to cut his hair. Not just the usual haircut of pulling out the scissors or razor and doing self-inflicted surgery, but one done by a professional.
Barbers are about as important a part of life as tax accounts are for many college students. They have a place on the trust ladder a rung or two below lawyers and arms dealers.
Growing up in the sixty, barbers were the enemy. The hierarchy was:
Spiro Agnew
Tie between LBJ and Tricky Dicky
Barbers
The Cops
Sellers of skunkweed
Back in the day, barbershop visits had to happen. In a career as a member of the military industrial complex, no way freak flags could fly. Getting locks trimmed then was something that had to happen at least yearly, regardless if needed or not.
Luckily there was a barber in the family, a father-in-law, generally a nice guy despite his chosen profession. The divorce brought an end to that relationship and the closest ever gotten to a bond between barber and barberee was ended with the marriage. Who knows how different life would have turned out had that relationship been allowed to proceed?
After NASA, it was off to start Internet businesses. Hard to say if it was to get away from the military industrial complex or just to have the freak flag freedom.
Now in retirement, why worry about this barber-phobia. It’s all in the process of falling out anyway.
But whatever Mom wants, Mom gets, especially on her 75th birthday.
Driving around Sacramento looking for the telltale red and white barber pole is a hopeless endeavor.
While walking through a mall there was a sign $15.99 for a haircut.
The last time this reporter stepped inside a barbershop, haircuts were around $4.50, or the price of about three gallons of gas. The current price of a haircut was closer to four gallons of gas. Since so many are complaining about the price of gas, $15.99 must be reasonable for a haircut.
Better to pay $15.99 than $6.66.
No time to peruse old Playboys, Car and Driver, or Old Scratch Quarterly. The hair butcher didn’t look too scary. She looked like she might be pregnant, but one thing learned over many years, don’t ever make that assumption.
No evil smile or smell of sulphur.
She sat me down in a chair, asked what was to be done and then hardly spoke again. Barbers back in the day were famed for talking all sorts of garbage, generally obnoxious political ideas. They knew you weren’t going to argue with them since they held the sharp instruments.
The only concern sitting in the high chair was if blood pressure meds were taken that morning as prescribed.
A mere 10 minutes later out of the chair. Even tipped the gal a double fin for her troubles. What the heck, what’s a tenner when haircuts only happen every few years.
Mom loved it, blood pressure remained out of the danger zone, and as they say, it’s the thought that counts…
How do we go from one person getting a haircut for his Mom to a movement? The warrior-poet Arlo Guthrie once said exactly how to start a movement.
If one person does it, they’ll think he is sick.
If two people do it, they’ll think they are faggots (Arlo’s words, not mine. It was much less politically correct age then.)
If three people do it, they’ll think it is an organization.
And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in getting a haircut and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
And that is what this could become, the Barely Hairy for Barry Movement.
1 comment:
Sacrificing hair for art - or in this case Mom - is always a noble deal.
The column had lots of interesting 60s and political references that might be lost on a young audience, but certainly not on any boomer.
And tying in 1968 to the present presidential election was a clever way of doing things.
The writer in this column is developing a voice. Clearly he is in it (getting a hair cut, pleasing Mom), yet remains an unobtrusive narrator of his own life.
If there is any fault in the column, is that it packs in too much.
An entire column probably could have been pulled from dealing with the reasons for the haircut and the mall rat who did the chopping.
The politics could have been sprinkled in and about the column as a condiment.
Enjoyable column, though I am keeping the ponytail, for now.
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