Nuyorican Obituary

To get a haircut or not, that is the big question. Okay, maybe not so big a question. Maybe I’m making too much of it. I’m no metrosexual, after all. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The thing of it is, I tend to get bushy. It’s a sad sight to see. If I don’t get a haircut every 5 weeks or so, I end up with hair like Bill Bixby’s, a poofy, small forest animal kind of ‘do. When I have a date set up I of course want to look well groomed. But the timing can be difficult.

See, it’s a bad move for me to get a haircut the day of a date. First of all, I never know how I’m going to look when I walk out. The problem is I no longer have a go-to barber. I did once, for almost 10 years, an Italian gentleman, 80 years old but with hands as steady as a surgeon’s. In fact, during WW II, he had been in the medical unit–they put him in there because he refused to carry a gun and kill. You pick a go-to barber, you get to know a lot about him over the years. All that small talk starts to add up. So this one was a conscientious objector. What better reason to let this guy at me with a straight razor on a regular basis. But also with him, there was never a question of having left too much or too little on top. It was always just right. And it was also eight bucks.

But now I have a variety of barbers to go to and none of them make me feel quite comfortable enough to make me a regular. Many of them nowadays are buzz machine fanatics. Gone is the craftsmanship and finesse of the scissors expert. Some of them even skip the straight razor; but with the distracted, get-out-of-my-chair-already look in some of their eyes, I don’t mind. So, each new barber is a new adventure, and though my cut is the same (“Not too short, tapered back”), I still don’t know how it will turn out. Do you get the same cheeseburger deluxe at every diner in town? No. Sometimes the fries are chip style, sometimes sticks. Sometimes there’s cheese on both sides of the bun, sometimes it’s only on the meat. See? Same idea. Sometimes I’ll walk out with a finely mowed head of hair. And sometimes with a nascent groundhog.

And you can’t quite tell right away how good or bad the cut is because your hair is in kind of shock. They’ve gone at it with blowdryers and water mists and gels, things you would never do on your own. Your hair’s reeling like Frazier in Manila. It feels betrayed like Rick at the train station in Paris.

So, haircut on the day of a first date, bad idea. Besides which you usually smell like a barber shop, and while some women may get turned on by that antiseptic, powdery smell, others may just be reminded of their fathers. Which come to think of it may be why some of the women who get turned on get turned on.

The ideal time is the two-week window a week after the haircut. You and your hair have had time to mend fences, to come to a detente of sorts. And the sideburns that last barber massacred have had time to grow back in.

But recently I had a first date coming up, and I felt the need for a haircut coming on. The Jiffy-Pop bag of hair on my head had not fully popped but it was going to be close. The date was on a Thursday. I wouldn’t need a haircut till the following Wednesday. I gave in and went for gel. Some blue stuff made of stuff probably created by NASA for the astronauts. To make them look spiffy to TV cameras on Earth and of course any new friends they met in space. I put a dime-size drop of gel in my palm and went for it. When it dried, my hair felt like a stuffed porcupine but at least it was within walking distance of my skull. My date did not seem to mind.

See, I really am not a metrosexual. There are so many more important things to think about, politics, terrorism, finding a good dentist. But you know what they say: vanity, thy name is Carl. I really don’t want to think all that much about my hair. But there I did it again.

Beware! And use protection.

Who doesn’t like children? I do, I really do. I love kids. Really. When they’re somewhere else. I hereby advocate for children’s hours in all public places–museums, restaurants, rest rooms, airplane flights, etc., as long as they’re not around when I am. I do this not just for me but for all adults who prefer children elsewhere but are afraid to stand up for their rights. There is precedence for this legislation. The government can ban smoking in public because it is harmful to others, right? Well, I say children are harmful to me. When I am trying to eat my meal, appreciate a piece of artwork, enjoy an in-flight movie, have a drink, it is harmful to me to have a child around. (And by the way, what IDIOT brings their kid into a bar? Does Little Johnny really need to be exposed to the chemically altered behavior of adults on a mass level? He doesn’t get enough emotional dysfunction at home?) I say harmful in that my appetite is spoiled, my focus destroyed, my buzz c’est fini. I was recently at the Field Museum in Chicago, to enjoy the King Tut exhibit in all its splendor and majesty, and there was a mewling child (boy or girl, it does not matter) asking to have a picture taken with a mummy. I wonder, youngster, how you would feel if I exhumed grandma and then snapped pictures with me next to her grinning in a filthy T-shirt and shorts? If adults want to visit a museum and actually enjoy the exhibits, it is best that there are no tow-headed screamers present. Forget about reading the museum informational signage in peace. I say: separate hours for children in all public places, restaurants, museums, subways, even bars, if you must, say from about 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. I understand the little buggers get up that early anyway. I would not advocate for this legislation so vehemently if American children were not so thoroughly spoiled, sticky-fingered, loud, and smelling sourly of entitlement, hand sanitizer, and jelly. So, I say: children’s hours now!