Hair Me Out / It’s Trash
Days go by so fast, it’s incredible… If time is suspended in Virginia, I can’t believe how rapid of a pace it had since I got back to the HQ, and even more since I set foot in the studio… Everything I have to do needs to be carefully planned and calculated, otherwise, the rest of my quite intense program goes off-rail almost immediately. It’s funny, especially for someone who requires a lot of flexibility and malleability like me, how little – if any at all – margin of error I have regarding my daily regimen. And it will be crazier starting tomorrow when our album producer and studio engineer will be home. I bet it’s not what my doctors meant by my brain having to take a vacation, avoiding stressful situations, going easy on the high pressure I inflict myself, and taking it easy. That’s probably why they also say: “But we know you, Alex, so just be careful and listen to the signs your body will send your hyperactive brain” every time I agree with all the “relax” and “zen” mantras I’ve been overly prescribed over the last 2 weeks. I decided to take it easy this early afternoon after a succession of morning meetings, and a short technical studio production appointment with Ben (while doing some of my required steps walking around inside the church… because, yes, I do have to do my minimum 10k to 15k steps a day on top of it all.)
Well… my afternoon of “taking it easy” wasn’t necessarily about slowing the motion down or actually relaxing a bit; it was mainly due to all the things I urgently had to do before I would abandon myself to the album. And one of those overdue elements was getting a haircut. I looked like the Hungarian dog breed Komondor on a very bad day, and I’m not a huge fan of hats, so I HAD to go. Even though I rarely end up going to the hair parlor more than once a year, I usually ask Miss Isabel to refresh my haircut. That is, until she says there is no longer anything to refresh because there is no haircut anymore – if there ever was a haircut. When I reach that point, I know I’m completely on my own; she won’t take any more responsibility regarding what she calls my “tragic-hair” or my “disast-hair”… So hurtful for my generous scalp!
Well… my afternoon of “taking it easy” wasn’t necessarily about slowing the motion down or actually relaxing a bit; it was mainly due to all the things I urgently had to do before I would abandon myself to the album. And one of those overdue elements was getting a haircut. I looked like the Hungarian dog breed Komondor on a very bad day, and I’m not a huge fan of hats, so I HAD to go. Even though I rarely end up going to the hair parlor more than once a year, I usually ask Miss Isabel to refresh my haircut. That is, until she says there is no longer anything to refresh because there is no haircut anymore – if there ever was a haircut. When I reach that point, I know I’m completely on my own; she won’t take any more responsibility regarding what she calls my “tragic-hair” or my “disast-hair”… So hurtful for my generous scalp!
I have to drive 90 minutes to get to the hair salon. I know it’s a bit excessive, but I’ve been friends with the owner for what feels like forever. Jeff even went to high school with her. So we all go a long way. I have the utmost admiration for her. She had quite a particularly challenging upbringing and start in life – she will downplay the whole thing, but she did. I deeply like individuals who don’t let circumstances dictate the rest of their lives or use any difficult events as a scapegoat to justify their self-imposed misery. She is a world away from that, and her salon is located in the old part of the city I grew up in, a street away from where I spent most of my infamous teenage years – a major plus value. Haircut, sharing a moment with Éli, revisiting some precious moments of my youth… Totally worth the 3-hour drive it requires for me to get there and come back, 3 hours during which I can have a lengthy business meeting with Jeff and Miss Isabel without being distracted, another upside to the whole affair, despite it being a downside to the “relaxing” part of the equation… But something’s gotta give, right?
Being in the hairdresser’s chair for 30 minutes is like a vacation to me. It’s so relaxing… Even if Éli laughs at the fact that I’m the one “directing” her scissors. “I want something trash, but not exaggeratedly too much. I want to have them grow longer but I want to shave them here and there. Oh, wait… No, it’s ok, you can shave more.” It’s like a show, and all the women around are laughing. It’s a fancy, high-class type of place. Some might say that I seem a little out of place, to say the least. Some of the women there will ask my opinion on the haircut they want… “Have you seen me when I got here? Trust me, I’m not the best source when it comes to hair, but you should do that and that… I think. It would look good on you. Less conventional,” I will usually reply. “Ok, the artist, leave my clients alone,” laughs Éli. But who am I to ignore them after they ask?! They have a very old dog in the salon, and she’s adorable. So we inevitably talked about MacKaye… Everyone was in shock because I always talked about him and Leonard, I always showed everyone pictures and videos of them. “Wait, wait! You need to look at that one, they are running from another angle” type of being REALLY into sharing about them. So the good times went down a few notches… It was nevertheless touching to see them being truly compassionate towards me. I’m still in denial about MacKaye, to be honest, and I can’t think about it too much or I’ll emotionally spiral down quite rapidly.
My rendez-vous with Éli is also a major news update on common acquaintances. That’s always the most interesting part of the haircut. “Did you know that so and so opened a bakery? You probably heard about so and so getting divorced? You saw so and so in the newspaper for DUI? So and so had a 4th kid, can you believe it? You must have freaked out when you heard that so and so ODed, you were always together at school!” The answers are always “no”, or “they had kids?” or “who was this?” It’s quite special for me to realize how little, if nothing at all, I know about the lives of people I spent my youth with every time I leave Éli’s salon. Am I a bad person or should I start spying on my old high school pals? Maybe I should simply go to the hairdresser on a more regular basis… I bet that would do the trick!
Being in the hairdresser’s chair for 30 minutes is like a vacation to me. It’s so relaxing… Even if Éli laughs at the fact that I’m the one “directing” her scissors. “I want something trash, but not exaggeratedly too much. I want to have them grow longer but I want to shave them here and there. Oh, wait… No, it’s ok, you can shave more.” It’s like a show, and all the women around are laughing. It’s a fancy, high-class type of place. Some might say that I seem a little out of place, to say the least. Some of the women there will ask my opinion on the haircut they want… “Have you seen me when I got here? Trust me, I’m not the best source when it comes to hair, but you should do that and that… I think. It would look good on you. Less conventional,” I will usually reply. “Ok, the artist, leave my clients alone,” laughs Éli. But who am I to ignore them after they ask?! They have a very old dog in the salon, and she’s adorable. So we inevitably talked about MacKaye… Everyone was in shock because I always talked about him and Leonard, I always showed everyone pictures and videos of them. “Wait, wait! You need to look at that one, they are running from another angle” type of being REALLY into sharing about them. So the good times went down a few notches… It was nevertheless touching to see them being truly compassionate towards me. I’m still in denial about MacKaye, to be honest, and I can’t think about it too much or I’ll emotionally spiral down quite rapidly.
My rendez-vous with Éli is also a major news update on common acquaintances. That’s always the most interesting part of the haircut. “Did you know that so and so opened a bakery? You probably heard about so and so getting divorced? You saw so and so in the newspaper for DUI? So and so had a 4th kid, can you believe it? You must have freaked out when you heard that so and so ODed, you were always together at school!” The answers are always “no”, or “they had kids?” or “who was this?” It’s quite special for me to realize how little, if nothing at all, I know about the lives of people I spent my youth with every time I leave Éli’s salon. Am I a bad person or should I start spying on my old high school pals? Maybe I should simply go to the hairdresser on a more regular basis… I bet that would do the trick!
The haircut evolution
1. Before the Haircut
2. The Inspiration (Miss Isabel’s Fantasy)
3. The Haircut
4. The Real Life Lookalike
Strange note: It’s only half way back home that I realized that the person that ODed was truly one of my former friends. How could I have forgotten his name? We used to hang out together all the time. He even taught me how to steal CDs and books without being caught…! He was one of the craziest guys I ever met, so I should have immediately clicked. I do have some serious memory issues… Woah! I do need some rest after all…
