© 2003 Dan Sherman
I was sitting in a bar watching men and women mate as easily as they might sprint through wet concrete. Actually, there was no mating going on.
The women were in packs in heated discussions about leg waxing. The men were wishing they could mute them with a remote so they could get in a clever zinger.
But men speak as slow as DMV lines move, so to get a word in, men would have to talk like announcers at the end of car commercials reading what sounds like the Magna Charta in five seconds flat.
But I was content because there was a good college basketball game on television starring convicted felons with arms thicker than redwoods and decorated with enough blue ink to dye the GAP's jean output for a decade.
I sipped my beer, and when I looked up a hair plug commercial was on. When this happens at home I hit the remote so hard I've had to attach several new thumbs.
But now I had to watch pictures of me: On the left, I'm a cue ball; on the right, I have more hair than a wildebeest. Then there's the dweeb emerging delirious from a swimming pool as if all 12 Playmates of the Month had been under the water using his body like a board game.
I'm not swayed by these commercials because I feel my head is half full, not half empty. And I don't WANT new hair, because I have a relationship with my hair as long-standing as Batman and Robin.
When I was in Junior high, straight hair was in, and my waves seemed as desirable as mattress springs on my head. So, I had to straighten it with a "hot comb," a device similar to Chernobyl attached to a garden hoe that gently raised the surface temperature of my scalp to that of the sun.
In high school, wavy hair was cool. But I was cutting 25 lbs. to reach my wrestling weight class, and one day at a weigh-in I was a few ounces over 141 lbs.
Out came the shears, and my wacky coach -- who had the fashion sense of Boris Karloff -- gave me a new "escaped mental patient" hairdo on the spot which helped me make weight, but caused pretty girls to call SWAT teams when I strayed within two miles of them.
In the seventies, Afros for Jewish guys were finally "in." I grew my hair long, and used one of those metal Afro picks. After a heavy night of recreational "studying," however, I would usually space out and stick it in my back pocket leaving a row of ten small holes in my rear.
After college, I wrote ad copy by day while at night I played in a band. One night I got my hair cut at a new wave salon where they played loud punk and the white wine flowed in greater quantities than the conditioner.
My hairdresser (Elvira) suggested I color my hair and make a strong statement that I was helpless in the hands of a well-endowed woman getting me tipsy while twirling a razor sharp scissors. I was defiant. Then I picked blue.
I had to have a portion of my hair bleached first, which meant I sat under a nuclear-powered heat lamp with tin foil on my head like a toasted Martian receiving instructions from home. The blue hair was great. Till it faded and turned green so that I really DID look like a Martian.
But back to the bar: Around me I saw guys who shaved their hair off, thinking that since women adored Captain Picard of Star Trek, they would try baldness. But Picard also had a very cool spaceship to impress the girls. And they don't sell those down at Toyota.
I don't think guys trying to meet women need weaves or Picard's starship.
What they really need is confidence. If they don't have it, then they need a magical remote, speed talking instructional tapes, or, a line they can say faster than a hair commercial can make you feel like a cue ball.
Dan Sherman is a Reno, NV-based writer. Read all of his columns at
www.danshermanonline.com. Email him at dan@danshermanonline.com.
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