Haircuts

Haircuts

{tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE can be contacted @ <idioideo at gmail dot com>}

When I was 12, around 1966, I parted my hair in the middle & wore what were then called "Granny Glasses", in this case sunglasses with round wire frames. I went to the local country store near where I lived & made a joke to the owner about the price of soda going up. He kicked me out of the store calling me something like "goofy". Soon thereafter, his cousin, the son of the sheriff, held a switchblade to my throat on the local junior high school grounds & threatened to slit my throat because I'd somehow offended the store owner. I told him to go ahead. Fortunately, he didn't call my bluff. That might've been my 1st taste of social disapproval outside of a school environment.

When I was 14, around the beginning of 1968, I decided to grow my hair long. My mom had a rule that I had to walk the mile to the local barber to get it cut once a week. When I rebelled against this, she probably told me I wasn't allowed to leave the house anymore except for school & church. I rebelled against that too. At the time, what passed for "long hair" on a guy in my neighborhood didn't amount to much. The result of my having long hair was that people would throw garbage at me from their passing cars or swerve as if they were going to hit me or shout out "Are you a buoooy or are you a gurrrl?!", "faggot", "Manson!", "Jesus Christ", & "Get a job!" Of course, when I actually went to get a minimum wage job I was told that they didn't hire people like me. That was really my 1st taste of what the life of an individualist was to be like. It didn't stop me.

I didn't cut my long hair off completely until 14 years later. I wanted to have spent half my life with long hair. From then on the adventure of using the haircut as a signifier of my imagination & my individualism really took off. In the meantime, in 1979, when I 1st cut my hair into the shape of 12 moustaches, still leaving some long hair to make 2 antennae out of, men's hair in Baltimore, where I lived, basically fit into 3 categories: 'normal' (ie: short), long (associated with being a "Hippie"), & shaved (considered to be 'extreme').

The following selection gives you an idea of most of the more interesting haircuts I've had (there're at least 4 missing - maybe I'll find pictures eventually) + a look at what I was like as a long-hair. I think that these haircuts represent an exceptional body of work in & of themself. Society has changed a little since I 1st started this adventure, a greater variety of haircuts is more 'tolerated'. Now what I have to deal with is hatred of eccentric old men, eh? After all, I'm 'supposed' to be a 'normal' citizen by now, cowed & mediocre. Tough luck, assholes.

1968. my 1st long hair

1972. longer hair

1979. 12 moustaches & t he 5 utters of ignorance

1981. 12 moustaches & t he 5 utters of ignorance - 2nd version

1984. inverted & flipped ?

1989. B&W

2005. Does Not Belong To

2007. OPEN mind