**Disclaimer**
I wrote this soon after my haircut, which happened this past summer. The delayed post is mostly due to the fact that I wanted to put more pictures of my hairdos from over the years in it, but I'm simply too lazy to find, scan, and embed those photos. Hence the extreme delay in posting this. SO... here it is in all its limited-picturey glory.
**End Disclaimer**
So... I've always kinda been known for my...interesting choice of hairdos. I might even go so far as to say Weird Hair has become a Trademark of The Tauz. It's kinda my thing. As a matter of fact, I'd rank "That Guy with the Weird Hair" right up there with other common descriptive phrases for The Tauz, such as
"Goofy Bastard"
"Unhealthily Skinny Dude"
"Lanky Guy"
"Stunningly Handsome Man"
"Loveable Asshole"
"Pretty Big Dork"
Oh! And "Sweary Motherfucker". Can't forget that one. And Weird Hair has always been something that has always been easy for me to do. I love my hair, in almost all of the forms and shapes it has taken over the years. And one of the reasons that I love my hair, especially when it's in a style that is classified as Weird Hair, is that it gets me attention.
There. I said it.
I like attention.
And if you know me, you probably came to that realization long ago. But my hair has been garnering comments from friends, foes, and strangers alike for quite some time now.
Back in 1st Grade I had a Rat Tail. Not a horribly long one, but a Rat Tail, nonetheless. My mom had me convinced that it was cute. I still believe that to this day, even against my better judgment. The following picture is not me, nor was mine ever this hideous, long, or voluptuous.
The next significant style to adorn my noggin was the Mullet. For this, along with the next disastrous 'do on the list, I can rightfully place the blame squarely on my brothers' shoulders. Since they were older than me, they were automatically cooler than me. And whatever they did, I wanted to do. So when they went Business in Front, Party in Back, guess who totally wanted to do that too. That's how we ended up with this gem of a family photo:
THAAAT'S RIGHT. I posted it. This damn photo, which was taken for our church directory, has become legendary both in our family and amongst my friends. My mom LOVES this picture, probably because she looks nice in it. A bit 80s, but nice. And Dad hasn't ever really given an opinion on the picture. He had that caterpillar on his lip for like, 20 years, and I think he carried it well. I'm pretty sure he loved that mustache, but he ditched it when it turned to salt and pepper and hasn't looked back since.
But the boys are mortified by it. Correction: I used to be. Now I own it. I put it on a T-shirt and I wear that T-shirt ALL THE TIME. I made Jeff and Mark T-shirts, too, but for some reason I never see them wearing theirs. Weird, right?
See, Jeff's was pretty much all purty curls. Mark's was straight and supremely feathery. And mine, which is unfortunately (or cleverly?) hidden in the shadows (even though I always point mine out when someone asks about the picture on my shirt), is an interesting hybrid of theirs. Mine was straight until it ended in a ducktail full of curls. And all three were wicked-long. We were a Triumvirate of Tauzin Tresses. A Hierarchy of Hockey Hair. Captains of the Ape-Drape. Nobody could step to us.
Hair-wise, that is.
Larry and Ruthy tried by dressing their girls in matching outfits once in a while at mass on Sundays... but they had NAWTHIN' on us.
Hair-wise, that is.
The day that the clippers claimed Mark's mop, I wanted mine gone, too. He had gone to the Bowl-Cut, so I went along with him. I wanted mine skaterized, though. You know... let the all-one-length locks grow long, but lift them up and shave it underneath? Whoever cut Jeff's hair got it right. He had the classic 90s Skater-Do, complete with high ponytail. Mark, too, but his was much shorter, sans ponytail, and much less Skater, and more... well, "professional" isn't the right word, but it's the one I've chosen to use.
I, however, had more of a "Dorothy Hamill" look. (The following picture is not me...it's Dorothy Hamill. I'm sad that I thought I had to clarify that for you.)
It was my awkward period, what can I say? I thought it looked cool. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I wore it like it was. I grew that shit out, parted it in the middle, and wore bandannas as headbands.
Turns out, all that made me totally look like a girl. Woops. Call it unfortunate timing. (It calamitously coincided with the onset of puberty.) Call it poor judgment. (Many told me it looked bad, especially Mom and Dad.) Whatever it was, it was not good.
I even got called a girl once, to my face, by mistake, by one of the lunch ladies who saw me every day at school. She genuinely thought I was a teenage female for quite some time, and one day, addressed me as such. Shame of shames. You would think that that might have been a turning point, but I don't remember it prompting me to go home and demand a haircut that night or anything drastic like that.
I eventually toned down the length and went "normal" for a while. But by the end of my senior year, I had let it grow kinda shaggy. It was during this time that I also was shootin' to sprout some sideburns. I didn't have a lot of luck with that, but I was still shootin' for it. I was also still sadly lacking in the facial hair department, but that came along in college. (Shut up! Mom says I'm just a late bloomer, that's all.) (Jerk.)
During this time, there was a picture in my Sr. Yearbook in which I looked like a pre-pubescent Wolfman. I love that picture. When I saw it, I thought I looked ridiculous, but totally sweet at the same time. I kinda liked the wildness of the pseudo-fro I was starting to get. But I went back to the trimmed-up and classy look.
I got one last haircut before I went off to start at IUP in August of '98 (98!!). I didn't get a haircut until I came home for Thanksgiving break in November. That was probably the longest I'd ever gone without a trim at the time. I came home with the now-famous White Boy 'Fro for the first time, and WOW.
Talk about attention? Family. Friends. Neighbors. It was craziness. I think I got it trimmed a bit over the break, but I'm pretty sure I let it go until the end of spring semester after that. At some point, my roommate Eep got his hands on the head-on and profile pictures I had taken before I got my wig busted. He made it into a mugshot composite with the caption "Wanted for Excessive Hair". I can't find the file, otherwise it'd be up here.
It. Was. Fucking. Brilliant.
A classic moment, for sure.
I totally dig my 'Fro. It's just fun. It feels good. People love it. I love it. It's great. So I stuck with that throughout college, enduring the varying lengths and wavering levels of controlability. I have documentation of it being long and bushy enough to fully conceal an entire Bic pen in there, from front to back. It was a favorite gag of mine, in the Fro's heyday.
Alas, I figured that the fun couldn't last. Around the time I had to start interviewing for internships I went back to a more conservative look, with hair gel and everything. But after graduation, when I got my job where they didn't really mind some unruly hairdos around the office, and I was dating a girl who liked longer hair, all bets were off.
I grew it out to about the same length I'd had it in college, but this time it had curls and waves. And I had facial hair. And nobody really mistook me for a girl. (At least not to my face.) And it was awesome. And it got outta control, in the best way possible.
But then I challenged some crazy Youth Ministry group to raise a buttload of money, and if they did, they could shave my head. Mark and Duffy were put on the chopping block as well; Mark's hair was a little bit shorter than mine, but not by much, and since Duffy shaves his head voluntarily, he put his ample amount of leg hair on the line.
Of course the kids blew by all of the goals and got to cut all three of us down to the follicles. We even got coverage from a certain local news program. As a matter of fact, that happened to be the first show that Big Bro Jeff produced by himself at the station (he worked in the news department at the same station where I still work). His little brothers' free haircut event was his very first kicker story! Pretty cool, eh?
As for The Shavening, it was a very liberating feeling, having a shaved head. All exposed and sensitive, my head was free! Despite being against the whole idea of my hair getting shorter, Whitney knitted me a lightweight cap to wear, so my scalp wouldn't have to feel so naked. I enjoyed the feeling of the shorn-do. And after the stage during which I looked like a victim of some sort of political imprisonment or something, I don't think I looked too bad with extremely short hair.
When I went home that evening, and I showed Maman Sibyl, (my grandmother who was living with Mom and Dad at the time), she cried a little bit. I had gone from one extreme that she didn't like, to the other that she also didn't like. It was really kinda cute, but I felt bad for making her cry. She was happy to see it grow back to normal lengths, though, in the coming months.
And grow it did! I didn't get it cut for a long, long time after The Shavening. I only got it trimmed once, for an occasion in March of 2006. But between June 2005 and July 2008, that was the only haircut I got, and this is how long it got:
It was definitely long enough to donate an nice, purty ponytail to Locks of Love, which was one reason I'd let it grow for so long. As you can see below, the donation was a healthy 10 inches.
I decided to get the chop because it just kinda felt like the right time to do it. For one, I found that summers are waaay hotter with a shit-ton of hair on your head. And I'd already put it to entertaining and neck-damagingly good use at a couple of awesomely fun wedding receptions.
I kinda wish I would have been able to stand to keep it around for the rest of the summer, though for a few reasons: There were 4 more weddings I had to go to after The Cut. Some of my friends hadn't seen it in a few months. My license picture would have been amazing if I'd had my hair long for it, and that's coming up this month.
Plus, attending the Rush and Linkin Park concerts just didn't feel right with short hair. I felt that I'd limited my way of expressing my appreciation of how much each band rocked me. It was as if I were a painter who'd been working with acrylics for a couple of years and then I suddenly ran out of paints, so I switched to pencils, but then got really inspired by something, so the product of said inspiration was not as good as it could have been, had I still been using acrylics. It was still decent art, but it could have been a fuckin' masterpiece. Oh well.
Not that I regret doing it, though. I stand by my decision to de-lengthify my coif. And I was getting hints from certain friends that it was getting ridiculously too long. This, for example, was posted on the "Want Ad" Board in both of the local grocery stores that I frequent:
I did owe it to Whitney, though, to give her a crack at playing and styling it before the wig got busted, since she has always been a big supporter of The Long Hair Look. So I let her know when the cut was set to happen and we set up a night when she could come over and hang out with my hair. She came over and brushed, braided, twisted, and did all sorts of crazy shit with my locks one night during the week before the big day. Much fun was had, even though it frequently felt like she was trying to rip my temples off, one square centimeter at a time.
This was the best thing she did:
Here's another cool shot, pre-cuttage:
So, without too much fanfare or any real warning (with the obvious exception of this Night of Crazy Braids), I scheduled an appointment (back at the end of July) with longtime stylist to The Tauz Fam, Stephanie. Serendipitously, Big Bro Mark had an appointment that week, and she had an open spot right after his, so I had a built-in camera man! Cool beans, eh? Plus, it was only fitting that the man who probably nourished the seedling Weird Hair tendencies in me would be there for this momentous Hair Happening.
After all this buildup, here it is. Teh Actual Haircut:
A few things to mention about the vid:
1)Ha. Ha. Yes, my hair is thick, but no saws were necessary, smarty-pantses.
2)That shit did take forever to cut through, though. Right?
3) Yes, I know Stephanie repeatedly said "Beckman" instead of "Beckham", and I didn't have the heart to correct her on-site. But we can overlook her slip-up because she's hilarious and she gives good haircuts and we love her. Studio Cuts in York, PA, y'all...look her up and tell her you know me. Then you can talk about how funny you both mistakenly think I am. Love her.
4) Big Bro Mark and I share a moment when we both say "Nice." at the same time, and in the same tone. Brilliant.
5) Big Bro Mark's Billy Crystal reference/impression. Old-school, bro!
6) "Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart" by Bruce Springsteen is playing in the background. Amazing.
I loved the "stacked wedge" look on me. I mention that I think I look like one of the Geico cavemen, although I'm much more stylish. But I think Posh Beckham wears that style way better than I ever could, so I opted to go back to the 'fro look. It suits me better, I think. Plus it's WAY easy to take care of.
The classics never die, but who knows what look might be next in this ongoing saga of The Tauz's Hairstory...
