I’m writing about hair because I’ve been thinking about what a massive impact it has on us. I've always been told I have great hair: by friends, strangers, hair stylists—and it's a blessing I'll gladly take,
but great hair or not great hair—they both underwrite and forge so much of who
we are.
I was talking with a friend who's undergoing chemo, and while most of the time she’s cool with her dome exposed—it was summer in Austin, Texas after all, and the less of anything on your body, the better—which of course leads to all sorts of unforgettable. Another topic. So anyway, she often goes unadorned, but also has been experimenting with a wide array of wigs, as well as the optional scarves and hats. What she has found is the exact thing I’m talking about here. Hair makes a difference. In how people react, approach, notice or not notice.
I was talking with a friend who's undergoing chemo, and while most of the time she’s cool with her dome exposed—it was summer in Austin, Texas after all, and the less of anything on your body, the better—which of course leads to all sorts of unforgettable. Another topic. So anyway, she often goes unadorned, but also has been experimenting with a wide array of wigs, as well as the optional scarves and hats. What she has found is the exact thing I’m talking about here. Hair makes a difference. In how people react, approach, notice or not notice.
Absolutely. On first sight, hair is one of the first and predominant things that make an impression. What did she look like? Most likely answer is going to include, in this order: height, hair color, general looks appraisal. “She was tall, blonde, really homely.” (I had to make her homely right? Tall and blonde is enough good fortune for any imagined character in my story.)
I’m certain as I am about anything in this world that if I hadn’t ditched my messy spikes for some long wavy extensions, making me a brunette bombshell in 2001, that I wouldn’t have my amazing daughter. One could argue that I might have had a daughter regardless, eventually, but I wouldn’t have THIS daughter. My ex, our daughter’s daddy, a handsome lawyer, found the chick—that would be me—who looked feminine and sultry, infinitely more approachable than the chick (that would still be me) who, a year earlier had the best piece-y shaggy rocker 'do any gal in a band could ask for. He asked for my phone number (don’t you hate when people say “digits” instead of phone number? Barf.) And well, the rest was just a bunch of cool stuff for many fine years—until my divorce. Another topic.
When I first got sober, after I was able to do something other than go to AA meetings or sit on my sofa writing crappy songs—which took less than three months, by the way—(take heart, alkies) the urge to distance myself from the party gal version of me took hold. Being clean was a complete 180 and I felt compelled to 180 my appearance to go with the new me. So I went blonde. Not just blonde, like, honey blonde or golden blonde or ash blonde, but a blinding, platinum blonde. Early on, in my blondeness, one night for some weird reason, I put on a tight lycra red dress that I'd bought on one of my pathetic Marshall's shopping sprees, and went out to meet a friend for dinner. All I can say is that, if blondes are having more fun, we've got a serious discrepancy in our versions of what fun is. It was like I was an exotic sports car that people—well, let's be specific here—MEN, were entitled to gawk at lustfully. I'd never felt less like a human being. I hated it. Even without the red dress, (which went straight in the Goodwill pile,) in the time that followed, the attitude and treatment was remarkably different than I'd gotten as a copper-topped red head or any shade of dark. Still, I kept the blonde 'til I got bored with it, after I'd blonded out in several styles; including one that looked so absolutely fake that people used to ask me if I was wearing a wig. I wasn't.
Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I'd had long, feminine hair in the peak of the Go-Go's success. A completely different persona projection means a different life; in terms of boyfriends, interest level from the public and the music industry, possibly behavior differences with the ripple effects that would follow. Other fundamentals are probably unaffected—friends, talent, characteristics. But really, it's weird to think that something as seemingly superficial as a hairstyle could've dramatically changed the course my life took.
Back then though, the only identity I cared about was that of a rocker, and just as important as liking and knowing the right music, that meant having the right hair. From the minute I started playing in bands as a teen in Austin, the holy grail was finding someone who could give the essential haircut; a Suzi Quatro or Keith-like shag, a jagged Bowie cut, or the perfect Rod Stewart. Someone who could distinguish between Farrah Fawcett stylized side swoops and those cool feathered wings that the Runaways sported.
Hair and music is just inseparable, and hair is a major defining element for bands. Beatles. Ramones. I should just rest my case there, but I won't. Robert Plant's curly mop. Debbie's hair gave Blondie one of the best band names ever. Look at Brian Jones—his blonde pageboy was probably the first wedge of separation between him and his band mates—and we all know where that led. Wasn't Kurt Cobain's whole deal intensified and affirmed by his greasy, stringy hair hanging in his eyes? If he'd had a buzz cut or some goofy Willie Nelson braids we would've never heard of Nirvana. Think of the countless "regular guy" hair that defines artists from the Replacements to Springsteen. No one's gonna buy their vibe with the wrong hair. Switch Bon Jovi and Bruce's hair and you have obscurity. Whereas, you can flip the songs and each of those guys probably would have still had a hit. Really. Springsteen singing Living On a Prayer and BJ doing Born To Run, I bet would have worked just fine. But a hair switch? No way.
I noticed in one recent year, whereupon I got divorced from both my husband and my former band, moved to a new house, and in general was feeling a lot of loss and being lost, that my hair changed about six times. First of all I went from dark brunette to maple syrup amber to a strawberry blonde. One morning, looking in the mirror, I picked up some scissors and hacked off two chunks to give myself some bangs. A few weeks later the rest of the hair got cut. The color became a deeper red. A side part appeared one day, forced into submission with bobby pins until it behaved on it's own. What I came to realize was how out of control everything in my life felt, like unseen forces were shoving me places that I hadn't chosen, yet had no choice but to accept. But one thing I DID have control over was my hair. Hair and attitude. Choosing both, as many times as I need to helps me adjust to the changes in my life.
I'm in my mid-fifties, and I'm pretty sure I could look every inch of that if I let my hair do what it's biologically programmed to do. But I can't let that happen. I'm a mom, and I'm single, I've had a successful career but I'm reinventing a new life as we speak. And I'll always be rockin'. The fun part is figuring out the ways I can make my hair reflect and compliment all of that; edgy, classy, fun—the way I see myself, the way I want to be seen, for as long as I can get away with it. In time, it will be a new challenge making frosty grey or white hair look cool. I've seen it done and I'm taking notes.
"I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, mattyOily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!" --lyrics from "Hair" the musical
