Skip to main content

Bald is Beautiful



The summer of 1998 was a good time for me.  I had just graduated from high school.  I was soon headed to the University of Kansas for my freshman year and I had begun that elusive growth spurt that everyone else in my class ended 2 years before.  Yeah, life was looking up. (Still no women though)

There was one battle that I was continuing to lose, though.  My hair was still rather unruly.  It might be odd for you to think of a Black man with bad hair but trust me on this one.  Some of it is curly, some of it is downright nappy and some of it even has the nerve to be straight.  As if that wasn’t enough, I have a second hair swirl.  I have one in the back and another that shifts the direction of my hair in the front suddenly to the right which means when my hair is low, it looks like I’m attempting some sort of comb-over.  It takes excessive brushing and plenty of Murray’s (find a hood friend if you are not sure what Murray’s is) to correct it. It is the main reason why simply going to the barber shop every so often wasn’t a viable solution to the problem.

And that’s still not even the whole issue.  You give my hair a good two to three hours in direct sunlight and it starts turning red.  Which means in the Summer time, as my skin gets darker my hair gets lighter; which makes me look even darker.  Nowadays that doesn’t bother me but I was born in ‘80 and raised in the 90’s back when El Debarge looking ass niggas got all the girls.

So anyway, back in the summer of ’98 I was headed to my uncle’s house.  He was my barber, probably since I was old enough to get haircuts.  The reason that I went to my uncle was that he had no problem cutting my hair for free.  Unfortunately he was also an alcoholic.  That meant if you got in the chair and there was a line, or it was after about 11a.m., your hair line was about to get FUCKED up.  

That one particular day, I made it in plenty of time.  It had been a while since I had a cut and as usual, I looked a royal mess.  My uncle asked me if I wanted the normal cut and that is what I had planned the whole time that I was driving over there but after so many years of looking at this mess on my head I needed a change.  Surprising myself, I said “take it all off”.

My uncle looked at me and repeated.  “Take it all off?”  I said yeah and sat my ass in the chair without further conversation.  There was a big mirror so people could watch the progress but that day My Uncle seemed to always have me facing away from it.  He would cut a little, drink a little, cut a little, drink a little and suddenly he was done.  The floor and the apron were covered with hair with varying degrees of curliness and my uncle spun me toward the mirror…

I couldn’t believe it.  Growing up skinny, dark and nappy headed I would avoid the mirror unless I was brushing my teeth but that day I looked deeply at myself and couldn’t stop smiling.  I didn’t see anything that I didn’t want there.  It was like for the first time I could see myself.  I had no complaints and I’ve basically been shaving my head ever since.

Oh, I’ve gone through growing the hair out from time to time.  I even had cornrows and an afro but it never lasted much longer than a year.  The only real time my hair had any length was when my good friend and frat brother went to Iraq and I went on haircut strike until he came back.  I remember that after he came back I was bored one night and went to CVS, bought a perm kit and put it in.  It was pretty hilarious.  I looked sort of like James Brown’s arrest photo.  The creamy crack is definitely not for me.

Even with hair.  When I look into the mirror, I still see the bald me.  It is a rare thing that people these days have a positive self image.  Even the most groomed of us are that way because they are constantly seeing their ugliness in the mirror.  I lived that way until I made one gutsy call at the barber shop one Saturday and never looked back.

So what have we learned?  I guess the lesson here is that sometimes it takes a while to find the look that you like and you can’t be afraid to go for something drastic.  What matters is that person you see in the mirror.  If you don’t like it, fuck whoever that does.  Keep trying until you see yourself even if you have to go all the way back to nothingness and go from there.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Maury must be stopped. No one has profited more from Black people being ignorant than he.   I know the old saying: “Mama’s baby, Papa’s maybe.” But, contrary to popular belief, Black men love their children.   Everyone loves children.   Even if Black men realize that they aren’t bringing much to a household, they know that there is magic there.   That magic might be scary, like all magic, but it’s there.   There isn’t much difference between the love that develops between a man and a child with his D.N.A.   and a man that a child that he has raised. I am my father’s son.   No, I’m not light skinned or a hustler, but I laugh when I hear something funny.   I’ll sit on a porch and dink liquor all Saturday morning.   My toes are extraordinarily long (just like his).   I will see a beautiful woman and take notice just because I am a man and that’s what a man does.   My dad raised me well. When you see a Black man on Maury, y...

For my friends that considered suicide when having a nigga in your corner isn't enough

I remember wanting to die.  I didn't want to kill myself per se, I just wished that I could just go the fuck away.  I was a young, skinny teenager that wasn't looking forward to anything outside of video games.  What kind of life is that? But teenage life is always stupid.  When the lead actor is phoning it in, the play sucks.  That is teenage life in America.  I wish I could say that only teenagers go dark enough to want to die but we all know that is not true.  Life gets so much harder for people that dare to be an adult. As an adult, I get reminded of my younger years because shit still gets dark.  When I feel that kind of hopelessness, I still remember the fire that gets lit inside of me.  My ability to say "Fuck all of these people." is my super power.  It is a necessary tool for me.  When all the love I try to spread around begins to fail that flaming hatred for those that I let push me there always comes back.  Someh...

Code Cracked: LeBron

After LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers were swept by the Golden State Warriors my timeline was predictably filled with people arguing that LeBron couldn't possibly be the greatest of all time because he didn't fart rainbows or just will his team to victory. One of the most eyebrow raising post was of Michael Jordan celebrating another title.  I don't even remember what Mike was going on about but it made remember remember something about Mike that I had forgotten in all the Lebron comparisons: Mike was a complete asshole. Then, I got to thinking about Mike's heir (air) to the title of best in the game, Kobe.  Kobe wasn't brimming with personality but one thing that we should all agree on, is that he was also a fucking dick.  I specifically remember him ignoring Chris Rock on the sidelines like he was too focused to be funny. Then there's LeBron James.  Even when he has a team full of underachievers he has the nerve to pick up his purse and leave ra...