Mohawk Nelson


On how max came to have a mohawk.

well. as some of you know. I have a mohawk. I didn't actually intend to get a mohawk. You could say it was an accident. I feel like a teenager explaining an "accidental" party when the folks are away, involving 300 people, a snow cone machine and puff daddy. But i digress. Here's how it happened:

I've never invested a lot of energy in my hair and refuse to do anything high maintenance with it. Asian hair is very thick and straight, mine so much so, that when my friend Lisa felt my hair for the first time, she blurted out: "Oh my gosh, your hair is so thick I thought I was going to lift it up and find a horse's anus back here" (I changed a word in there, guess which one it is?) So the point is, I've never had the luxury of following popular hairstyles, my hair just does what it does. If I cut it short, it tends to look like I'm growing a chia pet. I've had a variety of bad hairstyles, one of which involved half of my head shaved a la Gary Oldham in the fifth element. For the record, I did it first, although Gary and I are the only 2 people I know who have actually done that. Except for one poor kid whose dad brought him to a CoR show and explained to me that his kid "wanted to be just like me and thus had half his head shaved." I felt terrible. Sorry kid.

Anyways, while I was contemplating a change, Melissa suggested a mohawk. Having been a fan of the 80s I'd always sort of wanted one, but was unwilling to let go of my safety blanket of hair in my face.

I'm also a bit of a cheapskate. For the most part, I've had whoever I was dating cut it. This happens when your parents are poor and cut your hair instead of "throwing away money at those fancy expensive places like supercuts". Melissa actually went to cosmetology school and has her own super duper $180 scissors so she got pressed into service right away. Since then, my subsequent girlfriends have been called on to refresh it and it's worked out reasonably well. I've gone a couple times to L.A. and had it cut by "friends of friends who work in the same salon where Giovanni Ribisi gets his hair cut". Usually, I just ask the person to "have fun with it" and it's always been good, since when you pay $80 for a haircut you tell yourself it's good.

So I'd been without a girlfriend for awhile and after my hair started to grow itself into 80s metal hair I decided it was time to learn some independence.

It was time for me to get a haircut.

I went to a recommended upscale salon where I live and tried to explain to the girl what I wanted - to restore my hair to my mental image of myself. The downside of always using girlfriends to cut your hair is you never develop a proper way of communicating what you want. Thus when I said, can you make it kind of "spiky" I actually meant "chunky'. And when I said "it's really long" I meant, it was long by an inch or two. Not eight. She nods like she understands me and starts whipping around my head edward scissorhands style with the clipper. I'm extremely near sighted so without my glasses on, I have no idea what's going on. I am suddenly aware however, that the curtain of hair in front of my face is half gone. uh... uh oh.

Being non confrontational and also dealing with the fact that I have started to sweat from every pore in my body as I panic, I sit there meekly while she finishes.

I put on my glasses and discover that I have returned to a much earlier haircut - the flattop. yikes. At that point, I said, "well... if we're gonna do that, we might as well make it a mohawk."

So.. that's how I came to have a mohawk.

Actually, now, I rather like it, although it doesn't let me blend into crowds as easily as I used to. Hair is a statement and I'm still trying to figure out what I'm saying with this thing. It looks good on stage, but having a mohawk can be awkward when you are trying to get a real estate loan or if you have to call the cops about some crazy kids. I was in the mall yesterday and walked by a group of emo teens (no doubt on their way to hot topic) and i heard one of them breathlessly say to the other "I want a mohawk like that!" and I wanted to turn around and say "let me guess, you don't have a mohawk like this cause YOUR MOM WON'T LET YOU HAVE ONE!" On a recent flight the cute flight attendant said "nice mohawk". When i got off she said "keep that mohawk up" and high fived me. Is that a standard mohawk greeting? I already feel awkward when I see another mohawk; is it like the jeep thing where we wave at other jeeps? or more like the punk version of showing up at prom wearing the same dress as someone else? I dunno. There's no mohawk etiquette guide.

So that's how I came to have a mohawk. Pictures to follow soon. Shaved head to follow after that so I can see how I look as a shaolin monk.


Greetings international readers from portugal, brazil, japan, the netherlands and sweden!

Posted: Tue - October 4, 2005 at 04:48 PM          

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