Looking ghastly for the greater good
DIY haircuts welcome if it keeps us inside.
One day in the future, when we tell our grandkids about the Great Pandemic of 2020 and share photos from lockdown, they will ask, “What happened to your hair?”
The other day, Pink shared a quarantine video of a new do that resulted from binge drinking and self-buzzing. For the record: this is usually as unwise as overeating and bungee jumping.
Remember how Albert Einstein worked out the Theory of Relativity after getting sloshed on Absinthe? Me neither. But as Pink ambles through her manse, chomping on a pretzel stick like a petting zoo donkey, she says, “When I drink, I get really, really brilliant ideas. And last night, I got an idea: I can cut hair. I can totally cut hair.”
Whether or not she can totally cut hair is totally unclear from the video. Pink is, perhaps tellingly, wearing a pink tuque. But based on the crooked, shaved-off sides she reveals, she is advised to stick to music because there is zero chance of a fallback career at Supercuts.
And if Pink was drunk, it’s possible her husband, Carey Hart, was on hallucinogens.
In another image, in which he’s holding an electric clipper, the tatted-up, former motocross competitor looks like a Yamaha YZ250 driven by Edward Scissorhands tried to jump over his head when the back wheel accidentally skidded across the middle of his skull. The only time you see this haircut is right before you’re mugged.
It’s not just the Pink household that is red-hot about DIY pandemic grooming.
Three years ago, Blake Shelton was People’s Sexiest Man Alive. He’s now in a dead heat with Hart for Scariest Man Alive, having enlisted girlfriend Gwen Stefani to shave lines into a “Quarantine Mullet” that can be simulated by wearing a backwards newsboy cap made from a badger pelt.
Meanwhile, in exile, rapper Riz Ahmed appears to have suffered a cranial mishap with a runaway John Deere. While isolating in the bathroom, a pouty Elle Fanning dyed her hair red and now resembles an emaciated mermaid who reads nothing but Sylvia Plath. Scott Evans might as well glue a door mat to his head. And Kelly Ripa has started a “Root Watch” video diary.
But you know what? I salute these stars for bravely looking ghastly!
To guarantee everyone stays home indefinitely, we should all look ghastly!
A week before lockdown, I tried to cut my hair using two mirrors, a clipper and kitchen shears. I thought I did a pretty good job. Then later on that Sunday night, my wife came home and I darted into the kitchen to help unload groceries.
She just stood there, frozen with bags in her hands, staring at my head like there were two.
“What did you do?” she asked in a frightened hush, as if stumbling upon a grisly crime scene.
She put down the bags, grabbed my shoulders and twirled me around like a ballerina, to inspect the damage. Then she laughed so hard she actually started crying.
Mortified, I moved my hands around the back of my skull like it was a fortune teller’s ball. I could suddenly feel what I had not seen in the twin mirrors of my makeshift salon: the tufts of defiant hair hiding under the arms of glasses I had not removed; the bald spots from overzealous buzzing; the ripples, the dunes, the plate tectonic cracks, the tsunami waves.
Roused by the hyena sounds of their mother, my daughters got out of bed, came downstairs and promptly joined in the cackling.
For a good five minutes, the three of these ingrates pointed and snapped paparazzi photos, ridiculing me like I wasn’t even there:
“Look at that part on the right! HAHAHA! He looks like a rooster! HAHAHA!”
This was a week before lockdown. So I could leave the house, which I did early the next morning after my wife demanded I find the nearest barber and be ready for opening bell. There I stood on the
Danforth, my cap tugged down hard, a scarf twirled around my neck up past my ears, waiting on the street like a new iPhone was about to get released.
I felt deeply ashamed to be in public. That is a feeling we must all now embrace.
“People are sharing hilarious home haircut fails during coronavirus isolation,” read a recent headline on Fox News, and that’s when a lightbulb went off inside my stubbled head.
If the key to beating this virus is social distancing, shouldn’t we encourage everyone to look as horrific as possible? I’m starting to think the government should mandate that all citizens wear clown noses and apply a putrid stain to their teeth until the contagion has passed.
As Pink put it: “Stay safe. Stay home. Cut your own hair. Screw it.”
Sure, she now looks like her hair was cut by jumping swordfish! But that’s the point!
A global pandemic, one that hinges on avoiding one another, is the perfect time to transform into Kim Jong-Un, Mr. T, Sideshow Bob or Shia LaBeouf. I’m thinking about dyeing my hair blonde next month to look like a photo-negative of Ringo Starr. Or maybe I’ll grow out “Pandemic Bangs” or rock a “COVID Man Bun.” Anything to gladly stay locked in the basement.
If looking ghastly helps you stay put, break out the hedge trimmer and salad bowl. Who knows, you might even give your loved ones a muchneeded laugh.