BAD HAIR DAYS AHEAD
Self-isolation isn’t pretty
Although I wasn’t mourning a death in the family, self-isolation tempted me toward a ritual in Judaism: Soaping over the mirrors.
While staying at home and avoiding all human contact, I’ve been tempted to pretend someone died. That’s how scary it’s been to look at myself. The unkempt beard, the sparse, straggly hair — not pretty.
Of course, prettiness is not an attainable standard for most male septuagenarians. But until COVID-19 hit, I could at least manage presentability.
Instead, staying home and out of the reach of good grooming has made me look like Tom Hanks in Cast Away.
At least he finally got rescued. Grappling with the sight of that unsightly guy in the mirror, it occurred to me that maybe a musical flashback might elevate my spirits:
“Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair
“Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen …”
If you saw the 1979 movie adaptation of the Broadway hit musical, you remember Treat Williams dancing along a posh dinner party table while singing the praises of the tonsorial outcropping that produced the title Hair.
Fast-forward to a hippie-nomore murmuring “give me at least SOME hair …”
That would be 71-year-old me, gazing forlornly into my bathroom mirror while heading (no pun intended) inexorably toward Chromedome City.
Hair loss wouldn’t concern me unduly were it not for the ubiquitous image of the president of the United States. Donald Trump is two years older than I. He has more money — which bothers me not in the least. Many do.
But that hair …
So what is it with septuagenarian Republican presidents? Remember Ronald Reagan?
Mario Cuomo, late father of the current governor of New York state, liked to tell anecdotes about his Italian immigrant mother:
“Momma’s watching television in the early days of Reagan,” Cuomo père once related. “She says: ‘Is that his hair?’
“I said: ‘Yeah, that’s his hair.’ She said: ‘How old is he?’ I said: 75.’
“She said: ‘Does he colour it?’ I said: ‘No, they say he doesn’t. That’s the way it is naturally.’
“Then she said in Italian: ‘Ahh, God must love him.’”
Does God love Donald Trump? I doubt it. But we know he loves Jeff Bridges — and cast him in The Big Lebowski.
Bridges is 70. His hair and his politics are nicer than Trump’s. So where did I go wrong? Should my career path have led to real estate or Hollywood where millions could be made and a sparse outcropping could have become a lush bouffant?
Women, regardless of age, enjoy a greater range and variety of hairstyles, from early Sinead O’Connor to eternal Dolly Parton.
They may shed tears — after all, they’re sharing the planet with men — but not in the mirror every morning.
A flashback: Like every other carefree university student in the 1960s, I had long hair. Like too many of us, it did not suit me at all.
My single-parent mother was not impressed by her son’s futile attempt to look like a Grateful Dead roadie. But her persistent admonition to get my hair cut fell on the deaf ears obscured by unruly and unsightly locks.
Nor was my mother, a bookkeeper in Montreal’s then-bustling rag trade, impressed by my taste in fashion.
In the 1970s, when I tried to dress like a respectable young journalist, she described the pinstripe seersucker jacket I bought as “rank.”
By then, I was having my hair cut regularly at a salon on Montreal’s fashionable Crescent Street. My barber — oh, excuse me, my stylist — was an Austrian émigré. He set me up with an espresso and administered a patiently crafted razor cut while discussing seasonal topics — skiing in the winter and tennis in the summer — and year-round hedonism.
My current stylist — oh, excuse me, my barber — plies his trade in an unfashionable shopping mall. Our conversation is brief: “Short or medium?”
Sadly, at this stage of life, “Trumpian” is not an option.