GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #449: GOT SHEMP?

 

So back in March of 2020, when I'd lost the plot in addition to many other things, including my job, I'd decided I wasn't going to get a haircut ever again. My lifelong barber had just died, and I didn't feel like finding a new barber. Usually I stop shaving and getting haircuts on Halloween, and I don't resume these things until late March or early April. It's mostly to have extra hair covering me during the winter.

But I changed my ways. My hair got so long I needed to tie it back in a ponytail, and my beard went down to my mid-chest. And in March 2021 I got a new job, so I figured maybe showing up looking like a crackhead might not be the best look. I trimmed the beard down so it looked reasonable (and pretty handsome, if I don't say so myself), but I had to figure out what I was going to do with my hair. Fuck it. I was 42, and I still had a full head of hair. Why not have some fun with it? I decided I was either going to get a Mohawk or get the Joe Miller from the first season of The Expanse.

Well, no middle-aged fat guy looks good in a Mohawk, so I decided to do the Miller. It didn't come out like I thought, but it turned out pretty nice. But then it kept growing and growing, and I had a new goal: I'm going to get the Shemp.

Shemp's hair doesn't look very special. In fact, it looks pretty short if you're not paying attention. But if he catches a particularly bad blow to the face, or he leans forward too far, you see that his hair is actually very long. It's because the hair at the front up top goes all the way to his neckline in the back. It's deceptive and looks pretty cool. For the past few months, I've had the Shemp, and I've been happy with it.

But now it's winter again, so I let my hair keep going. And now that I've had long hair for years, I'm getting kind of tired of it. I think when spring rolls around I'm going to get it sheared off so it's as short as I usually liked to get it.

I'm keeping the beard, though. Goddam, I look sexy with that beard.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #31: ROGER AND ME

Of all the characters on MAD MEN, I identify most with Roger Sterling. While he takes his work seriously, he also knows that it's not so important that it's the end of the world if something gets fucked up. He's got an odd anarchistic streak in him that probably didn't exist in many WWII vets. He's even got an open mind when it comes to a lot of things, like trying LSD with his wife and hanging out with his hippy daughter.


However, there is one thing about his character that I get so much more than the rest of it. In one episode, his mother dies, and he takes it pretty well. His family falls apart around him, but he plays it off with very few ruffled feathers, almost to the point where everyone else thinks he might be kind of crazy since he doesn't show his emotions like a normal person.


Yet later in the same episode, the shoeshine guy he's used for decades dies, and Roger breaks down and cries. No one expects it, but . . . well, I get it.


Don't get me wrong. When my mom died, I broke down. I knew she was on the way out, and when my grandparents got the call, they told me right away, and I lost it. I knew it was coming. I'd prepared for it most of my life. Also, it should be noted that Mom and I had a lot of anger issues with each other. We spent most of her latter years arguing with each other. But the moment I heard about her death, I cried. The second thing I did? I told my brother Bob, and we cried together.


It's the second part I understand more. For example, I've been going to my barber for as long as I can remember. He knows how I like my hair. He's not a hairstylist. He tells off-color jokes. He likes to drink (although I think he quit smoking a while ago). If he ever died, I don't know what I would do. I don't think I could bring myself to go to a salon.


Or how about the comic book store I go to? I've known the proprietor for many, many years, from way back when I was first buying comics in the 'Eighties. What am I going to do when he's gone? I can't get into the chain stores, like Graham Crackers.


With these old school guys, it's about environment. It's about experience. These are things that can't be replicated on a mass scale. Seriously, when I get my hair cut, I might as well be in the barber shop in Dodge City on GUNSMOKE, and whenever I visit the comic book store, it feels like I'm in an old smoke shop of old, searching for pulps (and let's face it, I've actually bought pulps in this place).


Roger Sterling's co-workers looked at him like he was weeping over something superficial, but they're wrong. He was weeping over the end of a way of life, and that's something I really don't want to think about.