Going Feral

I would grow dreads if I could. But there's a caveat with that.

I would let them form as a result of inaction. And lack of attention. And willful arrogance. Growing something implies a deliberate action. I propose no action at all.

I think that our original hipster forebearers let their hair go feral as a response to the strict and tidy norms of their era. For them it was another outward sign of rebellion against conformity - the conformity that bounded their appearance and actions.

Some thirty-five years later, I knew people with manicured dreads, who spent just as much time rolling and primping nice evenly-sized and rounded plaits as any sorority sister did curling and coifing. The style had been normalized, but the social message had been obliterated. Not just obliterated, but sodomized and napalmed. Dreads were now kind of cool and a "look" one achieved with time and an assortment of products.

Fashion, IMO, is meant to serve a narrow purpose. It is meant to make funny looking people more attractive. Do you have a horse face? Head square and blocky? There's probably a trick for that too.

It's the same for clothing. Fashion can teach people how to advertise their best features (and hide some defects). But it's meant to be done with a light touch. If you're already smokin' hot, nice hair and trendy shoes are just icing on the cake: likewise, they're not going to make you a foot taller or fifty pounds lighter.

And it's precisely this sort of misplaced energy that irritates me. I think that fashion has morphed from an individual concept to an exercise in crushing one's soul. It officially happened when trendy neo-hippies decided to start rolling their dreads twice a day with special conditioner. When the nonconformists of our era buy into the consumer-oriented fashion and style industry, hope is thin indeed.

But how do I take my own game to the next level? How I can I further my personal agenda of disaffection? Obviously, no more shampoo. There are probably some other general rules I need to live with. For starters, my conquest of apathy-induced dreads, by definition, cannot make my life more complicated or expensive. As a barely take notice now (haven't combed my hair in a week, and switched to a 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner), that's a low bar already set.

My hippie predecessors were tired of societal norms about how they should dress and wear their hair and live their lives. Along the way that message was bastardized, and all get-ups were subsequently included in gross-scale commercialization of style. To me this isn't about rebelling or unconforming. It's about not caring enough to make an effort anymore.

Going feral also needs to remain practical. If I have problems keeping my helmet on and start taking direct tree limb shots to the head, I have become a hypocrite. And if the project irritates my wife enough that she refuses to sleep with me, well, there's a saying about cutting your nose to spite your face.

Past flirtations with hair apathy make me believe that maybe it just won't dread. But after all, maybe that's the point. Leave it alone, and see what it does.

And maybe, just maybe, that's the defining aspect of my personal brand.

So, let the lack of action begin.

East of town

"Fuck you"
"Fuck me? Fuck your mom. Fucking cunt. Get the fuck outta here!"

It's not that Frank couldn't handle people cussing in his pool hall. He was uniquely situated near the overpass between industrial hell and WWII era tract housing. He saw his share of cracked out punks and meth heads, and a sassy fifteen year old barely raised his hackles. Her clothing he had tolerated, and was even OK with the clove cigarettes. At the site of her piece of shit boyfriend with the ear discs and Billy Idol haircut he had only shrugged. Frank had seen it before.

But to address him improperly, in his own establishment, well that was a mistake.

Mark and I always assumed Frank kept a gun in the back office. We would debate about what it was, but we were both sure it was there. He ran a cash business after all, on the Eastlake border near the highway. I seemed to think it was a simple .357 revolver, snubnosed and gloss black. Mark thought it could be nothing else but a sawed off 12-gauge, maybe even a Mossberg with a conversion kit to hold a couple extra shells. For us, bored and idle as we were, it was as good of a debate topic as anything else while we smoked cigars and played better then average 9-ball.

There was no doubt that Frank could shed his share of abuse. He was a Yankees fan. Cleveland at that time was suffering from a drought of self esteem and sports acumen. Sure, the river didn't really catch fire now, but it still smelled bad. Even the fish flies didn't show up any more, not like they used to. The Browns were gone to Baltimore, and the Indians had shown signs of life only to run into a lockout. The Cavs showed flashes of brilliance before MJ hit a miracle jumper, and then slid into years of mediocrity. To be a Yankees fan, a supporter of regular champions from a gleaming mystical metropolis was just an insult to everyone else.

And it was clear, at Frank's pool hall, that the Yankees were the house team. And it really was a slap in the face we thought. I would later meet Clevelanders, as I aged and grew up, and we always shared a special bond, like deprogrammed cult survivors. My college roommate was mystified by this bond. I tried to explain it to him once. Most Clevelanders, I said trying to quote Howard the Duck, have nowhere else to go, that's why they are still in Cleveland. We live in constant reminder of failure. The city crumbles, we have all of the big city problems with none of the big-city clout. Crack, heroin, gun violence and shitty schools without the draw of tourism. Sure, I admit, we have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but that's only because donors were even more afraid to put it in Detroit. Out of sheer spite to Chicago and New York, we hang on to our concert hall and playhouse, just so we can say "Look, we're every bit as good as you are."

But we're not. Our industries left or are leaving. The only things that are consistent are consistently bad. We got our football team back, but they have been terrible. The Yankees posters remind us of our failures. The Chicago Bulls beat the best Cleveland could throw at them: Nance, Kerr, Price, and Doughtery. Before that Elway crushed the city with the Drive, and later the Indians had The Mesa Choke and coughed up the World Series. Living in Cleveland, you get used to disapointment.

The posters threw it in our face. I made the mistake one year of trying to kid Frank about it, and he almost tore me a new asshole. Three years of playing pool and he would recognize me, but didn't like me. He probably had plenty of friends already in New York.

So we sat back and watched him tear into this pre-pregnant teenager. At least it was entertainment. Had we better things to do, ten-thirty wouldn't have found us partially drunk at Frank's pool hall. We swore all the time, it wasn't really a problem. But this girl was cursing a blue streak and a half, and it irritated Frank. In his world, I guess women make pies and patiently dish out blow jobs on request. In Frank's world, I imagine, the words that come out of a girl's mouth don't include "cocksucker" and "quifer".

He probably thought it reasonable to tell this girl to watch her mouth, to take some time to consider her language, to act like a lady when in his establishment. She probably had father issues though, and quickly learned that there was no winning an argument, swear off, or any kind of confrontation with Frank. Frank was from New York after all, home of pennants, glamour, and real tough people. I sank the eight and started to wonder what had brought him to Cleveland.

While the little dust up had been entertainment, when it settled the hall once again was unintersting. Women were scarce there, even angst ridden girl punks were an improvement. The ceiling seemed dingier, the air even more stale, and the jukebox tinnier and full of treble. That night we left shortly after. Settling up we paid twelve bucks for an hour and a half of pool. On a weekend, I wondered if that kind of take would be worth defending with the business end of a firearm.

I drove back. Back then I kept a five gallon bucket full of beer in the back of the truck, replacing the ice as needed. By now the bottles had been in long enough that all identity had peeled off and floated to the surface. When we could get someone to buy for us, I purposely chose bottles of similar shape and size. We made a game of it, honing our tastes to identify Warsteiner from Sam Adams.

After dropping Mark off I headed back in toward the city. I couldn't help but think of Frank, and wonder where he went off to at night. He had to go somewhere. I lit a cigarette and tried to picture Frank, going home, somewhere east of town. He would drink beer in the hot night air, sweating, looking out over the old industrial valley, a reminder of something that couldn't be flustered or touched or torn or burned down.