Getting Into the Tao of Hair

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If you haven't inherited your father's masculinity hangups, you can help keep the bangs out of your eyes by combing stale beer or waveset through them, Scotch-taping them in place, letting them dry and combing them out. Of course. if you didn't wear this non-functional hair cut, you wouldn't have to worry about hair in your eyes in the first place.

If you're a male who's fleeing the narks, attempting to cross the border to or from Canada or applying for a straight gig, you can disguise fairly long hair. (Not shoulder-length, but shorter fuzz tops disguise pretty easily.)

The Man, in whatever guise, worries about two things: Do your ears show? Is the back of your neck clean?

Dump something into your hair to hold it (try stale beer, the greasy kid stuff or wave set), comb it into a reasonable facsimile of the standard Establishment male style, part and all. Sweep the hair back to let your ears show. Put enough gunk in it to make sure it holds. Then take a razor and shave the back of your neck and around your ears. Add a suit and tie, and you've got it made. When you get back into a sympathetic environment, wash your hair, give your head a couple of shakes, and you're a human being again.

One of the things I learned when I got into this trip is that hair doesn't come labeled "male" and "female". It's just hair. I've cut long, feathered bangs on boys and short, no-nonsense styles on girls (and vice versa). In every case, if I was doing what the individual wanted—respecting the tao of their hair and their persons—my haircuts were, for all the technical imperfections, better statements of who they were than the most proficient barbering job of some bored scissors-wielder who learned one way that hair should be cut, period.

I'm glad to do my little bit to break down all these old sick sex role distinctions: To help people see each other as human beings instead of as dead stereotypes (aggressive, short-haired, sadistic MAN vs. compliant, longhaired, masochistic WOMAN). And I'm glad to do that little bit to get rid of the specialists in the barber shops and beauty salons.

It may seem like a small thing, but we don't need some expert to tell us how to wear our hair any more than we need one to tell us how to live.

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