Some Danish gloomy Gus named Hamlet once deigned to lament: "How all occasions do inform against me." Well, I've never seen a ghost, so I guess I'm a wee bit more optimistic than Ham, but for the last hour, I swear, it does seem like all occasions are informing for me. You see, it's Friday, the end of my seventh week of blogging every day, and I thought I was a little tapped out for ideas. So I scanned the paper, looking for inspiration, and certainly the whole balloon boy shenanigans is potential grist for the mill, but somehow I felt I'd reached my limit on hot air for one week. So finally I turned to the horoscopes, and lo and behold, the advice proffered me for tonight was this: "Let your hair down." Now I've still got hair left, but there isn't enough to let down, so that anyone would notice, and besides, I was kind of thinking of actually getting my hair up for tonight. I was going to dig out the old pomade, shape a nice, middle-aged balding guy spiky pseudo Mohawk and go stand on a corner somewhere munching bacon, covered in chocolate! and mocking passersby with what I had and they had not, namely a Mohawk and bacon, covered in chocolate!.
So I started thinking, Hair, yeah, that's today's subject. I thought of a long ("hairy" as the mighty, late great Joe Gaul would have said, meaning something like awesome, humongous, gnarly) poem about hair, inspired by Dr. Seuss no doubt, I had written a couple years ago, posting which might enable me to figure out the "Jump" function on this blogger thing. Sounded like a plan.
So I get on the computer, check my e-mail first, looking for all the notes from people telling me to expect a rushed-package delivery of Malley's bacon, covered in chocolate!. Well, those missives must have gotten lost in the mail because the only e-mail I had newly received was in my Junk file, and the subject, I swear to Samson, was this: "Get Your Hair Back in Just Weeks." Right about then the hair on my neck that hasn't gone anywhere, started to rise. Spooky, no? Next stop YouTube, where I naturally go looking for a pertinent clip (!) from that dreadful movie version of Hair. I'm watching some scene with a young Treat Williams (what happened to him? can he get his career back in just weeks?) struggling in the Army when the drill sergeant starts calling out names, and what do I hear, or at least think I hear (it could be Brook, but I don't think so)? The badass sarge call out the name "Rourke!"
Now I'm freaked out, ready to shave my head, give away the bacon, covered in chocolate!, and go recite Hamlet soliloquies until I either win a lifetime achievement award from the Obies, or mad crowds of people rip all the hairs off my neck. So, as usual, when in doubt, I turned to Elvis, or, more precisely, Elvii.
So watch the Hair clip and listen for what sounds like "Rourke!" Watch Elvis get his Army induction haircut. Listen to the other Elvis croon about "the girl who used to have it and the girl who still has." And if you feel like reading my hairy hair poem, click the read more button after the videos, or if the jump thing doesn't work, just read the poem there, I guess.
As for me, I'm buttoning up my hair and staying off the Internet tonight.
Oh gross, there's a hair in my bacon, covered in chocolate!
Elvis Costello-Baby's Got A Brand New Hairdo
