Category: Funny Business

I’m not sure if it’s because of my age or what, but virtually every time I go to get a haircut these days the stylist thinks I want to walk out looking like vintage Porter Wagoner and Conway Twitty, or current John Mellencamp.

Porter and Conway, of course, once rocked that slick, high hair that was combed straight back. If they had ever brushed it forward, it would’ve reached their navels.

About the only other people you see with this particular ‘do are TV evangelists, funeral home directors and the brothers of killers on “Snapped.”

Mellencamp used to have basic “rocker” hair – long and mussed. It looked good on him.

As he got older, though, he channeled his inner Porter/Conway, adding quarts of Valvoline and seeing just how high on his head his hair would go.

These days the dude looks like a cross between Charles Starkweather and Brainiac thanks to his huge noggin and high hair.

This is not how I want to look.

This is not how I’ve ever wanted to look.

Of course, we’ve all evolved in terms of hairstyles.

As a kid, growing up in the sixties and cursed with poor eyesight, I had short, slick brown hair that accentuated my black horn rimmed glasses. I looked like Clark Kent if, in fact, Clark Kent had never left Krypton and instead was a member of the planet’s debate team.

By the 70s, in an effort to be more appealing to the opposite sex, I wore contact lenses and sported the “butt cut,” which was longer hair parted down the middle.

It would’ve been a decent look except my hard contacts were extremely uncomfortable and made my eyes water, so I always walked around looking as though I had just watched “Old Yeller.”

In the 1980s I resumed wearing glasses and moved more toward the Elvis Costello look. While in a perfect world I would’ve preferred to wear my hair long, it started flipping on the ends, causing it to resemble Marlo Thomas’ cut in “That Girl.”

I love Marlo Thomas.

I didn’t love looking like Marlo Thomas in drag.

By the 1990s, I had settled on hair that was neither very long nor very short. And aside from a few brief flirtations with the “old hippie” look, I’ve basically stuck to a relatively simple hairstyle.

However, at no point have I ever slicked my hair back, which makes me wonder why people who cut my hair think that’s what I want.

Now – in the interest of full disclosure – I go to one of those haircut franchise places so I never know from one visit to the next who will be cutting my hair.

I just walk in and whoever has an available chair takes me. They’re all capable, obviously, but sometimes they don’t seem to listen.

“So what are we looking to do today?” Haircut person asks.

“Really, just a half-inch all the way around,” I say.

Simple, right?

Nope.

They snip and spritz and snip and spritz and then blow it dry while combing it backward.

Every single time.

“How does it look?” Haircut person asks.

“Actually, I don’t comb it back, so would you mind trimming some more off the top?” I ask.

“Sure,” haircut person says. “About how much?”

“Oh, 11 or 12 inches,” I say.

Once my hair reaches a reasonable length they ask if I want any “hair product” and I always decline, opting instead to fight my own style battle when I get home.

Look, I realize I’m not GQ material … I have no illusions that I’m going to leave the shop looking like a young George “Goober” Lindsey.

I also know that – technically – I’m a “senior,” and apparently society expects people over 50 to look a certain way.

Well, society can bite my ass.

I like my hair a little messy and I like to have the option of letting bangs rest gently against my forehead.

If I wanted to look like Porter Wagoner, Conway Twitty or John Mellencamp, I’d have become a singer-songwriter.

Instead I’m just a writer – one who will forever sing the praises of the first stylist who figures out how I want my hair to look.

Thought Facebook and Twitter were just places to be fed Russian propaganda?

Nope.

They also have mind-expanding tests, like “What 80s TV Star Are You?” “What Superhero Are You?” and “What Toxic Household Cleaner Are You?”

For the record I’m Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge, Batman, and Easy-Off Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner Aerosol Spray.

As an aside, it’s important to note that Batman is not a superhero because he possesses no super powers. He is in top physical condition, is extremely intelligent, and has billions of dollars’ worth of high-tech gadgetry at his disposal, but he is not a metahuman.

However, the Dark Knight was an option in the “What Superhero Are You?” test, so I’m proud to wear the cape and cowl.

Anyway, I saw one out there called “What Do Your Dreams Really Mean?” and it mentioned how some us have recurring dreams about things such as losing teeth, flying and running.

I honestly don’t recall losing teeth in a dream because, frankly, I rarely dream about going to the dentist, but I have taken flight and done my share of hauling ass while snoozing.

What the test didn’t address, though, was smoking.

I dream more, by far, about smoking cigarettes than anything else. And it all started once I stopped smoking.

I used to be a hardcore smoker, and by “hardcore smoker” I mean I took the opportunity to smoke pretty much whenever I was awake.

I would smoke in the shower … I kid you not. The cigarette didn’t stay lit for long, but every puff was worth it.

I would trample children and senior citizens leaving movie theaters in my effort to race outside the building and fire one up.

I would take my dog for a walk in the middle of the night just to have an excuse to go outside and smoke – even when I didn’t have a dog.

It was a serious problem.

However, I quit on June 10, 2010, and haven’t fallen off the wagon once.

But …

There is rarely a week that goes by when cigarettes don’t wind up in my dreamscape. There are studies that suggest people who have recently quit occasionally have such “visions,” but eight years out?

Damn, they must’ve made quite an impact on me.

In my most recent one, I was at a party at a large house and had left my cigarettes in the car.

I remember opening the door, reaching in and grabbing a pack of Kool Milds off the passenger seat.

I took a cigarette, placed it on my lips, lit it up, and inhaled.

I swear, I could almost taste it. The blue smoke spiraling toward the sky like a genie that had just escaped its bottle remains remarkably vivid.

It happens all the time.

Sometimes during the course of a dream, I’ll just casually light up; it’s merely a character trait. Other times, I know the cigarettes are missing and I’m compelled to track them down.

And when I wake up and realize I don’t smoke, I’m repulsed … I even feel slightly guilty.

I mean, I don’t miss the taste or smell at all when I’m awake. Both are gross to me now.  But there’s something in my subconscious that refuses to let go.

It makes you wonder.

Are dreams, in fact, merely glimpses into a parallel universe?

And in that parallel universe, do I have to buy cigarettes or are they provided for me as part of a government program?

Is smoking allowed in theaters? (If so, children and old people will be much safer because I’ll have no compelling reason to trample them).

Surely not.

I’m inclined to think the appearance of cigarettes after I go nite-nite is just one of those random dream things that will never be explained.

I’ve seen all sorts of weird things behind the walls of sleep, including but not confined to: former Night Court star Harry Anderson playing whack-a-mole at Chuck E. Cheese’s; the New York Jets winning another Super Bowl; Gal Gadot calling and asking if she could come over and play Yahtzee; the original Ramones opening for Celine Dion; Donald Trump and Paul Ryan performing a duet of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” at Coachella; people with giant heads attempting to sell me term life insurance; and being bludgeoned with frozen fish sticks (Mrs. Gorton’s, to be precise) by a gang of ne’er-do-wells.

Some of my dreams are outlandish and others frighteningly real, but regardless, cigarettes manage to at least make a cameo appearance in many of them.

Fortunately, they can’t do a lot of damage to me while I sleep, so I need to just stop worrying about it. As long as I’m smoke-free in the real world, I’m in good shape.

It’s that bloodthirsty mob wielding frozen fish sticks I should probably be most concerned with.

Are you an animal person?

Technically, you are.

If you’re a human being you’re an animal, and if you’re a human being you’re also a person.

However, I’m an “animal person” in the sense that I have a real fondness for non-human animals and want them to be a major part of my life. Right now I’m the co-caregiver to a Sheltie named Charlie and two shelter cats, Thor and Bane.

But before I get to them, a bit of background.

I spent much of my youth as primarily a “dog person,” not so much by choice as by situation.

My parents – and I have since forgiven them for this – weren’t keen on having critters, but they most certainly didn’t want me to have a cat. My mother had a weird aversion to felines, and even repeated that apocryphal story about cats “sucking the breath out of babies.”

So on the off chance a baby showed up at our house, we had to make sure we didn’t have a cat around to take its breath away.

What the cat planned to do with the baby’s breath was never explained, although I understand it looks great in bouquets.

Anyway, they didn’t mind too much that I had a dog, as long as he stayed outside.

My first dog was Ringo, named after Ringo Starr. He was a big ol’ tan-and-black mutt (and serviceable drummer), but he was not allowed in the house.

And he never came in the house … as far as my folks knew.

While his primary residence was a doghouse in the backyard, I would often sneak him into the basement and sometimes – late at night – take him up to my room and let him sleep at the foot of the bed.

Who was a good dog?

Ringo was a good dog.

But as I grew up and grew older, I wanted to make animals equal partners in my world. That meant if I had a roof over my head, they had a roof over their heads.

And since I had no babies laying around with breath to be sucked out of their systems, I have had many a cat in my domicile over the years.

There have been boy cats and girl cats living in harmony with boy dogs and girl dogs, and every time any one of them crosses the Rainbow Bridge, it breaks my heart.

None of them can ever be replaced, but I believe it’s important to go to a shelter and rescue another if you’re willing and able to do so.

So that’s what my wife and I do and that means, for now, she has to deal with four boys (including myself).

Bane, our youngest cat, is nine months old and is starting to give off a Maine Coon vibe.

When we got him from the shelter I could hold him in my hand, and at night I’d take him to bed and he’d curl up under my chin.

Now he’s this gargantuan creature who has no regard for my personal space, spending a good portion of the evening plopped across my chest and purring so loudly he sounds like he should be racing at Daytona.

He’s also quite the shedder. You can’t wear black clothes around Bane because if you do, you’ll quickly look like a Sasquatch.

Thor, a 3-year old orange tabby, purrs very softly.

He also has a bad habit of attacking my butt for no apparent reason.

Used to when I would come home from work late at night, he would greet me first by rolling over for a belly rub and then – when I turned away – leap up and turn my chunky cheeks into his own personal scratching post.

If you should ever welcome me into your home or office and ask me to sit down, know that if I refuse I’m not being rude. It just means my tush has been mauled.

And just to be clear, Thor attacks my butt through my pants. I don’t walk around the house like Winnie The Pooh.

And Charlie? I don’t know if there’s ever been a sweeter dog.

He joyfully plays with his kitty bros, loves to go for walks, and sometimes just wants to squeeze up next to me when I watch TV. He’s the world’s youngest 10-year old canine.

About the only negative thing I can say about him is he has a tendency to raid the litter box for treats.

But it’s not my place to judge. If I was a dog, I’d probably do the same thing. I mean, what the hell?

But I’ll gladly choose lack of sleep, mangled buttocks and having a dog who walks around with a cat litter mustache over living in a house without animals.

The way I see it, we’re all part of one big animal family.

These are my people, even if they aren’t technically people.