I have this policy, you see. It’s probably the third strictest policy I have, which means that it is a relatively big deal. If I see a celebrity, which I define as anyone I have seen on a screen or read about in a published work, then I treat them just like anyone else I see on the street. This is a nice way of saying I treat them like anyone I don’t give a shit about. If they give me a smile, I give them a look to say, ‘Can I help you with something?’ If they shoot me a glance to see if I am looking at them, I roll my eyes and think that they are too vain, which is almost always followed by my internal disc jockey playing ‘You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you.’

I am use to this game, a matching of wits if you will, since I worked at one of the ‘premiere’ restaurants in the west side Fort, which hosted its fair share of local celebrities, state senators and such, news casters with large, slicked back hair, lawyers who have the idea that everyone would be in jail if not for their existence. ‘Important patrons,’ Boss would say as he motioned to the door with his wine bottle. ‘Go give them some TLC.’ What he really meant was go do what you do. It is as if treating celebrities like people is a secret technique that only I have discovered. An ancient art that Boss thinks I have unlocked. Marty is really the only one who knows what I do at the table.

Marty was my replacement, the guy I had to train before I went back to the City. I started off not liking the little prick merely because he was, of course, another cock in my hen-house. Most of the night staff at the Bistro are women. Not just women, but beautiful women. Top notch, high-caliber, special reserve women. And then there were the five guys: Boss, French, Christian, Francisco, and me.

Boss and French alternated hosting, Christian and Francisco were in the kitchen, and I was the lone male working the floor, amongst those women. The thought of another guy I barely knew taking my place was horrifying. What if he didn’t carry the dishes down for Chich? What if he didn’t make Isabel coffee? What if he didn’t fight with Monica? What if he didn’t fold napkins for Lidia? All these were necessary for the night to go well; but, of course, my true concern was what if he were better than me at all the above. If I found that he was, I had pondered about taking him out back and shooting him, but found the idea to be impractical as I was sure to get blood on the button-up white shirt that French had loaned me while mine was being cleaned.

As it turned out, Marty was just as worried as I was and the relationship evolved with ease. I told him that Chich was pregnant and that she should not carry anything up and down the stairs. I told him that Isabel needed coffee because she came straight from working at daycare service in the east Fort. I told him that if he didn’t fight with Monica, then she could not properly vent about annoying customers. And I told him to fold napkins for Lidia because then she will bus your tables faster. He seemed to understand easily. The complexities of the staff at the Bistro were simple if you took the worldview that waiters are people instead of a job description. This I suppose is how I look at celebrities: as people rather than the superficial roles they play in society. I told Marty this, he nodded, but didn’t truly understand until we took our first table, which was family of important patrons. ‘Go give them some TLC.’ Yes, Boss.

To understand what happened next, you have to understand that my policy is strict. Crazy strict. Like pre-Vatican strict. I knew everyone at this table, yes, because they had given uber amounts of money to my high school and had appeared on almost every local news channel to tout the donation. So we could build a new vocal music building? So the high school could put air conditioners in every classroom? You don’t walk in two minutes before a restaurant closes and expect me to have a table ready for you unless you have a reservation.

Marty looked at me, ‘Christian said we aren’t supposed to seat anyone past 8:00.’

‘Good thing it’s 7:58, then.’

‘Seriously?’ Even Marty knew that if we sat a table past quarter till eight, we would be closing around ten thirty to eleven. Eh, whatever, we could deal. So I went up to them, and politely asked if they had a reservation.
The Father motioned to Boss, ‘We’ll take a table outside,’ while the son behind him whispered to his sister mockingly, ‘He must be new.’ We’ll call the son Plaid Shorts. I am not quick to judge someone unless he or she crosses me, or I just dislike their general disposition; but with this exchange, I immediately pigeon-holed them as snooty. I knew these people. These were the kind of people who think their ranch dressing is important. Actually, these are the type of people who stick up their nose when you offer ranch dressing as a choice, then ask for it when the vinaigrette ‘is not to their liking.’ These are the people who expect to have their coats taken at McDonald’s. Snooty. It was then stamped on their permanent file that resides in the file cabinet in my mind.

They were sat outside, just as they had asked, demanded really, their ugly faces in stark contrast to the fantastic sunset in the background. The Bistro is truly beautiful in the night and early morning. Windows are everywhere allowing you to see the sun rise and set; but it’s really the light the filters through that gives you the feeling that life may in fact be worth people like this. The Snooty. I commented on what a beautiful night it was, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the Father mouth to Plaid Shorts, ‘fruit cake.’ I would have passed this comment, let it fly into the air and disappear if he would have just said fruit. We have good fruit at the Bistro, and, maybe, you know, he was looking forward to it; we do not, however, have fruit cake. He was referring to me. I do not mind the odd question, ‘Are you gay?’ or the misconception, ‘Oh, I thought you were gay!’ These is a common misconception, because, I’ll admit, I’m a bit more, um, interesting than the stereotypical male. I am a bit of a fashion whore, my hair takes fifteen minutes to do, and I actually don’t mind shopping or a good RomCom. In most instances, I take the social commentary as a compliment: the thought that I am fashionable and enthusiastic is quite an ego boost. What started my fuse on this ‘fruit cake’ comment was the lack of creativity in the noun. The word fruitcake makes me think of high school banter or the odd brick of dried apricots on Christmas. These are the people who are funding my sister’s high school? To think of their fingerprints on the walls of a vocal arts building is too much to handle. Without the fruitcakes in that building, there would be no program.

We carried on the charade, them being the picky customer, me being the doting waiter. Soup du jour or the garden salad, ma’am? How would you like that cooked? Oh, I agree, but unfortunately, I don’t set the prices. You are certainly right, it has been a long night for me. That glass is dirty? I apologize, let me get a fresh one. Then it came to Plaid Shorts.
‘What is barramundi?’ A simple question, and a fair one: barramundi is a fish that I didn’t know existed until we introduced it to the menu. Barramundi is a fancy word for a fancy trout. It is a fish caught primarily in the south Pacific region, light and fluffy, with an extremely flaky texture. We pan sear it with a little salt and pepper and then broil it.

‘Is it good?’ This was the second click back on the hammer of my gun. I hate this question. If you are in a restaurant and you ask this question, realize that you are stupid. Everything on the menu is good; if it was not good, we would not have put it on the menu. If you ask me if you would like a certain thing, then I’m going to say ‘Yes, absolutely,’ in order to sell it to you. If you approach the menu and say, ‘What’s good?’ I’m automatically going to point to the top three most expensive items. I want a big tip, this is how it works. It was not a problem when Plaid Shorts asked it because this means that I could turn it into a joke and get more points on the server scale. Maybe go from fruit cake to adorable fruit cake. It’s what I call an ‘appeal to the table.’ It tells people I’m on their side, I’ve been in a place where I’m unsure of the food, and I want to try new things but am unsure if I should. So whenever someone asks this I go with, ‘It is amazing! Absolutely delicious! Best fish in town! (Dramatic pause) Of course I’m paid to say that, but it is actually pretty good.’

They didn’t find it adorable. No snicker, no ‘oh, that’s true, I’m an idiot for asking.’ Nothing. No points on the scale. Still a fruit cake. ‘That sounds fine,’ he said. Okay. I’ll move on. I gave the order to an impatient chef, told Chich to make a water run, and noticed that it was already 8:15.

When 8:30 came around, the table’s food was ready. Marty and I took the four plates out promptly, making sure they were not cold and so that the presentation could be complete with the fusion of smell and sight. By now, I had realized that my tip would be next to nothing for this table, maybe a ten percent bounce, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to scrape for twelve percent by being a doting peasant who knew his place below the grand aristocracy that was before me. I made sure all the drinks were full, the unnecessary plates were off the table, and let them eat in peace. By the time I got inside, the beautiful women were beginning to clear tables, put dishes away, and prepare for the morning staff. So compassionate, these women: putting in extra work so that others would not have to do as much and merely ease into the breakfast bustle. I, of course, still had a table, so I was to make sure they were taken care off, taking up the duties of water runner and in-game maintenance. Every fifteen minutes, I went out and made sure their water was refilled and their food was fine and everyone was enjoying themselves. This is when they had to announce themselves as royalty of the Fort.

Every want-to-be celebrity has to do this; people who are insecure about their importance, so they have to educate people about their significance in the community. ‘I founded this group,’ or ‘Anyone should know that I did this thing,’ usually subtly dropping their name so you can put two and two together. This is innocent and sometimes interesting to learn something new about the world around me and be connected to self starters or open-minded politicians. Not so with Plaid Short and the Father. Not so. The Father wanted me to know his name. He wanted me to recognize him. He wanted me to remember him.

‘I know you, don’t I?’ he asked while I was removing his plate.

‘I’m not sure, sir.’

‘Yeah, you went to my son’s high school,’ as if his son owned the high school and was gracious enough to share it with me and the rest of west Fort’s youth.

‘I probably did.’ I did and I knew it.

‘Yes, I know your sisters’ names. You use to live on Foster Drive. I know your family very well.’ No he didn’t. I knew he didn’t. He had never been in my house. He had never talked to my mother. He had never seen my sisters. It was very strange.

‘That is weird.’ I said this without realizing it. It was very slow and seemed to be thought out, but it wasn’t. It was a cocktail of my fight or flight response and my need to get a large tip. I tried to recover. ‘I don’t know your family,’ I stuck out my hand, ‘I’m Ben Evans.’

‘I know,’ the Father said. ‘We’re the Joneses.’ I’m calling them the Joneses. They are not the Joneses. ‘Oh, well, nice to meet you,’ I looked at everyone at the table. They all had the same look; the look that said ‘who are you?’ ‘where have you been?’ and ‘get out of my sight, you worthless pig.’ It was time to get their bill.

‘I’ll go get your bill,’ I faux smiled. The Father wasn’t ready.

‘The Barramundi,’ he grasped for something.

‘I’m sorry, sir?’

‘The Barramundi was terrible,’ he settled into this idea. Plaid Shorts pipped in beside his dad, agreeing, ‘Yeah, just terrible.’

‘I apologize, sir. I’ll make sure that is deducted from your bill.’

‘I can pay for my meal!’ he raised his voice.

‘Absolutely, sir,’ I was about to lose it, just throw one of the plates at him and be done with my night. Screw the tip, screw the job; I would elect to become a hobo, live under a bridge, and make baked beans off a trash can fire. But I kept my cool. ‘Once again, I apologize. I’ll talk to my chef about it.’

‘I want to speak to your boss,’ which translated to ‘I’m going to get you fired.’

‘I’ll send him right out.’

‘Good.’

‘Good!’

I told Boss what had happened and he went outside. I knew I was going to get fired. I knew it. I was toast. The adorable hobo. Shit. Stupid celebrity policy. Stupid. Kiss ass. Always kiss ass. Stupid. The family had been billed and Boss walked them out. As the Father walked by me, he muttered something to Boss about my attitude. Plaid Shorts smiled vilely in my direction. I know the axe was coming. The door shut. My heart began to pump too much blood. Boss came over to me, shaking his head. ‘Rich people are so weird,’ he said. ‘He didn’t even know what Barramundi was.’ I laughed. I love my job.

The post An Iowa City Life: “Barramundi at Sunset” appeared first on KRUI Radio.

I made a huge mistake. It was one of those mistakes that stay with you; While I am enjoying my purespa portable bubble spa that i have got at Inflatable Hot Tub Center, relaxing myself I suddenty realized that mistake. one of those mistakes that you make and immediately you wish you could take it back. You know that it will haunt you for the rest of your life or, at least, the rest of the fiscal year. There is no one I can blame but myself, though I wish I could. It would be easier to point an out-stretched finger and clearly state, ‘He made me do it’ or ‘I had a gun to my head.’ But with mistakes like these, this is never the case. So I have decided to put it all down in words, in order for you to understand why I did what I did, and perhaps you can learn from my faults and stay innocent, just for a little while longer. Herein lies my confession:

I watched Silence of the Lambs. To make it worse, I watched it in the middle of the day.

Let me explain. It started two days ago, when one of my professors quoted Hannibal The Cannibal in my Politics lecture. He was talking about political philosophy and why politics is just the study of the Nature of the social human being. Notice, reader, that I capitalized ‘Nature’ in the last sentence. That is because it is important. So, Professor D started quoting Hannibal’s bit on Mark Antony, the part where Jodie Foster makes one last-ditch effort to extract the name of Buffalo Bill from Hannibal’s brain. This is before Hannibal cuts off that guy’s face and wears it like a mask on Halloween. We good? Okay. This sparked my interest in the movie and gave me the urge to watch it; don’t ask me why. I’m pretty sure the idea of a serial killer cannibal quoting philosophy was too delicious for me to just forget. But, the hunger quickly faded as I went from Politics to Jimmy Johns and got a J.J.B.L.T. which was also delicious.

The next day I went to work. At my job in the City, I do nothing. Revision. I answer phones. I take ticket orders over the phone in a world that does its ticket ordering online. Don’t get me wrong, we get a few calls; but these calls are mostly from gambling addicts who are looking for the toll-free addiction hotline, which is one number away from our toll-free ticket hotline. This is annoying. I suppose society dictates that I feel sympathetic for these lost souls, and at one point I did, but after being yelled at thirty times for not realizing that they were ‘feeling low’ and that they didn’t want to ‘see a show,’ I decided to screw the pleasantries. Sometimes I just go along with it, listening to their problems, and then directing them to someone who specializes in their particular gambling addiction. ‘It sounds like you are having quite a hard time, ma’am. You are right, those casinos are crooks. Let me have you talk to someone in that department.’ I then give them the number for the gambling hotline, which is pinned to the community board above my computer.

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This day, we had no calls. This is usually when I start searching through Netflix to see if they have decided to put any good movies on the watch instantly list. And that is when I found it. Just staring at me. A suggestion from Netflix. Watch now. By the time I should have changed it to something else, it was too late. I was hooked. I couldn’t stop. The mistake had been made.

I have always been interested in serial killers and worried, stupidly, that this might mean that I am one; that one day I will go on a spree at the local Burger King. But my worries have always stopped when I actually think about the mechanics of the process. Like I wonder if Hannibal ever worried about getting AIDS? I know I would. It’s just kind of one of those things. Wash your hands, clean your dishes, test your human before you eat him. This is a smart guy, but for some reason it seems like he misses the basic hygiene of eating raw meat. You don’t bite into it while it’s still alive! What is this, amateur hour at the Cannibal Club? And I’d say pairing liver with beans is fine, but adding a nice bottle Chianti is just wrong. Unless, of course, the guy was Italian because that would make a little more sense. Liver and beans is more of a cheap whiskey meal: a poor man’s drink for a poor man’s steak. If I were eaten by a cannibal, I would like my best pieces of meat paired with the proper sides and drink. My ribs with corn on the cob and an American beer; my breast meat with a light vegetable medley and a cold Chardonnay; the prize cut, my lean abs, with a potato starch and a glass of Malbec. I don’t know how I would let the chef know these preferences or if he would even respect my wishes. I am guessing that the trigger pullers at the slaughter-house don’t jot down the cows’ opinions on how best they feel their bodies should be prepared. I know Buffalo Bill wouldn’t.

These were the kinds of thoughts that haunted me on my long walk back to my apartment. Hannibal’s eating habits to my preferences to cows’. By the time I opened my door, I was thinking about how dirty the conditions were in Buffalo Bill’s house. I was disgusted by this, unable to understand how he could properly work in those conditions. This is when I realized that my bed-living-TV-dining room was an absolute pit, something like the workstation of a demented serial killer who had his mind set on making a woman suit out of real woman skin. I immediately dropped my bag and started furiously cleaning anything that resembled an unkept existence. I made the bed then dusted the couch, followed by picking up all the clothes strung around the room and dusting my television screen and Xbox 360. It was when I was on the floor, cutting the little strands of carpet that stand up unevenly, that I realized I had yet to do the bathroom. I finished trimming the area rug and started Cloroxing every inch of my bathroom.

My bathroom is small but has its charms: like the quaint tile floor and the deep porcelain sink. But by far, the bathroom’s best feature is 1920′s style tub. This tub was the second facet of the apartment that had caught my eye, only second to the East-facing windows. But what really features the most in my bathroom is the purespa portable bubble massage spa that I bought 2 years ago, and always receives compliments from friends and family who have visited my home. The beauty of this tub is in its shape. At first glance, it is just like any bathtub seen in movies like What Lies Beneath or even Hitchcock’s Psycho, but when inspected closer, the tub shows its true nature. The frame is square but the porcelain flows down to the ground in an oval, like a waterfall cascading to the bottom of a whirlpool, sloping in order to comfortably fit the body of a human. This tub was not made for showers. It was made for baths.

The idea of a bath has always fascinated me. The thought of a person soaking in warm water until their fingers are pruned and their limbs are weak did not seem fun. They seemed to be for old ladies, who can hardly walk in the first place and can not tell the difference between a pruned edge and the odd wrinkle. It was also the idea of soaking in the hair and dirt that previously resided there that sealed the coffin on bathing. When I was in sixth grade, I was told by an upperclassman, who I had quite the little crush on, that bathing was a waste of time because it washed the dirt of your body and made the tub into ‘a kind of human stew.’ The hormonal boy that I was, I was envisioning this girl in a large Whirlpool bubble bath, but this comment changed the visual a bit. The water became brown; the bubbles became potatoes and carrots; the tub became a giant, black cauldron. Needless to say, I no longer had a crush on this girl: hormones are no match for look into a human bouillabaisse. And I vowed never to take a bath again.

But even with this visual, baths were a mystery to me; a sort of forbidden fruit that I would slap myself for thinking about. But I would think about them anyways, while plotting story ideas or day dreaming, or while doing mindless tasks like cleaning my bathroom; something I found myself doing as I was on my knees, bleaching the serial killer out of the tub. This time I didn’t slap myself, but thought, ‘Well, this is the cleanest it will ever be,’ and for the first time in my adult life, drew myself a hot bath.

I quickly realized that bubbles are not just for fun, but are necessary to the bath-taking process. They serve one purpose: to hide. No matter how much you clean a tub, there will always be the odd, gross looking hair or unidentifiable black fleck at the bottom of the tub. I immediately noticed this at the tub was filling with water and, not having formal bath bubbles, reached for the only liquid soap I could find: a bottle of Old Spice ‘After Hours’ body wash. This is the kind of body wash that smells like a stripper’s perfume or an old Italian pomade, which I had bought when I was a freshman thinking that it would easily attract ‘the ladies.’ I don’t know who ‘the ladies’ are, but they have always been spoken about as if they are the most beautiful women in the world, who must also have the worst taste in the world. ‘Look at this belt! It has a bottle opener on it, man. I bought it for the ladies’ or ‘This Hawaiian shirt rocks. It’s for the ladies’ or ‘The ladies will love my new Axe body spray.’ I have never found any of these to be the case; this is what I found with the Old Spice body wash and promptly put it away, where it followed me for two years, unused and open, waiting to be made into bubbles for my first bath. So I squirted half the bottle into the filling tub and the Old Spice seemed happy, bubbling up and hiding the dirt floating around in the tub.

I slid into the tub and found that the bubbles not only hid dirt, but also hid unflattering cellulite and untoned fat pockets. I was in the middle of planning to start an exercise schedule for the ladies when it hit me: a bath. Oh, oh, oh, a bath. Every muscle in my body relaxed and every worry in my head disappeared. The warmth overtook me and I began to feel a sort of comfort that I had not felt in years. The Old Spice began to not smell so bad and my eyes became hazy. I laid my head back on the edge of the tub, which felt like a smooth, firm pillow, and proceeded to daze off into nothingness. I felt sophisticated and well-traveled, clean and precise in what I did; I felt like nothing could hold me down, that I could get through any situation, no matter how bad it could get. I felt that I could do anything. I began thinking about my world and how I needed to appreciate it more and worry less. I thought of how I should have taken baths instead of done therapy, which lead me to think about how crazy psychiatrists are, which lead me to think about Hannibal.

I suddenly realized that Hannibal was clean and sophisticated; he was precise and capable. I snapped out of my daze and shot out of the tub, spilling bubble and water everywhere. I began to think that everything I had done in the last two hours, cleaning the bath tub, clipping the carpet, picking up my clothes, would be exactly what Hannibal would do if he were in this apartment. I half-heartedly dried off, threw the towel on the floor, and began to arrange clothes on the floor and in the corners of my apartment. I messed up the juxtaposition of my throw pillows and poured out the spare change I keep in a glass candy dish I bought at Goodwill, looking at my now messy room, realizing that it looked somewhat like it originally had when walked into the apartment in the first place. ‘Buffalo Bill could live in this apartment,’ I muttered to myself, sighing as if I had failed at not being like a serial killer. I fell onto the couch, defeated. If I am to become a serial killer, I might as well do it my way.

But I had forgotten the difference between me, and Buffalo Bill and Hannibal The Cannibal: I don’t kill people, which is one of the top qualifying factors to being a serial killer. That is pretty much the difference between everyone and a serial killer: we don’t enjoy killing people, and, hopefully, we’re just a little bit cleaner.

The post An Iowa City Life: “Silence of the Tubs” appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Growing up in my family, friends at casual dinner parties were like new clothes that don’t fit exactly right. The ones that you try on at the store and they look fantastic, but you realize looking at yourself at home that the department store mirrors deceived you, and the clothes actually make you look worse than your old ones did. The people came and the people went, shuffling through our revolving wardrobe, usually with one person having strong objections to the fact that they were a part of our existence at all.

‘They weren’t really our friends, were they?’ my sisters and I would ponder while cutting into our avocado egg rolls at the Cheesecake Factory. ‘I mean, they collected beanie babies! They had a full room of the ones from the McDonald’s Happy Meals.’ The judges had decided. They were only a passing fancy, an experiment, a look into the weird and awkward, rather than an actual committed relationship. We do this with most people who get close to the family, and usually come down on the side that we are better off just sticking to the select few who have put up with us for long enough to constitute a real friendship.

One of these lasting family friendships is with a hair stylist who we will call Bella and her husband who I have to call Gandhi. Any other name would just be insulting to him, as the amount of patience and energy it must take to keep up with the very loud and very Italian Bella can only be described as saintly, or, as I describe while forking a last fried avocado into my mouth as, ‘Masochism.’

Bella talks as if the world will end if her mouth closes. She sits you down in her revolving chair, straps the black cape perfectly around your neck, and immediately begins the interrogation; one question after another, never stopping to hear the answer, continuing until your hair is perfectly cut and your head is spinning with nonsensical knowledge that you would normally be skeptical of, but in this context seems entirely plausible. ‘You are right, Bella, I do think that a slice of garlic bread would cure my cold,’ or ‘Come to think of it, the last time I had a cough, I did eat a slice of cheese and it seemed to go away.’ Bella was big on this: curing the common aliments with Italian cooking. A migraine was no match for lasagna; the flu couldn’t stand up to meatballs; and pneumonia was just a pest in the face of gelato. To Bella, there isn’t much a slice of mozzarella and a couple glasses of wine can’t cure, and the older I get, I’m more inclined to agree with her.

My mother first met her in a small salon in what would be the modern-day Great Clips. I’m not exactly how the conversation went, or really how Mother became a regular client of hers, but I assume that the relationship progressed supernaturally. To say my mother is socially apt or capable is a gross understatement; she is more of a social machine, able to compute interests and manipulate conversations easily; her demeanor coming off as innocent and bubbly in one line of dialogue, then experienced and wise in another. Needless to say, she was more than able to keep up with Bella’s questioning, most likely having her fair share of questions as well. Watching the two of them talk is like watching Italian opera at the Metropolitan: movements and hand gestures perfectly synchronized for those who can’t understand what is being said, so they can still keep up with the gist of the dialogue. Laughter is never so rich as when my mother and Bella meet, and that is perhaps why my mother took me to her to have my first real haircut, and that is perhaps why I never stopped going.

Until I moved to Iowa City and got poor.

You know you are poor when you are counting calories, not to make sure you aren’t fat, but to make sure you have had enough for the day. If you haven’t, there really isn’t much choice other than a can of re-fried beans or the last of the stale chips with a side of mustard. I don’t really have a problem with this because I don’t believe in exercise, so my diet allows me the ability to wear clothes that I have kept from high school, like my old, extra-small, black tee shirts and the assortment of off-color sweaters I found in a box in my closet back in the Fort. Finding new clothes that I don’t have to pay for is like finding a five dollar bill in my pocket. Yeah. It means a Venti cappuccino and a star on my Starbucks gold card. It’s a big deal. But, having no fluid capital and a paranoia about credit cards, when it came down to it, I decided against the forty dollar salon cut plus styling, and opt for a pound of chuck steak and a six-dollar massacre. If you haven’t seen me, then you don’t understand. My hair is my best feature. By far. I’m not saying that I don’t have an amazing smile or a gaze that makes your soul go soft: I’m saying that my hair could run for president and win; I’m saying that my hair could get an Oscar for best hair and makeup; I’m saying that my hair puts the 1940’s to shame. Call it vanity; I call it truth. This was a crisis of soul for me, to set foot in the La James School for Hair and Makeup, take the risk of mutilation, and having to live with it for two to three months as it grows out into full maturity. ‘It could destroy everything I have worked for,’ I thought as I stepped into the so-called ‘studio,’ and was half-heartedly greeted by a receptionist that I’m sure was twelve and a half. In the world of hair and beauty, trends in men’s hairstyling, like any other aspect of fashion, continue to evolve. And as I grappled with my decision, it was apparent that choosing the right hairstyle could significantly impact one’s overall appearance and self-confidence. The quest for the perfect haircut becomes even more critical when your hair is your crowning glory, as it was in my case.

‘Can I help you?’ she said, but it came across more as, ‘What do you want?’ What I really wanted at that point was somewhere I could hang my coat, but I couldn’t find a rack anywhere.

‘I want a haircut,’ I said, but it came across more as, ‘You run a second-rate establishment and should be shut down for not having a single coat-rack.’

She glanced at her phone, checking her messages, probably from a live-in boyfriend who throws his coat on the floor instead of hanging it up properly. ‘Have you been here before?’ The subtext of this question was, ‘So the pea-coat wearing, upper-class, prick wants a cheap haircut, huh?’

I set my coat on the counter, making sure to take up as much space as possible, and said, ‘Nope.’ She pretty much was dead on with her last subtextual question: I did want a cheap haircut, and I also looked like I walked out of an ad in Men’s Vogue. My hair was combed back in a swooping motion, my patent leather boots were tapping the tile, and my designer jeans pressed slightly against the counter. The prick part was way out of line though, so I took up the majority of her counter and spent a little extra time spelling my name as she entered it into the database of other upper-class pricks who wanted cheap haircuts. I think she had a special file. She told me to sit down and I did, but only for a second as my student came out to greet me.

‘Whad’up?’ she nodded as she pushed her dyed red hair out of her eyes. She was a healthy-looking girl, and seemed nice, but her brash tone made me want to punch one of the fake heads whose fake hair had been massacred from trainees. She had obviously watched too much Jersey Shore. ‘Where should I hang my coat?’ I promptly asked. ‘Yeah, just bring it back and we’ll put it somewhere.’ Put it somewhere? Put it somewhere? No, no, no. Hang it somewhere; she must be mistaken, I thought. I was wrong. ‘Just throw it anywhere you want,’ she said as she motioned to the seat, which I now saw as the electric chair. I folded my coat and set it in my lap, and she flipped my collar inside out. I must have flinched because she laughed and said, ‘Easy there, I’m not going to try anything this early.’ I wasn’t worried about her sexual advances, as they would give me an excuse to leave: I flinched because it took me a good half-hour to iron out that collar the night before. She asked how I would like my hair cut and I began the process of explaining exactly what I wanted.

‘Okay, so, I want it short, but I need it shorter on the sides than on the top, and I need it layered together so it looks like a fade. I’m figuring about taking an inch off the top and three-fourths of an inch on the sides. It’s okay if you use the clippers on the sides, but not on the top, and I’d like it if you texturized everything so I can style it later.’

She flipped me around in the chair so I didn’t face the mirror and chuckled, ‘I think I got it there, guy.’ I would be referred to as ‘guy’ many times through this two-hour period. Apparently, she didn’t feel like taking an interest in learning my name, which was okay because I didn’t feel like taking an interest in learning hers. If I ever get my hair cut by someone I don’t know, I prefer it happen in silence. I don’t like small talk or forced conversation, especially when someone is performing an invasive service on me. I wouldn’t want to carry on a conversation about my dog with a neurosurgeon while he is clearing a clot in my brain: I figure he needs to focus on that one task, just for now.

But her lack of interest went only as far as my name, as she immediately began carrying on a conversation about her studies and pressing me for information about mine. ‘Yeah, I don’t really like to study that much,’ I figured it was a generic answer that sort of said, ‘I don’t really want to talk to you that much,’ but she figured that this was our common ground, something we could both get on board with. ‘I don’t either! I don’t even take notes in class I mean, our teacher gets mad if we don’t, so I just doodle in my notebook, and she doesn’t know the difference,’ she took another chomp out of my hair with her scissors, ‘I figure this is all pretty common sense stuff, anyways.’

This was the point where I began to worry about what would be in mirror when she swiveled the chair around. I began thinking about what hats I had and how much it would clash with my style. I cannot pull off fedoras, or top hats, or baseball caps, or bobbies, or any hat, I thought. How was I going to hide this? I could just shave my head. No, I would look like a vulture. I could cut it myself at home. With what, your three-dollar scissors? Oh, shit that won’t work. Uh…

‘Done!’ As if she had completed the most difficult task of her life, she pushed the chair towards the mirror, dusting her scissors off on my inside-out collar.

I almost had a heart-attack. I nearly died. It was short, yeah. It was cut, yeah. But the bangs were jagged; the side-burns were uneven; the back sat like a premature mullet, just waiting for me to grab a Grateful Dead album and start chain-smoking Parliaments. I could barely get a word out, but I whispered to myself, ‘Ggeeelllll.’ The butcher left to go get her teacher and after ten minutes a short Asian woman came up to me, looking as if I had just survived a plane crash in the Bermuda Triangle. ‘Oh, well.’ She muttered a few things to the butcher and began shaping up my hair. ‘This looks good, yes?’ I left that question hanging in the air. She knew the answer. And I didn’t feel like fluffing the butcher’s ego. ‘Well, there you go,’ which sounded more like ‘Better luck next time kid.’

I got up from the electric chair, rushing for an exit. I gave the twelve year-old receptionist my card, looked at my bill, read ‘$6.00,’ and quickly signed the document, freeing them from any civil or criminal liability, I’m sure. I rushed home and tried to find some order to the chaos that sat on my head, but I couldn’t. I sat down on my couch-bed, tired and beat, thinking about Bella and how all I really needed to feel better was a piece of cheese.

The post An Iowa City Life: “The Virtue of a Six Dollar Haircut” appeared first on KRUI Radio.

One thing I remember from my childhood is listening to an old Steve Martin vinyl that my best friend had. We would sit on his bed and face the rectangular box and huge set of speakers I’m sure were from the 70s. My friend had a few comedy albums that his dad let him listen to, but I preferred Steve Martin’s pedestrian anecdotes to Bill Cosby’s stories about hernias and Fat Albert. It was the way Steve Martin handled the crowd, hecklers to be more specific.

Hecklers are a reality in the entertainment biz, especially when you have a little talent, just a fact of life, really. Amateur comedians usually handle them by calling them out and destroying them—not even poking fun at them, but just stabbing them with every insult that comes to mind. Stupid things that can be heard on elementary school playgrounds: ‘Your mother must have been so ugly!’ ‘You think you’re so funny?!’ ‘Fudge you, motherfudger.’ (Obviously, they don’t say fudge.) I don’t like cussing for stupid reasons, like when an idiot in the crowd is interrupting my monologue on how big my penis is. It’s really pathetic.

But I remember in the middle of Steve Martin’s act, some guy yelled out ‘Do the sorithenrogih!’ I couldn’t understand the last word when I was a kid, and neither could my friend, so we sat there waiting for the silence to be broken by either party. Steve leaned into the microphone and said, ‘I remember when I had my first beer.’ My friend and I laughed, not knowing why, but probably because at the ages of ten and eleven, beer is something forbidden and inappropriate, something you have to laugh at because you heard an adult say it, like “boobies” or “weiner.”

At the ages of nineteen and twenty, beer is not so much forbidden and inappropriate any more, but really just something to supplement a good time on a slow weekend. As are boobies. I remember my first beer. I really do. I was eighteen years old, a freshman in college, and was at the first kegger of my life, which was being thrown by my older sister’s boyfriend at a mysterious place called The Sandbar. My sister’s boyfriend belonged to a fraternity that specialized in cheap keggers and the odd, infamous bar crawl, leaving students throwing up on lawns and curling around toilets in dorm bathrooms. I, of course, did not know this, and pictured a frat party to be something more along the lines of a Princeton class reunion; sipping fine liquor out of thick glasses and drinking perfectly frothed beer from chilled mugs.

Needless to say, I had never seen Animal House and I had never seen Old School, and both would have been fantastically instructional when thinking about what to wear to the party. Even at the age of eighteen, I had the need to be dressed two hours in advance and look perfect for any formal gathering. After destroying my dorm room drawers, I decided on the classic-cool look, something akin to James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, but in retrospect, I looked more like Fonzy in Happy Days; my dark jeans a little skinnier than I thought they were, and my bomber jacket that I bought in accordance to my fashion bible, Gentleman’s Quarterly. My hair was short and tossed, my jacket hung over my shoulder, my black tee shirt loose and dark blue jeans tight, and my new white Converse laced to perfection.

The Sandbox was not an oak library with thick glasses and chilled mugs. The Sandbox was a basement in a shady apartment a few blocks from campus. The cups were red and plastic and cost five dollars each. There was no fine alcohol, but rather Hawkeye Vodka mixed with lemonade, and a warm keg of beer I would come to hate, called Natural Light, or affectionately nicknamed Natty Light. I learned fast that filling up a cup with beer from a keg with fifty other people in the room meant more pushing and shouting than the opening bell at the stock exchange. My first beer was more foam than liquid and mostly ended up as a stain on my white Converse. Needless to say, I remember my first beer.

My childhood friend recently started at the same college. We had both come a long way from listening to records on his floor; he became extremely politically active and responsible, and I became a witty writer who is poor yet fashionable. My friend had a policy in high school, touting it at gatherings that he did not drink and would not in college. I never blamed him for this. I secretly hoped he would stay dry until he was legal, but we all expected it to fail. And it did. And I watched it fail, as I was witness to the man-child’s clash with the toxin known as alcohol.

It was a Saturday night and I was looking for something to do. The four walls of my apartment were closing in and I desired some social interaction. This is what I say when I want to go out and meet people. And that is what I say when I want to get laid. Getting laid to me is like seeing a unicorn on my walk towards campus: it never happens but I still expect it to happen. I never do get laid, mind you, as I have some sort of moral problem when it comes to having sex with a girl who has had any alcohol or who I haven’t had the chance to test for VD. But I would at least like to think I have the mystical chance. So, I texted mi primo, let’s call him Billy, and asked him if he knew of any parties. He texted me back saying he was about to go to one with his new belle, let’s call her Lucy. I invited myself and started to get ready.

By this time, I knew how to dress for house parties. Two and half years and I had finally learned the trick to not looking good, which is the key to getting the attention of the ladies. I threw on an Iowa tee shirt, a loose pair of jeans, and an old pair of sneakers. The more you blend in, the more you stand out. I looked like college-student Ken. I walked to Lucy’s dorm and found when I got there, dorm life hadn’t changed much at all; teens huddled around computers, cheap rum passed around in water bottles, everyone pre-gaming for what they think will be the night of their lives. I gave a head nod and took a seat on the yoda-looking folding chair next to Billy who was watching Notre Dame and Michigan fight it out on ESPN.

“When are you going to be ready?” Billy was apparently referring to Lucy who was changing in a closet that was the size of my bathroom or in layman’s terms the size of a small walk-in pantry. Lucy’s voice was annoyed and tired, as if she had heard the same question repeated several times in the last five minutes, “When I’m done.”

I had done this one before, waiting on the girl to get ready as you wait patiently watching a game. I was about to give Billy some advice on why not to push a woman into an outfit, as she would feel uncomfortable the entire night if she felt rushed, and it was usually smart to shut up and have a beer handy. But he had other plans for the conversation. “That’s what you just said two minutes ago.” I cringed. I cringed for him. His voice was whiny and anxious. He was ready for social interaction. No, Billy. No. “Can’t we just leave?”

“We have to wait for the other girls.” I had no problem with this. I had no problem playing Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja until she was ready. It was like nine o’clock–pretty early for the young college student on the prowl. Billy, have a beer, watch the TV. I wanted to slide that in there but he didn’t let me.

“Let’s just go.”

She burst out of the pantry, dressed in a blue top and short white shorts, and cocked her hip, ready to fire.

“We have to wait.”

If you missed Ben Evans’ first column, An Iowa City Life: “5 AM,” be sure to check it out!

The post An Iowa City Life: “A Writer and A Politician Go To A Party” appeared first on KRUI Radio.