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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Twice today, from regular, our better regular, customers. "How are you?" they ask, and then look at me meaningfully. "Things OK?" Twice. I'm paranoid now that I look as if I have cancer or some other terminal illness, "Fine" I assure them hastily...."Couldn't be better....".... I could, I could be rich or unemployed or painting or writing on a half regular basis, but this isn't what they're asking, so I play it cool and tell them I'm fine. I blame it on the haircut.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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It's impossible. Much is made of the age of information overload, but even without this, the internet, it would be impossible to keep up. The internet, it swallows an hour, maybe 2 a day. But it points the way to other things, plays, films, books that I should be seeing or reading, music to be listened to, galleries to attend, until, finally, there's no time left whatsoever. I need to seriously rearrange my priorities, not sweat missing a film or two and get to work, because, after all, time is passing...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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1. Arrive before the restaurant opens and when the waiters grudgingly let you in complain about the setup, about the spotty glasses and cutlery and unvacuumed floor and lack of music.
2. Stay late. Very late. Try and be the last or second last table in the restaurant. Ask when they close and see if you can keep them an hour, two hours past then.
3. Call ½ hour before coming for a reservation. Look over the hostesses or Maitre’D’s shoulder and try to find your name in the reservation book. When you are sat complain about the table you’re given. Call the restaurant from the parking lot. If there’s no room ask to speak to the owner/manager/favorite server. Explain that it’s your anniversary/birthday/valentines and that you need to come in ASAP and no isn't an answer....
4. Order things not on the menu. Out for Italian? Order the double cheeseburger or Ginger Beef Stir Fry. Don’t even look at the menu.
5. Order fancy drinks that they can’t or won’t charge you for. Things like hot water with lemon and honey. When the waiter isn’t looking add your own tea bag. If your drinking tap water make sure they give you a lemon. If they’ve given you a lemon already complain about the little bits of lemon floating in your water.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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"You need a haircut..." he says to me, and he's right, it's been about 8 weeks since my last one and really I should get one every week but I'm lucky if I get in to see the barber once every 3 months.
I'm in the "hood", deep Forest Lawn checking junk shops and thrift shops and the guy speaking to me is a black guy wearing a pirate eye patch. It turns out he runs the "hair salon" next door, and he hands me a couple of flyers for it, he's just in watching the junk shop on his break.
Coincidental, really, in that I had already stopped this morning at my regular barbers, the Lebanese boys who cut hair as a front for their drug running cartel, and despite what the sign said on the front of the shop they definitely weren't open. Maybe they were on vacation, or in jail, but it was a trip wasted to the south side for nothing.
So as I'm leaving the shop I tell the black guy that if he wants, if his shop next door is open, I'll take the haircut. Why not, it's only hair...and besides, maybe somehow or another the coolness of black and the hood will rub off on me.
Well, that's stretching things a bit...
In any event I'm the only one in the salon apart from a very bored receptionist who gets my name and then goes back to watching black and white detective shows on TV. It's "Perry Mason" on Fox. The black guy, the stylist, he gets in and begins to cut my hair. Now his eyepatch has the skull and bones on it and I'm pleased to discover that his haircutting apron has the same logo. Triple cool - black barber, the hood, and now he's a pirate as well. I want to tell him to make me look just like him, or Johnny Depp if he can do it, but I figure just let him do his thing and I'll be sure to look like one or the other when he's done.
So he cuts my hair and makes light hairstyling conversation, about what I do and how the barbers in the malls don't know what they're doing and how I should massage my head for 5 minutes daily and how he can't believe anyone can cut hair in 15 minutes, it takes him at least an hour...
...at least an hour....
and I'm trapped in the chair as he goes over it and over it again with the shears and the scissors and then goes "deep" on my eyebrows and nose and ears with a straight razor and then goes back over my head with the clippers and talks to me about everything that barbers talk about and the day off, it's slipping away, through my fingers...
Not a single other customer comes through the door. Not a one.
In the end, an hour and some later, it's a good haircut.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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The Antique Show, at the Hillhurst Community Association - the same place as they have the flea market on Sundays.
And I'm there promptly at 11:00, it's the same show that tours the Thorncliffe and and other venues throughout the city. That said, there were no shortage of bargains to be head, bizarre clocks that pause one for half an hour or so just contemplating their weirdness, bags of antique buttons, antique frames and mirrors, jewelry, many of the flea market vendors again that have brought out their especially good trinkets for this occasion...
No watches. Or none I'd buy. I think it might be my mood. But good nonetheless...