I was really into rock and roll as a kid. By my teens in mid-1970's i wanted bell bottoms and long hair. My parents are 41 and 46 years my seniors so they had no interest in the rock scene. So we fought over my hair.
I finally won the freedom to wear my hair as i chose at 14, but that didn't mean i had approval. My parents hated my hair long, more accurately, they hated my big hair because my hair is so curly that it grows big instead of long. They were just getting used to my long hair when i took to punk rock, in about 1980. My first great punk do was gradations of purple with a sort-of rib-cage on the back of my head. Later i had a skunk stripe. Later in the 80s, i grew it big again and even tried dreadlocks for a while in 1987 but i hated the way the dreadlocks felt. Anyhow, my parents really didn't care for any of these hair styles.
In 1988, my friend Larnie Fox asked me to perform an opening piece for a more substantial performance art piece he was going to do at the Salt Lake Media Center and i agreed. When i learned the venue and the date i realized that it would happen on my father's birthday. At that time, i hadn't cut my hair for a few years. I had a massive dark tangle on my head.
So i decided that my performance art piece would be, "Mom Cuts My Hair for Dad's Birthday," a re-enactment of my childhood haircuts which were given by my mother while i sat on a tall chair in the kitchen with a towel wrapped around my neck. I asked my parents, who liked my performance projects about as much as they liked my hair, if they would participate. They agreed.
The audience numbered about 100. I introduced my parents to the audience and from underneath my big hair i explained the conflicts we had had over my hair for so many years. My dad, Sam Weller, is a ham. He prepared for the evening by bringing one of my high school photos in which i had mysteriously looked respectable. He passed it through the crowd while making strong assertions about how good i could look with the right hair cut. Then, with a flourish he pulled the longest scissors i had ever seen from a pocket within his jacket.
Definitions of performance art have always been vague and it is common for some members of an audience to think that performance art is theater, dance or music. I guess some in the audience thought that this was some pretend thing. I was surprised as the gasps of horror that were emitted when my father cut off the first sizable handful. Then my mother took over with her own normal-sized scissors and finished the job. It was very casual and homey. And i was surprised at how much the audience seemed to enjoy it. Annie, a film maker who was also a hair stylist complimented the piece at the end of the evening. So also said that the cut was a bit crooked and offered to fix it free of charge. I accepted her offer and visited her within the week.
That evening, after the performances, about a dozen of us ended up in Juniors, a bar, together. A friend of mine, Catherine Cheves, was among the group. I had known Cat for about seven years and always been attracted to her. I attempted to flirt with her but was so inept that she couldn't tell what i was doing. My last ditch effort was to offer her a ride home upon learning that she needed one. So i took her a her friend to her apartment at about midnight. She invited me in for another drink and i decided i would just hang around waiting for her friend to leave. I didn't know the friend was staying there at the time and couldn't even go to bed until i left. After too many drinks, i left at about 3:00 a.m., thwarted in my romantic efforts.
I was so annoyed with myself that when i got home, i wrote a drunken confessional letter to Catherine and delivered it the following day. It included an invitation to dinner and a play, the following week.
So on May 1st, 1988 with my new short hair, i had my first date with Cat. We are both careful people but years of friendship, numerous mutual friends, many common interests, and apparent mutual attraction caused us to fall rapidly toward one and other in love.
Meanwhile, my mother had gotten the inaccurate and hopeful impression that i had turned over some kind of new leaf with my hair. She tracked down Annie, and bought me a gift certificate worth six hair cuts. She thought it might last me a year. She was wrong. Now my relationship with Catherine seemed to also be linked to that haircut. I had been a longhair and a punk and had become sure that nothing i did would please everyone. I enjoyed the wildness of long hair. But I am also a late sleeper and impatient groomer. For those reasons, short hair was appealing. So with six free haircuts in hand, i decided i would cut my hair once annually in Spring and get a bit of both realities. I would be 1995 before i had to pay for the annual buzz.
Seven months after Cat and i fell in love, we bought a house together. On May 1st 1990, i proposed to her. On May 1st 1991, we married and guess what? I got a haircut that day.
And i just kept getting that one haircut each year at right around the same time.
In Spring of 1997, Catherine was pregnant with our child who was expected in mid-May. Our impatient daughter decided to get herself born a little early and Catherine entered labor on May 5th. It took long enough that Lila Ann wasn't born until May 6th, early in the morning on the day i had scheduled my hair cut. I was desperately tired since i had been mostly awake for nearly 36 hours. Nonetheless, i kept my appointment and Annie shaved my head yet again, for the tenth time in as many years, about four hours after the birth of my daughter.
Now i have just recently received the 22nd of these annual haircuts. I maintain the habit because it is seasonally appropriate and the act, in a vague and goofy way, seems to commemorate the births of my father and daughter as well as my courtship and marriage to Catherine. Those who know me track Spring by my haircut. We know the season of any photo i'm in by the length of my hair. I've done it for so long now that it would feel very odd to stop. Here are before and after photos of the 2009 removal.
Bone
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