the birdbath identity

haircuts, shadowy government agents and smashing my face in...

Now then. Those of you who know me personally, will be aware that over the course of the last ten months or so, I have been engaging in a radical experiment. This experiment has involved a seismic shift in personal appearance. Or, to come to the point, I've been growing my hair.

Photographic evidence of the various evolutionary stages in this project are scattered across various websites and I won't post them here. Sufficeth to say that it makes for interesting (at least purely anthropological) viewing.

I began the experiment as a certified slaphead. Withing a mere matter of two weeks I had assumed the appearance of what my (then) girlfriend referred to as 'a manky tennis ball'. Another few weeks and there was a definite alteration in my personal comportment.

The weeks and months rolled by until we found ourselves staring down the barrel of Christmas and I found myself staring at a war-crime in the mirror. It was that stage: the one where your scalp looks like Dresden at the end of the second world war - a desolate, twisted wasteland with odd, angular projections jutting in several directions. Many close friends attempted to reason with me, but to no avail.

I kept going.

We get to May and a definite shape is starting to take form. My face looks altered. A different shape almost. Better I think (although there are those who violently protest to the contrary).

Then we get to three weeks ago, when sporting a glorious mane of bouncy, golden locks, I made my way into a Grafton street barber for what i expressly made clear was to be 'a trim'. No worries, I think to myself.

20 catastrophic minutes later I was sitting, jaw-agape, wallet-ajar, dignity trampled underfoot as I realised that the barber has translated my request for 'a trim' into the words 'make me look like a wanker' in whatever befuddled language he really spoke in his head.

Now, we've all had bad haircuts. It happens. Part of life. Par for the course. Run of the mill you might say. Insert your own proverbial platitude. But to be quite frank, I've had fucking enough.

What part of 'I want a trim' can you misunderstand? The words 'I want a trim' do not sound, even remotely, like the words 'Shave my head and make me look like a shirt-lifting, cat-raping beast from the deep'. They just fucking don't. At all.

And I'm sick of it.

You must understand... I have one of those faces. One of those. You know the ones I mean... you know the kind of face that you just want to punch? The kind of face that you instinctively want to repeatedly kick with a shit-smattered hob-nailed boot? The kind you have no rational reason to detest, but despite your tree-hugging, goat cheese eating tendencies, you find yourself wanting to wallop with a tyre-chain?

Yeah, well, I have one of those faces. I don't know why, but people (especially large men) have always wanted to harm me. Horribly.

Now, I do my best. I try to smile. I usually look like a lecherous git, but I do try. I try to be nice too. And I try to grow my hair in such a way as to take the focus off my face. Sometimes it works. But recently I have been getting those looks again. The ones that are followed by the sound of cracking knuckles and low, atavistic growls.

So, fuck the lot of ye. I'm growing it again.

Perfumed Ponce

hmmm ... the sister said you looked normal enough