another subsitute cartoonist and a substitute barber

May 3rd, 2008 | Uncategorized

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Yesterday my hair was getting really long, so my friend the moose thought perhaps she could cut it. She cuts her own hair, and it works out okay. So I figured what the hell.

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What the hell indeed. We were going to go out last night, so at 6pm she got out her clippers. Things began well enough.

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But after a while, it got pretty hairy.

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At 7pm, prospects were looking bleak so I put in a call to my regular barber, who was just about to close, but I told him it was an emergency, and he fit me in. By 8:00 I looked okay again.

after

44 Responses to “another subsitute cartoonist and a substitute barber”

  1. pam says:

    I cut my girlfriends hair all the time, but last time she decided to cut it herself while i was downstairs with her mom who was over for passover it still isn’t quite right, there is only so much u can do with a bad hair cut.

  2. Ian says:

    You shoulda kept the funky fin if you were going out.

  3. Dale says:

    Thank the Goddess my mother is a master cosmetologist! I get free haircuts and now I’m learning how to cut my girlfriend’s hair. Butch haircuts for all!
    I have to say it – it looks like you had an Alfalfa thing going on in the first picture. *giggle* Ah! Comic idea! Little Rascal Dykes to Watch Out For – the story of budding baby dykes. Hmmm…now I think about it, do you still want some substitute submissions? I think I can whip something up.

  4. Full Batch says:

    Re: my mistake on the MOC (last post).
    I think I got the cakes confused because I actually HAD the moist cake, last Easter (’07), made with strawberries, not orange. It was wondifferous!
    On a related note, I just now tried to go to the MOC website, and my library conputer system gave me the same ****ACCESS DENIED!!!**** yellow screen that they usually reserve for porn sites! What the hell is going on over there @ MOC?!?!?
    Best wishes to all DTWOFs.

  5. Heidi says:

    I cut my partner’s hair all the time, as well as my own. Hers is long and straight, so it’s an easy trim across the bottom. Mine is short and curly, which works to my advantage. You can’t really tell if everything’s not even because of the way it curls up. I just can’t see paying a bunch of money to a stylist to do the same thing when I enjoy doing it myself. My mom always cut my hair when I was growing up, so I’ve only paid for a haircut a handful of times in my life, and I never thought it came out better than my home haircuts.

  6. hetero genus says:

    Alfalfa? Maybe Tin Tin. Alfalfa had the hair parted in the middle but for the cowlick, but i love your ideas and yes you should! I cannot get the baby Dykes to Watch out for characters out of my head. Baby Stuey, L’il Carissa, yes, Alfa Mo. Spanky Harriet and the prissy ‘Liz family. Not that i am meaning to influence your very original idea, here, Dale. Ooh, Baby Dyke Duvalyea.

  7. Kate L says:

    I tried to cut my own hair once. In 1974. It turned out so badly, the barber who tried to save it said, “This is as much as I can do with it”, and laughed. P.S. You were right to loose The Fin. It made you look like Ed Grimley (that’s a Second City Television reference that ALMOST goes back to 1974!).

  8. kate mck says:

    Holly R. Taylor, hmm?

  9. Maggie Jochild says:

    Yeah, as the geek who keeps MOC’s motor turning over, I cannot imagine why it would get banned. Our last several posts have been about LOLSharkz (™ Kat), making a brain cake, Pesach, the Fighting Geoducks, the Kansas Jayhawks, Helen Keller, Shadocat’s beautiful granddaughter, the loss of elderly relatives, and gentrification. Eclectic beyond description, but (as yet) no porn.

  10. LA Steve says:

    What, no more fauxhawk! Ah well, years ago my friend Robin told me, in a dark moment, “The first thing they teach us at beauty school is — HAIR GROWS.”

  11. iara says:

    When I was five I tried to explain to them that I wanted sideburns like my cousin’s, but all my haircuts turned out like some kind of bob. So I took matters in my own hands. I spent A LONG TIME to make sure the two sides were of equal length, and I was quite pleased with the result, but nobody else seemed to appreciate it!

  12. meg says:

    I still cut my own hair! And it looks…. well…. ummmm…

    short.

    But think of the savings! 🙂

  13. April says:

    Nice do, AB. Your hair always looks so sharp.
    Sadly I can’t pull off the fin with any kind of nonchalant panache.

  14. KarenE says:

    You look fabulous. Very sleek! However, in one of the pictures it looks like Holly is cutting off your ear!

  15. Ariadne says:

    Holly looks so intent in picture #2, it’s very endearing.

    I’ve got one of those low-maintenance, down to my knees/always braided hairdos. Only one of my partners is allowed to cut it, only when it’s wet, and no more than 3″ off the bottom! (the other has very curly hair, and she doesn’t quite understand the physics of straight stringy hair.)

  16. DaneGreat says:

    I keep waiting for someone to make a transsexual marine joke, but so far, nothing.

    Definitely tintin, by the wya.

  17. Chris says:

    “Butch haircuts for all!”

    Sing it. And please, sing it with particular intensity in the direction of those of us marooned in Heteronormataria. Where your butchest hair demands go unheard or rate an eww-face from the haircutter.

    Holly, big props for your courageous attempt.

  18. kat says:

    I’m in desperate need of a haircut, too…one of coworkers got a free cut from the mom of one of her students. I wonder if I can hook that up too…
    Is it just me, or is it ridiculous that my choices are to do it myself or pay over$50????

  19. Chris says:

    Kat, word. Or pick a $15 barber, eeny-meenie, and hope they’re not a raging ‘phobe? Never mind the sheer social anxiety involved with any pro haircut, if you’re like me. We need a Damron guide to cosmetologists. (n.b., I am a big fan of my local women’s directory, but they just don’t tell you the kind of shit you really need to know!)

    “Yesterday my hair was getting really long”–hee.

  20. Liza Cowan says:

    A good haircut is the foundation of your whole look. Get the best one you can. With a great haircut you can get away with less than fabulous clothing, but even the best outfit is ruined by a bad haircut.

  21. meg says:

    The thing is I’ve paid *money* to have people (in reputable and pricey shops, no less!) butcher my hair. I can do that at home, for free.

    And it usually looks better.

    and, if it doesn’t, well, I’ve got no one to impress, anyway….

  22. Lisa (Calico) says:

    Do not ever let me get near any of you with a pair of hair scissors or clippers. Definitely not one of my skills.

    Time for a trim for me, too-I keep it shoulder length, a la Jen Saunders-I just don’t look good with short hair (I have a round face and high cheekbones).

    Recently my partner’s daughter took her to a preferred stylist in town-he cut it (partner’s) hair a bit short, but after a few weeks it looks really nice.

  23. Kate L says:

    Great… the simultaneous posting glitch hit me just as I posted a momment ago. Cowboy, indeed, A. B. ! 🙂 Anyway… as I was about to say:

    This year, I was on the organizing committee for the second annual Pride Prom, an alternative prom that local LGBT groups put on for the LGBT youth of the area (the kids get to attend for free; all us oldsters have to buy tickets). One young woman who attended was wearing her hair in The Fin that A.B. is sporting in the first photo of this blog! That A.B., such a trendsetter! 🙂

  24. Metal Prophet says:

    I just do the not-cutting-it-at-all solution. But then, I’m a metalhead and it goes well with the headbanging, so there you go.

  25. kat says:

    Yup, I’m with Meg. I’ve sighed and decided to go the expensive route, only to have it look like ass and need all sorts of fixing. Which, of course, I end up doing myself with nail scissors.

    You do have a rockin’ hair cut, Liza (or so the pics on your blog would have me believe). I wish I were that cool.

  26. kat says:

    oh, p.s., Liza:
    are you good at determining what looks good (haircut wize) on people? Care to give me a hand?

    I wish I could pull off Alison’s Tintin-esque fin, but I don’t look good with hair THAT short.

  27. Liza Cowan says:

    Alas, Kat,no. But thanks for saying my cut is rockin’. I arrived at it by much trial and error. I’ve spent years with buzz/crew cuts, and years with hair down to my waist. Neither is appropriate at this stage of my life.

    It helps to find a stylist that you trust and will work with you. And remember, hair grows, so you can keep experimenting.

    And my haircuts only cost $35. There are good and bad stylists at all price ranges.

  28. kat says:

    Yeah, I’m trying to find someone that’s in that middle range. Berkeley is getting so frakkin’ yuppy that even humble looking hair places will charge over $50…gah. There is “Great Clips” that will give you exactly what you expect for $6, which isn’t good….

  29. panopticon says:

    Hahaha my roommate cut my hair last night and I am still waiting for her to fix it.

  30. mlk says:

    did anyone notice the Bechdel influence in Holly’s cartooning? she follows the format of Alison’s early (pre Mo and Lois) strips, ends with a moral, her use of ‘yer.’ I love the clippers separating the “before” and “after” pictures!!

    hope it’s not a huge faux paux to compliment Holly’s work with the pen. it’s not, in any way whatsoever, a suggestion that she should quit her day job for cartooning — the world would be lost without Holly’s composting talents! and . . . if Alison composts, why shouldn’t her gf draw a funny picture now and then?

  31. Liza Cowan says:

    FYI, Holly Rae Taylor was an artist long before she met Alison.

  32. Hammerwoman says:

    I’ve made a practice of screening hairdressers over the phone. . . on Main Street in Concord, NH, there’s a place called Hair Biz. I’d been calling around for a place where my partner could get a suitably butch ‘do, and was told that the owner of the establishment had been to barber school as well as cosmetology school. “So,” I said, “When a dyke walks in off the street and asks for a boy’s regular. . ?” “No problem.” We got quite a few good haircuts there.

    I’m letting my hair grow again, miss those dark red ringlets down my back. I just trim enough around my face that when I get called out onto the track and have to jam on my helmet, fire up the bike, and go, I know I’ll be able to see.

    The most haircutting I’m willing to do on someone else is the back-of-the-neck cleanup with the clippers, below the hairline.

  33. Liza Cowan says:

    I bet you got some funny responses to your question, and some hemming and hawing as well. But it’s probably better over the phone.

    I once went in to a salon in Paris where men’s cuts were advertised at a lower price than women’s. I asked for, and got, a man’s cut. But when the time came to pay they charged me for a woman’s cut. When I pointed out the error, they were totally baffled. “But Madame, you are a woman.” Apparantly they charged by the gender of the person, not the haircut. My French wasn’t good enough to get to the more nuanced reasoning, so after a while I just paid up. It was a great haircut, but if I’d known I’d be charged for it, I’d have asked for a woman’s haircut. Who knows how chic I could have been with a real French woman’s coiffure.

    The moral: if you fixate on the gender of your haircut you could miss a great opportunity to raise your chic factor, and that would be a shame. At least for me.

  34. kat says:

    In England, I noticed a lot of little hair places that said “Unisex Haircuts,” and I could never figure out if that meant that they did men and women, or if everyone would walk out with the same haircut, regardless of gender.

    I mentioned that to a family friend who lived near me, and she thought I was nuts. Apparently it means the former, and I’m just a weird silly American for not being able to tell……

  35. Astrid says:

    Well, its cute now. Glad to hear that the nightmare was short lived. A few years ago, my girlfriend, trying to save money let a friend of hers cut her hair WITH CHILD SAFETY SCISSORS. It came out absolutely terrible, all poorly feathered and stuff with bangs on a 45 degree angle. Totally unfixable without cutting it really short. I asked her what her reasoning was. She said, “if it cuts paper, it cuts hair.” I replied with my favorite saying, “ugly at any price is still ugly.” I did not let her cut her hair for a year after that. No more homemade haircuts ever.

  36. mlk says:

    thanks, Liza, for the info on Holly 🙂

  37. Jaya says:

    Okay, I gotta say it, selfish as it is…does the guest cartoonist thing mean we’re not going to get a strip this week? 🙁

  38. Maggie Jochild says:

    I once had a blind woman cut my hair. I knew it would make a good story, but she also did a great job. She was the partner of a friend of mine, and she buzzed her own hair once a week. I was going to a birthday party where the theme was “come as you looked in the 1970s”, so the buzzing was mandatory for me. She put her clippers on a 4, sat me down in her completely dark living room, and it was a sensorially rich experience. My bosses at the cancer clinic was not as thrilled on Monday, however.

  39. Feminista says:

    Another great story,Maggie. You sure have “clitzpah” and your clipper has “clipzpah”!

  40. kat says:

    “My bosses at the cancer clinic was not as thrilled on Monday, however.”

    that shouldn’t be funny…..and yet!!!!

  41. a different Emma says:

    It’s long since time for me to get my ears lowered, but I’m kind of attached to what is turning out to be the best “in-between” phase I’ve ever had. Has anybody else ever stumbled into a new look through pure lazy/cheapness?

  42. Mothra in NYC says:

    Clipzpah.

    I like that, Feminista. Can’t exactly pronounce it without falling all over my lips, but I like it.

    Here in NYC, I am spoiled by the Aveda Institute, where the stylists-in-training give you fabulous haircuts for cheap under the eagle-eyed supervision of their teachers. It takes a long time, but it’s fun and cost-effective, and they do a good job.

    The only scary part is release form you sign at the beginning, saying that you understand you could be injured (Ack! Hair dryers! Scissors! Mysteriously smelly chemicals!) in the process of becoming more fabulous …

    I remember my Worcester, MA, childhood and adolescence, during which you could get free haircuts at the chicest salon in town (St. Cyr) if you were chosen to be a model for their before-and-after photo ads in the local paper. I once got a cut that was so cool (totally bleached out and chopped very short but with a sort of asymmetrical forelock feature) that when I went home and showed it to Mom, she burst into tears.

    At any rate, is it not possible in most towns to get quality hair care at one salon or another if you are willing to be a little bold and work with the less experienced among the cutting class?

    It’s always worked for me …

    Happy hair to all!

  43. Feminista says:

    Ah,another pun appreciator,Mothra. Not only do we have a similar sense of humor,we also go to Aveda. Yes,they do a good job,the place doesn’t smell like nasty chemicals,they give wonderful hand and scalp massages (purr),and they give you mint tea while you’re waiting.

    What’s not to like?