The Floating World: Jo Jo's Jacket
And in a funny way, the shaving of my, uh, head has been a liberation from, uh, a lot of, uh, stupid vanities really. Uh, it has simplified everything for me, it has opened a lot of doors maybe.
Yul Brynner
I'm not what you think I am
I'm the King of Siam
Stephen Malkmus
I shaved my head this Wednesday, for a bunch of reasons. Part of it is just that it's my normal hair cut, and has been as long as I've had clippers. I can do it by myself if necessry (although another person certainly makes it easier, as with so many things in life), it doesn't take very long, and it's cheap. That $20 clipper has paid for itself a multitude of times over.
This time, though, I really shaved my head. Usually I use one of the attachments that come with the clipper and leave the illusion of hair. But I was having a bad week and felt like shaving it all off, for whatever obscure reason.
I didn't go the Yul Brynner route, since actually shaving down to the skin would require a manual razor, something I don't possess, and that's a pain in the ass anyway. It's going to grow back no matter what, and I don't feel like shaving my head every day. That would be annoying. But I did use the clipper without an attachment, and the result is that now, four days later, I'm still pretty hairless.
But Brynner's point is valid. The two mental images that occur to me when I see someone with a shaved head, when I looked in the mirror after finishing up, are petty thug and Buddhist monk. There's something ascetic about it, even if like me you've never cared about your hair. It's kind of nice to know you don't need to worry about it for a while, even if a shaved head is a surprisingly attention-getting thing. It's not the hairstyle most likely to attract weird comments (my brother occasionally has a mohawk, and that's in the running), but you do get some. Which is weird.
And, of course, I'm balding. Which is annoying. Oh, I wouldn't care if I was bald as a cue ball (that'd be kind of nice, actually), it's being balding that's a pain in the ass. My hair should really stop this "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" crap. My mom used to comment when I was little that my hair grew like a weed, it was in near constant need of cutting. Now, at 23, you can tell I'm balding two days after I shave my head (or at least I can, but I know what I'm looking for).
Anyway, right after I shave my head there's usually a few days where random passers by in the street will look at my like I'm about to pull them into an alley and mug them. Which is ridiculous, but that was the sort of mood I was in.
I've got a bald head
My name is Yul Brynner
And I am a famous movie star
Perhaps you saw me in Westworld
I acted like a robotic cowboy
"Jo Jo's Jacket" is a piece of quasi-dada so impressive, so massively fun, it nearly describes depiction. Especially if you watch the video, which is surreal beyond belief. I'm not sure why Malkmus decided to write a song half about Brynner, but I'm glad he did (and after all, this is from an album with songs about being kidnapped by pirates, a romance between a college student and an older slacker, the Trojan War and having to work up in the Arctic, among other things). But it's only half about the star of Westworld, the other part's about, well... you tell me:
Stay inside on Christmas Day
And make believe that you are my candy cane
You said, "I'm not that type,
No I'm not sweet"
And I don't own the rights to your life
I'm also not sure why he staffed the chorus with such exuberant yelps instead of words, but that's a decision I rarely have a problem with. And then of course there's the ending, where Malkmus briefly channels Dylan ("That's alright ma, I'm only bleeding) before the whole track tips over into another demonstration that good ol' SM is actually a really entertaining guitarist. It's not that the end bit is good and the rest bad, but when it goes from silly to serious so quickly it's kind of striking. It's a great song, and from a really good album that I think ranks up there with his work in Pavement (but, oddly, I have no desire to listen to Pig Lib, which I have yet to hear).
Everything from toy guns that spark to flesh colored Christs that glow in the dark
So why write about the two together? No real reason, really, just that right after shaving my head I spent a night on Domino's site watching their videos (check out "Distortions", and "Circle Of Fifths" is pretty cool too) and ran into "Jo Jo's Jacket", a song I'd loved for a while, and the Brynner quote that plays at the start struck me as absurdly appropriate. Not everything has hidden depths.
Yul Brynner
I'm not what you think I am
I'm the King of Siam
Stephen Malkmus
I shaved my head this Wednesday, for a bunch of reasons. Part of it is just that it's my normal hair cut, and has been as long as I've had clippers. I can do it by myself if necessry (although another person certainly makes it easier, as with so many things in life), it doesn't take very long, and it's cheap. That $20 clipper has paid for itself a multitude of times over.
This time, though, I really shaved my head. Usually I use one of the attachments that come with the clipper and leave the illusion of hair. But I was having a bad week and felt like shaving it all off, for whatever obscure reason.
I didn't go the Yul Brynner route, since actually shaving down to the skin would require a manual razor, something I don't possess, and that's a pain in the ass anyway. It's going to grow back no matter what, and I don't feel like shaving my head every day. That would be annoying. But I did use the clipper without an attachment, and the result is that now, four days later, I'm still pretty hairless.
But Brynner's point is valid. The two mental images that occur to me when I see someone with a shaved head, when I looked in the mirror after finishing up, are petty thug and Buddhist monk. There's something ascetic about it, even if like me you've never cared about your hair. It's kind of nice to know you don't need to worry about it for a while, even if a shaved head is a surprisingly attention-getting thing. It's not the hairstyle most likely to attract weird comments (my brother occasionally has a mohawk, and that's in the running), but you do get some. Which is weird.
And, of course, I'm balding. Which is annoying. Oh, I wouldn't care if I was bald as a cue ball (that'd be kind of nice, actually), it's being balding that's a pain in the ass. My hair should really stop this "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" crap. My mom used to comment when I was little that my hair grew like a weed, it was in near constant need of cutting. Now, at 23, you can tell I'm balding two days after I shave my head (or at least I can, but I know what I'm looking for).
Anyway, right after I shave my head there's usually a few days where random passers by in the street will look at my like I'm about to pull them into an alley and mug them. Which is ridiculous, but that was the sort of mood I was in.
I've got a bald head
My name is Yul Brynner
And I am a famous movie star
Perhaps you saw me in Westworld
I acted like a robotic cowboy
"Jo Jo's Jacket" is a piece of quasi-dada so impressive, so massively fun, it nearly describes depiction. Especially if you watch the video, which is surreal beyond belief. I'm not sure why Malkmus decided to write a song half about Brynner, but I'm glad he did (and after all, this is from an album with songs about being kidnapped by pirates, a romance between a college student and an older slacker, the Trojan War and having to work up in the Arctic, among other things). But it's only half about the star of Westworld, the other part's about, well... you tell me:
Stay inside on Christmas Day
And make believe that you are my candy cane
You said, "I'm not that type,
No I'm not sweet"
And I don't own the rights to your life
I'm also not sure why he staffed the chorus with such exuberant yelps instead of words, but that's a decision I rarely have a problem with. And then of course there's the ending, where Malkmus briefly channels Dylan ("That's alright ma, I'm only bleeding) before the whole track tips over into another demonstration that good ol' SM is actually a really entertaining guitarist. It's not that the end bit is good and the rest bad, but when it goes from silly to serious so quickly it's kind of striking. It's a great song, and from a really good album that I think ranks up there with his work in Pavement (but, oddly, I have no desire to listen to Pig Lib, which I have yet to hear).
Everything from toy guns that spark to flesh colored Christs that glow in the dark
So why write about the two together? No real reason, really, just that right after shaving my head I spent a night on Domino's site watching their videos (check out "Distortions", and "Circle Of Fifths" is pretty cool too) and ran into "Jo Jo's Jacket", a song I'd loved for a while, and the Brynner quote that plays at the start struck me as absurdly appropriate. Not everything has hidden depths.
