This week our school participated in a student body fashion show. After more than two months of meetings and planning and brainstorming, followed by weeks of preparation and stress, all our efforts came to a close during a two-hour event. My synopsis of the event? A little stressful (but not enough to matter), a bit of fun (at least in the preparation part), but somewhat disappointing and a lot of anti-climax.

As far back as October we have been aware that there was to be a big-deal fashion show occurring in January. This event would display our talents and drive to the local populace inside and outside the industry, and could result in us making great network contacts. It was drummed into us time and again that this was a big deal, and that we should take it seriously. This was also a competition. We were four teams competing against each other, each representing ideals of “Earth,” “Wind,” “Fire” and “Water.” The prize was reputed to be something substantial, something good that we would actually WANT to compete for. Continue Reading »

The other day I set a few cookies onto my bedside table, I was going to have a can of beer, a few cookies, and read my book before bed. I set my cookies down and immediately had to grab my camera because when I drew back my cookie-eating hand this was looking back at me…

I’ve been spoiled in the jobs I’ve had for the last ten years. If nothing else, my decade-string of low-ceiling jobs has kept me isolated from the general public. It also kept me in small offices staffed by low numbers of young single nerdy males with no family. I haven’t been prone to catch so much as a head cold for as far back as I can remember. Even when the roommates would come home with one ailment or another (and they always do, for almost the entire winter and half of the non-winter), I seem to dodge every one of those germy bullets.

Then I came to hair school.

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On the weekend just before our visit, Stephen Colbert from Comedy Cetral’s “Colbert Report” paid a visit to Lake Placid.

With a swarm of cameramen, producers, assistants, fans, athletes, event staff and curiosity-seekers in tow, comedian Stephen Colbert held forth at Mount Van Hoevenberg Sunday afternoon, filming a segment in which Colbert tried in vain to make the Olympic bobsled team.

As you can see above, he also made a skeleton luge run down the track (which aired on his show last night). It was neat to see all the footage on TV considering we were Just There.

The Colbert Nation has been active with the 2010 Olympics. They are now official sponsors of the financially-strapped U.S. speed skating team, and the Colbert Nation logo will adorn their uniforms. Later, Stephen started a letter campaign to demand the Canadian Olympic committee give the American speed skating team equal time to practice on their oval. The campaign was successful, and Stephen was even offered a job as an official ombudsman of the events, and last night on TV he accepted the job.

From his bid for a presidential run in 2008 (on BOTH party tickets), to his amazing roasting of then-President George W Bush, and now this Olympic activity… I am just always amazed at the proactivity of Stephen Colbert.

When I was in 5th Grade, the Winter Olympics came to my neighborhood. It was a proud time for us, and all of us kids had Olympic Fever that winter. It was my first introduction to the Olympics, it left an impact and ever since then I’ve been a total fanatic for the Winter Games.

Naturally I’ve been excited with the Vancouver Games just over two months away (only 74 days to go!), so when we had some vacation time I suggested we head NOT eastward to the ocean, but westward into the Adirondacks.

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After three and a half weeks on the salon floor I’m starting to get a little more pep in my step. Still, the schedule and the work wears me out by the end of the day. It’s been years since I’ve had a stand-up-all-day job. A lot of years. It’s good though, because now that I’m not smoking any longer I’ve managed to gain nearly 20 pounds. If I was still working in a cubicle sitting in a high-backed chair all day I’d run the risk of getting even softer around the edges than I can feel comfortable with. So getting a little more physical with my job will be better for me. That is, once my body has gotten accustomed to it. At the present I’m not quite there yet.

I’m not a spry eighteen-year-old striking out, I’m a good bit older than that. My brain feels sharp and young but my body needs a little convincing these days! I spend the day standing on hard tile floors. There is no sitting down in a hair salon, and add to that the amount of leaning and squatting and bending and holding of awkward positions I do in a day and I’m just plain wore-out proper by the end of the day.

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I have been a little lax in updating my blog articles, because the last two and a half weeks have been spent working on the salon floor at my school. I know, exciting! Seems like just yesterday I was a man in the very beginning stages of re-education, not even sure how to turn on his hair dryer. Now I’m tending to the hair needs of the general public.

The way we like to describe it, it’s not so much a salon as it is a “classroom with windows.” The “guests” we operate on are just that: not “clients” but “guests.” Guests who are submitting themselves to be our aesthetic Guinea pigs, rather than an actual, factual retail client. Leaves a nice comfortable buffer in there for students like myself, who cannot positively guarantee you will walk out of here better off than you were when you walked in. “Hey, it’s a teaching salon! What part of ‘ten-dollar haircut’ indicates perfect results?”

Although I have to admit, I’ve been giving people their money’s worth for certain - I’m good that way. Didn’t start out that way though!

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Hey! Ever wonder how stylists learn all those tricky haircut details? Below you can observe M.K. performing our goofy mnemonic device for the various elements used in cutting hair:

…yes, we are indeed that ridiculous sometimes.

I’ve finally finished my extended project, a “Look Book” as it’s called. It’s a book filled with inspirational photos that can be used when looking for a cut or a color example. Most students bought scrapbooking material and clipped everything out of magazines, however, that’s not the route I selected. Why? Well for one because the scrapbooking route tends to cost a bit of money. Between the books and the decorative paper and all the other little bells and whistles added, I’ve seen a few that have cost the student in question over a hundred bucks to put together. Second, I wanted to put something together that was different, and more “me.” So I utilized my years of publishing experience as well as some hobby bookbinding experience to put together my own book, from the ground up…

…it had been years since I’ve put something like this together, and it showed - considering all the steps I’ve forgotten about. Either way, it’s not perfect but it’s perfectly good. More pics follow…

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One of the first things I noted about my school in my recollection of my first day, is the constant presence of pop music. Or at least the predominantly hip hop, synthesized dance music that passes for pop music these days. Daily. Constantly. Relentlessly. Remorselessly - I am exposed to the soul-melting toxic waves that come out of one radio or another, probably sterilizing me or, at the very least, rendering my sperm retarded and my future offspring hopeless. My eardrums aren’t so much punctured from the din as they are branded with logos, mass-duplicated, and sold to children in pop music crack houses.

In case you’re new to this blog: I absolutely detest pop music.

I don’t think of it as “music” really, but rather an artless, sleazy commercial product with no originality, no soul, and no guts. Its marketability is of greater import than its merit as an artistic statement, and therefor the music all sounds the same to me: find the formula that sells records, and duplicate the formula. Find someone who looks good in a bikini, use auto-tuners and harmonizers on her porn-movie voice so it’ll sound like someone with vocal talent is doing the singing, pick a synthetic musical background out of a book and hire some dancers. Bingo! Pop music for the masses. Teenage girls will love them. Meat market dance clubs will love them. All-nude full-contact stripper bars will love them. However, do you know who DOESN’T love them? ME!!

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