Still Running with Shears... (barely)

WARNING!

DISCLAIMER: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION IN THIS BLOG!

Although there is no profanity in this blog, the description may be exaggerated and strong.

A slight twist of humor also involved.

OMG! Im Like, so like late to like Blog about like, my cosmo career. It's like it's not even like funny... Okay its not really that bad however, it is pretty rough in my neck of the woods these days. Let me start out by saying "I'm sorry for the latency of this Blog post." I have been busy lately, and I promise to get better about it. So the last 6-7 months has been very interesting to say the least. And my sanity cup has just about runneth over at school with my school mates. I never knew it would be this difficult of a juggling act and so easy at the same time. So lets get on with it, back to my adventure shall we. So I attended the Chicago hair-show, and it was amazing to say the least. I meet so many artists and like minded individuals (at a hair-show! I know right)

my head was spinning. The Matrix, Aquage, and Andis stage was probably my favorites of all. I was able to meet Nick Barardi from NickEducation.com, Nicholas French of Matrix, and as always my good buddies Luis Alvarez and Eric Fisher. (I see them at every show). The Andis stage was loud and hip, and featured some of the best Barbers I have ever seen. We all know Ivan Zoot, but I didn't know anything about Jeremy Knott, a master Barber my age at the top of his game. This man is a magician with clippers. Check out some of his amazing art at LosAngelesBarberShop.com, truly talented. Not much later after that, I attended the Peels spring show. Also a great show to take in. Philip Wilson of FHI heat, made the Guinness book of World Records for the most hair cuts at the same time, I believe it was over 500, like 507 or something like that. That was a lot of hair to sweep up no doubt. So my time in between the hair-shows and classes I've taken out of school have been my little break away from the daily grind at school. Being one of the only straight men, of two that attend Iowa School of Beauty is a prison sentence no man should have to endure. Now I don't mean that in the extreme way most would take it, But I've noticed things that would have normally not been okay in my other careers. Like what you may ask. Well I'm starting to say things like, "Oh that's a Pretty color." and "Oh that would be so cute." What is the world coming to? I have to correct myself, and I sound like "Oh that's a pretty... I meant Neat color, yeah really neat." I'm a Veteran AND a Class A Master Electrician. "Oh your hair is cute today...." "Whats that Matt?" "I really like your hair today is what I said." I've realized only as of recently that I'm deep in the Estrogen filled trenches, and it is a war. The rules have changed and my gloves are off, although I may have already started to have a monthly cycle. I can only hope for the best at this point, as I leave nothing to question in fears of the drama to ensue. I go to school with a bunch of Alligators that are hungry and smell blood miles away. So I tread lightly as not to get bitten and drug through the gantlet on a daily basis. As bad as they seem, and as often as I shake my head and ask myself if that really just happened, it just would not be the same without any one of them. I have an instructor that was determined to get me to braid. Well guess what, I can sort of braid now making shapes and interesting patterns. I have her and my inner zen master to thank for that. I've also learned the art of razor cutting, and being light handed while razor cutting. I can still remember her face when I first used my razor and cut a huge scoop out of this mannequin hair. Needless to say it all turned out okay. I have several other instructors, that I'm sure are out to get me somehow in a fun way. I had a really special client in school today. Now before I get to far into this I need you all, to go back to when you were in school and doing cheap pedicures. Yeah, we all have the clients that really don't take care of their feet or pay little if any attention to them at all. But this client was one Ill not soon forget. She's and older lady of 82 and coated with fresh squeezed lemons at times. She's my regular shampoo set and I love her to death, but some lines weren't meant to be crossed. She was coming in for a Pedicure. As I set up for this pedi, my mind races of the possibilities of finding some ancient artifact she may have picked up along the way, that would be worth billions and my tip would be awesome. Get me out of debt kind of thing. Because I know no-man has been there, paid any attention, or touched her feet for a long long time. So before I go out to get her I swing by the Dispense area to sniff some hairspray and smelling salts to help deaden and numb my nasal cavity. Light headed I grab and greet her tugging her back to the pedi station to get started. She pulled off her socks, and placed them on the floor next to the pedi bowl in such a manner that it looked like there was still feet inside them. I chuckled inside and said to myself, "This should be fun." She was about to put her feet in the bowl when I had to stop her and do my inspection, searching for fungus, disorders and diseases. I find nothing to gruesome and spray her feet down with septic spray, a little more septic spray, and a little bit up my nose for good measure. We began to talk of her life and how miserable she was, then I had to remind her I was working on her feet so it couldn't be that bad. She smiled as if she knew the horrors I was dealing with at that very moment. She soaked for about 15 minutes to loosen up the reptilian like scales she had on her feet, shortly after that I started to hit them with all I could muster up with a nail brush. I almost had to call a reputable power washing company to come help me out. Chiseling away at what seemed to be a never ending supply of dragon scales and dead skin I started to notice one of the foot shaped socks pointed towards me. As if it was going to come at me at any moment, I tossed a towel over it to cover its eyes. I was convinced it was alive and well. I brushed it off as a side effect of the smelling salts and hairspray. Clipping her nails was like listening to a gun going off every time the clippers snapped. I took out an industrial metal file to hone down the points left by the clippers. As the Nail dust flew and piled up, I started to laugh. I had thought about that movie Dumb and Dumber when they go to the salon and Jim Carrey gets a pedicure. I quickly became envious of the lady grinding down his toe nails. She had a four inch grinder! I could have used that. Working up a small sweat, I began to see clumps of some unidentified material fall from between her toes. Wait a minute, could this be the ancient artifact I was thinking of? Nope, not a chance. Can you remember the last time you had a family picture taken? What did you say right before the picture was snapped? Did you say CHEESE? Man this was a nightmare. I had an instant replay showing in my head super slow-mo just so I could grasp the full gravity of the situation. I got up and got rid of my gum, thinking that maybe I subconsciously, chewed it with my mouth open, and some cheese may have gotten in there some how while I fervently filed her nails. Back in the pedi bowl she goes, another 5 minutes and she's back out getting a second round of the nail brush. This time a direct hit under the nails to get the rest of the cheese out. Or so I thought, much like the dragon scales and dead skin it just seamed to reproduce as I scooped it out with an Orange wood stick. You guys still with me? Well anyway to by pass the blow by blow, there was a lot of cheese as you may have guessed. My instructors were proud of me, so much so that they gave me a nice little nick name to remind me of the torment I went through. Oh yeah, they named me Cheese-Whiz, I seen it coming. Now how fun is that? Lol. Now on to other things that make me smile. I should probably post a few pics of some cuts I have done. I think Ill do that as soon as I remember my camera at school. I hate to cut this short because I have so much more to post, but I promise Ill post more the next few days. Thanks for coming by!

Running with shears pt.3

The day started out just like any other, "Good morning ladies!" I say every morning when I check in. I clock in go towards the break room to hang up my coat then a walk to my station to get set up for the day. The day looked rather uneventful and the clock was not in my favor. I make small chit chat with my class mates and ask them how their weekends went, just the usual stuff really. Then I decide to go upstairs and study the material in this weeks theory class. The study of nails, sounds a little bit interesting right? After what seems like an eternity of trying to figure out a way to remember Onychauxis, I hear the call, "Matt your client is in, Matt." I put my things away and headed down stairs. I grab the ticket on my way to my station, and it reads Lacey Spriggs. So I prep for a ladies cut and go out to great her. Well it seems that I was way of the map on this one, Lacey was a man. He could see the surprise in my eyes when he stood up, and just smiled and said "I'm here." "It happens all the time" he goes on. So I re-prep my station bringing out the clippers and making small talk while I set up. It turns out that after some discussion he reveals that he will be receiving an award for his Brother Thurman Spriggs next month at Simpson college. Well my curiosity got the better of me and I asked "What for?" He went on to tell me that it is the George Washington Carver 2010 award, and it was being given to the 12 Tuskegee Airmen from Iowa. I was really put right next to myself, in that instance. He went on to tell me about his brother and how he wasn't able to make the trip from Virginia beach to accept the medal. Well I knew then and there I had to make him look sharp. A bald fade it was, as we exchanged war stories back and forth, I was like a little boy clinging to every word he had in his story. After a great deal of laughter, we continued to talk about the Olympics, and how much he enjoyed them this time around. The time seemed to fly by as he shaped up really quick. He pulled out a dollar and handed it in my direction. I told him that it just didn't seem right taking money from a fellow veteran, but he insisted. I walked him out gave him a firm handshake and told him to come back and see me. I really enjoyed cutting his hair. I cleaned up my area, and thought to myself that I was really proud to have him in my chair. Back up to the books I went. Round two, Paronychia, how will I ever remember that? Lunch time... and we're back. The books say we have 16 people coming in to get their hair put up for some type of student dance or whatever. So I mentally prepare myself for what I was about to endure. See my skills for up dos are really non-existent, but I'm brave enough to at least try and face my weaknesses. I hear one of the instructors downstairs, "a big yellow bus just pulled up, and I'm leaving!" she says. I gather every bit of courage I have and head down the stairs, only to see a big group of special needs kids sitting around. I was a bit confused for a moment, as I had prepared myself for up dos. I went to the counter and asked what was going on, they said there had been some kind of misunderstanding on the telephone. So they all loaded back on the bus and headed out. There was one guy just standing near the counter, and I almost said "you missed your bus". However I did reserve my comment and asked if there was anything I could do, they asked me if I wanted to cut this guys hair. It was down to his belt line it was so long. I gave them the deer in the headlights look after I seen how long it was. They told me it was for "Locks of Love", and immediately, I jumped at the opportunity to cut this guys hair. I better explain a bit about myself here for just a minute. I like kids, I like doing things for less fortunate kids. I'm also a Shriner clown in the circus and my favorite thing to do is hang out with the special needs kids, feed them tootsie rolls and enjoying the circus with them. So I have a huge heart when it comes to this sort of thing. So I told this guy, I need to prep my station and Ill come out and get him. He's a shy guy so he just nods and takes a seat. As I'm preparing my station I'm getting all water eyed, cause I think this just rocks, and I tell myself "Just hold yourself together Matt, its gonna be awesome!" I walked back and got my client and the paperwork and asked him why he was doing it. He gave little response, and just said, he needed it cut and just wanted to donate the hair to someone that could use it. My classmates all gathered around and wanted to watch. We put his hair into a ponytail and cut it off right at the back of his head. We took a couple of pics and Ill try and post them on here for your viewing pleasure. So after the big hacking off of the pony tail we started to discuss what he wanted to his hair to look like now that he didn't have the long hair anymore. He just told me he wanted about one inch all over. Well this guy had a pretty good sized head with fine hair, so I talked him into something a little more fitting for him, noting we can always go shorter if he didn't like the cut. So here we go, talking about what he likes to do, and getting to know Ben was not an easy task. he didn't want to give out any information at all. So I made a couple of remarks that I liked to play video games, and was having a couple problems in a few certain parts. That was all it took to get him to open up and tell me everything I needed to know about this game, and of course once you crack an egg, its easy to get it all out right? So after he told me about his gaming life, I asked him about family, his friends and that provided me all the time I needed to finish out his cut. So when he left he looked like this, I personally thought this was so much more fitting. Okay so the pics of Ben, are above the blog. It just goes to show you, you never know what is going to walk through that door. I cut a Veterans hair that will be accepting an award on behalf of his brother, one of 12 Tuskegee Airmen from Iowa, and a big hearted 20 year old that wanted to make a difference in someones life. I may have been struggling with the study of nails, but I had one heck of an awesome day. I hope yours was just as awesome, and thanks for stopping by!

Running with Shears pt2

Within 45 minutes of finishing my final, I heard my name called again over the intercom. "Matt your client is here, Matt". Oh my god man, so soon... Have they no mercy,... now what? So I prepared my station thinking to myself, "Maybe this will be an easy cut, yeah it will be a breeze I'm sure." I went out to greet my client and showed her to my station. It was a very sweet lady that had bleached her hair out several months ago with a friend. She had very fine hair with very uneven outgrowth. As I talked to her about what she wanted to do, her voice kept cutting out as I thought, Oh my.... What are we going to do with this. She didn't want it colored, she just wanted it cut. So after we finally got onto the same page, I got the attention of my instructor, and explained what she wanted to do. With a certain level of uncertainty I proceeded to the shampoo bowl. Between the slight paranoia and the "I'm about to freak out" feelings the shampoo went by very quickly. Back to the chair I started the 90 degree haircut. Cutting my guide I realized that the outgrowth was going to mess with me. Some winter brown and some very golden yellow. I lost my guide several times just on the top as the hair color provided the perfect camouflage or the occasion. Quickly deciding that fine hair wasn't going to be my specialty I found the guide and went about my business with the cut. After about 45 minutes of cutting I felt that I had finished the cut and had my instructor come inspect my work. The look on her face was completely clear, that I had messed up somewhere along the way. Swallowing the big lump in my throat I explained what I had done, and she inspected the cut. The cut was fine but it was the mixture of outgrowth and uneven bleached hair that made everything look uneven. She talked to the client, explaining what was going on and what we could do to color correct the hair to look good. She politely declined the color correction and said that in a couple of more cuts the prior bleaching would be all cut out. Agreeing with her, my instructor stamped off my ticket and went about her way. Now here is where the real fun begins. Have you ever seen someone uncoordinated try and do something you thought was funny? That's me with a brush and a blow dryer. Yep, I hate to say it but someone should host me some sort of telethon. I am in desperate need of a blow drying tutorial. As awkward as it was, her hair was super fine and dried quickly. I put just a bit of product in her hair, shaped her up the best I could and sent her on her way. As soon as she left I felt like collapsing because I was so relieved to be done with my first real client. The rush I had for the next several hours was very intoxicating. I told our receptionist that I wasn't scared to cut anymore, so she laughed in an evil kind of way and searched fervently as she scheduled my next appointment. The next day came and I was feeling pretty good about myself, "Matt, your client is here, Matt." I'm sure you get the picture of how this works by now. I went downstairs and prepped my station, envisioning long layers of hair and asking myself what would the Zohan do. I went to greet my client and to my surprise, he was a 3 three year old Dinosaur. Yep, I thought they were extinct too. He had his arms pulled up to his chest to shorten his arms, and screamed Rrrrraaaaaaaaaaarrrr! at the top of his lungs. I smiled, wiped the bead of sweat from my brow, and said "right this way". As he stalked right behind me, I felt as if I was part of the land of the lost crew, about to be eaten at any moment. I sat him up in my chair and asked dad what we wanted to do. He said, "just cut a little bit off the top, and clipper the sides, you know like a little boy hair cut." I felt like telling this man, you have a Dinosaur for a child.... but I decided to keep that to myself for the time being. I caped him up, sprayed him down and just about to make my first cut and Rrrraaaaaaaaaaaar! at himself in the mirror. His dad said, "Be good and sit still or you wont get any pop." Thinking, yeah feed him some more crack dad, get him all smacked out of his mind and take him to get his hair cut. I made a total of five unsuccessful attempts to cut his hair until I tried to engage in some form of dialog with this little dinosaur. I mentioned that I had a truck, and he seamed to be more interested in trying to lick himself in the mirror, than he was in my truck. So I called upon the wisdom of my instructor to teach me the Vulcan death grip to put this kid to sleep. She quickly arrived at my station and I was excited to see the Vulcan death grip in action, she put her hands out in a weird position, took my shears and the moment was coming, here it comes the Vulcan death Grip! And she starts to sing the ABC's... then the Barney song... then back to the ABC's. She has single handedly turned this little dinosaur into a little boy. I'm thinking to myself, "she is way better than David Copperfield." I felt so useless, I tried the Vulcan death grip on myself, and failed miserably. Shortly after that cut I felt as if I was in a military style debriefing meeting about how to cut little kids hair. Sing to them, give them the spray bottle, karate chop them in the neck, and send the parent to the waiting room. Writing down notes like I was a prepping for some sort of dissertation, I soaked it all in. My next few cuts were men's cuts, and they went by very quickly. It seems that my fading abilities are much better than my kids cutting abilities. Or so I thought, I had my first bald fade cut walk through the door. This was sure to challenge my fading skills. Even the instructor was a little nervous. I greeted him, escorted him to my station talked to him about what I could and could not do, and we got started. Using the number one guard on the top, I asked him if the top was short enough. Take it a little shorter he says. I remove the guard and pull back my lever to give him the full length of the clipper blade. He said that was fine, and that he wanted to have it faded up to the top of his head. Explaining to him that the clippers we have aren't that great of quality for this type of haircut and that I couldn't get that close, but I would do my best. Finishing out the cut the fade was pretty impressive and he wasn't pleased. He was very upset at the fact that I didn't have 12 sets of clippers to provide him with an edging and a super close bald fade, but was very pleased with what I had done, with what I had to work with. I called my instructor over and she talked to him for just a bit and explained that we were a school of cosmos and not barbers. She offered a little bit of lotion, or moisturizer and applied it to his head and sent him on his way. She told me good job, and signed off on my level sheet. Looking around the school, I can start to see why girls hate each other unless they are best friends. The drama they create is the worst I have ever seen. I have personally witnessed a girl say something to another girl, and that same girl goes and tells another girl something completely different. You know that game Telephone? Where you tell some one something and by the time it gets around the circle, its completely distorted from the original. That's what happens except at an incredibly fast rate, almost instantaneous. And these aren't young girls, these are single parents, that you would expect to be much more mature than that. No offense to single parents, but I now know why these girls are single. Because no man wants to deal with that kind of garbage. I find it amazing, and I personally think it should be on wild kingdom, or Animal Planet, Untamed and uncut. Meeeeeoooooow! But enough for now, as I have gone on and on, and need some food. Ill write more later. Thanks for stopping by!

I'll learn to cut hair...

Or so I thought I would. It seems its not a very easy thing to do these days, talking about changing careers. You see Im a class "A" Master Electrician, really fed up with being laid off, and some guy that's barely sober gets to stay and work. So after about 4 months of scraping side work together to make ends meet, my girl friend tells me I should become a hair stylist. I'm not sure if it was the anxiety I was having or the frustration of not having any work to keep me busy, so I belted out, "Don't push me woman! Ill do it." After about a month of doing that back and forth, we went to Las Vegas for the North American Hairstyling Awards (NAHA's) to support one of her co-workers in his nomination. During the next several months I had a rock star reception into the wonderful world of hair shows, and hair stylists. Collecting all of my ambition, I race to research the best schools here in Des Moines, Iowa. Using all of my resources I find that I have military money left for school, and look into the schools that will accept it. I come across the new Aveda Institute, and they had a beautiful school, but would not take my Montgomery G.I. Bill. The next in line was a drive up to Ames Iowa, to T.S.P.A, The Salon Professionals Academy. It was a school that had a decent reputation, but was just so far away to go to. La James institute was just down the road, so I went to check them out. I was not very impressed with them to be quite honest. It seemed that the longer you were in school the more money you had to pay. Then you had to bring in your own models to cut, to get credit for them. Something like that, so I kept on with my search. A good friend of my girl friend, told me to check out Iowa School of Beauty. Onward to ISB I told myself. Shortly after I arrived I got to tour the facility, and as aged as the school was something felt really comfortable as I walked through the halls. I meet the staff and genuinely felt that this was the place I wanted to go. I was sent home with a packet of info and a fist full of papers to fill out. I set out on a mission to collect and fill out all requested paperwork to turn in, along with a nominal twenty five dollar application fee. I quickly rescheduled another visit with the admissions director to schedule a start time to learn to cut hair. As I just missed the September class, I fervently signed my life away for the November class. During the next few weeks I day dreamed about being a platform artist on stage and how hard I was going to rock these cuts! Day in and day out, in my head, I planed shows and was proud that I was going to make it big in this industry. I must have watched every haircutting video out there on youtube and borrowed some videos from my friends just so I could have an edge over my classmates in November. With November rapidly approaching I gathered my school uniforms, black shirts, black pants, and black shoes. November 10th, Orientation...

Lets meet our instructors, as I waited for the rock music to start playing in my head, this lady came in and tells us all that she, had not washed her hair in two weeks. You know the sound a record makes when you scratch the needle off the record? Well thats what I had heard as well. She started rambling about how important it was to not wash your hair for three weeks. As I thought about those words her voice became muffled and faint as I thought about what she had said. Im thinking, "My god! Someone get this lady a bottle of shampoo stat! I cant learn how to care for and cut hair by a lady that does not even wash her own. Snapping back to reality, we had to introduce ourselves to the class. Remembering the last comments I had heard, I made it very clear that I washed my hair every night. Fast forwarding to day one, we were handed these sheets that told us about manicures and how to do them. We were whisked away to our basics room and was let off our chains to make it happen. Me being the only guy in the classroom, everyone was reluctant for me to touch their hands, well, cause quite honestly not many men do this sort of thing and I would be a little put off by the thought of having it happen to me. Making my way down the checklist of things to do, I make it through the day, only to return tomorrow for the same sort of thing, only of the Pedicure flavor on day 2. Day three, Updos, I finally get to touch some hair and show the world how much Im going to rock at this. After a quick demo by the worlds greatest instructors (note the sarcasm dripping off of that last statement) we were handed brand new Mannequin heads. They again handed out the sheet that tells you how to do an updo. I say to myself, "this is the moment I've been waiting for, all my anticipation came down to this moment of stardom." I look at the sheet, and instantly grabbed my bobby pins and started going to work. Hair was flipping out of control and bobby pins were flying all over the room. I kept this pace for just under three hours, and my frustration was weighing heavily on my mind. I had to take a break and walk away for a minute, or more like 15 minutes to walk around. I came back for round 2, and it miraculously was done for me. The superstar instructor was standing there waiting and asked me if I had done the completed work. I told her "not no, but hell no I didn't do that, who are you kidding?" She thanked me for being honest, and set me up to do something else for a bit. Lunchtime... I strolled out to my truck that I had driven from job site to job site and looked at the tools I had come to know all to well. And I thought, who am I kidding here? I'm an Electrician, not a hairstylist and had plans to quit cosmetology school that afternoon. Sitting there eating my McDonalds, I came to the conclusion that nobody likes a quitter, myself included. So I muscled up and made it through the day. I came home defeated that Friday night, and talked it over with my girl friend who has been a stylist for 11 years. And she asked me a series of questions that I could not answer. She asked about what I learned about a foundation, curler sets, and thermal styling techniques they taught us. So I told her what I did know, about them giving me a head with some hair on it and a sheet that described what we needed to do. Needless to say, she was not very happy with the ISB faculty. That Sunday she took me into her salon and showed me what I needed to know about a good foundation. After she showed me a few things I went on by myself, strange as it was, I could see the progress I was making as I made my way through the curls and placement. I could see a light at the end of the tunnel, I can do this! It seemed my new found super powers flung me through the next 7 weeks in no time flat. Looking around my class, I could see some jealousy rising as I was doing so well, and I haven't been playing with my hair since I was little. These girls were finally feeling the heat. Eight weeks though basics seemed like no time at all, and as I went down to the floor I felt a little under educated to be doing my final cut. I had a wonderful classmate of mine volunteer to get her hair cut, and I said I would be happy to do it. The morning came, and I set up my station to be ready. Within minutes of having my area prepared I heard my name being called over the intercom, "Matt, your client is here." I sprang from my seat and quickly greeted my client. After a brief consultation, I grabbed my instructor and explained what we were going to be doing. We got the green light, so I prepared her for a shampoo. Working the shampoo into a rich lather, massaging her head, I could see her enjoyment, as well as hear a few audible cues. Conditioning in the same manner, I could tell my instructors wanted their hair shampooed as well. A good rinse and we are off to my chair. I made short work of sectioning off her hair, and began a zero degree cut. She had super thick hair, and it provided a range of challenges for my first real cut. After I had the instructor look at the cut, she gave me the okay, and I started to blow dry her hair. 20 minutes later she was dry and round brushed out. Her hair looking healthy and beautiful, I got my final grade.

Sorry this is so long but I had to get you caught up to where I was a couple weeks ago. I'll fill in the rest tomorrow when I have more time.

Thanks for stopping by

Matt