…there are another half dozen or more pieces not pictured above that I’m submitting to the show, I should be well-represented and I’m looking forward to it. Here is the write-up:

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“The Art of Horror”
S.P.A.C.E. Gallery, 266 Pine Street, Suite 105

Throughout the month of October, S.P.A.C.E. Gallery goulishly presents “The Art of Horror.” A collection of nearly a dozen local dark-artists explore the musty recesses of their wickedly-creative closets and shake loose a few skeletons to startle and disturb the unsuspecting villagers with.

(You may come bearing pitchforks but please leave the torches at home)

This horror-themed art show will include pieces by: Beth Robinson, Kevin Montanaro, Mark Prent, Catherine Hall, Kitty Cake, Lila Rees, Aaron Reil, Justin Atherton, Lorraine Reynolds & more.

The Opening Party on October 1st from 5-9pm will host audio and visual nightmares assembled by the creeps at S.P.A.C.E., as well as a ghost walk to set the stage for this Halloween season. Admission is free and open to all ages, but those faint of heart or prone to fainting or hysterics might wish to consult with their doctor or priest prior to attending!

Opening Reception during October’s First Friday Art Walk, 5-9PM.
Open through October 31st, Thursdays- Saturdays 11AM-4PM.

Using AirBnB I rented THIS little dive on West 123rd. Just a hair under a hundred bucks a night, it’s insanely more affordable than your typical $300/ night NYC hotel room. The location was just about perfect considering that everything I was doing was within walkable distance, and anything NOT was accessed by the #1 or the A train just a around the corner. The neighborhood seems relatively quiet and safe, all things considered. It should all be pretty cool, right?

WELL, let me tell you, there were plenty of good things to mention in my review. I’ll start with the price and location. Both were acceptable, as noted above. I’ll also add that the neighborhood was relatively quiet (save for the energetic gospel choir I heard early Sunday morning, from the Baptist church right next door). The bed was OK, though the sheets were kinda crappy, and there were no roaches or mice. In a city as old as New York it’s not easy keeping roaches and mice out of even the nicer neighborhoods.

That aside, I was a little wary before getting there because a number of the reviews on the website involved complaints of the unit being overbooked, and people who paid good money for the room were either denied accommodations or bumped to one of the landlady’s less-desirable units, deeper into Harlem. What a surprise THAT would be for the unsuspecting tourist with limited knowledge of the city! I also noticed several people complaining about there being no air conditioning and that you had to ask for it, and then wait a day or two for it to be brought in. I’m guessing the owners hope to save money on electricity by making every tenant use AC for only a portion of their stay. I dunno though, it seems like most of the reviews are satisfied customers so I think by the law of averages my own experience should be just fine.

The email I got informed me that the key to the apartment would be in the mailbox. Seems a little weird, but OK. I get there and look in the mailbox and there were several keys, none of which being for my apartment. Ut oh. I’m so glad we’re all here early, since now we have to call the landlady and wait for her to come straighten everything out because everyone in our group is confused – the apartment is over-booked, and no one knows which room they are sleeping in.

After an hour Inna gets to the apartment, we sort everything out (though my Sister has to bunk with someone else) and figure out who gets what key. Our party gets most of the apartment building, and I suppose the others who also had our rooms were probably stuck in that other terrible apartment I mentioned. Oh well, better them than us! I open the front door with a key from the mailbox and inside we see a can filled with a dozen other keys. So much for the secure apartment. Dear West Harlem Residents: Apartment building with the front mailbox filled with keys, inside are 8 rooms containing flat-screen TVs and other appliances (but not many of them, I assure you), with no manager on premises. Happy birthday!

Walking through the filthy hallway I smell a mix of fuel oil and cleaning supplies, well the cleaning supplies are easily explained – there is a pile of cleaning supplies partially obstructing my door and filling the area with that ever-so-sexy sticky lemon, pine and bleach smell. That odor goes away when I let myself into the room, of course, because in the room there remains only the heavy smell of fuel oil. I suspect that I’m going to have dreams that I work for the railroad. Especially considering that I have no air conditioner in the room. Funny that, considering that the review from the couple who had the room before me mentioned they had to ask for the AC… and now it’s gone again. I guess I was right and that they remove it before each new tenant. Oh you crafty little… whatever you are, Russian? I can’t quite tell. I complain, it’s hot and I want the AC that the apartment was advertised as having. “We’ll get you one tomorrow.”

Off to a great start, let’s see what else is doing inside this tiny, tiny room. The rug in the advertising picture must have been stolen or destroyed (or put in a different room) because it’s not here now, only a comically-warped hardwood floor. I don’t care, I don’t need a rug, and the floor is mostly clean. The couch looks comfy, the bed is not completely uncomfortable, but the pillows feel like thin cotton sacks with 6 or 7 flattened lumpy beany babies inside. Good thing it’s so hot, because I’m sleeping with my head on a rolled-up comforter tonight.

Oh and I now know where the rest of the cleaning supplies are, they are on the OTHER side of the door, right here in my room, stacked up just to the left of the door in several Rubbermaid tubs. Hey cool, I Am the broom closet!

Another thing that strikes you immediately is just how basic this room is. There’s a couch, a bed, a TV, a door to the kitchen and bathroom I share with the room next door, and there’s a door to what passes for a patio. Four amenities that are in every hotel room are missing from this room: a trash can, a bedside table, a telephone and an alarm clock. This is the first room I’ve ever rented that didn’t have those four things. Another thing it didn’t have was an over-abundance of soft towels, shampoo and soap and mouthwash and toothpaste and after-shave and brill cream and fabric softener and marshmallows and all those other toiletries that you never fully use in a real hotel. I get a towel. A nice, cleanish bath towel. On request I also get a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo. Alright, now I’m good. I don’t need a clock or a phone because my cell phone has an alarm clock. Just need that internet and the cable TV.

We’ve established that the cable is bootlegged, stand outside and look up and you can see all the loose coaxials hanging down from the room, swaying in the wind, spliced into several other cables that are then inserted into holes in the wall where each of the rooms are situated. Nothing graceful about it, just a big flag flapping in the wind that heralds “Look! We’re stealing cable!” Like I care? I just want to fall asleep in front of some movie tonight. The cable box that the TV sits on top of is completely useless. Unplugged and without the necessary cables to make work, so I plug the cable line directly into the TV and enjoy the 75% Spanish programming. As for the internet, it’s basically an unsecured WiFi connection that comes from somewhere in the neighborhood, but the connection is mostly up and only occasionally down. Underneath the TV is a pile of equipment – cable box, router, cable modem, a few wires… all of which are disconnected and just kinda piled there for no reason. Even the TV remote is without batteries, I have to buy my own batteries for the thing. No minor detail is spared – they are ALL equally neglected!

That communal bathroom and kitchen? Really disgusting. The kitchen is well enough, though there is food in the fridge and cereal boxes on top of the fridge that belongs to neither me nor the people next door. Maybe that’s why there are no roaches or mice, they all climbed into these two open cereal boxes on top of the fridge, ate and ate and ate to their hearts content until they all died! I don’t even want to know what’s in those boxes, I really don’t. I’m not even IN the room right now as I write this and I don’t want to know what’s in those boxes.

As for the bathroom, I really think they’ve outdone themselves, with this and with ALL bathrooms in the building. This is really the best part, you want to settle in for this (but I’d not recommend getting popcorn). The bathmat rug-looking thing has clearly not been laundered in some time, it’s visibly dirty and I suspect the last tennants have just folded it in half and stepped down onto the UNDERside of the mat, because that’s the way it’s still folded. Looking at the dirty tile floor I’m really put to a tough decision: when I finish showering, do I step down onto the dirty bath mat, or do I step down onto the dirty tile floor? If I was given more than one towel for the whole weekend this wouldn’t be an issue, but I have to make this tough decision, and opt for the dirty tile floor. I’ve never owned a pair of flip-flops in my life (because they’re ugly and sleazy) but this very moment I’m wishing I had a pair.

The shower itself isn’t terribly clean, visible mildew on the inside of the sliding glass door (a door which doesn’t fit into the lower track of the shower, it just kinda hangs there). I don’t know how to get the water to a consistent temperature, because the two knobs make no sense. Here’s what I learned, if you turn the left knob (which feels like it’s about to fall off as you do so) hottish water dribbles out of the shower head. If you turn the right knob, even hotter water dribbles out of the shower head. I expected a shower that wasn’t hot enough, I would never in a million years expect that it would be a shower that was ONLY hot. My best option is to turn only the left knob on, and dash underneath the dribble just long enough to wet and to rinse myself, but not enough to scald myself. If the water pressure was any better, ironically, I would not be able to use this shower.

The toilet is another party. There was toilet paper thankfully enough, only because I brought my own. The seat was only sorta bolted down, so you kind of had to gently hover as you did your business and not swivel around too much. I flush, and the toilet clogs. Super duper. I call Inna on the phone “Hey, toilet’s clogged and there’s no plunger. Need fix, you help?” to which Inna replies “I call plumber, him be there later.” Fantastic, plumber probably come while me at park, and him fix toilet before me come back bed-sleep. This was not the case, however. Him never come, toilet never fix, Inna never explain.

There is a communal toilet on the second floor so I walk up there to see if there is a plunger. I find a plunger, as well as a sign above the toilet which reads “Do not flush toilet paper, it will clog. Use waste bin.” Sure enough, I look down and to the left of the toilet is a plastic waste basket, mostly filled with wadded up pieces of poopy toilet paper. Oh my god, whose poop is all of that? We all just got here! How old are all those pieces… there is just not enough hospital-grade disinfectant spray in the world to get me to put my naked ass on that toilet seat! I grab the plunger and flee. I plunge my own toilet, it flushes, and I am happy. Everyone agrees to be afraid of the bathroom upstairs. It’s like Room 237 in The Shining… you walk past the bathroom door and linger for a moment, looking at it with dread, then pedal past it just as quick as you can!

The air conditioner shows up Saturday night, it works, and is kinda loud. That loudness is a blessing, because it was the only thing that allowed me to sleep through the early morning services of the Saint Luke Baptist Church right next door. Once I woke up around 8:15 I could hear it though. It was amazing, I turned off my AC and opened the “patio” door so I could hear it better. You remember the scene in The Blues Brothers right? James Brown (who, incidentally, gained his fame at the Apollo Theater – located three blocks from this apartment) was the preacher, and everyone sang and danced and did acrobatics down the aisle? Well this church was just like that. Complete with the organ and the full, energetic choir and even the stereotypically-dramatic preacherman. It was really cool, actually. A semi-touristy experience I wouldn’t have gotten had I been in a hotel downtown. Here, see for yourself:

My final thoughts? Despite the way I describe it, it wasn’t a completely terrible experience for me. The room was extremely rough around the edges (to put it mildly) but nothing I couldn’t stand. Had the location been louder or more dangerous, or the room a bit more smelly or dirty, had there been roaches or mice or had I personally been bumped up to their apartment building on 145th street it would have been a completely different story. If I had to do it all over again I probably would. The location is good, the price is right, and I would know to bring my own pillows, my own towels, my own toilet paper and I would know to call a day or two before to make sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the room is not double-booked and there is an air conditioner in it.

However, next time I think I will opt to choose a different rental unit in the neighborhood. More to the point, I think I’ll stay downtown in the Holiday Inn Express (which is only 50 bucks more a night… this low price being a positive side-affect of the bad economy).

See that? That’s one-third of a small meat-lovers’ calzone from Ramunto’s in Williston, VT.  Yes, a third of a small, and stuffed more than an inch thick with copious amounts of pig and of cow, served with a small take-out tin of sauce. Good for dinner, followed by two consecutive left-over dinners later in the week.

We went to Ramunto’s after seeing a movie and I felt it was a perfect day for this monster. Imagine a large pizza topped with just about every piece of meat in the shop, as well as 3 times more cheese than necessary, folded in half and baked, then sold to a nerdy hairdresser for 12 bucks (followed by the obligatory food-related bloggering). It’s a thing of beauty, they could smack it onto a wall at the Louvre and I would probably buy the framed print of it in the gift shop.

I am determined to take a friend there one day and trick them into ordering a large.

I Netflix’d the movie this week out of morbid (pardon the pun) curiosity. Not a terrible movie really. Not really something I would put on a happy meal, but I can see where this might be this decade’s “Lost Boys” or “Vampire Lestat” for Millennial-generation teenage vampire nuts. Every decade needs a good horror movie, a good sci-fi movie, and a good teenage vampire movie.

I do, however, have two observations about the movie that I feel it necessary to point out. First, this is the very, VERY first tragically-hip gothy romantic teenager vampire movie in which the rock-n-roll gothy vampire stars are just plain crazy about playing baseball. Sorry for the spoiler but it’s true – these vampires like playing baseball. It’s a first – I mean vampires like going to dance clubs and proms, that much is assured. Any pick-up joint where a Dracula can go to leer “seductively” at all the girls to a techno-industrial beat is de rigueur, as is driving expensive sports cars or powerful motorcycles, and wearing darkly-colored clothing that is long enough to flap in the wind. These things are ordinary, but baseball? That addition is either ridiculous or brilliant.

Secondly, and most important, is the love story. It’s a movie/book series for teenage girls, you know it’s going to have a love story between a vamp and a mortal girl. That is the rules and it always has been the rules since the first words of Dracula were penned. Vampires live forever and ever and are always fairly old and from some romantic and exotic time and place in history where people read poetry and went to the opera and wore lace and velvet and no fratboys called them “Fag!!” Who is the love interest in this and other movies? Right – a teenage girl.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Now the main Vampire character is born in like 1900 or something (references to dying in the Spanish Flu pandemic are a clue), and the dame he’s all quivery and poetry-writey over is 17. Even for vampire people there HAS to be some kind of inner-reaction where you think “Ummmm, eww?” I mean there are pedophiles, and then there are PEH-DOE-FILES!!!!! announcing their illicit intentions with great big greasy neon signs and a sleazy little siren! “I’m gonna get me some strange with a dame more than 90 years my junior!”

Otherwise, not a bad movie. Not sure I want to see all the sequels or read the books – I have all kinds of other books and movies to be crazy nerdy obsessive over this year!

My first experience with that kind of thing involved a sip from my gran’dad’s glass of Strega. “Can I have a sip?” “Sure kid!” It tasted like pine trees and gasoline and burned my throat all the way down to my knees, and I’ve had the taste for the witch ever since.

It’s kinda funny when you think about it. Strega has a very strong, distinctive flavor that, to put it mildly, is completely selective about which palates it chooses to agree with. If I had a grandson who wanted a sip I’d absolutely give him a sip - just to see what sort of face he’ll make!

It’s been years since I’ve had a bottle, and it was quite a treasure hunt to find the stuff. No matter which Vermont liquor store we went to, it was never on a shelf. We asked if we could special order a bottle and they said “No.” What do you mean, No? Is there some legitimate reason why Vermont refuses to allow its citizenry this sticky yellow love potion? Vermont is weird when it comes to alcohol, I’ve never experienced anything like it anywhere else, so I didn’t bother to question the “why” and decided to look to other states for some Strega.

It was a passive search to be sure. We would be walking down some street in Maine, or New Hampshire, or Massachusetts and see a liquor store. “Hey Kev wanna check in there, maybe they have Strega?”  “Sure why not?” No luck. Even at Bunghole Liquors in Salem, MA. Seriously? No Strega in Salem?? The home of witchy tourism in America doesn’t sell a bottle of The Witch?

After a few years pass I decide that, as much as I enjoy this passive treasure hunt, I want to get a bottle. The last place I had a bottle was in New York, so I called a liquor store in the town where my mother lives and asked “Hey can I special order a bottle of Strega?” and they replied “Of course you can, don’t be ridiculous.” Easy-peasy.

Picked up my bottle at a family picnic this weekend and it’s now in my pantry cabinet. I only ever drink a couple small glasses at a time, and only occasionally, so I’m guessing this bottle will last me a number of years – and I know where to get the next one.

August Art Auction is your chance to support the arts and keep S.P.A.C.E. Gallery going for another year!

Bid on pieces (like those pictured above from John Brickels and Beth Robinson) and other local talents. The auction starts on Friday and continues online at www.augustartauction.com. The bidding will end at our closing reception, Thursday August 26th from 5-8.

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You can bid on my entered piece, “Batty,” at the folliwing URL:

http://augustartauction.com/2010/08/04/kevin-montanaro/

“At State Boards they’re going to expect you to roll your perm THIS way”

“Don’t hold your dryer like THAT, or they will flunk you at State Boards”

“Everyone does it -this- way but State Boards prefer you to learn it -this- way”

“Don’t do THAT at State Boards, whatever you DO! They will kill you!”

“If you turn out the lights and look into a mirror, and repeat ‘State Boards’ three times, when the lights turn on you will be denied your cosmetology license and your student loan rates will go up”

I dreaded these exams for the past 12 months to the day. Everyone dreads them, every student fears this day. It keeps us up at night and puts knots in our stomachs. However, as of this moment I will not need to lose sleep over this fateful day any longer. Or at least that SHOULD be the case, however the fact remains that no matter how much I study, how much I prepare or how well I paid attention in school, there is no way to be sure I passed this test. What’s worse – if I failed this test, I will never be told why.

Personally, I feel like I did an amazing job, yet the fact of the matter is that I have a 50-50 chance of failing this test. I get my results in 6-10 days, at which point I’ll know if I can start looking for work, or if I have to spend more money and wait another under-employed month (maybe two) to take the test again.

Here is the low-down. The State of Vermont outsources its licensing and examination of barbers, cosmetologists, nail technicians and aestheticians to a company in Minnesota. Love it or hate it, this external entity is the beast to appease. I spend a large sum of money on an 11-month education (which is around 2,000 dollars more than 11 months at the tuition-inflated University of Vermont), after which I pay $240.00 to this Minnesota company for admittance to the next available exam, a test to be held at a neighboring school. The practical portion of the exam takes about four hours (four long, stressful, silent hours), followed by a 130-question written exam. Once finished you get to go home and pretend you’ve passed. Still, it’s best leave all your testing material in that enormous 20-gallon storage bin you keep it in because you aren’t necessarily out of the woods yet! After 6 to 10 days, you will receive a notice telling you how you did on the test, whether you passed or failed, and which parts you will need to re-take before you can obtain your license.

I arrived at the testing location – I knew it was the testing location because of the laminated sign on the door: “Do Not Distrub(sic): Testing In Progress.” I have to be honest, cosmetologists have the absolute worst skills in English. Spelling, grammar – minor inconveniences. The comical irony in this is that cosmetology is one of those careers where precision and exactness are important. Everything is measured carefully, timed carefully, and checked for inequalities and mistakes to the minute detail. The same care, however, is almost never applied to their usage of the English language (written or spoken form). There was almost not a single sign at my school that didn’t have some form of negligence in spelling and/or grammar, but every head of hair would leave in a state of relative perfection. Anyway, back to the subject at hand.

Let me start by describing (in no illegal amount of detail, mind you) the written portion of the exam. 130 questions, multiple-choice questions, anything below 75% is a failing grade. Not too bad really, considering that I passed the mock-up of this exam that served as our final exam with a 97% I am just really not that worried about it.

Here’s the enormous flaw in my logic: I passed a similar exam where the questions originated from the curriculum I was taught, and the textbook from which I learned it. THIS test, however, is not entirely from my curriculum. The test was written with TWO separate textbooks as sources, both of which seem to have different wording for everything, and describe the tools and skills of the industry in different ways. It’s terribly disenchanting. I drilled myself sick with a 500-question mock examination, and read many, many highlighted passages from my textbook this past week – yet a great deal of the question on this test I had to make semi-educated guesses on because I was never tested on them before, and a lot of them I’m fairly certain I was never even taught.

I can’t be positive I was never taught many of these questions, but I may remind you that I missed very, VERY few days, I took a very active role with my education, and graduated at the very top of my class. SO, if I say I was not taught many of these questions – then I was not taught them.

This feeling was shared with one of the OTHER top students from my class that I took the test with. All we could do was to make our most educated guesses, and to hope for the best. The worst part is that, if we had to re-take the test, we really couldn’t know what to study in order to prepare. It was as if we went to someone ELSE’s school and took THEIR final exam. How do you prepare for that?

I don’t know that I got more than 25 questions wrong so I realistically SHOULD have passed this test quite handily. Still, I can’t say I’m entirely positive of that.

Now where the practical skills exam goes, that’s an even bigger reason to be unsettled. The four-hour exam is composed of thirteen separate skill tests, seven of which are considered “critical.” If you pass the overall skills exam but fail one of more of the critical sub-tests you need to re-take that particular critical area. To make matters even more difficult, it’s apparently quite easy to fail many of these tests. If you touch something in the wrong way (even glancingly), or don’t perform some of the simplest of tasks in a particular order, or don’t make the correct kind of eye contact with the grader, or don’t write the word “Implements” on a Ziploc bag marked “Blow-Dry Test: Sanitized and Disinfected Implements,” you stand the chance of completely failing the test with no warning whatsoever, and no indication you are about to do something that the State of Minnesota feels renders you a danger to public health and safety.

Yes, it really is that unrealistic. Welcome to the world of outsourced bureaucracy.

Wait, it gets worse. If you DO fail a particular section of the test, you are notified that you failed, but you are not told WHY you failed. Did I un-glove the wrong hand? Did I not sanitize my hands enough? Did I use my comb in the wrong fashion? Is there ANYTHING you can tell me that will keep me from repeating the same mistake over and over and over? Nope! All they can tell me is that it’s going to cost me an additional $90 to re-take a portion of the test, and that I have to re-apply to take that test. That’s not only money, but that is time I’ve lost as well. Possibly a lot of time. I will get notified within 10 days (Business days? Real days? I Don’t Know!!) if I have to re-take the test in August, however, the deadline for registration is in eight days. I have almost no chance of getting into the August exam and would have to wait until September to re-do whatever it is I need to re-do. There were five students there from the class that graduated five months ago, they had to re-take one or more of the tests. They can’t get work in this field until they get their license, can’t even really go and apply for jobs yet, how do they live in the meantime? How do they pay their student loans? How many MORE times do they need to take their tests before they can start applying for a job – a job that takes much longer to get in our current economy.

This is one of the worse ironies about the state boards in action. Look at me: I’ve just finished my tests, this bogeyman that loomed over me all year long. I can’t tell you any one thing I did wrong, I studied hard and I did as I was trained. The lady who acted as my grader was very nice, pleasant and personable, and I have no reason to feel she’s going to be malicious or overly-critical with regard to my immediate future. Right now I should be happy! I should be elated that this burden is off my shoulders, and that I can finally embark on my new life. Yet I am already in the mindset that I failed and failed miserably, and I am not happy. I’m not! I am stressed about it in fact, and I’m already trying to figure out how I can get into the August boards.

The bogeyman that is the Vermont/Minnesota State Boards is so great that I can’t even accept the very real possibility that I might have actually PASSED!

This is a really dysfunctional system, in my opinion. Not only are we the students kept in the dark about the testing specifics, our school is kept in the very same darkness. They don’t actually know all the information about the state boards, and as much transparency and accountability as they ask for, they are denied just about every request. This isn’t a matter of international espionage, this is about cutting hair! There is the mission to “Ensure the public safety is maintained” and I respect that mission, however, “Let them all swim in red tape” seems to be the more predominate mission.

I’ve paid a lot of money and spent a lot of hours in (purportedly) the best hair school in the area. I should be able to take these exams and walk out of school with a diploma AND a license in my hand, rather than going to the same exams shared by formally-schooled and independently-apprenticed cosmetologists alike.

Getting a cosmetology license in Vermont is the relative equivalent of spending four years at Rutgers but then having to take your final exams and get your diploma at Seton Hall. If our school is accredited to perform my first 1,500 hours, it should be able to provide the final five hours of testing. Public safety can be preserved without having to put so many roadblocks in our way. I’m bright. I’m methodical. I’m careful. There’s no reason I should be denied my license.

Only time will tell, but one thing remains the same: State Boards is a bogeyman that will continue to haunt me, even four weeks after school has finished.

I decided I would take this challenge and make it my own. To me, this was more than just a job training program. I was going to use this environment as a form of life re-training. I seated myself next to the most difficult girl in the class, in order to help me rebuild my patience and to practice stress management. I re-learned my people skills by building an extended rapport with one stranger after another – because a decade of cubicle existence eroded my social skills entirely. Going to a school 99% populated by young women and gay men put me well outside my comfort zone (only to the extent, mind you, that it rendered me the gross minority… lest anyone think I’m uncomfortable around women or gay men!), as did the particular social environment a cosmetology school contains – but I avoided closing myself off to it, or putting up emotional barriers, so that I could expand my resilience and my adaptability.

It’s a start, really, but I feel as though I’ve made some personal progress. I do recognize that this field is one in which you need to be “On” while on the job. By “On” I mean you can’t just settle into your cubicle and tack-tack-tack on your computer until the day is finished. At a salon job you are on your feet both physically AND mentally! Your skills can be the best but you’re not going to make any money if you can’t play your social game up to the nines! Put yourself in the salon chair… who are YOU going to recommend to all your friends? The quiet one who gives you a nice haircut but seems somewhat unapproachable, or are you going to recommend that guy who is personable, funny, friendly, and just exudes confidence? It’s a mental game, and as ridiculous as it may seem, it’s almost MORE important for me to put on the “walking-party” mindset than to focus on my actual skills.

This is the part I find the most difficult. I’ve become more task-oriented over the years, and focused much less on my social skills, so it’s very tiresome for me to be “on” for an extended amount of time. However, the more I do it, the better I perform. The better I perform, the more clients I get, and the more products and services I sell, and ultimately – the more fun I have while at work. That would be nice. It’s been some time since I’ve had much fun at work.

So I am now a graduate. That’s a term I didn’t think would ever be attached to my person. I had always figured my days of being enrolled in full-time school were behind me. I didn’t think I’d ever have “classmates” or “educators” again, and I really didn’t think I’d ever have a dress code again! It was like a throwback to my Catholic school education! I’ll be honest with you – I really enjoyed being a student again. You would think that a man my age would be reminded of his age when surrounded by 18, 19 and 20-year-old school “kids,” not the case – it made me feel much younger. I was as old or older than almost all my educators but I felt like I was every bit the 20-something I was when last I was in school. Isn’t that something? I wasn’t teaching or leading, I was just able to sit back and learn new things. I was making new friends, pulling a prank or two, and all I could think was “I wish I had done this 10 years sooner!”

Near the end most of my fellow students had the mindset of “Can’t wait to get outa THIS place!” I  too was looking forward to leaving, but a part of me was wishing I could stay just a little bit longer. I left the campus feeling a weird sort of bond with the school I was walking away from. It was partly due to the 60+ students I had made friends with, and it was partly due to the dozen (give or take) educators and administrators I had gotten to know and respect, but it was also because of the way school, as an institution, made me feel about myself. 11 months ago I had walked into those glass double-doors a somewhat defeated man, and 11 months later I walked out with a new lease on life. One with new aspirations to fulfill, new goals to achieve, and all-new possibilities to discover.

I was a motorcycle-riding, college semi-educated, post-punk computer nerd who woke up one day and decided to go to beauty school. I had no idea how it all would end, but I knew this was going to be a story I just had to write and to publish! Undoubtedly I will further document my new career as it unfolds, but for now I have completed my 1,500′th hour, and I have to close this book.

Sorry, it’s state law.

“I can’t help you.” I was stunned, not five minutes after sitting at the counselor’s desk I had all the wind taken out of my sails. “We don’t have a shortage of carpenters in the area, so I can’t help you. Have you got anything else?” Anything else? This was my result of soul-searching, thoughts and reflections on the dreams for the rest of my life (or at least the next 30 years). I didn’t come with a “runner-up” plan in mind. “Think of something else and call us back.”

I never sought outside help after that. It was a little demoralizing – I mean I wasn’t asking to be a movie star, I just wanted an ordinary job swinging a hammer. So I kinda felt like I was on my own., if you want something you’ll have to figure it out yourself, because the world has nothing to gain by giving a leg-up to someone like me. Or at least that’s where my mind was at the time.

So over the next 20 years I just did the best I could. Continued that minimum wage job, then transitioned into another job with slightly better pay and better prospects at building a skill-set. Within a year or so I became the manager at that job, and then left that job to an even better one. Then a better one after that, onward and upward as best as I could muster. Took some classes, made some contacts, and eventually I was making a good living as an independent designer as well as a part-time wage earner in the same. Not the BEST possible situation, and certainly not the most secure profession, but it was leaps and bounds above sweeping out movie theaters or stocking warehouse shelves for minimum wage.

Then the economy took a nosedive. I lost a good number of my freelance gigs as well as my part-time wage job, and was left in a tapped market possessing 12 years’ worth of honed skills that nobody wanted anymore. GREAT! Super-Duper! What do I do NOW? Go back to sweeping out movie theaters?

Ironically, this was all for the best. The fact is, as much as I enjoyed the relative financial “stability” I was getting a little burned-out on it all. I was beginning to feel like I had 20 years ago, when I wanted work swinging a hammer. I wanted an honest, non-gimmicky job that served a rudimentary purpose that a wide swath of population actually NEEDED. Unfortunately, I had spent the last 15 years or so nursing a cubicle and a computer, and was no longer built to swing a hammer for a living. Still, I wanted work that required a kit of tools, and not just software and a cubicle.

My search, as we know by now, brought me to the Salon Professional Academy… to cut and style hair for a living. Something I never EVER thought I would see myself doing, but here we are – 1,500 course hours later, and I’m very happy with my decision. As much as I enjoyed swinging a hammer, I had remembered that I ALSO enjoyed my exploits as an amateur hair person in the 80’s. I had completely forgotten about this side of me, but when I was a punk kid I was the guy who cut and dyed everyone’s hair. I was the one with the Oster electric clipper and the sculptor’s brain. We shoplifted hair peroxide and mixed it with ink and food coloring (because “Manic Panic” didn’t exist in our world), or used more organic compounds, like beet juice, to color everyone’s hair unnatural shades. From my kitchen I would send out into the world a series of blue, green, red and purple mohawks, toasterheads, cactus bristles and Chelsea fringe. However did I forget doing that?

(To Be Continued…)