Archive for March, 2007
WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton aspires to become the United States’ first female president, Barack Obama the first African-American to win the office, and one has only to throw a cyber-stick to find the latest ruminations on whether we Americans are truly “ready” for such a revolutionary moment.
Yet for all the attention paid to the ostensibly irrelevant criteria of sex and race, few have focused on the related question of another potential “first” that threatens to raise its (ugly? you decide) head during this presidential cycle: namely, whether we are ready for our first bald president — or at least the first in the age of what historians call “the television presidency.”
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The sudden prominence in national and local polling of G.O.P. contenders Rudy Giuliani and the as-yet-unannounced Fred Thompson suggest we may soon, for the first time in almost half a century, hail a follically challenged chief executive.
In Giuliani’s case, what was, for about a decade, an unpardonable comb-over was suddenly transformed, shortly after the death of the former mayor’s mother, into a more accepting and natural-looking sweep-back. Seldom do professional politicians behave in more overtly Freudian fashion, especially when it comes to matters of fashion.
March 28th, 2007
Editor’s Note: for a look at what’s taken place so far, click on:http://www.huntingtonnews.net/columns/070224-spire-myst.html
The following week at work brought a busy Monday morning for Trevor as he prepared for the afternoon show. Trevor’s office - -if one could call it that — was literally a former closet where the radio engineers used to keep some of their tools and electrical wires.
To make room for Trevor, the engineers had grudgingly cleaned up this spot and even added a coat of strange, bright orangey-pink paint to the walls. After a desk and some table lamps were added, along with Trevor’s framed black-and-white photograph of Winston Churchill, it made for a suitable crawlspace for the young talk radio host.
With his feet up on his little gray metal desk, Trevor was looking up a possible expert on the internet to have on the show. He was buzzed by the intercom system on his phone.
‘Trevor?’ said the now familiar soft voice of Brigit, the extremely fit 35 year old blonde receptionist.
Trevor cleared his throat before answering, ‘Uh, yes?’
‘There is a gentleman here to see you in the lobby,’ she replied, even more gently, with what Trevor imagined might be a little flirtatious lilt.
‘OK, be right down,’ said Trevor, taking a last look at the computer screen before letting his feet fall heavily on the floor, and heading downstairs. As he went, he tucked in his powder blue oxford shirt that had been spilling out under his gray, crew-neck argyle sweater onto his jeans. He liked to take the stairs two at a time as he had done since he was a young boy.
***************
While waiting at the receptionist’s desk, a sixty-year old man with a bristly white mustache and thick rimless glasses flirted innocently with Brigit. He leaned on the receptionist desk in his gray windbreaker that matched his metallic hair. Brigit twirled her golden locks again and again while laughing at the older man’s lines, knowing that he was absolutely harmless yet charming nonetheless.
‘So why aren’t you married yet, my love?’ said the shortish, lean male visitor. ‘I do not see a wedding band!’
‘Still waiting for Mr. Goodbar, I suppose,’ Brigit said mock-shyly. ‘Could you be the one?’ She pinched his cheek, leaving his entire face flushed. At that very moment, Trevor bounded through the stairwell door.
‘What’s this, what’s this, Brigit?’ he asked laughingly. ‘Found another boyfriend, have you?’
‘Just checking the elasticity of this fine gentleman’s skin,’ she said, patting lightly the same cheek. ‘Good skin, too. Smooth. Say what’s your name anyway, mister?’
‘My friends call me Jude,’ announced the man as soon as he gathered his thoughts from his brief reverie. He took the hand Brigid presented and kissed it in a courtly old world manner, then shook hands vigorously with Trevor.
‘Nice to meet you, Jude,’ said Trevor. ‘You wanted to see me? I’m a little busy getting ready for the show. Do you listen in the afternoons?’
‘Oh, I should say I do, Mr. Ridgeway!’ said Jude. ‘Don’t you recognize my voice?’
Trevor racked his brain. There was a certain weird familiarity to it, but where? ‘Are you a caller?’
‘Mr. Ridgeway!’ Jude exclaimed. ‘Let me remind you. It’s so sad to see a young man with early memory loss. I believe you said that I no doubt enjoyed reading ‘Mother Jones’ magazine….’
‘Aha! So you’re the one,’ said Trevor, his smile broadening at the recognition of this sparring partner from the day before. ‘Now you know how to fence, sir. It is a pleasure to meet you.’ He bowed only half-mockingly, as finding a worthy debater was a great find in talk radio. It made for a better show when sparks flew.
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‘Yes, yes, Mr. Ridgeway, I have been listening to your conservative banter, and while I have to wonder about such old ideas with such a young voice, nevertheless, I find myself listening anyway,’ said Jude, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Talk radio! What a concept.’
Trevor looked over at Brigit who was listening intently to every word Jude said. She had never heard an accent like that before. Was it from New England? New York? It sure wasn’t West Virginian, that was for sure.
Before Trevor could mount a spirited defense of his chosen career, Jude beat his time. ‘Mr. Ridgeway, I would like to take you to lunch sometime and get to know you better. I like a good conversation, and I think we can actually be civil over a meal, especially if I’m paying.’
Trevor had not had a listener offer to take him to lunch yet and was flattered. ‘Sure, Jude,’ he said. ‘How’s tomorrow for you. I’m free between 11:00 and 1:00.’
‘Alright, then 12:00 high noon then, Mr. Ridgeway,’ said Jude, who added with a mischievous glint towards Brigit. ‘Don’t worry, my love, I’ll be back for you another day.’ Brigit winked at him.
‘Say, what’s your last name anyway?’ said Trevor, smoothing his red hair over his head. ‘And you don’t have to call me Mr. Ridgeway, you know. Call me Trev.’
‘OK, Trev. I may still use the more formal ‘Mr. Ridgeway’ on the air, but off the air, Trev is fine,’ said Jude. ‘My last name is Kroller, you know, like the specialty cream cheese they use on bagels?’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Trevor, having never heard of such a thing in his life.
‘Yeah. So I’ll just come by here tomorrow around noon and pick you up,’ said Jude. ‘I’ll have the beat up little blue Honda you see out there. Ten years old and 180,000 miles but still going strong! Just like its owner….’
And with that, Jude pumped his right arm in the air and was off, pushing through the door with his left arm, heading down the sidewalk to his car. Trevor and Brigit laughed out loud but in an admiring way.
‘The old boy sure has a lot of personality, doesn’t he?’ said Trev to Brigit, trying hard to look only at her eyes.
‘Yes, what a character,’ Brigit rejoined with a lilt. ‘I like him. He knows how to talk to a woman. Something the men around here could learn.’ She immediately started her typing and didn’t look up.
Trevor took his cue and walked up stairs, wondering what had gotten this Jude Kroller’s attention enough to ask him to lunch. ‘Funny fellow,’ he said to himself, smiling as he plopped back down in his office chair and researched for the next show, kicking his legs up on his little metal desk.
March 27th, 2007
The only physician east of the Mississippi to perform a revolutionary hair replacement procedure is helping a man recover from the trauma of a fire that killed 100 people.
Dr. Mark DiStefano, of the DiStefano Hair Restoration Center in Bedford and Worcester, Mass., learned this new technique, called a Triple-Flap procedure, from the French doctor who pioneered it. He now teaches it at conferences in the U.S.
DiStefano graduated from St. Anselm College, attended Georgetown University Medical School and then worked as a surgeon for about 18 years specializing in emergency medicine.
At 42 he decided it was time for a change and saner working hours, and after his brother had a hair transplant, DiStefano looked into hair restoration.
About 12 years ago he founded the DiStefano Hair Restoration Center on Palomino Lane in Bedford and another office in Worcester and has since performed 4,500 procedures.
His excitement over this new field was contagious: in 2002, his wife Mary Wendel, also a doctor, opened the country’s only medical center specializing in women’s hair loss, with offices in Worcester and Newton, Mass.
“A lot of what I do now is not a lot different from emergency medicine,? DiStefano said, in terms of painstaking surgery. He’s also a clinical instructor in plastic surgery at the University of Massachusetts.
As a member of the pro-bono foundation of the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, Dr. DiStefano called upon all his skills to help John Mangan, a survivor of the deadly 2003 fire at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island.
For the 41-year-old security guard, the surgery’s benefits go way beyond the cosmetic.
“I don’t know how I got out? of the nightclub once it went up in flames, Mangan said. He’d gone there with three friends and was the most seriously injured.
“The top of my head, my face, my ears, the backs of my hands and backs of both shoulders were badly burned. My friends helped rescue me, but I don’t remember anything until I was outside.?
He was on a respirator for almost a month, due to damage from smoke inhalation, and was still being treated for lung damage when he began investigating hair restoration.
“But I found out that people would have been able to notice even the best hair transplant,? Mangan said. Plus, even if he found someone willing to take him on, he couldn’t afford the $10,000 or more it would cost.
For Mangan, the appearance of his scarred scalp was only part of the problem.
“Every time I looked in the mirror I knew why I lost my hair,? he said.
Then he heard about Dr. DiStefano, who told him about the triple flap procedure, and also suggested that if he couldn’t afford it, the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery program might be an option.
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“The top of his head was burned off,? DiStefano said, almost in the same pattern as typical male baldness.
There are a lot of emotions around losing hair, the doctor said, but in Mangan’s case, the continuing impact of seeing his injuries daily was especially devastating. But this was no typical hair restoration job.
“It was a lot tougher than normal because of the scar tissue; it was like a layer of connective tissue that adhered to the skull,? DiStefano said.
The surgeon had to cut the scar tissue off. The extent of the scalp damage and the complication of the scar tissue made Mangan a good candidate for the triple flap procedure.
Doctors typically rely on “harvesting? hair follicles from a “donor area? on the patient’s scalp, most often from the back of the head, and transplanting them to the sparse areas.
“But John didn’t have a lot of donor area? due to the extent of his injuries.
The triple flap procedure involves stretching the scalp over eight weeks using a device placed under the skin that is undetectable. Then three flaps of hair-bearing skin are rearranged and put in place. There is no scarring, and hair on the crown is as dense on the sides and the back of the head. The hair grows in the right direction and looks normal.
Mangan said after each extender treatment was done, his scalp felt tight for the first couple of days but then felt fine. He started treatment in December 2005, and the final surgery was in May.
Mangan, who had been wearing a hat all the time anyway, continued to wear one during the months-long treatment.
Now he no longer wears hats and is letting his hair grow out. And he didn’t have to pay a dime for his extensive surgery.
The triple flap procedure is not for everyone, DiStefano said, but in cases of trauma and some birth defects, it may be the only option.
The aim of all permanent hair restoration procedures, which can cost $8,000 to $10,000, is to make a head of hair look like nature did it. That is, not lined up in rows like a cornfield.
“The key is to have the hair fall at the right angle, in the right direction and to have natural irregularity,? DiStefano said.
Although he can transplant up to 4,000 “follicular units? at a time, DiStefano said, many patients require more than one procedure to get the look they want.
March 15th, 2007
Late in life, weary of practicing juvenile law, I complete a Ph.D. in English and become a visiting faculty member at Semi-Rural Midwest University — not its real name. While teaching at SRMU, I interview for a tenure-track position at a public, Midwestern research university. Let’s call it the University of Generica. Unlike SRMU, UG offers potential for permanence, promotion, and retirement benefits.
At the appointed hour on an early March afternoon, I arrive at the search-committee chairman’s office and say, “Hello, I’m Gaynell Gavin.”
Mr. A stares and exclaims, “You’re kidding me!” Given the abundance of academic-interview horror stories, I barely wonder about this cryptic comment. I’d heard recently of a search-committee chairman who took a colleague’s hand after an interview and asked if she thought Willa Cather had ever had an orgasm. So, unfazed, I assure Mr. A that I would not kid him about my identity. Mr. A recovers, and we have a pleasant chat. He is tall, balding, with some sandy hair and a personable smile. Soon the deputy department chairman, Ms. B, arrives.
Ms. B has short gray hair and a direct manner. Given the importance of race to my ensuing narrative, I’ll mention that both of these professors are phenotypically white. Ms. B is Jewish. I like her immediately, and her research on the Holocaust interests me. Over dinner at an Indian restaurant, we discuss the Nazis’ success at concealing their sexual enslavement of Jewish women, and though Ms. B says that phenomenon is known among Holocaust scholars, we agree that it is not recognized generally in popular culture. An Asian-Indian search-committee member joins us. I am unsure how he is constructed racially in the United States — it gets hard to keep track of racial constructs — so I’ll just say that Mr. C is brown, similar in color to my son. I like all three of these potential colleagues immensely.
When we return to the campus, phenotypically white search-committee member Mr. D joins us outside the writing classroom where I am to do my teaching demonstration. The class goes well: Students are diverse in age and ethnicity, and I can feel the students’ engagement and that of my observers.
As he drives me to my motel, Mr. D, who is Belgian, comments on what a good group of students UG has and how well the teaching demonstration went. He continues, “I can’t believe, though, what we put job candidates through now for this kind of job. You’d think we were paying more than very modest salaries.” I reply that surely no one goes into the humanities in academe to get rich. Mr. D agrees but observes that, for many immigrant academics, the United States offers class mobility not available in their own countries. He gives himself and Mr. E, the phenotypically white British department chairman, as examples.
The next morning, I meet phenotypically black African search-committee member Ms. F for breakfast and a ride to the campus. She is a tall, attractive woman with dreadlocks, from Sierra Leone. She does a double take when I introduce myself in the lobby, but we enjoy our meal together. Back at her office, she introduces me to phenotypically black Somalian Mr. G, who has just finished his Ph.D. at UG and accepted a faculty position at another university. He escorts me to my meeting with the dean and associate dean of the college.
When we arrive in the dean’s reception area, the phenotypically white associate dean emerges from his office, shakes Mr. G’s hand, and, in a distinctly British accent says, “Oh, hello there. You’re the new job candidate, are you?”
“No.” Mr. G gestures toward me. “Ms. Gavin is the job candidate.”
The befuddled associate dean shifts his gaze to me and says, “Oh, sorry, dear,” extending his hand.
Is he sorry for his mistake or sorry that I’m the job candidate? I wonder how he could have made this mistake: Mr. G seems bright and perfectly nice, but he is still wearing his grad-student garb of ragged jeans, sweatshirt, and stocking cap, while I am dressed for success in a tailored black suit with an appropriately formal blouse. I take Associate Dean Sorry Dear’s hand and assure him he need not be sorry. He escorts me into the office of the dean, Ms. I, a phenotypically black African-American.
She immediately puts me at ease, as we discuss shared research interests. I like her. But she dies unexpectedly a few days later. In the meantime, Somalian Mr. G reappears to whisk me off for my departmental presentation, which is well received, as are my responses to questions. Jewish Ms. B and Asian-Indian Mr. C are enthusiastic, as is the phenotypically white professor in whose class I did my teaching demonstration. After lunch it is time to meet with the department chairman and deputy chairman, British Mr. E and Jewish Ms. B. We sit around a small table, and the department chairman outlines a preliminary tenure plan. Then it is time for the day’s last meeting with him and the search committee. Leaving to teach, Ms. B excuses herself.
Like Dean Sorry Dear, Mr. E is a chatty, smiley, gray-haired British gent. He and I move to a conference room with a long table. My hour here goes splendidly until almost the end, when Mr. E says, “I have one last question for you that you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
I go on high alert, maintaining external composure as alarm bells ring internally. What I do not say: I do have to answer if I want any chance of getting this job. What I do say: “Yes?”
Mr. E smiles benevolently. “With the exception of two women and two people of color, we are a department of nearly all white male faculty members at an institution with an ethnically diverse student body that includes a large number of African-American students.”
What I do not say: Well, you white guys sat around hiring each other for decades, and you didn’t consult me. Not a single one of the “people of color” you mention is African-American. Although I am clearly very well qualified, is it your plan to try fixing this mess at my expense, and are you asking me to help you feel OK about it?
Notably, Mr. E’s reference to two women and two people of color equals not four individuals but three, since Ms. F is both a woman and a person of color. Mr. E is rolling along. “How do you feel about a nearly-all-white department teaching our diverse student body?”
In the silent but palpable tension that fills the room, I decide to tell the truth — not the whole truth, but the part my interlocutor wants to hear — so I reply, “I think it’s an issue.”
Mr. E continues in his benign British lilt, “Why do you say it’s an issue?”
“I believe it is in the interests of a diverse student body to see diversity reflected among the faculty members.”
Mr. E is beaming; search-committee members are not. Belgian Mr. D, who pointed out last evening the class mobility not available to himself and Mr. E in their own countries but attained in the United States, intervenes: “I want to thank the committee for struggling with this issue.” He looks directly at me. “Further, I want to thank you for the courage and honesty of your answers.”
I start to feel relief that this phase of the ordeal seems to be ending, but African Ms. F says: “I see you are very sensitive to issues of racial justice, but I have to tell you that you remind me of my missionary teacher in Sierra Leone — your skin, your eyes, your hair — my God, you even dress like she did. When I look at you, I just feel a huge disconnect!”
What I do not say: And what might your therapist say on this subject? Do you feel a huge disconnect when you look at the skin, eyes, and hair of your department chairman, whose country colonized yours, Mr. C’s (India), mine (the United States), that of my Irish ancestors, and much of the rest of the world?
Ms. F races on, “Don’t you think it’s odd that we have no African-Americans in this department? I am not African-American. I am African.” Her voice rises. “We try to recruit African-Americans, but it’s even harder to retain them than to recruit them. There are so few in higher education that they get hired away. I’ve been on nine search committees, and I’m not going to be on any more.”
What I do not say: Shouldn’t we be talking about educational and other social policies that tend to ensure that few African-Americans make it into postsecondary education? What I do say: “I understand that this issue is difficult, but as an outsider, I am not in a position to give substantive guidance in this instance. You are the ones with decision-making authority, and you are the ones who must exercise that authority.”
Asian-Indian Mr. C (one of the two “people of color” to whom the department chairman referred a few fateful minutes earlier) is sitting next to me. He leans forward a little and speaks to me: “You have shown nothing but integrity while you have been here, and it has moved me. Thank you.” I appreciate his kind words but remain shocked as everyone — even African Ms. F — bids me a warm farewell. Might she forgive my resemblance to her missionary teacher?
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Jewish Ms. B returns from teaching, blissfully unaware of the debacle she has missed. She walks me to my car, saying how glad she is that my visit went well. I consider throwing myself into her arms and sobbing but restrain myself.
As I drive 150 dazed miles back to the little apartment I rent, the surprise of the British department chairman and African Ms. F upon seeing me and Mr. Sorry Dear’s mistake about my identity start to add up. In a country where, admittedly or not, white remains the norm, why would the search-committee members have presumed that I was black? I can only guess. Perhaps my recommendation from an African-American-studies director primed their expectations. Maybe they assumed that someone who does research on the construction of race and whose courses include African-American literature is black. Perhaps some of them (consciously or not) consider African-American literature inferior and cannot imagine a white person teaching it. Or maybe, as has been suggested to me, my name, Gaynell, “sounds black.”
There are reasons I’ve been so dense. Before being invited to UG’s campus, I mentioned being a member of a mixed-race family during a telephone interview, when I was asked whether I’m comfortable in an ethnically diverse environment. True, we didn’t discuss my family’s racial composition; but I did submit a published essay, required as part of my application materials, in which I identified myself as a white member of a mixed-race family, and — silly me — I figured some search-committee member would read it.
En route to my apartment, I call the man with whom I lived before moving to my current campus, and who is planning to move with me if I get the job at UG. Like Ms. B, he is a Jewish adult child of Holocaust survivors. After my tearful tale, he says, “I don’t want to move hundreds of miles with my children to be with you in that job. And honey, you don’t want that job.”
“Yes, I do,” I wail. “Things just got a little crazy at the end.”
I call a friend, a professor who finds my story over the top even as academic horror stories go. “Look,” she says, “it’s good this stuff came up while you were there, so you could address it. They were obviously very comfortable with you. They think of you as an insider, as one of them already. Their inappropriateness is a hideously strange compliment. I think they’ll offer you the job.” She tries to lift my spirits by introducing a little round of our favorite game, Did You Say? “Did you say, I have octoroon grandchildren?”
For once, I am too dispirited even to play Did You Say? I respond literally. “In the postmodern bauble-ization of race, I have some value as a departmental diversity bauble because, in that blood quantum system, my grandchildren are quadroons; they should be even more impressive than octoroons, and my son is mulatto — now there’s an endearing term.”
I turn to my yoga-teaching sister. “Your problem,” she says, “is that, with all your degrees, you never learned to lie. When the department chairman brought up race, you should have said, ‘Well let me complicate that question.’ Academics love to complicate everything. Then you should have said, ‘My paternal great-grandfather was black. My research and writing explore what it means to be a blond, blue-eyed woman who appears white but is descended from a black grandparent, and, of course, under this country’s traditional one-drop rule, I am black.’ Then,” my sister adds, “that Brit-boy department chairman… ”
I interrupt, ” … would’ve dropped on his knees to kiss my shiny white heinie …”
” … and hired you on the spot,” my sister concludes.
I do a small, informal, unscientific phone survey. A friend tells me that she was on a search committee when an interviewee for a faculty position in African-American studies identified herself as biracial. The search committee’s attention was consumed in a covert attempt to determine her precise racial composition, and the applicant was pronounced by an omniscient search-committee member to be “white passing as black.” A mixed-blood professor of Native American studies says that she always straightened her naturally curly hair while on the job market to “look more Indian.” A Latina friend with coloring similar to mine — light hair, skin, and eyes — says it hurts her in the academic job market to be perceived as white, despite her Latina surname. A phenotypically Latina friend confirms that academic ethnic chic increased her marketability as long as she played by the rules of ghettoization. “My area was Romantic lit until my mentors convinced me to switch to Chicana lit to be sure I’d get a job,” she reminds me. “It worked.”
Another colleague reveals that he was urged by mentors to mention his slight American Indian ancestry in his application cover letter; he mentioned it as a factor contributing to his interest in ethnic American literatures. “My interview went great,” he reports, “and the search-committee chairman is great, but we’re sitting alone in his office, and he says, ‘So, tell me more about your Native American heritage.’ I say that although it has contributed to my scholarly interests, it is only one small part of my ancestry and life. The chairman says, ‘Well, it’s good we have that because without it, you’re just another white guy.’”
A few weeks later, the chairman of the search committee calls to say that the death of their dean has slowed everything down, but that the hiring process is still moving forward. He tells me that the search committee was impressed with me, and that I should be hearing from them before the end of the month. But despite the committee chairman’s reassuring message, I worry, because with the dean gone, Associate Dean Sorry Dear may be in charge.
Well into the following month, the search-committee chairman calls again to tell me that, although the committee had recommended me, an offer has been made to someone else.
I thank him like the good girl I’ve been taught to be. A week later, I write to the UG provost telling her that as a proponent of well-planned, well-implemented affirmative action for equal opportunity, I offer my experience, which might indicate room for improvement in UG’s hiring practices. I do not mention a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on academic admissions indicating that, while race may be one factor considered in admissions, it may not be the sole or overwhelmingly determinative factor, nor do I suggest to her that the same might apply to faculty hiring. In reply, the provost writes, “I am in receipt of your letter. I have passed it on to the new interim dean. Thank you for your interest.”
I should have some dispassionate intellectual interest in the paradox of privilege and its loss, but my professional detachment fades when I look at a photo my son has sent. My 4-year-old granddaughter, wearing a bright pink skirt and rainbow-colored poncho, stands in a pair of gigantic high heels, smiling delightedly at her little brother. Dressed in only a diaper, he is laughing while trying on a pair of gigantic, multicolored flip-flops. With curly hair, and skin and eyes a shade lighter than her father’s, my granddaughter might be considered visibly African-American, or at least fashionably “ethnic.” Had she been a job applicant at UG, presumably her appearance would not have been the racial disappointment that mine was. Her little brother has lighter skin, green eyes, and blond hair, apparently similar to Ms. F’s missionary teacher; but he carries the dimples and cleft in his chin of his father, his father’s father, his paternal grandmother’s father — generations of black American men.
I comfort myself with the thought that while initially my grandson might not fare well as a UG job applicant, he could make a statement about African-American paternal descent like my sister says I should have made — but he would not have to lie. Meanwhile, as immigrants to the country where black and white generations of my family were born, UG’s British department chairman and associate dean have found for themselves the American dream. But with the skin, eye, and hair color with which I may have polluted my grandson, as a job applicant, would he be black enough for them? Trying to imagine him as an adult, it is hard for me to think of anything but the soft wisps of his hair against my face when his small head rests on my shoulder, sunlight filtered through his wheat-blond curls.
March 13th, 2007
THE same week a Los Angeles salon owner was pleading with Britney Spears not to buzz her head, barbers were laying tracks across the scalps of all sorts of men at the Aidan Gill for Men salon in New Orleans.
“We have at least one man coming in for a head shave every day,? Mr. Gill said. “Had Britney come here, we’d have shaved her all the way down. She’d have looked incandescent.?
For most of recent grooming history, having a totally bald pate was a look most likely found among men with formidable personalities and names to match — Kojak, Yul, Ike, Warbucks, Clean. It wasn’t a look for John over in accounting.
But in the late 1980s, Michael Jordan shaved it all off. Soon, the world was examining the scalps of Bruce Willis, Andre Agassi, Moby and just about one token character on every TV show — not to mention a swarm of Oscar nominees and presenters this year, including Jack Nicholson (who had shaved his head for a role).
The response is a booming market of products being developed and sold specifically to the unhirsute — a new front in the nearly $5 billion onslaught of male grooming products in the United States.
There are gels and ointments to help with the shave, to enhance the shine, to reduce the glare, to help with dryness or oiliness, to block the sun. There’s even a rolling razor to make the daily upkeep less stressful.
“I’m a former comb-over wearer,? confessed Howard Brauner, founder of the two-year-old company Bald Guyz, based in Manalapan, N.J. “I would spend half an hour in the morning making it look right, and then finally I just realized it was ridiculous. Once I decided to really go bald, my wife would get annoyed at me for using her expensive shampoos. But I had to use something to clean my head.?
For that particular ablution, Mr. Brauner now uses a head wash that’s part of the line of products he developed in response to his wife’s complaints. Bald Guyz also puts out pocket-size individual head wipes, for use on the go. And there is a conditioner, to be used twice a week. “Your skin up there is either dry or irritated or oily,? he said.
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Men also complain about oily sunscreens that run into their eyes. Instead, there are scalp-specific blocks, like Bald Guyz’s S.P.F. 30 sunblock gel. (About 2 percent of skin cancers occur on the scalp.) For men who have forgotten to block, there is an aloe-and-green-tea moisture gel for burns.
There is also Mission: Control Bald Head Balm, a creamy, nongreasy S.P.F. 15 sunscreen, introduced last year by Sharps (one of the first non-scalp-specific toiletry companies to market a product for bald heads in the same line as products for hair care), and an S.P.F. 25 Complete Head Care Lotion from the new scalp-care brand Matte for Men. HeadShade S.P.F. 15 is a sunblock spritz by HeadBlade, a California-based company that sells products at CVS and Kmart, among other stores.
HeadBlade made its name developing a razor designed for head shaving. A yellow plastic-and-rubber handle loops onto the middle finger and is held in the palm. It resembles a snowmobile, with a razor on the front and two small wheels on the back, which ride on the scalp, keeping it steady.
There are two types of hairless men buying these products: those who do it as a simple antidote to hair erosion and those more diehard types for whom hairlessness is a way of life. Those in the latter group, who have not experienced hair loss at all, call themselves B.B.C. or Bald by Choice. (There’s even a Web site, BaldlyGo.com, that allows visitors to send in their photos to be retouched for a preview before they slather their heads with Barbasol.) The goods are being marketed accordingly.
Bald Guyz targets the average guy who’s made a choice to adopt this look, either because it’s easier than creating the illusion of hair (if he doesn’t have it) or dealing with hair at all (if he does).
The products’ packages feature photos and mini-bios of “real bald guys.? The Head Wipes box shows Shawn, a goatee-wearing researcher from Texas who enjoys jazz and R&B, and Keith, a toothy Long Island firefighter who “puts his life on the line every day, making him a very special bald guy.?
“We’re for the guy who is saying, ‘This is just what nature handed me. This is who I am,’ ? Mr. Brauner said. Many of these bald men might even have some very short hair in spots.
HeadBlade products, however, are aimed at more hard-core baldies. Photos on its Web site suggest that if you use their products, you are likely a martial artist, a drag racer, a pro wrestler or Howie Mandel. For these men, there’s a world of difference between a scrim of head hair and no hair at all. Sure, this lot might not be able to grow a full head of hair even if they wanted to … but they wouldn’t want to.
March 8th, 2007
A horn on the tasseled handlebars of a child’s bike; a referee’s whistle; a baby’s rattle: All could be mistaken as poster symbols of innocence and youth.
A Charlestown man has created a mathematical formula that proves these seemingly safe gadgets can cause severe hearing loss from just one rattle or toot.
And if these minor widgets can cause that kind of harm, imagine what shooting an explosive device can do to the insides of a serviceman’s ear.
Imagine a deploying airbag’s pop after a car crash: That lone pop can cause a major, lasting ear malfunction in the crash victim, Dr. Richard Price has found.
Price worked 36 years at Aberdeen Proving Ground where, as an auditory hazard specialist, he concentrated his long-range study on sudden, forceful sounds and their effects on hearing. He retired in 1999.
He enjoys spending time with his wife, Judy, and boating on the Northeast River just beyond his Charlestown backyard, but Price soon realized working had also been — ahem — kind of fun.
“I discovered I enjoyed what I was doing — imagine that,? he said.
His interest in ears from an early age didn’t come from a hearing-impaired family member, or any particular obsession with sound. Instead, it stemmed from an old-fashioned penchant for science.
“I have a mechanical mind,? he said. “My father had been an engineer; it’s something you’re born with.?
But sound of a more melodic sort has impacted Price’s life far beyond his scientific calling. About 20 years ago, fresh off a divorce, he went alone to a local church’s choral concert. The usher sat him next to an attractive woman, also alone, and Price struck up a conversation. He later learned that the woman had asked the usher to sit her next to “a rich, handsome man.? They’ve since been married for 20 years.
In the late 1950s, Price studied physiological psychology at the University of Delaware, later working on his doctorate at Princeton University, where he performed his dissertation on the middle-ear muscle activities of rabbits.
At APG, Price instituted the Army’s first accredited animal-research facility, and with his partner, Joel Kalb, Price started developing a mathematical model to study sudden mechanical sounds such as the ones heard in factories and on battlefields and their effects on the cochlea, the coiled branch of the inner ear.
The cochlea contains fluid set in motion when vibrations ring through it, setting thousands of “hair cells? in motion and sending signals to nerve cells, to the brain.
“What we wanted to do is predict the mechanical displacement of the hair cells? from a sudden loud noise, he said — not the steady sounds of drills or saws, but sudden sounds, like a pipe dropped on the floor, or a bomb exploding, which alone can cause significant ear damage.
He said a man with a good ear can hear, in the quiet, someone walking in the leaves about 100 meters away. But troops that have already been exposed to loud explosions, even from shooting off their own weapons, have probably suffered hearing loss and thus may not be able to hear an enemy rumbling in the leaves until it is too late.
“A man with hearing loss on the battlefield is a hazard to himself and his friends,? Price said.
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His research involved a tedious series of tests — but they couldn’t use human ears as models, he said.
“So we used a mammalian ear that was most like ours,? he said. “Cat ears are a lot like ours.?
The cats in his research were anesthetized and exposed to noises while Price and Kalb came up with a mathematical equation for the displacement of hair cells caused by loud sounds. They developed an acoustic analog of the cat ear, then used the equations developed for the cat and expanded them to human-ear scale.
The team eventually devised a computerized auditory-hazard assessment which can digitally log the point during a sudden noise at which the ear gains the most damage. Their model, called the Auditory Hazard Assessment Algorithm for the Human (AHAAH), is better than 95 percent accurate at logging damage caused by such sounds, he said. And it is becoming increasingly popular among companies that produce loud-noisemaking products.
The data can help manufacturers of all sorts pinpoint the ear damage their products may generate, and work to remove them, Price said.
Military weapons manufacturers have already begun honing their products to prevent damage to the ear, while automobile manufacturers have begun using the AHAAH model to determine and help limit hearing loss in those people exposed to a deployed airbag.
His decades of research and groundbreaking results earned Price the Outstanding Hearing Conservationist Award from the National Hearing Conservation Association at their annual conference last month.
His studies on airbags’ effects have since fast become national news. HealthDay magazine published an article last month on his report that 17 percent of people exposed to airbag deployment in cars sold in the United States will suffer permanent hearing loss.
Price now hopes to parlay his findings to help make other products, such as whistles used on game fields and at gym classes, safer to the ear. In the meantime, he urges people to be aware of what sounds are going into their ears.
“If something sounds metallic and clattery and seems kind of loud, it may have traumatizing potential; avoid them,? he said. “People who suffer hearing loss are almost always surprised by life. They can’t hear the doorbell ringing; they pick up the phone and they don’t know if there’s a dial tone, they don’t know if someone’s on the other end. Hearing loss can be devastating to the personality of a person who was once a lively person.?
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March 6th, 2007