If you want to grow your hair out and donate it to Locks of Love, then please do, but do not continue bothering me with that inane question of whether or not I’m going to donate my long hair. Don’t opportunistically look at my hair as if it’s some kind of score for that mysterious charity.
Every time I walk into a bar or a coffee shop, within minutes I will get the question, Are you donating your hair to Locks of Love? It’s always from complete strangers, because my friends and associates know better than to ask such a question. I’m always outwardly polite when I’m asked about giving my hair to a charity that supposedly arms children who have lost their hair with commercial grade wigs, but inside I’m thinking, Did you just ask me that because I’m a male with long hair?
Usually the question comes from females, but this last time it came from a lanky, do-good male. He had a smile that betrayed his naivete of the world, and the universe: A man with long hair must be thinking about donating those locks to a loving cause. That is, it seems to be in most people’s opinions, the Right Thing to do. The buck stopped at him, as they say, and I no longer politely reacted, but I instead unleashed three years of Locks of Love fury onto him.
As mentioned, I have always politely fielded this donating my hair question with a smile. I would assure the questioner (usually female) that yes, Locks of Love is probably a fantastic charity, and donating hair to them is probably a glorious cause, but finally, with ultimate respect in my tone I would say, No, I’m not going to be donating this hair.
“Oh, well you should!” they almost always rebut. And I smile and signal the conversation is over. Again, this is usually in a noisy, crowded, dark bar where a lot of people are hurriedly drinking away their miserable work week memories. The drunker the better is the obvious motto.
This last Are-you-donating-your-hair question was handed to me in an overrun bar in Santa Monica, where droves of hard-working white people got down to old 90s rap hits. I’m in the habit of bringing a newspaper to the bar in case I get bored with the debauchery and want to read, which I always end up doing.
The lanky, curly-haired guy asked me what I do, who I am, why I was at the bar. He introduced himself. We shouted about our personal characteristics and our respective social statuses for about five minutes. “How you liking that long hair?” he asked me, pointing to my head.
I like it fine! I said.
“It’s cool,” he shouted. “I bet the ladies love it too.”
I shrug, as I usually do when I answer that question.
“Are you donating your hair to Locks of Love?”
That’s when I lost it with this boobie. I rolled up my newspaper and got it ready to use as a weapon. If you think my hair is cool and must be a hit with females why would you ask me if I’m donating it to Locks of Love? Are you their associate or something? I asked. I raised my newspaper baton. Who do you work for?
The thin man pressed into the girls standing behind him and cowered behind his raised hands. He could see the LA Weekly could be made into a serious beating stick. I brought my paper baton down on his arms, and then his head in a series of frustrated blows. The poor bastard had no idea about the pent up rage surrounding that question, but I had no time for sympathy.
Read The LA Weekly makes great toilet paper, and is also a pretty good read
The girls behind him shrieked. Suddenly the rap hits from the 90s weren’t as interesting as watching a man with long hair and a newspaper pummel another man. I’m not a hair farm! I shouted. I’m not a goddamn hair farm growing product for some mysterious charity that sends out hair freaks to badger people like me into donating my locks!
Security at this upper middle class club / bar does not like commotion or disturbances. They held my hands and instantly I calmed myself. Three big men made up the security force that suppressed my insurrection against this wide web of Locks for Love supporters. They all three had very short hair, and they were muffling their laughter behind their hands.
“You were about ready to kill that joker with your newspaper,” they said once we were outside. I told them the entire story, and they seemed to agree that my course of action was proper, even though their job required them to kick me out of their establishment.
“We deal with too many squares like that guy,” the tallest security guy said, “but we’re paid well to keep the peace.”
I understand, I said.
“Isn’t Locks of Love kind of a scam, anyway?” another security guy asked. I heard they barely use any of the hair donated to them, and they sell the rest for almost half a million dollars each year.
I made a dash for the entrance again. I was going to give that lanky bastard one hundred more vicious lashes with the paper baton, and hopefully I would leave lasting ink streaks on his face. The guards held me back.
“I could be wrong,” the guard said, “but that’s just what I heard about Locks of Love.”
You’re probably right, I told him, because everybody is going around telling long-haired people they should be donating their hair to that organization. They have one million tons of hair in the warehouse. That’s a cash cow these days. Everybody’s desperate to wear somebody else’s hair. Extensions, implants, and wigs. They even use human hair on sex dolls. It’s always good to grab a handful of hair while in the heat of the moment.
“I heard they were paying to have prisons force their inmates to grow their hair to the desired length, and then the Locks of Love people would come and do a massive shearing, like they were tending to a flock of sheep. Except none of the inmates wanted to lose their long hair. Nobody told them the Locks of Love folks would be shaving it off, so the prisoners revolted. It ended up a mess. They had to drug them so they could shear them without any violence breaking out.”
With that I left them and hitched a ride home with a trucker from Ohio who cruised along the 10 and dropped me off close to home. Baxter, his name was. Or is. But I’ll tell you more about him some other time. I asked him if he wondered why I was growing out my hair, and he said, “I don’t much care. Just figured you like it long.”
