Attempting a cold call at the hair stylists is never advisable, but today I was feeling like a gambling man. Entering the salon, I was greeted by a noxious cloud of hair chemicals and second-hand smoke hovering over a group of chatty women getting their facials, manicures and gossip. I almost skedaddled back home with my tail between my legs. But since I was suffering from more than just your average bad hair day, there was no turning back.
I squeeze onto a leather couch between a young mink and a middle-aged fox and, like everyone else, begin busily perusing one of the honey-scented fashion magazines piled high on the coffee table. Eventually, I turn to a photo of a chiseled male Adonis sporting a decent doo during a volleyball match in one of those magical lands that get a thing called sunshine. So I approach Natasha, the receptionist, and explain to her in so many corrupted Russian words that I want to resemble this guy. Apparently I failed to make myself heard correctly because nasty Natasha lets out a horse laugh before announcing to everybody in the shop what I had just said...
There were five beauticians on duty - four women and one guy, Fauvio, who is a diluted version of George Michael. Not quite George, and not quite Michael, but some kind of new hybrid model in between. Naturally, they assign him to my desperate case, and he twirls into action with a bit too much affected enthusiasm.
He points me with an extended finger and a hand on his bony hip to a white porcelain sink, which has
a curved section where the neck rests. Kind of like a modern-day guillotine, except the condemned faces his executioner. I never had my hair washed by a guy before, nor was I particularly looking forward to the moment. Mind you, I am not sexist, or homophobic, or even Democratic. I just feel that I am getting more bang for my buck if it's a female massaging my scalp. I believe in male bonding, male rights, and all that, but not necessarily in a French beauty salon.
Of course this is something you never really give much thought about until, well, until a guy named Fauvio is shampooing your temples while singing along to a Chris Isaak CD that is blaring over the sound system (This world could turn against me... But it wouldn't matter baby... Give me one day in your life...).
I guess the problem with a guy having his hair shampooed by a guy named Fauvio is that you don't know what to do with your eyes. Especially if Fauvio is not exactly, you know, your type of man. Should you keep them tightly closed? Maybe. But that might reveal that you are experiencing some sort of intense pleasure. Should you keep your eyes open? Maybe, but what if yours and Fauvio's eyeballs meet just as Chris Isaak is hitting his emotional final note? I stare off into the corner and concentrate my mind wonderfully on a dusty rubber plant.
Now Fauvio instructs me to lean forward from the sink as he proceeds to wrap a towel around my head with his tattooed arms. While he is engaged in this function, he asks me what I thought about last night's football match. But of course I couldn't give him a straight answer because I despise football (!).
Shit! So now Fauvio probably thinks I am the one who is, you know, the lesser of the males, the one who prefers the culture channel between us. But it doesn't matter, right, who shampoos our heads? I mean, really, even if I was, which I'm not, or if Fauvio is, but isn't, it doesn't really matter, right? Christ! Do you see what crazy times we are living in?!
Today, we are all new millennium kind of guys, cosmopolitan, and tolerant of every lifestyle - a magazine rack of lifestyles, a sushi board of choices. Take your pick! So I am squirming in a French salon in Russia, getting my hair spoofed by a guy named Fauvio. Wow, how tolerant can you get? And to think, just 15 years ago me and Fauvio were mortal enemies across the Iron Curtain. Now we're practically past the shower curtain.
Of course I am the problem here. I grew up in a hyper-conservative American city, where Michael Spak, the local barber, cut all of the kids'
hair in our Catholic neighborhood. Summers resembled military boot camp, with every kid exposing their three-buck buzz jobs to the cruel sun. Spak never shampooed our hair, I can tell you that. Just a cold slap of Aqua Velva to the back of the exposed neck to neutralize the razor cuts.
Fauvio is pretty good with the scissors. Actually, it is a little known fact that Russia produces some of the top hair designers in the world. A very artistic people, these Russians. I hold to these calming thoughts while Fauvio is snipping here, snipping there, snipping everywhere. He's a madman with the clippers, really. Then one of his girlfriends, Masha, bursts into the little shoppe of horrors and the level of
gaiety hits a new crescendo. She announces to everyone that the long-awaited shipment of the latest hair colors has just arrived. And me without my credit card! So every time Fauvio wants to talk shop with Masha, which is pretty damn often, the scissors suspend open-mouthed in mid-snip, like a shark pondering its next bite, until it's Marsha's turn to chat. I watch from the mirror as Fauvio starts clipping again without even looking, as if I'm some sort of cut test dummy. Strange, but I found myself wanting Fauvio's attention, if only because he was wielding German-made cutlery. I was so breathless after the blow-dry that I had to pass on the manicure.
Anyways, the point of this column, which got completely sidetracked by a Catholic upbringing, is that Russia, believe it or not, has a very respectable hair design school. One of the best in the world. So if you need a little off the top in the Russian capital, well, you've come to the right place, baby.
