Have you ever had bad hair?
Let me rephrase that question: When was the last time you had bad hair?
Because, it's one of the basic laws of Having Lived Through the 1970s, '80s, or '90s that you had bad hair at some point. Probably at many points. And that this bad hair was captured on film, and that the relevant pix still exist out there, somewhere, ready to undermine whatever modicum of cool you believe yourself to have achieved.
This is what I'm talking about:
Oh, yeah. Are you feeling that, people? That's a straight-up late-'80s suburban New Wave mullet, with sensitivo facial scruff.
My own bad hair history goes deep. Here's a little something I like to call the Deep Bowl, from the mid-'70s:
I could go on. Seriously. We could be here all day. But what I'm asking is for your bad hair. I want you to send me a photo, high resolution if possible.
Why (in God's name) would you send me a photo of your bad hair? Three reasons:
1. In the interest of full disclosure, so as to set yourself free via confession
2. Because I will find them anyway
3. So you can become an official member of Steve Almond's Bad Hair Museum and win valuable cash and prizes ? or, okay, prizes.
The Bad Hair Museum slideshow will be on display when I come to read and rawk at Powell's on the evening of May 18. And if your photo is included, and deemed one of the Top Three Bad Hairstyles of the Night, you will win a mixed CD, which I'll personally design and burn for you after the reading, and which is guaranteed to Release Your Ass from the Ass Cage. That's a $1.99 value.
Yes. I will actually MAKE IT FOR YOU after the reading. Live and in person. Based on what you dig musically. So you'll have to show up, bad hair and all.
But more important than that, you will have won the admiration and sympathy of your fellow bad hair survivors, because you were brave enough to cop to your mullet (or bad perm or inverse Mohawk or Flock of Seagulls dyed-bang comb-over), rather than pretending it never happened. So hunt through those old photo albums and hidden JPEGs and let's make some follicular magic together, Portland!
Yours in drooling fanaticism,
Steve Almond
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To submit your bad hair photo, just click here to send Steve an