Brad Brown

Photo by asobitsuchiya

[For my non-U.S. reader(s), Great Clips is to hair as Starbucks is to coffee; there’s one on every corner, so there is no excuse for an American not to have a nice, unpredictable haircut along with their latte. In the lexicon of BradBrown.com, Great Clips is used as a generic term for any place that provides a bad haircut.]
 

Eight B.G.C. (before Great Clips)

Days, if not hours, before my sister’s wedding in 1974, I decided that I wasn’t getting enough attention. Therefore, I proceeded to cut my own hair with a trusty pair of rusty kitchen scissors. I was four years old. I think my sister, Pascale Brown-Montague (of the Texas Montagues), tells it best:
 
“There it was! Three days before my wedding in 1974. I had this perfectly adorable brother whom I adored beyond measure (I was always glad that I was in school the day that he was born, lest someone think he might be my birth-child!). I had stayed home to attend the local community college largely because he was six-months old when I was a college freshman! It was no coincidence that I transferred to the state flagship school when he was two years older. He had the SWEETEST miniature blue tuxedo - just like the ones in the current Viagra ads [Viagra, the name BradBrown.com readers know and trust.]. And NOW he had cut his hair. Instead of the perfect little angel, everyone was going to look at him and know that he was just a little boy. All I could do was throw myself on the bed and weep.”
 
However, I think my other sister, Kalifa Brown-Abdul Jabbar, tells it best:
 
“Well, great, just great - now, instead of helping Pascale with her long, curly “do,” Mom had to run Brad to the barbershop to see if there was ANYTHING they could do. After she was gone a couple of hours, she returned, having spent thirty-five dollars - an outrageous price in those days - and we couldn’t tell any difference. She kept saying, “See? It’s at a nice, sloping angle. It’s not exactly what we had in mind, but doesn’t it have a certain artistic flair?” The only “flares” that I was thinking about were the ones that I was going to use to shoot that brat into outer space! This was Pascale’s day, and Brad was stealing her show!”
 
Luckily, after twenty-four years, they seem to have forgiven me.
 

Neophile Barbie

I met Kate at Fantastic Sams in Chapel Hill back in 1993. Fantastic Sams is a Great Clips competitor - same low price, same random quality. Kate, my randomly-selected stylist, was eighteen and fresh out of beauty school. Whenever I get a new stylist, I like to get to know them; I have no idea why, it’s just a personality quirk of mine.
 
Brad: “So, when did you decide you wanted to become a stylist?”
Kate: “Well, I liked to play with my Barbie’s hair as a kid…you know.”
Brad: “Fascinating. I like to play with Evel Knievel as a kid, but I found stunt work too dangerous, so I went into computer programming.”
Kate: “Who?”
Brad: “Evel Knievel…that crazy white guy who jumped over major landmarks during the 70’s. Major landmarks! Nevermind…” [Brad’s note: There’s great humor in specifying “white guy” during conversations, when you yourself are white; the confused looks are priceless.].
Kate: “So, what kind of music do you like?”
Brad: “I’m into bombastic arena rock…70’s bands like Journey and Styx.”
Kate: “Who?”
Brad: “Like Nirvana, only more mellow.”
Kate: “Oh…”
 
This historical question and response continued through the entire haircut. I left Fantastic Sams that day, with the same bowl cut I’ve had since birth, yet feeling twenty years older.

Photo by gailf548

Things I Missed While Going To Church

As a kid growing up in a Southern Baptist household, church was the bane of my television viewing habit. The minute some great program came on, it was always time to go to some church activity. Unlike normal cults like Scientology that just want your money, Baptists place an emphasis on both money and time. On Sunday morning, you have Sunday school (just like regular school, only more savage), followed by the church service. These consume at least two hours, not counting the prep time of getting dressed in your favorite polyester Sears suit. Of course, if it was Baptism day, the church service itself could run on for two hours. In addition, if an abnormal amount of people needed to be saved, that could kill another thirty minutes. Four out of five Sundays, there would be some social event after church, most likely a pot-luck dinner in celebration of someone’s something or other. On Sunday evening, there was training union - it’s essentially an evening version of Sunday school. After training union, there was the evening church service, which normally took one hour. There might be an Act Teens for Christ social afterward down at Baxin Robbins.
 
But it didn’t end there. On Wednesday evenings, there was another church service. On Saturdays, you might be enlisted to join the Act Teens for Christ on a mission to rake leaves from the lawns of the invalid and/or sinner. By my calculations, using the modern math so popular with the kids, I probably wasted twelve hours or more a week in church-related activities. It wasn’t the time itself I was concerned with, but what I was missing on television. What did I miss? I’m glad you asked.
 

• Life Goes On - Corky triumphs over Down’s Syndrome in rehashed Eight Is Enough scripts.
• Battlestar Galactica - Humans battle robots in outer space.
• 60 Minutes - Four crotchety white guys [and an ear-ringed Ed Bradley] interview celebrities.
• Meet The Press - A newsman throws softball questions to different politicians each week in order to get into their graces.
• Disney Movies - There was a time when you could only find Disney on ABC on Sunday nights. There was no Hannah Mantegna, and your only hope of seeing Mickey Mouse was to actually travel to Disney World. Kids have it so much easier these days.

The moral of the story is to avoid church at all costs, if you value your television experience. Otherwise, you might have to Tivo everything and watch it on a Friday night. If you need a major deity in your life, I’d recommend an internet-based cult that allows you to worship when you want to. I would suggest the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a site which distills religion into a simple game of religious conversion. This game can be played at 2 a.m., when nothing good is on television. In the end, it’s a win/win situation. You can have both entertainment and salvation, and neither conflicts with the other.

 

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