You win this time, Oster.
The Oster clipper glides confidently about my head, the half-inch guard preventing the worst from happening. I pause, remove the guard and walk outside to where the new mirror lay in the living room. This will be easier with a mirror, I think to myself as I lift the heavy glass sheet and prop it up in the restroom behind the table where I cut my hair.
Picking the clipper back up I begin to do the back of my head. I seem to be getting a really good cut on this one, because I can hear an intense grinding sound. Huge clumps of hair fall to the ground. That's a lot of hair, I think quietly to myself as I continue upon the business of getting a perfect buzz. Almost... Too much hair.
With one mirror juxtaposed across from another, I look at the back of my head. If there existed a time when the Mediterranean Sea was a name exclusive to something you'd see on a map, or flying in a plane, that time is gone. If you want to see the Mediterranean Sea as of June 22, 2003, just come on over to my house and ask me to make a 360 degree rotation. I realize with grave solemnity that I have forgotten to put the quarter-inch guard on.
Panicking, I reach down and clutch the hairs from the back of my head. Logic is now a thing of the past. With the hair in my hand, I attempt to put them back where they belong; as if there exists some sort of three-second-rule for bad haircuts.
As it dawns upon me that I've completely ruined my physical appearance for the next two or three weeks, I begin to think of alternatives. I begin to rationalize:
Hey, people in the army have this sort of haircut, don't they? And there ARE a lot of people in the army, aren't there?
Maybe I could pass it off as a new style. Everyone will be doing it!
How much does Rogaine cost and how fast does it work?
The voices rise to a shrill crescendo, offering a thousand different haphazard possibilities. At last, there is silence. I walk out of the restroom to the closet where the beanie lay, grab it, and put it on. Back in the restroom, I gaze into the mirror. The mirror serves now not as a reflection of Daniel Chui, but as a window to a world where freestyle battles rave through the night, a world where even a poor white rapper like myself can carve a name in the street.
What if people get the wrong idea? I wonder.
Forget it. It doesn't matter.
I would rather be a thug than a skinhead.
I step out onto 8 Mile Road, smile, and begin to walk.
It's a long way home.
- Chui
Picking the clipper back up I begin to do the back of my head. I seem to be getting a really good cut on this one, because I can hear an intense grinding sound. Huge clumps of hair fall to the ground. That's a lot of hair, I think quietly to myself as I continue upon the business of getting a perfect buzz. Almost... Too much hair.
With one mirror juxtaposed across from another, I look at the back of my head. If there existed a time when the Mediterranean Sea was a name exclusive to something you'd see on a map, or flying in a plane, that time is gone. If you want to see the Mediterranean Sea as of June 22, 2003, just come on over to my house and ask me to make a 360 degree rotation. I realize with grave solemnity that I have forgotten to put the quarter-inch guard on.
Panicking, I reach down and clutch the hairs from the back of my head. Logic is now a thing of the past. With the hair in my hand, I attempt to put them back where they belong; as if there exists some sort of three-second-rule for bad haircuts.
As it dawns upon me that I've completely ruined my physical appearance for the next two or three weeks, I begin to think of alternatives. I begin to rationalize:
Hey, people in the army have this sort of haircut, don't they? And there ARE a lot of people in the army, aren't there?
Maybe I could pass it off as a new style. Everyone will be doing it!
How much does Rogaine cost and how fast does it work?
The voices rise to a shrill crescendo, offering a thousand different haphazard possibilities. At last, there is silence. I walk out of the restroom to the closet where the beanie lay, grab it, and put it on. Back in the restroom, I gaze into the mirror. The mirror serves now not as a reflection of Daniel Chui, but as a window to a world where freestyle battles rave through the night, a world where even a poor white rapper like myself can carve a name in the street.
What if people get the wrong idea? I wonder.
Forget it. It doesn't matter.
I would rather be a thug than a skinhead.
I step out onto 8 Mile Road, smile, and begin to walk.
It's a long way home.
- Chui