Rant #2,868: Bad Haircut

After my son’s work yesterday, he and I went to get a haircut.
 
Even a guy like me—with little hair on his head—needs to get a haircut about once every month, because if I don’t, my hair grows down my neck and doesn’t look good.
 
My son still has plenty of hair on his head, and at age 26, he needs to get a haircut to look good at work and doing whatever he is doing.

Me, I am beyond such needs.
 
We go to a local place that has several barbers working at once. It is simply cheaper and easier for us to go there, and I have been going to this barber for about the past 30 years or so, and my son has gone there nearly his entire life.
 
We always get a good haircut there, and we are generally in and out in about 10 minutes or so.
 
So we walk in the place, tell the woman at the front desk that we need haircuts and will take anyone, and we are directed to two open chairs, and proceed to get our haircuts.
 
Everything is going fine with me, and I assume that everything is going fine with my son, and then my barber does something that made me flash back to another time and place related to me getting my hair cut.
 
He took my head with his entire hand and wrenched it back, so I guess he could get a better cut of my hair.
 
It didn’t hurt at all, and I guess my head simply wasn’t in the right place for his scissors.
 
But in the mini-moment that it took to wrench my head back, my entire life haircutting experience literally flashed before my eyes …
 
When I was born—and this is so hard for me to believe but my mother still tells me it is true—I was born with a full head of hair—and not just a full head of hair, but enough hair for three people.
 
I had so much hair on my head that I must have looked like Tiny Tim did way back when when he sang “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” on “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.”
 
Evidently soon after I was born, I needed to get my hair cut, and probably from that moment on, I have hated to get my hair cut.
 
So in this mini-moment, I flashed back not on the first haircut I got, but on what I could remember—
 
I could remember that my mother had to take me to a special barber on Main Street in Flushing, Queens, because I could not sit still for a haircut.
 
The barbers put me in a variety of devices—like an airplane and a saddle of a horse—which went over the barber’s chair and which had a strap in it to keep me down while I probably jumped around trying to get out of this contraption.
 
I am sure that whatever haircut I got under those circumstances was good enough, and that the barbers were happy to see me go. They earned their keep that day, dealing with the lunatic that I must have been.
 
As I got older, I outgrew those types of gizmos, but I still hated to get a haircut--but at least I spared my mother the trouble, because I used to go to get a haircut myself.

So in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, I would go to the neighborhood barber, and somehow sit through a haircut.
 
I remember that my hairline was kind of weird, even from the age of seven to 14 years of age, and the barbers there would marvel at where my hair was growing on my head, even calling other barbers over to view it.
 
But I also remember one barber, by the name of Hyman, who had a huge hand and would wrench your head back and forth as to his need to cut your hair.
 
Hyman did not have a soft touch, and I cannot tell you how many times he palmed my head like a Harlem Globetrotter palms a basketball.
 
And yes, it did hurt a bit.

I found out that it wasn't just me that he was head-palming with--one of my friends told me that he got the same treatment from Hyman--which I guess made me feel better but still did not alleviate the pain, both mental and physical, that I received from this barber.
 
As I got older, I was able to take haircuts better, probably because my time of having substantial hair on my head was waning, so there was less to cut, so less to agonize over.
 
Yesterday, it all came out to me in that mini-second when this barber wrenched my head back, things I had not thought about in eons.
 
My son had no such problems, and we were out and about in around 10 minutes or so.
 
Funny, I have been getting haircuts about once a month or once every five weeks or so since I can remember.
 
Even during my longer-hair years of the early 1970s, I would go in for trims about once a month, so if you work it out, over my nearly 65 years of life, I have probably gotten one haircuts every four or five weeks, equaling out to about 750 to 800 haircuts over my lifetime, give or take a few.
 
I have always hated to get my hair cut, and I always will … It is just one of those things that I hate to do, like eating liver or something like that.
 
But I just hate the exercise, hate the chore that this has been for me during my entire life, but it is something that I just have to do, because I cannot do it myself.
 
If this is the worst torture I can ever know, I guess I am doing fine, but at times, I have to tell you, I just wish I was completely bald and didn’t have to go through this each and every month.
 
On the other hand, I also wish that I had a full head of hair that a barber could really work on the right way.
 
I guess you can’t have it both ways, so bald I will be, and I just have to live with the monthly torture. 

Hair today, gone tomorrow is my credo, and it has gotten me through the monthly haircutting experience pretty well, I guess.

Rant #2,867: Yakety Yak

Happy April 5!
 
Today is the 95th day of the year, believe it or not, so we are exactly 26.03 percent done with the year 2022!
 
I don’t know if that is good or bad, but we are more than one-quarter done with the year.
 
What the next three quarters will bring is a big question mark, but we now have all of that in front of us, and we will worry about it as it comes.
 
But I can say that the first 95 days of thus year have proven that we continue to live in a sick world, and the sickness is outside the gaze of COVID-19.
 
Look what is happening in Florida, where the governor there just signed a bill prohibiting kids barely out of diapers to be taught in public schools in the Sunshine State about the LGBTQ universe.
 
How kids so young can even understand such a concept is beyond me, but there are some people who think it should be part of their public education.
 
The governor states that it is not the school’s obligation to teach such a subject, and that parents should be the ones to be doing this.
 
He is right on target. I don’t see the schools teaching directly about being heterosexual to five year olds—who also would probably not understand that concept, either—so why should schools be teaching about the gay lifestyle?
 
Proponents of this belief state that without it, their community will be even more marginalized than it already is; I say, like the governor does, that schools are there for education, and not indoctrination, and that any application of this type of teaching does the latter.
 
Look, at least in my mind, nobody cares what another person’s sexuality is.
 
We are more interested in whether we, as people, are good workers, provide for their family, and are good people—gay or straight.
 
But when you wear your sexuality on your sleeve, and make it the major focus of your life and the one about you that you want people to recognize, you are going up a slippery slope, because hitting people over the head with your sexuality is not the way to go about living the fullest life you can lead.
 
It’s like focusing on a body part, and making that your life’s mission to exploit that for your own personal good.
 
It just doesn’t work, nor will this type of educational indoctrination work, either.
 
II would leave it at that, but New York City didn’t leave it at that, so I won’t, either.
 
Mayor Eric Adams—who is looking and acting more like his completely inocuous predecessor, Bill deBlasio, each day—took offense at Florida’s handling of this delicate subject.
 
Adams is so hell-bent on demonstrating to the world that New York City is “back to normal”—even though it clearly isn’t—that he will go to seemingly any length to try to get people to believe his gibberish.
 
Now, the city—New York City—is going to be paying for billboards to be placed in prominent areas in Florida—yes, in Florida, a good 1,000 miles away or so—to tell that state’s LGBTQ population that since the governor’s decision about education has been made, they are not welcome in Florida, but they are welcome in New York City, and they should relocate to the Big Apple because the city welcomes everyone from every background.
 
Well, first off, the bill that was signed by the governor is not anti-gay; it is pro-parent, pro-family and pro-choice. Young children should be taught about the "three 'Rs" in their early educational studies, not about anything to do with sexuality, a subject they cannot possibly understand yet.
 
Second, the mayor has bigger fish to deal with now than getting supposedly marginalized people to move to his city.
 
The city is rife with murders, shootings and a violence level not seen in 50 years.
 
People are getting attacked on the street because of their race, religion and age, and yes, their sexuality, too, and  the use of guns run rampant.
 
The homeless population is growing, and growing more violent each and every day.
 
Children are being killed in the crossfire, and thugs are walking the street because the bail laws are so lax.

And remember, this is the mayor who feels athletes and entertainers are more important than fronting workers in doing their jobs, so more than 1,400 such city workers have lost their jobs because they won't get their coranavirus inoculations, but Kyrie Irving and the like somehow don't need them.
 
And he wants the LGBTQ community in Florida to relocate to the city, and he really believes they will feel safe in the Big Apple, which is as far away from “normal” as it could possibly be at this stage of the game?
 
Those in that Florida community should stay put where they are, because they are not safe in New York City at all.
 
So here we are, on April 5, 2022, and although we have been through the ringer the past two years, that ringer still isn’t finished with us just yet.
 
We have war, we have a lingering virus, we have so many more negatives still hanging around, so no, the world is far from normal right now.
 
But on the bright side, today, April 5 is not just the 95th day on the calendar, but according to a couple of Internet searches, I have found that today is also National Deep Dish Pizza Day; Star Trek First Contact Day; Go For Broke Day; National Caramel Day; National Flash Drive Day; National Library Workers Day; and Read a Roadmap Day …
 
So things can’t be all that bad, can they?

Rant #2,866: I Saw the Light

What did you do this weekend?
 
Me, I had something of a mixed-bag weekend, quiet on one end and busy on another.
 
This weekend was what my family and I call a “lucha weekend,” and more about that a little later.
 
My allergies are still bothering me, but I am managing, like I always do, to make the best of it.
 
What else can I do?
 
I mean, right now, I can barely see what I am typing out, but things will get better.
 
So let’s talk about the “eye” part of this, and I only bring it up because a prominent figure has paved the way for me.
 
It seems that baseball’s Alex Rodriguez is having similar eye problems, and while he is several years younger than me, by his description, he has the same thing that I and millions of other Americans have, what is called “macular degeneration," where your eyes are aging and simply don’t work as well as they once did when you were younger.
 
He is soliciting the public for what he should do about his new affliction, and why he is doing this, rather than go straight to a doctor, is kind of bewildering.
 
Honestly, Dr, Larry says there really isn’t much you can do about it, but it does creep up on you pretty quickly.
 
He used to have 20/15 vision in each eye, but now, he struggles to see things clearly, just like I do.
 
My advice to him—since I just know that he reads this column regularly. of course—is to go see a retinologist, just to make sure it isn’t something else, and then, just follow whatever plan you are given, whether it is pills or vitamins or eye drops or something else.
 
Again, you are aging, your eyes are aging, and there really isn’t much you can do about it, other than to have it checked out every couple of months.
 
Hopefully, what he has isn’t glaucoma or brought on by diabetes or some other disease that he doesn’t know that he has.
 
Me, my eyes are just aging, and like I said, do what the doctor tells you to do and you will be OK.
 
But it won’t get any better; if anything, it will get worse, as mine did.
 
I have gotten through the lines I have in my left eye, and it really doesn’t bother me anymore or impact anything I do, but I will probably have those lines the rest of my life, so I have just learned how to live with it.
 
I can still drive, still do whatever I want, but let’s face it; it is not like I am 25 anymore.
 
I am going to be 65 years of age at the end of the month—I can’t believe it, but it is true—and things do change as you age.
 
I mean, I don’t have as much hair on my head as I did when I was younger, so why shouldn’t other parts of my body be impacted by my getting older?
 
Getting old isn’t great, but ARod will be OK.
 
He will manage.
 
Like me, he needs his vision, whatever level it is at right now.
 
Heck, without my vision, I would not have been able to enjoy the WWE’s “Wrestlemania” extravaganza this weekend as I did.
 
Yes, it was a true “lucha weekend” on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
 
It all began on Friday night. The regular “Smackdown” show was on from 8:00 p.m.. to 10:00 p.m., and then came the WWE’s annual “Hall of Fame” celebration, which included the induction of The Undertaker into the hallowed institution, which still does not really even exist in brick-and-mortar, only in talk, and yes, talk is cheap, but it is also long, with the show lasting until about 12:30 a.m. or so.
 
Then on Saturday, beginning at 1;00 p.m., there was the NXT “Stand and Deliver” showcase, one that highlights younger stars of the WWE, or also-rans looking for another chance.
 
That was over by about 4 p.m., and then at 6:00 p.m., the WWE launched into its  “Wrestlemania” main event, or at least the first night of it, and it lasted until after 12 midnight.
 
And then on Sunday, after a breather of about 18 hours, we had the second night of “Wrestlemania,” which ended a little before 12 midnight.
 
Yes, my eyes were quite tired, and while my son watched pretty much the entire spectacle, I just had to take a few naps during the festivities, which I did, but I did see what I wanted to see, which was the heavyweight match between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, and in typical WWE fashion, it ended with lots of questions needing answers.
 
But I—and my eyes—got through it all, with the needed rest to make it all come together for me.
 
Funny, I didn’t do anything but sit on the couch and watch this thing, but I feel like I was in a match with Reigns and Lesnar right now.
 
The eyes have it! And they are tired as can be.
 
Maybe another nap is in order for me, one that will help me to better see the light.

Rant #2,865: Happy

I've done it!

I have reached my goal, if that is what you want to call it!
 
Since this is my birth month of when I turn 65 years of age, and I already have Social Security as an early retirement person, I am now on Medicare, and I can chuck my interim insurance card and all the problems I had with it!
 
Oh, what a relief it is!
 
Now I can pay through the nose for Medicare through my whopping monthly Social Security payment, and let’s see where this takes me!
 
I’m through with the exclamation points on this Rant, but happy April Fools' Day anyway, even though what I told you is actually true, and not a joke or white lie to fit the occasion.
 
I had nothing but problems with the interim insurance that I was forced to use when my wife retired from her job and my family—our son, too—lost our health insurance that we received through her former employer.
 
Whether it was simply getting the insurance—New York State of Health is a real quagmire of potholes to go through to get something, anything—to paying for the insurance—due to s mistake on both the aforementioned New York State site and by the actual insurance, the monthly price of the insurance was incorrect, and leave it to me to find the discrepancy and try to convince these parties of the obvious—to actually using this insurance—which bloated what I owed a few doctors by four times what I had been paying—this thing has been a nightmare from the beginning when I got it five months ago.
 
I should have known I was going to have trouble, but when actual medical people told me that what I had “was the worst health insurance you could possibly have,” I kind of figured that I had entered into the abyss.
 
And when I found out that the stipend that New York State gave me to pay for a few months of the insurance was taxed by the federal government as earned income, well, I had fully entered the abyss and was drowning in it.
 
Now, happily, I don’t have to worry about that anymore, although I know that Medicare isn’t all it is cracked up to be, and that is why you see Joe Namath and Jimmie Walker and a talking horse on commercials telling you that you need a Medicare supplement.
 
Without it, the door to the abyss is wide open for you to fall into it again.
 
Happily, I have that supplement, and yes, you pay for that too, so while the abyss door is open, I hopefully won’t ever have to get even one foot in that door again.
 
Let’s see what happens, but whatever the case, I look at today, April Fools' Day, as my day of independence.
 
And unlike others, when somebody asks me when I went onto Medicare, I won’t have to approximate when; I will be able to tell them the exact day and year, for whatever that is worth.
 
April Fools' Day of 2022 … and hopefully, I am not the fool.
 
Focusing on April Fools' Day, I remember that several years ago, in this very column, I told people that I was giving up The Ranting and Raving Blog, but of course, that was a white lie to go with the parameters of the holiday.
 
I also remember that many years ago, one of the local radio stations had a day-long April Fools' Day joke, that real estate magnate Donald Trump had purchased the New York Yankees from George Steinbrenner, and they went with that with phony news conferences and fake news reports, just to get their white lie across … and it made quite an impression, even though it wasn’t true.
 
I remember as a kid, telling people that it was the year behind us on this day, so in other words, I would tell people that we were in 1966 and not 1967 as we actually were, and I guess I thought that that was in the true spirit of the day and was funny.
 
But nothing is so funny as something that is actually the truth on this day, so my April fools  Day joke this year is that I am finally on Medicare …
 
And it isn’t any white lie to suit the day, it is true, true, TRUE!
 
There goes those exclamation points again.
 
I swore I would not use them again today, but I guess that that is my April Fools' Day joke on you.
 
Heck, when you have been to the abyss and back like I have, I guess the jokes aren’t that great, unless you have lived them like I have.
 
Time will 0tell who the joke is really on, and I am hoping that it isn’t on me!
 
Heck, there goes that exclamation point again!
 
Please, just humor me on April Fools' Day!
 
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Thank you very much!
 
Have a great holiday, a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday!
 
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!