A Night At Belle Epoque

Being that I am a penis carrying member of the Y Chromosome Club, getting my hair did really isn’t that big of deal to me. In fact, I really only have three requirements:

1) Cut it short.

2) Not too short. I still want the appearance that I have hair.

3) Make me look more “not homeless”.

See? Not too hard, right?

For the last couple of years, I have been insanely loyal to my hair cutter extraordinaire, Leslie. So loyal, I would literally drive 205 miles southwest of the Kansas City area just to get all my hairs cut. Insane? Possibly. Awesomely devoted and loyal? You bet!

With a 200+ mile drive becoming more and more inconvenient, I decided it was time to test the waters of Kansas City hairstyling once again. And this time, I knew exactly who to call.

Given my propensity for procrastination and indecision, I sent out a SOS text to my good friend Jamie. You see, Jamie is in the know. Actually, she is more than “in the know”. By being a hairstylist and also holding the titles of web coordinator and social media maven for Bell Epoque, she is on the front lines of all that is hair in the  Kansas City area. (Side note: Not only do Jamie and I go way back to the 8th grade together, she gave me the honor of selecting me to photograph her wedding day.) So, within seconds, she demanded I come in and visit Belle Epoque. (And by “demanded”, she sent me a lovely invitation to check out the salon and see what they were all about.)

As I entered Belle Epoque, I was instantly impressed with the style and layout of the salon. Bright colors and plush fabrics graced pretty much every single corner. The lighting was dim, but just enough to give a feel of intimacy and relaxation. The high ceilings and exposed brick of the old downtown building gave off an illusion of industry with a dash of fashion mixed in for good measure. No sooner did my foot cross Belle Epoque’s threshold, I was greeted by a very nice gentleman named Luther. He quickly and politely asked my name and who I was scheduled with. Approximately 25 seconds later, my stylist Jane appeared.

Now, this isn’t my fist experience with Jane or with Belle Epoque as a whole. This summer, I did some photography work for not only the salon, but for Jane and her beautiful family as well. Professionally speaking, we weren’t strangers in the least. But being that this was my first time at the salon as a client, I was even more impressed than I was during my professional interactions with them. And that says a lot given their excellence as a business.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Jane.

Total time elapsed from the time I arrived until the time I sat down in Jane’s chair? Maybe 57 seconds. Maybe. As efficient as that was, I never felt rushed then entire time I was there. In fact, never in my life have I spent more time at a salon willingly. From top to bottom, the whole process at Belle Epoque is different from anything I ever experienced elsewhere. With a smile on her gorgeous face, Jane sat me down, handed me a Boulevard Wheat, and started asking me a series of questions regarding what I wanted to accomplish with my hair and my expectations from her and Belle Epoque. Clear and to the point with a dash of accountability BEFORE you even get your haircut? Other salons should be taking notes.

After the questionnaire was finished, Jane immediately went to work. I was astonished by the skill and precision that Jane possessed. She mastered my short haircut without even resting a set of clippers to my head. Yes, you read that right. Belle Epoque doesn’t take shortcuts. In fact, they don’t even allow them. Jane spent all of her time with me not only concentrating at the task at hand, but being a great and extremely personable conversationalist as well. For a guy that self admittedly doesn’t like new people touching him, let alone taking sharp objects to my head, I never once felt nervous or out-of-place. And that, my friends, says A LOT.

With Jane’s mastery complete, I was out the door as quickly as I came in. To say I was satisfied with my first personal experience with Belle Epoque would be the understatement of the year. I am already hooked and booked for my second haircut in January. As you guys know, I very rarely pimp out anything unless I just had amazing service or an absolutely kick ass time. In this instance I had both. And if you know what is good for you, you’ll follow my lead and grab an appointment with Jane or any of the other fine stylists at Belle Epoque. I promise you will not only be hooked, you’ll thank me later.

And Elsewhere

I’ve been a busy internet bee this week. After a few weeks off the radar, I am back in action full force. So, get to clicking and read away!

This week at MamaPop:

Tuesday’s Post: HIMYM Season Six Recap: Episode 11 “The Mermaid Theory”

Thursday’s Post: Mashup Of The Year? The Notorious XX

Friday’s Post: Want To Ride Unicorns With Robert Pattinson? That’ll Cost You $80K

This week at Draft Day Suit:

Wednesday’s Post: Zack Greinke And Trade Rumors Go Together Like Peas And Carrots

Thursday’s Post: Matt Cassel Has Appendectomy, Further Proof God Hates Kansas City

This Week @ MamaPop

It was another fun week over at MamaPop. What’s that? You want the links to my articles? Well, you’re in luck! I have them conveniently located below! Happy clicking!

Tuesday’s Post: Jennifer’s Body: A Review From My Couch

Thursday’s Post: ANTM Cycle 15 Recap: Episode 2 “Diane Von Furstenberg”

Yesterday @ How To Eat

Did you catch my post over at How To Eat yesterday? What? You didn’t? Well, you are in luck. I just so happen to have the link below! Click and read. Read and click!

How To Eat: Why I Am Fat: The Sabor Edition

Last Week Over @ How To Eat

Did you read my post over at How To Eat last week? It had to do with fried pickles. Fried. Fucking. Pickles. Give me some love and get your asses over to How To Eat now!

If you click HERE, you will be magically transported by the interwebs to my latest HTE post.  Go! Now! What are you waiting for? Unicorn farts? Go!

A Toot of My Own Horn: The Five Star Friday Edition

This week has been full of hustling and bacon. The badasses over @FiveStarFriday have graciously included my Luck Be A Lady post from Wednesday to be on today’s 110th Edition of Five Star Friday. I am always speechless when someone recognizes my writing. Some people might think I am making a mountain out of an ant hole, but this is huge for me. A big and sincere thank you to @schmutzie and for the love!

Make sure you check out Five Star Friday’s list every single, um, Friday! You will find links to many other writer’s work much of which is MUCH better than mine.

Get your asses over to the Twitter machine and start following @schmutzie and @FiveStarFriday ASAP!

I Am Only 10% Gay

Around my house, Tuesday nights are filled with magical fairy dust, unicorns, and rainbows. Just as the sun sets in the Western sky, my wife and I settle down, flop our fabulously rotund derrieres on the couch, grab the remote, and within an instant, we are transported to the happiest, gayest land of all. That’s right, I am talking about Glee. For one hour of my week, I get to escape the every day grind and enjoy some musical and theatrical therapy. Now, I realize that might not sound so “manly” of me. I mean, how can a super macho, hetero, family man enjoy such a blatant display of song, dance, fashion, and an occasional dash of homosexuality? Simple. I am 10% gay. Yes, you read that correctly. 90% hetero and 10% gay. Now that I have completely blown your tiny little gourds of your shoulders, let me explain.

As Americans, we love us some labels. Be it the tag on your jeans, the brand of cereal you buy, the kind of car you drive, all the way down to socioeconomic status, we love to adorn things and people with as many labels and categories as possible. This brings us great comfort. It soothes our souls just to know that something fits or has its place. We come up with labels for everything we do, see, touch, and feel in life. Poor and rich. Black and white. Gay and straight. Gucci and Prada. Walmart and Target. Happy and sad. Well, you get the drift. Every little possible thing has to get a place, a role in life. If things don’t get assigned a category, mayhem ensues. For some odd reason, our minds just can’t comprehend that something or someone might not have a label or fit into just one category.

During last night’s episode of Glee, this became a blaring undertone for pretty much every character involved. Thanks to the writers, in just an hour’s time, we got to witness some very poignant and real struggles that today’s and yesterday’s youth alike have dealt with at some point in their lives. Even if you try to hide it, I am sure on some level, you could relate to at least one character on this show. Were you the super badass, tough football player? Maybe you were the Gothic kid sporting black hair and nails? Could you have been the geek that was constantly ridiculed for what you wore or how smart you were? Or maybe you were the gay kid feeling as if you were the only one around. The point is, we all were there at one time or another. I am willing to bet, there are a few of you out there that still fight that internal battle of trying to figure out just what you are.

As a lot of people do, I get excited about certain things, so I head straight to facebook and twitter to announce my often insane thoughts. It could just be a random quote from whatever show I am watching or a song floating around in my mind. More often than not, my postings are rarely meaningful or full of any type of insight. Never to shy away from comments of any kind, I often get called many awesome things. Funny, weird, gay, fairy, dumb, and womanly to name a few. Now, these so-called labels are almost purely (I think) in jest. With most things in life, if it is funny to me or others, then it gets categorized as totally acceptable. Laughter and humor easily fix most things in my book. So when somebody calls me “gay” for watching Glee, I take it as a badge of honor. I am as just a guilty as the next. I love labels. However, I love to be labeled with more than just one label. I am a label collector, if you will. The way I see it, the more labels or categories that fit me, the better. I have no problem being called dumb, smart, funny, lame, gay, straight, ugly, or dashingly handsome. None of these labels bother me in the least. As time goes by, the more labels I can collect, the more well-rounded man I can become. At the ripe old age of 30, I know who I am. I know who really loves me. I know what and who I really love. When it all boils down, what is more important than that? So, the next time you catch me listening to Paula Abdul, watching Glee, humming show tunes, all while doing a little interior design with America’s Next Top Model recording on the DVR, remember this. I most likely just got done mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, playing football with my son, changing breaks on the car, letting my beard get all scruffy, and watching the latest UFC fight. Why? Because I am a jack of all trades and whatever you want to label me is just fine by me.

R.I.P Melrose Place v2.0

Yesterday, my favorite purveyor of trashy, lovely, delicious, and outright tasty television smut canceled the best way I like to waste an hour of my time. Yes, the CW, put the good old/new Melrose Place in the proverbial guillotine, yanked the rope, and let the poor cast’s pretty little heads fly. This gives me a serious case of the sads. Now let’s get serious here. I never really intended to watch this absolute mess of a show. Like most things, I was forced into it at gunpoint by the wife. From episode one, I was hooked like a two dollar whore on the smack. I don’t know what it was. Was it the beautiful people who, by luck,  all seemed to find the most kick ass apartment complex in all of Los Angeles? (Maybe) Was it the fancy cars and diamond rings? (Certainly) Or maybe, just maybe, was it the true love and ultimate romance of Jonah and Riley? (Definitely) I mean, how am I supposed to sleep at night when I will never know what will become of the Jonah, Riley, and Ella love triangle? This is very unsettling for me. I am getting queasy just thinking about all the unfinished story lines. How am I going to live without having the possibility of finding somebody dead in a swimming pool on my Tuesday nights? How will I ever know if  Dr. Michael Mancini’s heart thingamajig was actually killing patients? I may actually need heart surgery one day, you know? Shouldn’t someone alert the FDA about this? Never fear, some good has come from this. The cancellation of Melrose Place has brought me some inner peace. Why, you ask? We are almost guaranteed we will never have to see Ashley Simpson “act” again. No more of her trying to be sexy and ruining my nights with her portrayal of Ms. Violet. This will bring me a lot of needed comfort in the coming weeks. As we all know, I will definitely need it.

Studies in Crap: The Hospital Bed Edition

As some of you already know, I spent most of last week chilling in a hospital bed. Contrary to popular belief, I was not in sex rehab with Tiger Woods, nor was I in drug rehab with a knife wielding Charlie Sheen or his lovely cocaine addicted wife. Being sick and held hostage by the medical community isn’t exactly what I call a great vacation. There are, however, some pretty kick ass perks associated with a $7,000.00 a night stay in a semi-private hospital room. First and foremost, there are the spectacular intravenous drugs. Yes, I said it. Say all you want, but when a nurse awakens you at 2:00am and whispers to you, “Would you like some morphine?”, I dare you to ever utter the phrase, “Drugs are bad!”. When I started this little rambling article, I was sure I had a whole list of awesome things I could tell you about being hospitalized. The truth? Well, that would be a fucking lie. The only other thing I can come up with? Basic cable television. Yes folks, the only good things about being constantly probed, stuck with needles, and awakened every two hours are drugs and mindless cable television. So, how does this differ from most of my typical Tuesday nights? Well, let’s try not to get into specifics here. Anyhoo, during the 96 consecutive hours of mind numbing (almost more than the drugs alone) cable programming, I have come up with some very lame and very possibly startling conclusions. So please, put on your personal protective equipment and frolic with me to a land that I never care to revisit.

1) No matter how many drugs are pumped into your body, Paula Poundstone is not funny. Please, please quit airing her stand-up routines every hour on the hour. You are fucking up my morphine high.

2) Tampon commercials make me feel even less like a woman than I already should feel. Yes, you read that right. I am a manly man. I have facial hair, drink beer, and love watching grown men fight. But, when a tampon commercial comes on during a UFC Fight Night re-run, I actually feel sorry for the women it was created for. And Ladies, these ridonkulous excuses for feminine hygiene propaganda should make you want to fly to Thailand to receive sex reassignment surgery as soon as possible. I’m just saying.

3) Why do all vacuum and/or cleaning commercials feature nothing but women? Talk about some sexist shit. Hey, just a FYI to marketers and commercial producers…I was the one who bought the $600.00 Dyson vacuum cleaner. Not my wife. Why? Simple. I kick ass at vacuuming. I leave these awesome little lines that mimic the freshly mowed outfield at Wrigley Field on opening day.  And what if I want to buy that fucking Swifter thingy that has the vacuum attached? Do I have to ask the lady of the house first?

4) While I am on the subject of commercial rants, I have a real bone to pick with the “Just For Men” hair coloring folks. Your commercials make me want to slap a sleeping baby. There, I said it. I mean, are you fucking kidding me with these blatant attacks on the male psyche? So, let me get this straight. Now that I am old and graying, all I have to do to dust my face and cranium with your magical hair dye and I will instantly get that job promotion and score with hot, younger females? Well, sign me up! I should have started using this crap as soon as I hit puberty. Maybe then, my high school dating career would have been so much more of an adventure!

5) Daytime television summed up in one neato frito word: Cockmeatsandwich. Okay, I realize that is actually three words stuffed together, but it has a nice ring to it, right?

6) Sorry. I had something really important to tell you here, but the nurse came in and hooked me up phat on the morphine drip.

7) I really, really need to start writing for daytime soap operas. I came up with an entire script for a new soap pilot in only four short days. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone speaks half Klingon, half chimpanzee. Why do all my good ideas come in made up languages?

8) If it weren’t for you, Maury Povich, I wouldn’t have had a reason to open my eyes. Side note: I also wouldn’t know that I am, in fact, the father of Neesha’s baby.

9) No matter how much they try to trick you, no matter how much they lie, those bastards from radiology are just plain evil and wrong. That barium contrast does not take like lemonade! You know what it takes like? Satan’s urine with a splash of Crystal Light.

10) Last, but not least, you will always find out who your true friends and family are when you have to spend time in the hospital. Each and everyone of you know exactly what I am talking about.

America’s Next Top Model Recap: The Hetero Male Edition

This may come as a real shocker, but I absolutely love trashy, mind numbing television. Over my entire lifetime, I have probably spent well over a third of my years either sitting on the toilet or parked on my pasty rear watching shows that continually drop my I.Q. ten points with every viewing. As I nestled into my couch cushion last night, I had an epiphany. (Well, epiphany might be kind of a strong word. That would imply that I actually have some sort of intelligence. For arguments sake, let’s just call it a random idea.) Flipping through the channels, I came to the conclusion that the world of reviews and recaps are lacking in one major category: The Male Perspective of Girly TV Shows. Now, I realize that I am most likely part of the minority here. I know there isn’t whole hell of a lot of men out there who watch these so-called girly programs. I, for one, do and I am willing to bet there are at least twelve other hetero guys out there that actually enjoy these shows as much as I do. I mean, what’s not to love? You get everything you need and could ever ask for from these smutty displays of American culture. Rolled into an hour or so, you get a voyeuristic glimpse of sex, girl fights, bitchiness, bar fights, cattiness, alcohol, and all around daddy issues. All you are missing is an occasional monster truck and some soft core porn. Case in point? America’s Next Top Model. So sit back, relax, and let me take you on a journey of what makes up Joel McHale’s nightmares.

ANTM Cycle 14, Episode 2

You knew it was going to happen, you just didn’t know when. Last night’s episode opened with the fabulous Mr. Jay Emanuel informing the current rat pack of  “models” the details concerning their very first Glamour Shot session. As we all know, When Mr. Jay speaks, you listen. Resisting the urge to throw up two snaps in Z formation, Mr. Jay tells the bunch that the during the shoot, they will be completely nude. There is one exception though. They can pick one item to cover up their lady bits with. After a very dramatic countdown, all of the models raced to a scarcely dressed mannequin equipped with basically nothing but accessories. Like vultures devouring their prey, the mannequin was instantly plucked of all its attire. The shoot itself was pretty tame by ANTM standards. No crying, passing out, or drive by shootings. Just a lame set up and some passive aggressive “coaching” from Mr. Jay.

The real meat of the episode came after the requisite and expert catwalk training by the one and only Mrs. Jay. Training people to walk? Absolutely awesome. Specially, when it’s done by a six-foot, five-inch homosexual black man wearing high heels. One by one, each of the contestants were instructed to work the runway while taking of a garment of clothing. Normally, watching women taking their clothes off would be kind of hot. This, however, was in no way hot. Comical, maybe. Hot? No way. Like babies learning to put one foot in front of the other, each wobbled and strutted their lanky asses down the strip of runway. Not to worry, Mrs. Jay was there with his/her witty critique and offered his expert analysis of how each girl could improve said walk. I don’t know about you, but this is extremely comforting to me. When I walk down the hallway of my office building, I often hope and pray Mrs. Jay will be waiting for me at the end. What? We all need encouragement from time to time. Don’t judge me.

So, now all the girl have been taught to walk. What should they do now? Wait! I know. It’s fashion show time. Yes, that’s right. The girls had to walk in newly created threads from none other than Rachel Roy. When Mrs. Roy was first introduced, I must have been half asleep because I was damn sure they announced Rachael Ray instead. I quickly opened my heavy eyes to immediately started to wonder how in the hell Rachael Ray had time to start a clothing line with all that EVOO around. In true ANTM fashion, this would be no ordinary trot down the cat walk. No, no. That would be way too easy. Oh, Mrs. Tyra and Mrs. Jay had something special planned. They would start the contestants off at the top of some stairs. Now, wait just one minute. Stairs? These girls were never taught how to walk down stairs! Immediately, I was concerned for their safety. If the fear of walking down stairs wasn’t enough, once they made it to the actual runway itself, they were to be greeted by not one, but two swinging pendulums. Yes. You read that right. Swinging pendulums. It was as if they were stuck in a giant grandfather clock. Instantly, the plot thickens! As Mrs. Jay would aptly explain to the girls, “It’s all about timing!”. Without much hesitation, each girl quickly scampered down the steps and onto the runway. A few were struck by the swinging pendulums of death, but most of the them survived pretty much unscathed. Well, all but one. The token “big” girl, Alexandra, fell not once, but twice.  I knew the lack of instruction on how to navigate stairs would end up being detrimental  to someone! Poor Alexandra made it down approximately two whole steps before her ass hit the ground. I give her credit though. She bounced up, snarled, and hoofed it straight to the runway. She managed to make it all the way to the end of the runway just fine. The return? Not so much. One of the pendulums smacked her in the back and she came tumbling off the runway. Imagine my excitement level as I witnessed this. You can’t write shit like that! Pure entertainment.

The final Glamour Shot session was just as boring as the last. Not much drama. Boring critiques. Blah, blah, blah. Fast forward to the elimination ceremony! The bottom two girls were an interesting mix. One was a homely, transvestite impersonator with a super curled afro. The second was a bald-headed chick with an accent that sounded like part French, part Down’s Syndrome. So, who would they keep? Do I even need to ask? Of course, they kept the tranny! Why? Who knows. Maybe, just maybe she/he will produce some super fierce photos next week.