Thursday, December 02, 2004

His backwards life

Ah wow, this is really great - David Byrne has started blogging. You can read the tour journal of the former Talking Heads mainman here.

Sample:

I get to get a hair trim on my way to my office/studio at Freestyle Barber on 7th ave. I've been there before. It's fast, cheap and normal. The staff are all Russians, a couple of men and some blonde women with big hair. I get a man this time, and he asks what I want. "Not much off the top and short back and sides, tapered, no line" I say. He snips away and I wonder if he understood me- he and the others are all jabbering away to each other in Russian and paying no mind to the few of us in the chairs. He's a little rough, Yanking my ears. I'm worried about my ears. Maybe it's a Russian macho thing to treat the customers sort of roughly; pandering to customers is not a habit that was ingrained in the Soviet system. Or maybe it’s meant to be a sign that these barbers are real men, not "hairdressers". I keep watch and he does what seems like a terrific job, exactly what I wanted, except maybe for the blow dry comb job at the end that makes me look like Bill Clinton when I was hoping for Jim Jarmusch or Herbert Von Karajan. I'm optimistic though, one has to be, and hair is, for those of us who have it, such an object of vanity. After a shampoo and loosening it'll be alright.

3 comments:

Stephen Newton said...

Shame there's no RSS feed. (I'm such a nerd.)

Jonathan said...

Yeah, it is a shame. I just don't get round to reading stuff without a feed these days. Ah well, I think I can make an exception for this one.

Comments boxes would be cool, too - although the idea of having a chat with him is too weird. I suspect I'd just end up writing "....david byrne! ...david byrne" in accelerating tones of wonder.

James Henry said...

Did you get that Wired CD with the free Byrne song on it? (My Fair Lady) Re-discovering DB afters years and years, but some of his new stuff is just lovely.