Hip Checking, Big Phallica, and Hair Hell, Oh My

This was an odd/funny weekend for me.

Friday night
All I wanted to do was go home to bed. I was zonked. So I did indeed go home and go to bed, but not without meeting a bundle of joy. I took about 20 steps outside my work building and past the pub next door and walked by this dude who looks me up and down and gives me ye old Joey Tribianni "How YOU' doin!?" I sighed and said, "Great. Just great" and I kept on walking. He goes, "Yeah, I bet you're doing great. You LOOK great!" And with that he starts walking with me, takes his rugby ball, throws it atmy hip, so the ball bounces off my hip and then he catches it again and yells, "YES! Alright!" ALL while I am still walking away. This is when I dubbed him 'The Hip Checker' Guy - WTF??? Is this some new weird thing that guys are doing that I didn't want to know about?

Saturday night
Went to go see the hilarious Big Phallica at Sydney Uni's Manning Bar. Big Phallica are awesome. They play all 80s/90s covers but they pretend like they wrote all the songs themselves and their in-between song banter is hilarious. Lots of people dressed up all 80s-like last time I saw them at the Newtown RSL (sorry, I refuse to call it by its new name, cause it's stupid!) and I really don't have any 80s clothes, but I did find my original Bon Jovi hat and Jon Bon Jovi button back from 1987 on my trip home to see the folks and I'd brought them back with me specifically for a Big Phallica gig, if only because I couldn't imagine many other opportunities to wear them again. So I put on the Bon Jovi hat (Which says Bon Jovi on the front, has a drawing of Jon Bon Jovi on the top and has 'Slippery When Wet' on the back), my hot pink/white/black strapless dress over jeans, my Jon Bon Jovi button, a side ponytail with a hot pink scrunchy (ok, I did actually buy the scrunchy, but that was the only thing and it was only a dollar), and my black faux fur jacket. I thought I looked pretty funny. This was only the second time I've ever worn the side pony, and my hair is not meant for the side pony - it wants to slide out. :-(

Anyhoo, I ended up winning "Best Dressed Female" but I really think it was all about the Bon Jovi hat + button. The guy who won "Best Dressed Male" came as, you guessed it, Jon Bon Jovi. So they take us aside and told us that we've won and that we need to get our names announced and be presented with our 'prizes' etc so Jon and I were like, "Yeah, cool." A very well known radio host was MC-ing and I'll be kind and not mention his name (though anyone who was there will know who I am talking about), but I very impressed with his state of intoxication. Fair enough if he was in this state at the end of the night, but at this point it was like 9pm. I'm going to refer to MC man as DJ Wesley, just for my own amusement. So first, DJ Wesley could not remember our names. Jon and Lori. Not that hard. But he kept calling Jon by name. I said, "No, I am Lori! ME!" about 4x but Wesley was slow to catch on. So DJ Wesley tells us they're going to announce us, put on some music, and they want us to come down and do a bit of a dance to the music. Wesley tell us, "It would be good if you could really sex it up out there. You (nodding at me), use him as a pole or something." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. So Jon and I agree to go out there and dance and 'sex things up'. Then a minute later, DJ Wesley comes over and says, "Look, we're running out of time, do don't muck things up!" Mmmmm, yeah....So DJ Wesley announces us..."And Best Dressed Female goes to Laauuuuuuuuuuraaaaaaaa!" Yes, that's right. I am now Laura. So Jon and I go out there, only there was NO music, so we looked like spastic assholes out there attempting to 'dance sexy' to nothing. Then DJ Wesley shoves the 'prizes' at me, tells us to share, and proceeds to announce the Australian Air Guitar Champion's arrival on the stage.

That was it! No sexing up, which is probably just as well. Jimmy Dangles (I think that's his name, the Air Guitar Champ) was a sight to behold. Lots of jumps in tight blue spandex and I don't think he was wearing a cup. Truly inspired. Go Jimmy!

The prizes were a hot pink Big Phallica t-shirt for me (which I really like) and a black t-shirt for Jon. And I got a pink glowstick in the shape of a penis and and Jon got a blue one. I made my way back to Claude, Rhonda, Marvin, and Johnny and showed them my prizes. Claude and I were trying to read the glowstick instructions in the dark but we could make out the words, "Shake vigorously." So I did. And Claudine did. And Rhonda did. And nothing happened. :-( I looked over to see Jon proudly waving his blue glowing penis in front of the stage and I felt bummed. I had a defective penis. :-(

Later on Andrew saved the day and when I complained about my glowstick not glowing he was like, "Did you break it?" and I said, "Huh?" and he said I had to break it. So I gave it to him and he got it working in like 2 seconds. I was like, "Well, as a guy, I think you have an unfair advantage with the whole 'shaking vigorously thing', but thank you!" ;-)

I had several people come up to me to say, "Congratulations on your win!" or "Great outfit!" or "Where did you get that hat? On EBay?" No one could believe that I still had the hat and button from when I was 7/8 year's old. So see? Sometimes it pays to be a packrat. It doesn't pay well, but hey...it was a very hilarious night. After Big Phallica we danced to the 80s music the DJ played and I thought I couldn't jump any more than I did during "Livin' on a Prayer' but I'd say I jumped just as hard when the DJ put on "The Final Countdown" - oooooh yeah. Considering I was in love with Jon Bon Jovi and Joey Tempest (Frontman of Europe) at the same time, I felt it was quite fitting. I managed to use my glowstick in many silly dance moves. We ended up at the Istanbul on King Street when it was all over and I didn't end up getting to bed until like 5am, which wouldn't have mattered except I had stupidly made a haircut appointment on Sunday at 11am.

Which brings me to Sunday and well....you'll see.

Sunday
So I arrive at the Salon feeling bad that I'm cheating on my regular hairdresser Orlando. I love Orlando. I love his haircuts. But I'm trying to save on money, so I'm going to a salon that is half the price of where Orlando works. I get this blonde dude whom I've never seen before and he's all, "Hi sweetie!" and directs me to the hair washing sink. I can't wait. I LOVE having my hair washed by someone else. The scalp massage alone is almost worth the final cut cost. Well, usually.

Good lord, they could use this guy to torture terrorist suspects. Seriously. It is the worst hair washing experience I've ever had and the 2nd worst sink experience I've ever had (Second only to the time the hairdresser accidentally got some perm chemicals into my eye). The dude is rough and the 'massage' is painful and he keeps pulling my hair and I can't wait for it to be over. I am really disgusted with myself and it only highlights the problem I have when it comes to telling people they're hurting me. I am sitting there with one voice in my head going, "For the love of God, SAY SOMETHING! He's hurting you! This is bullshit! Speak up! You're not paying him to torture you!" and then there is the voice going, "Oh, but you might hurt his feelings and it's okay, you can handle it, and it'll be over soon." That second voice needs a good kick up the ass. So I sit there, quietly cringing, pissed off at myself for not saying anything. The guy's a stranger. Who cares if I hurt his feelings? This is my head we're talking about....sigh. So then he puts this special conditioning treatment in and starts combing through my hair while it was still in the sink and for like 1 minute he does it the right way (where you press down on the roots or only grab the hair at the end so the roots/scalp don't feel the pain) and then he does it the painful way and is totally pulling/yanking at my roots - OUCH! I get even more disgusted with myself for not saying anything. I really need to work on that. Needless to say, I can't wait for this part to be over.

He brings me over to the chair and starts to painfully comb out my hair. I promise myself not to cheat on Orlando again. I am happy to say the actual cutting part did NOT hurt at all. Anyhoo, so I get this guy's whole life story. He's from Chile, he's half Spanish, half Italian. He asks me if I'm married, divorced, or have kids. I love how these are the only initial options. I was like, "No, I'm just single." He gives me the whole, "WHAT??? But how can that be? How is that possible?" and I say, "Oh, it's very possible! It is really hard to meet available straight men in Sydney!" He laughs and goes, "Yes, you're right, it is very hard to find straight guys in Sydney." and I'm like, "Um, and he would somehow know this?" But he's funny and asking me what I do for work, where I live etc. He asks more about how I can be single and I say, "Well, having a lot of gay guy friends isn't exactly helping memeet straight men, I have to say!" and he mentions a previous "Partner" and I've reached the point in the hairdresser banter where I want to be like, "Honey, it's okay, I know he was your boyfriend, so let's just get to the part where we bitch about guys from our past?" This happens with most of my male hairdressers and they're always like, "yeah, cool! Okay, let's vent!" But instead we just keep talking about work and Sydney and how some of my gay male friends try to set me up with any straight guy they know, simply because he's straight. "Hey, he's into girls, and you're a girl, so PERFECT!" Then he asks me, "Hey, you're cool, would you like to go out for a coffee with me sometime?" and I'm like, "Um, yeah, okay!" I think it's so cute when I get 'asked out' by gay men. They're not going to feel all rejected if you say no, cause it's not a romantic thing, just a friendly fun thing.

A cute little hairdresser from the salon next door comes down to say hi and the two guys are chatting it up and then the other guy leaves and my hairdresser is all, "Isn't he cute? I call him blondie because he just got blonde highlights." I agree he's cute but my hairdress is like, "Don't get excited, he's gay!" I am like, "No! Really???" and feign shock. We laugh. All is fine. Okay, I'm going to invent a name for my hairdresser so I can stop calling him hairdresser. Let's call him Rafael! So Rafael starts telling me about his family, he's the baby of the family, like 6 older sisters etc. I say I am an only child and he goes, "OH! So THAT'S why you're single!" and I say, "Why, do I act like an only child?" and he goes, "No, but your father must reject every guy you date because you're his only daughter!" And I say, "My father lives about 11,000 miles away, so that is not really a problem!" and Rafael says, "Yes, but one day you will have to bring a special boy home to meet the parents!" and I say, "Maybe we will just elope!" and we laugh and next thing you know Rafael starts telling me about his ex-girlfriend.

Um. What? For a moment I am confused but then I think, "Oh no, his EX girlfriend, from like, a long time ago. Lots of gay men have ex-girlfriends." Only this ex girlfriend is recent. And he was dating this other girl when he met his ex-girlfriend etc. My jaw is pretty much resting on my knees at this point. I keep thinking, "Holy shit! I only agreed to meet him for coffee when I thought he was gay!" So he goes into the whole story about the year he and his ex were together and the stuff about her parents and her ex-boyfriend and I'm just all, "HOW IS HE NOT GAY? HE IS GAY! HE IS CAMP! HE IS IN DENIAL!"

Then he starts telling me how sexy I am. I feel so violated. My part of our conversation was totally based on the assumption he was gay. I feel tricked!

So, after what seems like hours later, Rafael is done blow drying my hair. But not before making me believe he's caused 3rd degree burns to my scalp from the excessive hairdryer heat. I pay him and start to walk out and he's like, "WAIT! Are you free tonight? I'd love to get together tonight!" I say I'm busy and he's like, "Oh I know, you work a lot and you do your writing and you try to make time for your friends, you are such a busy girl, but if you could make some time for me, I'd really appreciate it." Um, WHAT? So I get the whole ex-girlfriend talk AND the guilt trip about not having any time for him BEFORE the date? I don't think so, buddy!

My hair did look really cute after Rafael styled it, but boy did I paid for it in more ways than one!

He was very nice and very funny, but I will not be calling him. Am I some sort of beacon of light for the sexually confused? Don't answer that - it was unfortunately rhetorical. ;-)