Hair-Raising Adventures in Viewing
I thought I was infomercial-proof.
Those paid half-hour commercials--most of them TV pitches dressed up to look like talk shows--have no power over me. I resisted the amazing spot removers, the dazzling teeth whiteners, the remarkable travel irons, the astonishing juicers, the incredible math courses, the wondrous get-rich-quick schemes and, yes, Ron Popiel’s stupefying Electric Food Dehydrator, even after members of his studio audience gave thumbs up to its beef jerky.
But when I saw the GLH Formula Number 9 Hair System, it was love at first sight.
Each morning, I squander time in front of the mirror arranging my hair in new creative ways to camouflage the silver dollar-size bald spot at the top of my head. So when I saw Popiel (this, too, is his product) on the screen effortlessly hiding those bald spots (including his own), saw the patches of scalp disappear under his blitz of spritzing, saw him bring such joy to the relatively hairless and saw his female co-pitchpersons and the studio audience absolutely rave about the results--I knew that I, too, had to have the GLH Formula Number 9 Hair System, a $124.80 value for merely $39.92 (the price has since gone up), plus tax and shipping.
I called the toll-free number on the screen and placed my order for dark brown.
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In less than two weeks, I had it in hand: the colored hair thickener, the finishing shield, the hair cleanser and, as a bonus, the incredible trim-comb, which I immediately slipped into a drawer where I keep things I don’t want but never throw away. I wanted the look of more hair, not less.
And now it was about to happen. Goodby bald spot. As I began the process, I was glowing, I was ecstatic.
First I used the cleanser (otherwise known as shampoo). Following the instructions, I waited until my hair was completely dry, then sprayed on the thickener, covering my bald spot. Then I sprayed on the hair shield.
The transformation was almost immediate. I felt so empowered, so confident, so . . . devastatingly handsome.
I displayed my new thicker look to my wife, who was speechless, obviously too awed to express her feelings of admiration and euphoria.
Then the other member of our household weighed in. “It looks like you sprayed your head with dirt,” my daughter said.
“Oh.”
Well, maybe I had put it on wrong. Maybe I wasn’t able to see what I was doing while working with a mirror. So the next day I washed out the stuff and had my wife reapply it. Afterward, she surveyed her work. “It looks . . . well . . . I mean . . . you know . . . not really bad.”
“Oh?”
“But not really good.”
“Oh.”
“I think you could get away with it in the dark.”
We went out to dinner with friends that night. One of them said I looked like I was wearing flocking (fuzzy looking material) on the top of my head. Someone else said it might pass for real hair if I was on television. Like, sure, during my many appearances on “The Tonight Show.”
Later that evening, my daughter thoughtfully reassessed her earlier harsh judgment.
“Your head looks like it’s been charred.”
That was encouraging. Obviously, I had purchased the perfect product for someone who preferred that excitingly macho charred look to baldness. So much for infomercial sales pitches. Meanwhile, if anyone wants a GLH Formula Number 9 Hair System, I know where you can buy one cheap.
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SUPER BOWL UNMASKED. The best way to enjoy the Super Bowl, I learned last week, is to not watch the hype. And best of all, not watch the game.
How could a true patriot ignore an American classic, a nail-biter in which the Dallas Cowboys edged the Buffalo Bills by a mere 35 points? Didn’t I, as a taxpayer, care who would become the champion of all of U.S. football until the next Super Bowl? Uh . . . no.
Instead, in some nifty open field running, I eluded the advance coverage, dodging the hail of newspaper stories and TV reports about what a struggle of Titans the Super Bowl was bound to be. Then on Sunday, just as the 2 1/2-hour pregame show was revving up, I became the ultimate heretic, dashing downtown to the Ahmanson Theatre to see a performance of “The Phantom of the Opera.” Now there was a guy with some moves.
Before and after “Phantom,” I watched the Arts & Entertainment Network’s own champion--its marathon rerunning of “The Jewel in the Crown,” a scintillating, 14-part drama that remains the best stretch of television I have ever seen. Chronicling the demise of the British Raj in India, it first aired in the United States on PBS in 1984-85, a series so extraordinary and sustaining that it could not be undermined Sunday even by A&E;’s customary intrusive assault of commercials.
The final episode, knotting the themes of colonialism, classism and racism that threaded the entire series, was a fitting metaphor for this stunning production and a perfect capper on a Super Bowl-less evening. If I had had a football, I would have spiked it.
