"Gimme a Beatle haircut, leave the sideburns!"

 

"Gimme a Beatle haircut, leave the sideburns!" I handed him a copy of the "Meet The Beatles" album, pointed to Paul, and slumped into the barber's chair for the first Beatle haircut in Texas! I closed my eyes, the radio played "Blowin' In The Wind" by Peter, Paul and Mary, my fate in the hands of Hunter Bell, the best rock and roll hair stylist east of Philly or west of L.A.! But this was the man who had personally cultivated my teenage mane, from flat-top, through the greasy "duck tails" of the early sixties. And now thanks to the miracle of the "Rolfler Sculpt Kut Process", the best pompadour west of Philly, or east of L.A. was protected from the fierce east Texas winds, even with my "rag top" dropped! My hair never moved, once the protective coating of God knows only what was applied! I often wonder how much of the ozone I personally destroyed in the name of rock and roll, from Tyler Texas in 1963! Hunter looked at me like I had just killed his dog, and flatly refused

to do it! He feared out loud, that if this thing caught on, he would be stuck with a fortune tied up in "Rolfler Sculpt Kut" products, in a world without pompadours! First I assured him that it would never catch on, and besides I had seen a picture of George Harrison using a can off spray-net in a Beatles publicity picture. He allowed out loud again, that it would take twice as much of that "Rolfler Sculpt Kut miracle spray", to keep my already long hair looking like the picture with the top of my convertable hot rod down. He then turned me away from the mirror, took one last look at the picture of Paul, lauged, and began! I squeezed my eyes closed again, the radio played "Devil In Disgiise" by

Elvis, and I told him those guys are going to comb their hair back up as soon as the whole english school boy thing blows over! Hell, I had seen pictures of them, they were rock-a-billy boys in leather jackets with pompadours singing Carl Perkins and Eddie Cochran songs just a few months ago. "The band is going to be big, but the haircuts will never last", I told him! Besides it was a radio promotion, and he couldn't

pay for the kind of publicity he would get for free for just a few snipes of his time! By giving the first Beatle haircut in Texas, his

place in history was already reserved! The newspaper photographer was on his way!

I was the brand new teenaged d.j. at east Texas number one rock and roll radio station KDOK. Bill Young the program director, was an older man who hated the Beatles! Boo hiss! He had also said on the air that "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was the worst record that he had ever heard

in all his years in radio! And besides he predicted it would never be a hit, at least not in Tyler Texas! Boo hiss! The kids hated him, and being a kid myself, I had no choice but to "back the Beatles"! I knew they couldn't make it without the help of this teenage boy from east Texas, so I said on the air that I would get a Beatle haircut, and wear it everyday till "I Want To Hold Your Hand" becomes number one in

Tyler! Yeah, yeah, yeah! And then the same Bill Young, who almost didn't hire me because my hair was too long, would have to get a beatle haircut, and show up in front of all the kids at a "School Appreciation Record Hop" we were holding for every kid in east Texas! I could hardly

wait, everybody knew it was going to happen! Everybody but Bill! Boo, hiss!

It would be alright, I had already spent some time alone as a Beatle! One night I washed my hair, and I just let it dry, as legend has it the "fab four" did when the haircut was born! I just shook my head from side to side singing, "She Loves You...Yeah, Yeah, Yeah"! But it was way too long! I realized that i'd have to cut it if I was going to see all those girls, let alone get all those girls, like those crazy English guys! Besides, I can just comb it back up when the Beatle thing is over! My eyes were closed, the radio played "I Saw Her Standing There", I heard the scream of teenage girls for Eddy Payne, the fifth

Beatle! Then I heard the second loudest thing I have ever heard, the swish of the scissors, like the grim reaper whacking away at the best Bobby Rydell pompadour east of Philly, or west of L.A., or whatever!

I was terrified, the follicles literally screamed out in pain! Somewhere Ethel Merman wa singing "There's No Business Like Show Busibness", while the radio played "The End Of The World" by Skeeter Davis1 Elvis must have felt like this when he went to bootcamp! Sampson must have felt this way when Deliah was done cuttin'! That cat we shaved way back in the 3rd. grade, must have, oh never mind! My hair never forgave me! I believe to this day, that my hairline just just gave up and started

receding right then, figuring that if I had no more respect for the best Bobby Rydell pompadour, west of, hell you know what I mean! I tried many times over the years to comb my hair back up like I said, but from that moment on, I was destined to wear Beatle bangs, to cloak a precocious forehead that's been trying to steal my thunder, and bully it's way into every photograph taken of me since!

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