You Can't Control Your Image

I recently went into a barber shop in Portland and paid a very nice guy named Logan $30 (including tip) to cut my hair. It had been just about 2 years and I wanted to lighten the load a bit. After a few weeks of mulling, and possibly related to the 2 year anniversary of my father's death on April 3, 2009 (really, April 2nd, but officially the 3rd), I decided now was the time. Here's the result.

As you can see, it's short but still very curly. I'm enjoying a pint of Alameda's IPA at Beaker & Flask in SE Portland. If you've never been, go and enjoy some of the best food and barkeeping in town.

Later in the day, I posted the above photo to a little social networking site you may or may not be familiar with, Facebook. The usual "wow" comments ensued and I basked in the warm glow of virtual love from various friends and cyber-friends. Later on, a friend and fellow classmate at BGI, Patty Liu of Seattle, Washington, got into the spirit and shared this photo on my profile's "wall" on the Facebook.

She claims my new 'do makes me look like an actor portraying someone called "The Max" or "Max Nerdstrom" or something like that on a late '90s situational comedy television series known as Saved by the Bell. I am only vaguely aware of this show's existence, which to me is a sign of my sophistication and taste, if not my advancing age. To others, it's no doubt evidence of my geezerness and clueless grasp on the classics of Clinton-era pop culture. My friend claims this person bears a striking resemblance to me - my "doppelganger" - was the expression she used. I fail to see the similarity. At all.

Now, all of this would be an interesting little tale in and of its own right, except that I, late in the evening upon seeing the above "doppelganger" photo splayed on my wall and not exactly feeling flattered, decided to remove it. In a sense, I censored the comic styling of a friend of mine in a public manner. In trying to remove something from the Interwebtubenets - be it this image or even a video in which I claim that living on $174,000 a year is difficult (vote GOP 2012!) - I made the age-old mistake of thinking online censorship can actually control your image. It cannot.

So, to Ms. Patty Liu, I apologize for taking down your contribution to my Facebook "wall" and not seeing the benefits of being associated with a major icon for millions of Millenials out there tuned into just how cool "The Max" really was back in the day.

In closing, as Slater once said to Jessie, ""What I look like is not as important as who I am, Bubba."