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Barbershop boxing
I walked in and nodded. Hung my hat on a hook and parked my self in front of an ever changing stack of magazines. A few years back when the local barbershop, like boxing, was a male only domain, that stack was graced with back issues of Playboy. We'd talk sports and skim through them without fear of being branded as the knuckle-dragging primates we so closely resembled.
We could even (god curse our vile natures) scratch our perpetually itchy crotches. Undo the top buttons of our pants. Curse freely. It all seemed too good to be true. As my white-bearded, far-out philosophy professor would always remind me, "The only constant is change."
The Playboys have been replaced by Chatelaine's, men are fighting women in sanctioned bouts, women are fighting women on world title undercards, Ali's daughter is fighting, Ali is announcing mock comeback bids, and instead of Luigi cutting my hair, some blond chick who looks like Sally Jesse Rafael is staring me down, gripping cold, sharp stainless steel weaponry.
"You next?" she asked behind a gaudy pair of red framed glasses.
I pretended I didn't hear her hoping one of the other sticklers for tradition would take my place. They were all waiting for Luigi though, and I was suddenly under an intensely bright spotlight. Heads were buried in newspapers. A nine year old boy with the buster brown haircut I once sported quickly snatched up a Financial Post.
"Heathens," I mumbled to myself, disgusted by the thick display of chauvinism.
O.K. have things been getting weird around here or is it just me. Boxing has really gone bonkers. Could you believe the stupidity of the press taking the Ali announcement seriously? Am I the only one who remembers Ali's quick witted sense of humour? The stories were coming down the wire here at Canoe and I could picture the genius who thought he broke the story of the year....This just in....Muhammad Ali has announced his comeback....rematch with Larry Holmes is not out of the question....Ali said to have shaken off effects of Parkinson's disease."
Tyson's fighting this weekend. So is the Prince. Don't ignore the best of the bunch, Erik Morales fighting on the Naseem under card against Wayne McCullough. You might remember McCullough for his honest effort against Naz last Halloween. It was one of the Prince's worst efforts, an annoying display of untimely, overkilled mockery and showboating. The best punch he landed was his uppercut on that skeleton during his "look at me, I'm silly" ring entrance. Morales will destroy Naseem if the contract ever gets signed. David Tua takes on Canada's Shane Sutcliffe. Good night.
She was snipping away. I was skimming through the recent issue of Ring magazine I had brought along, ignoring the Chatelaine trend at all costs. I stopped to read a story about Vitali Klitschko destroying Herbie Hibe.
Who is this Klitschko character anyways? If your like me you conjure up some frightening images of an Ivan Drago type monster sputtering broken english eulogies over his fallen victims. If I could make a heavyweight fight right now, set em up in some dingy gym, and let em loose on each other, it would be Ibeabuchi vs. Klitschko. Just because it reminds me of my knuckle dragging ancestors. It would also answer a lot of questions. Can Ibeabuchi handle the size of a guy like Klitschko? Can Klitschko handle the surprising speed and work rate of Ibeabuchi? Unfortunately this speech slurring, consciousness robbing collision will have to wait. Ibeabuchi is said to be suffering from some strange chemical imbalance in the cerebral cortex region of the brain, causing him to act genuinely anti-social.
I was lost in my own world when vertigo gripped my being. Sally spun me around and I was now facing the window. She was finishing up and was I helplessly trapped, arms pinned, beneath that plastic thing that's supposed to deflect hair but liberally allows those little itchy ones to lodge themselves in the neck of my t-shirt. I didn't even know what I looked like and I felt the blood rush to my face when two beautiful young women passed me and laughed.
I was mortified.
For all I knew she had styled my hair in a giant pompadour and I was the unknowing butt of giggling girl jokes. I could hear them, "DId you see Mike Talbot...Oh my god, his hair! He's so out of it." The horror.
She spun me around again and allowed me to critique her work. The smile crept slowly from the corner of my ketchup stained mouth. Damn grilled cheese! It was a beauty of a hair cut. No lie. The guy next to me was being given the Luigi special and I realized I had outsmarted them all. That sneaky Luigi was cashing in on our fear of change. He's been giving the same hair cut for 20 years. I tipped Sally and headed for the door, whistling a cheery tune. As I was walking out I passed the 9 year old, still waiting for his turn. As I walked by him he seemed to squirm uncomfortably. I took a careful look see and from my birds eye view I noticed, nestled behind his financial post, the recent issue of Playboy.
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