Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other Musings Read Online Free PDF Page A

couldn’t wait to squeeze out a tube of Killerbrew’s Head Goo before heading out to the movies. More like plaster of Paris than a malleable gel, it went on wet and minutes later you had a rock of hair on your head that no force could change for days. We just loved it. Like all plaster-based products in those days, the lime content was pretty high. One day it disappeared from the shelves with an offer to join in a class-action lawsuit. No harm no foul, I’ve always said. Baseball legend Harmon Killerbrew took the
r
out of his name and became “Killebrew.” It was enough of a name change to hide him from the lawsuit and any culpability relating to all the seizures.
    EXXON HAIR TAR
    This stuff was everywhere and it really did the trick. It was the only hair product with the words
Completely Edible
on the label. Not that you would eat it, because it tasted like farts and clams, but it got thrown into a lot of pastry recipes around where I grew up and no one cared a lick. It took a while to work it into your hair as it was pretty sticky stuff, but once it was applied, look out, James Dean. It also helped if you had black hair because that’s the only color it came in. A shipment of Exxon Hair Tar spilled out on Route 66 in Indiana in ’56 and they closed down the highway for half a year. Every animal and piece of vegetation was annihilated within ten miles of the spill. Sad, when you think about it. In a gesture of true American courage Exxon owned up to their goof by saying they were sorry for what the truck driver did and that truck driver would have been fired if he had lived. Gosh darn it! Sometimes I wish we all could stand so tall in the face of our failure!
    DR. LON’S LOVE SAUCE
    Frankly this was the best of the bunch. It could only be found in adult bookstores and the backs of gentlemen’s magazines, but if you got your hands on a tub of this creamy sauce it made all the rest look like turds. No one knew anything about Dr. Lon except that he was a real doctor who specialized in hairology and that he had discovered his sauce while hiking in Tibet. It smelled a bunch like socks and yeast, so you had to keep your distance from other people, but the glow it gave your hair was worth it. I liberally put this on my headthree times a day for four years but then decided I needed human touch and I put it away. Years later I did a story on Dr. Lon, only to discover he was not a real human at all but just a made-up name. The real Dr. Lon was a bunch of researchers at Exxon Oil! Ingenious!
    In the end, because I’m such a hobby lover, I concocted my own special hair formula through trial and error. It took six years to get the perfect balance but here it is, my gift to those of you who honor your hair with love and affection.
    Eggs (six to eight)
    Bourbon (half bottle)
    Beer (Schaefer, four cans)
    Maple syrup (bottle)
    Rotten apples (four)
    Coconut milk (one gallon)
    Paint thinner (two cups)
    Shoe polish (two tins)
    Bouillon cubes (twenty)
    Cat urine (bowl)
    Wet newspaper (two to six pages)
    Cream of broccoli soup (one can)
    To prepare, throw all the ingredients into a large lobster pot and stir vigorously; add paint, color optional, when necessary. Cook till boiling and then let cool. Recipe makes enough for one or two applications. Your hair will look shimmery and stout all day. Hey … I’m just pulling your chain. My hair looks this way when I wake up and stays the same allday long. It’s just something you’re going to have to come to terms with. Unless your last name is Hudson, as in Rock, or Goulet, as in Robert, you won’t even come close to hair like mine in your lifetime no matter what you plop on your head. Ron Burgundy.
    One other quick story about my hair. In 1971 I was awarded the prestigious
Action-Man Magazine
award for best hair. It’s quite an honor. Past winners have been Lorne Greene, Bobby Sherman, and professional golfer Johnny Miller, among others. So yes, it’s a very big deal. The big shots