Ty Johnson’s Hair: A Short (relatively) History

Me auditioning for Herbal Essences in 2009. Not really. Photo by Michele Chandler

By now, you’ve noticed my hair.

Yes it’s blonde and long. No, I don’t straighten or blow dry and the answers to questions #3 and #4 are Garnier Fructis Sleek and Shine and Suave Vibrant Blonde conditioner.

At this point, I’ve been growing my hair out long (as I consider it) since January 6, 2004. That was the first day since sometime in elementary school that I didn’t put product in my hair that made me look like the picture to the right.

Back then, I was as synonymous with that spiky hair look as I am now with my “golden locks”…something I’ve never had a problem with as it seems more people recognize you and remember your name when you have hair that makes you stand out.

So when I got to college and haircuts started seeming really expensive, my hair just kept growing and the attention just kept coming. I’ve had people stop me on Bourbon Street just to touch my hair, and among friends it’s become the subject eternal jokes, either as it makes me look or act feminine or whatever.

But now I’ve come to a crossroads and I’d like to put it to the Internetverse to help with a decision about my hair.

Typically, I wait until I’m mistaken for a girl or someone hits on me in a weird manner before I consider a haircut. Here’s exhibit A:

In 2006, I was in Philadelphia with my family where I approached an old fireman (55+) outside his station in Chinatown (House of Dragons Fire Department) to ask if they sold T-shirts.

For those of you who don’t know, my dad is a firefighter in Goldsboro and likes to pick up T-shirts from obscure fire departments, so I typically grab him one anytime I’m somewhere cool. If there’s a fire department near you that has an interesting logo/location then let me know because he’s impossible to Christmas shop for. I’ll send you money/shipping and I’ll even put your name on the card alongside mine! Size XXL, please.

Anyway, I ask this middle-aged man if I could buy one of his T-shirts. He turned to me after helping his engineer back into the station and said: “Anything for you Fabio.”

He makes small talk, as firefighters do, about why I wanted the T-shirt and where my dad worked and such, and eventually I got the shirt, but as I was walking away, he stopped me again, saying “I’m serious, son. Don’t ever get thrown in jail in this city.”

That advice coming from an old man who was clearly impressed by my tresses was enough to get my hair cut that time. Encounters at On the Border in Cary and a Chick-fil-A in the CNN headquarters in Atlanta have also convinced me to cut the mane, but now I’m kind of looking for some advice:

Ordinarily, my mom and/or significant other are the only opinions that matter concerning my follicles, but since my mom has given up and I’m single, I thought I would at least solicit some views on it, even though it likely still won’t matter.

So…take my poll!

Just ignore the goofy smile...I was ice skating!

To be honest, I have an idea in mind and all I need is a little encouragement, so don’t worry about actually altering my plans…you can only confirm them.

Sports

Girls and intramurals

Hmm…academics.

That’s something I don’t talk about at all outside of Tweeting about idiot classmates and professors, but it’s important to set up my most exciting moment from Friday afternoon.

My bio-transcript

So I’m majoring in history because I have a good memory and like to talk and tell stories a lot. It’s not ever going to make me any money, but that’s why I’m minoring in the highly-lucrative field of journalism.

I ended up minoring in journalism mostly because I was required to take a course in copyediting to be editor-in-chief at Technician, and I figured if I’m going to dedicate 60 hours a week so something, I may as well have a note on my transcript to insinuate that I know what I’m doing.

My women’s and gender studies minor is probably a bit surprising to most, but it came from a freshman course in family sociology that grew into an obsession with understanding people. That, combined with some history courses that counted both ways (Sexes and society in early modern Europe, to name the most impressive-sounding class I’ve ever taken) and a quick, online introductory course (A+!) gave me a minor that (hopefully) will differentiate me from pigs and misogynists and land me a job.

My final minor, however, has no connection to any of my other curricula, and that’s because it’s not something I stumbled into, but something I’m passionate about: coaching.

My father, my failure, my future

My dad coached throughout his 20s and 30s and would be one of the best physical education teachers in the county if it hadn’t

Between watching Taylor (above) play, playing intramural games twice a week and driving home to Goldsboro to coach volleyball, this entire semester has felt like one big match.

been for an idiot guidance counselor that told him he’d never find a job…but I digress.

So it was that three-year-old Ty wore a little jersey to softball games with a fraction on the back where an ordinary jersey number would be and spent springs and summers in dugouts where my mom and aunt played and my dad coached.

But it’s not a “coaching family” urge that makes me want to coach, it’s the horrible coaching experiences I had growing up.

My dad, burned out from coaching, opted to watch me from the sidelines while coach after coach ruined my potential either by oversimplifying or over-complicating skills I needed before I hit high school where the booster club kids were the starters.

Fast forward to college, where at one point I told inquisitors I was majoring in girls and intramural sports. With my WGS and coaching minors, I’m as close as you can get.

But to my anecdote…two years ago I helped my dad coach volleyball back at my old high school (he returned from coaching retirement to coach Taylor) but I was coaching and offering help to girls I had gone to school with so it was mostly just awkward.

But as my final class for my minor, I have to take part in some student-coaching, which meant a return to my alma mater for another stint at coaching volleyball.

Now that everyone I attended school with has graduated, I’m known as Ty…not Coach Ty. Definitely not Coach Johnson (That’s my father).

I’m Coach Johnson’s son, Taylor’s brother…he graduated from Rosewood…well…sometime…and he’s here when Coach Johnson isn’t here…or whenever he can make the 45-minute journey back to Goldsboro around his insane schedule that revolves around classes, beer and high school sports.

My coach-able moment

We were doing stations last Friday in advance of our state playoff opener and I was in charge of a passing drill when a girl slid on the ground to get a pass. Her kneepad had slid back and exposed her knee where the hardwood wore a sore into her knee. Nothing but a scrape, but, bent over looking at her knee, she turned toward me and said “Can I get some prewrap?”

I whirled around so the head coach, who was running a hitting drill, could hear her query and tell her where to find the first aid kit, but as I turned back toward her, she said again, “Do we have any prewrap?”

But that’s when I realized she was talking to me. It was the first time I had ever felt like a coach! I thought about how monumental a moment it was for me, and wondered when it had happened for other coaches…Wooden, Kryzewski, my dad…but then I realized she was still looking at me. Oh yeah…she wanted prewrap.

So I grabbed the coach’s office keys and rummaged through her drawers looking for that sticky, foamy, stretchy stuff so she could wrap her knee and prevent the blood from seeping into her kneepad.

But I couldn’t find any! Great…I finally feel like a coach, and I can’t even come through in the most minuscule medical way possible…

I took her something that was wrappy and opened it up. It was a weird gauze-like thing…no sticky. She said don’t worry about it, so I ran it back to the office and decided to take solace in the notion that while I couldn’t deliver like a coach, at least I had the respect of a coach…that’s worth something, right?

But then I saw it! The first aid kit! It was on the sideline!

I ran to it and threw open its lid and there was a roll of prewrap right there on top! (Imagine this sound)

I ran over and tossed it to her. She wrapped up her knee and gave it back, and just like that, I was a coach…

Practice leads to perfect

Bolstered by my newfound (internal) title as a coach, I walked into the gym Saturday and did the most efficient scouting job you can do on a team when all you know is the team’s name (Northside).

I built up a database of serving tendencies (#7 – short, #4 – cross-court, #10 – down the line, 9 – jump) and watched #6, their best hitter. After an early block, she tipped it over every time. I told Coach Cochran and she yelled it to her players for coverage. She even wrote it down in her notebook!

And every time a server came in, she turned to me. “Seven, short,” I’d say and she would yell to her back line to move up.

We won and play tomorrow again at home, in case anyone is wondering, bringing my career varsity volleyball assistant coaching record to 5-2.

DRIVEN, Me Myself and Ty

Driven: B-More…Why B-Less?

Due to some computer issues, I never got around to chronicling my Baltimore weekend before now. Below is my story:

My baseball mecca: Oriole Park at Camden Yards

Brought on mostly from my authoring of another post, I decided I needed to take a trip up north.

I referred to it in my head as a pilgrimage to my baseball mecca: Oriole Park at Camden Yards. I had been to at least one game in Birdland for the past four years and I wasn’t about to let my streak end so long as there was gasoline in my tank.

So I wrecked my already paltry IRA further and headed up north Oct. 1 about 8 a.m. Hard to believe, but yes I was up before noon for once.

Anyway, I had Facebooked ahead and gotten a lunch date with one of my best friends from high school, Jeff McCumber. He’s getting his Master’s degree at Wesley Theological Seminary in D.C., and with it being right on the way I decided it was too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially since I hadn’t seen him in four years.

So I headed to D.C. and met him at his dorm where, just before he came out to meet me I witnessed the bird bath you see to the right. I love little birds and these feathery puff balls were so cute, I had to get a few pictures.

Anyway, Jeff took me up to meet his girlfriend and see his brick-walled, Bob Marley shrine of a room where he showed me exactly where I’ll sleep when I visit next time. (Yes! A callback!)

We went to an Irish pub and ate and talked about girls and love and life, but it eventually turned into a game of naming obscure people from high school we hadn’t thought about in years and reminiscing about how much we hated and loved football practice.

Jeff had to get to a youth ministry camp later that afternoon, so our time was cut a bit short, but since the Orioles game from Thursday night had been postponed due to rain, I had a doubleheader to catch anyway, so it worked out perfectly.

Until Jeff showed me a shortcut. I followed him to I-495 South, where he called to inform me was the road I wanted, just in the wrong direction. He suggested I take an exit and loop around to head north toward Baltimore.

Okay…so if you’ve read anything from my Driven series, you know I like to drive. I pride myself on my sense of direction and my ability to drive backwards, but the following details the most stressful series of driving miscues I have ever experienced:

I took exit 45. Minutes later (At 4:01p.m.), I noticed a text message from Jeff instructing me to not take exit 45 because of its toll road. If only I had gotten on the toll road! I took the free road to the airport (D) where there were NO exits! I went through the airport parking lot, grabbed a parking ticket and breezed out no charge. Now I’m only 12 miles away from 495. No biggie.

But remember the airport road? It’s in the center of the toll roads like this:

| ^ | ^
V | V |
(The bold indicates the free public airport road).

The exit for 495 northbound comes up, but you have to merge over to the toll road to take it. I missed the merge and continued down the road before turning around again.

Now I see the exit on the right that says “To I-495.” Boom. I took it. I’m on the way to Baltimore and I’ll still get to see the first game of the twin-bill (First pitch was scheduled for 4:35 p.m.)

By now, Jeff has already posted the following on my Facebook wall:

“So I watched you ride off into the sunset on a road I know you shouldn’t be on… oh good times good times… Today was a good day. Thank you again for going to lunch, and I hope you have a good time at your game…whenever….you…get….there…..”

That was at 4:41. At 4:50 I responded to his post that I had just reached I-495, just like I thought I did.

Man, I turned on some Jason Derulo and went into my driving zone. The wind through my hair with the top down: this was why I had wanted to do this solo road trip in the first place.

But then I felt something. It didn’t feel like I was going north. The road signs didn’t say anything about Baltimore.

A Google depiction of my route. Total distance traveled: 69.3 miles. Total time wasted: 1 hour 50 minutes.

Now to the voice in Ty’s head: “Wait…is that a toll road? I want to avoid that. Let’s take this exit to the airport…airport? WHAT. THE. FUCK.”

Yep, I was back on the road to Dulles International with no exits to change my route. This time I followed the road around the airport (See, I did adapt with new knowledge to avoid the parking lot line, at least) and headed back toward 495 AGAIN.

No big deal, right? I mean, yeah I’m getting stressed but all I have to do now is take that 495 North exit I missed the first time and I’m right back on track.

But it’s time to adapt some more. Last time I missed the exit because I wasn’t on the excitable toll road. Let’s get over there now to avoid missing it again.

“WHAT THE FUCK? IT’S NOT A MERGE EXIT…IT’S AN EXIT EXIT!”

So now I’m on International Drive, except not really. I’m stuck in standstill traffic on the ramp to get to International Drive, which is a road I know I don’t want to be on.

I fight through the traffic and manage to turn myself around again, but I’m done with Jeff and the Nav system and that horrible airport road. I took a look at my fancy phone map and discover Lewinsville Road, which seems to lead to a 495 junction. I took the road and finally, at 5:51 p.m. as evidenced by a Facebook post I sent to Jeff, I was on the right road to Baltimore…

I arrived at the park about 7:30 p.m. and walked in just in time to see the second pitch of the game. The ticket was just $6 with my student ID, so I was pretty happy.

I grabbed my customary crabcake sandwich and a beer and stood in right field to watch the first half of the game. I moved to centerfield (Eutaw Street Reserve) for a spell, then back to SRO before taking a seat right beside Nick Markakis in right field. The Orioles won, but my friend Kaitlyn who was supposed to meet me at the game was held up at work, so the game was a solo shot.

It was nice to just enjoy a baseball game by myself. Anyone who knows me well knows about my affinity for the sport and reverence for its traditions, so it was almost the fulfillment of my pilgrimage to simply sit and observe. I cheered and yelled and made snide remarks to myself still, but it was a tranquil and relaxing experience.

After the game (WE WON!) I hit the road back south to stay with Christine in D.C. After finding a Thomas Street in Alexandria, I went to Thomas Street in Arlington (The one she actually lives on). I slept in her room, mostly so I could blog that I slept in a room with a girl…and then awoke the next day to continue south to Rocky Mount where Taylor had a volleyball match.

They won in five sets and I headed west toward Raleigh for the N.C. State/Virginia Tech football game. I got there in time to see most of the second quarter and thus my solo road trip came to a two-touchdown loss end.

And so my pilgrimage was completed and the weekend will go down as one of my busiest, most traveled, most athletic event watching weekend in Ty Johnson history. Yay.

Music

Music Monday – Vanessa Carlton

The honor of being the first inductee into the Ty Johnson holy trinity of dark-haired lyricists belongs to Vanessa Carlton.

You likely know her as the “Thousand Miles” singer, but as I mentioned before, piano-infused pop music is a weakness of mine.

This means that in a CD-driven world (early 2000s) I bought her album “Be Not Nobody” and proceeded to memorize every song on it, including Ordinary Day.

I just stumbled through Wikipedia and learned that Ordinary Day actually charted in the U.S., but that wasn’t on any radio stations I was listening to.

I just really like her strains and the simplicity of the song. It’s just a piano and a voice. Plus it’s kind of an uplifting tune that’s fun to belt really loudly in the car.

TJHTODHL honorable mention #2: Regina Spektor

Sonja suggested Spektor to me when she learned of how much I loved Kate Nash. The two have very similar musical styles, but I wasn’t buying it…until I became the editor of Technician.

My managing editor, Ana, was the DJ of our shared office, so I was submitted to her music often and one of the songs I fell in love with was Fidelity, mostly due again to the simplicity of the song.

It became an audio sanctuary for me during rough nights. Sometimes I needed only to call out “Ana, play me a song” and Fidelity would fill the room in seconds. It soothed my head and allowed me to collect my thoughts…I don’t think I ever accomplished anything while that song was playing, but I also never murdered a writer/editor/designer during that song either, so that’s a plus.

Me Myself and Ty

Just another day

That’s how my dad always referred to any non-family oriented holiday. This meant St. Patrick’s Day, New Year’s Day, Columbus Day…you name it…were all just days when mail delivery was questionable and some workplaces were closed.

It’s important to note that my dad is a fireman, so his schedule doesn’t take into account holidays. Idiots with dry, unwatered Christmas trees light them up with candles on Christmas Eve, Day and any other day of the holiday season, so in his line of work there isn’t really a day off.

It’s also important to note that he doesn’t drink, so these Cinco de Mayo-type excuses to get plastered on a weekday never appealed to him either, but I think more than anything he recognizes holidays where families come together. Christmas, Thanksgiving and a few family cookouts complete his recognized holidays, which brought me to the way I feel about my birthday.

It’s just another day.

I love birthdays, just not mine. It’s always so much fun to make a big deal about people on their birthdays and buy them presents and drinks, but on my birthday I can’t help but feel narcissistic.

People sing TO you…you can’t sing with them. I’m too self-aware to just let go and be pampered, so every year since I can remember I’ve found a way to get upset about my birthday.

I laid awake the night before my 16th, wondering if I would die. I was convinced God would never let me drive legally.

The night before my 18th, I laid awake knowing that any crimes I committed the next day could result in me being lethally injected…yeah it gets that dark.

The birthday, to me, is just a reminder of how far I haven’t come in so long. It comes with the territory of living within the same one-hour stretch of highway for your entire life…plus the knowledge that Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon at age 17.

But I did have one great birthday. Two, actually. One was my eighth. Cal Ripken Jr. was my favorite baseball player and I had seen him play just THREE games before he broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak in early September. His number, of course, was 8.

So my mom made a white, circular cake with orange baseball seams and an Orioles font 8 in the middle. Oh. My. Gosh. It was the best cake ever!

Fast forward 13 years to when I met Sonja Jones. Her birthday (March 12) is the best day ever, and if you don’t agree…well she doesn’t care.

Sonja learned of my disgust at my birthday and sought to change it. She arranged a day-long scavenger hunt that ended with my parents and all of my friends at a party complete with two replica cakes of my favorite birthday ever! (And, in a throwback to my Kate Nash post: Mouthwash defines this birthday in my head. Not because it was a Friday night, but because it was a Saturday night and I recall being drunk and singing it with the actual night tweaked in very loudly).

EDITOR’S NOTE: There was another Orioles cake produced by Kate Shefte, Ana Andruzzi and my friends at ‘Technician‘ last year on my birthday. Its significance was not lost on the author of this post, but the cake decorations were more coincidental than on his 21st birthday. Nevertheless, the cake should have been mentioned at this point, and the author failed to do so. It was delicious.

Of course 21 is a special birthday in the United States, but this one I set apart because of what it taught me: birthdays aren’t necessarily for those who celebrate them. Sometimes they’re for your friends.

Me with my two replica cakes courtesy of Sonja. Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Fowler. Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008.

Sometimes it gives them a chance to spend money on you. Sometimes it gives them an excuse to get you drunk. Sometimes it’s just a time when they take a Facebook post and use it to show you they still remember you and cherish whatever friendship you have or have lost.

That’s why I like birthdays so much…I can celebrate someone for no other reason than their existence.

That’s when I realized that the truly narcissistic thing about a birthday is when you don’t allow OTHERS to make a big deal about it. Saying “It’s just another day” or posting a ridiculously long rant on your blog about how much you don’t care for your birthday is the selfish move. Acting like the U.S. Government decided to place Columbus Day on your birthday simply because Ty Johnson Appreciation Day is difficult to fit in a calendar square allows your friends the opportunity to make your day special. Not embracing a birthday is like refusing to accept compliments…nobody feels good about it.

So while I still hesitate to tell people about my birthday, I’ve come to appreciate it for what it is: an excuse to live one day like you would like to live every day.

For me that means I’m doing a lot of illegal parking and pushing a lot of yellow lights. Woo hoo!

Music

Music Monday – Kate Nash

Kate Nash is the most recent addition to the Ty Johnson holy trinity of dark-haired lyricists. The other two will be announced in following posts. (Hint: Sara Bareilles is an honorable mention, mostly because of her cover of one of my all-time favorite songs).

I discovered Kate back when Conan still had his show (Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Jan. 15, 2008 She performed this song) though it really doesn’t seem that long ago.

Call it an obsession with the piano, (Fur Elise is the most sensual song ever composed) but I just fell in love.

To date, her album, Made of Bricks, is the only album I’ve ever purchased on iTunes, meaning after my hard drive crashed about a month ago, I couldn’t reclaim the files because I couldn’t remember my password or whatever.

Anyway, I found different means of reclaiming my Nash collection and came across Habanera, which wasn’t on my album but was so effing awesome I’ve been listening to it over and over.

Now, following my epic weekend which should be discussed in a future post, I’ve rekindled my love for Kate and am considering buying her album…again.

For a self-professing pirate to purchase any music, let alone consider purchasing it again, should say something: give Kate Nash a listen!

——————————————————————————————————

I also highly recommend Rikki’s “Since You’ve Been Gone” cover from last week’s Music Monday post. I do a lot of driving on Mondays, so I’ve begun using my new-fangled phone to listen to her posts en route to class/work on Mondays and last week’s was definitely sing-a-long friendly…except for the demon part…that’s best to just listen to.

Anyway, here’s her most recent Music Monday post. I’ll let you know if it’s worth it or not after my class commute.

UPDATE: The audio quality of YouTube punk rock playing out of a phone through a cassette deck adapter to my car speakers was poor, but it’s definitely worth the 90 seconds it takes to listen to it. The Germs found a way to get an inordinate amount of notes and noises in that minute and a half.

Ty W. Johnson

multimedia journalist & editor

Monthly Archives: October 2010