I think a big part of your identity is how people see you rather than how you see yourself. Another way to get an idea of what you’re really like is to look at your internet history. Sometimes I look at mine and wonder what I’m doing with my life. Currently my searches show I’ve been looking at pressure washers, I’ve watched the Um Bongo TV advert from the ’80s as I used to like rapping along to it as a kid and I wanted to see if I could still remember it (I couldn’t), I’ve been looking at images of sheepshead fish, I’ve been on my fantasy football league and watched another YouTube favourite of a gorilla on a BMX. I’m not sure what all that says about me.
A NEW HEAD OF HAIR
The plan during this trip was for me to look at myself and my identity, which began with me gozzing into a small test tube and rubbing a cotton bud-type stick on the inside of my cheek to collect some saliva to post off for a DNA test. Apparently my saliva knows more about me than I know about myself. From that, the experts can gather information on relatives I’ve not met and data about my ancestral origins, which is impressive, as the only thing it generally links me to is my pillow. Even though the duvet and pillows are thrown from the bed when Suzanne is changing the bedding, I still know which are my pillows due to the saliva stains. Yellow circles of goz cover seventy per cent of the pillows – it looks like giraffe skin. I don’t know why I churn out so much. Science says we produce two to four pints every day, but I reckon I’ve got loads more than that. A few years back I sat in the garden and dribbled to see if it would eventually stop, but believe it or not I got bored before the supply came to an end. I reckon I could water the garden with myself.
Anyway, I read ages ago that humans share fifty per cent of the same DNA as a banana. I wasn’t too fussed about the results of this test so I had two and a half bananas for breakfast to see if I could alter my DNA and be more banana than human when the results came back in.
If I had to describe myself, I wouldn’t start with me being British, or white, or how old I am, I would begin with the fact that I am bald. I’d say it’s my most distinguishing feature. I’m sure if people were talking about me but couldn’t remember my name, they would say, ‘You know him . . . that bald bloke off the telly.’ It adds a bit of fun when I FaceTime Suzanne on my travels, as if we don’t have much to talk about we’ll kill time by having a game of ‘Head or Knee’. I show her either the top of my head or the top of my knee and she has to guess if it’s my head or knee. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
I’ve been bald since I was about twenty-two, which means I’ve been bald for almost half of my life. I’ve said before that I don’t know what to put it down to as my dad and granddad had a good head of hair, so I blame the power shower that my dad installed when I was younger – it was similar to the water cannons that police use in riots. But in all the time I’ve been bald I’ve never been tempted to wear a wig as I’ve not once seen a good one. You can spot them a mile off. They never sit properly on the head and the colour doesn’t match. To me they’re like having false cladding on the front of your house. Everyone knows it’s not real, and on top of that, it looks shit.
Today I was going to see how shit I would look wearing false hair. I was meeting a man named Curtis at his salon in Atlanta who was going to fit me with a ‘hair prosthetic’. When I got there I was taken off to a private room that was full of plastic sandwich bags full of hair and mannequin heads modelling different kinds of hair.
KARL: I mean, looking at that, that looks like real hair.
CURTIS: That’s cos it’s all real human hair.
KARL: When you say real hair, though, where’s that from?
CURTIS: Asian women grow their beautiful black hair, then they go to the temples and have it shaved off. The hair is processed, stripped of its original colour and then recoloured in every shade from black to blonde.
KARL: But hang on, say if I’m wearing one of these and then I do a murder and they find the hair, she’ll get done for it!
CURTIS: (laughs) Listen, they have proven that students react better to teachers who have hair than teachers who are bald.
They also found out that if two men are interviewed for the same job – one bald and one with hair – ninety-five per cent of the time they’re gonna hire the guy with hair. It’s not right. But it’s the way it is in this society. Children are sometimes scared of bald men. And I’ve had teachers tell me the same thing as well.
I sat down on a chair, and Curtis checked my hair shade before disappearing off into storage to get a ‘hair prosthetic’ to fit my head. At this point I thought it was merely going to be a bit of fun; he would pop it on my head, it would look like a wig, and we’d all have a laugh before shooting off to the next location. But that wasn’t the case. He placed a pile of Asian women’s hair in position and straight away I thought it made me look younger. It looked so real and wasn’t too thick like most wigs normally are, and I could see my scalp through it which gave the impression of it being my own hair.
I had a look of James McAvoy about me. Long floppy hair with a centre parting. It was amazing how each time he tweaked it, it totally changed my look. He took the hairline back a little more and I switched from James McAvoy to Richard E Grant. It definitely improved my appearance. It immediately made me look friendlier.
I suppose this is the reason they never have those weird hairless cats on the front of Christmas cards. They don’t look as cute as your normal bog-standard fluffy cat.
KARL: Have you ever had someone come back after having it done and say, ‘You know what, I don’t feel like me any more?’ Do they ever say I wanna go back to being bald?
CURTIS: No. This is like a drug, it gets very addictive. And I warn my guys, don’t get into this if you can’t afford it. Once you see yourself looking better . . .
KARL: Roughly what would I be looking at price-wise?
CURTIS: About $3,500 a year. But remember, you’re sleeping in this, you’re showering in this, you’re doing everything in this, Karl. We replace the adhesive once a month and the third time we just throw the piece away and get you a whole new one.
He wet the hair then and I was transformed into that Scouse comedian John Bishop. It was amazing how many different looks I could get. I was like Worzel Gummidge with his different heads. It annoyed me that I liked it as much as I did. I’ve become bored of seeing myself for the last twenty-odd years, but having hair back around my face gave me a reason to look in the mirror again. I know it’s not important but it did give my head a new lease of life. I suppose hair is like garnish on a plate of food.
Most of the stuff people stick on there like celery or cress doesn’t get eaten, it just brightens up the meal, and that is what hair does to the head.
Curtis said that if I was happy with the way it was looking now, I should definitely have it bonded to my head, as then it could be shaped properly. I didn’t need any more convincing so went through to another room where a woman called Daphne got to work on it. She spread glue on my bonce like she was buttering bread. She slid the hair into place and after a few minutes gave the hair a tug. It was stuck down tight.
KARL: What is that stuff? Shitting hell, are you sure that can come off?
DAPHNE: It’s not going anywhere. It has a twenty-four-hour curing period, so the more it cures the stronger it will get, so you don’t have to worry about it coming off.
KARL: No, I’m not worried about it coming off. I’m worrying that it’s not coming off.
DAPHNE: We can get it off, trust me.
I wasn’t worried that it wouldn’t come off cos I didn’t like it, it was because