So Long 08 Part 1 of 3
It is funny how a Year can be the greatest as well as the worst at the same time. ‘08 started kind of normal I was working at Capello as well as a Beauty School plugging along, Drinking Too much. My Birthday rolls around and I get a call from the organizers of the North American Hairstyling Awards, saying that DeAnnalyn and myself have been Nominated for not one but two categories. (For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is the similar to the Oscars of Hairdressing.) That was way cool D and I have been shooting for this competition for the last 10 years and have not even received a nomination and now we had two.
Anyhow the bad times started when the owners of the Beauty School that I was working for decided to go in a different direction than we originally were going with their business. In other words when I was hired on they informed me they wanted to deliver a great product (student) to their customer (salon owner) at all costs. They actually said “at all costs…” Well in June ‘08 they decided to go in a different direction and deliver a crappy product with my name behind it. So in June ‘08 on a Saturday, I went to work, with no intention to quit. By 2:15 I had my car loaded with all of my gear and left the school never to go back. In fact I still get sick to my stomach driving north on MLK North of Burnside.
That afternoon I went to a buddies Bar on Broadway called “The Rose and Thistle”. I walked in and announced “Hey Marty guess what I did today? I quit my job. Everyone in the bar cheered and bought me drinks.”
That was F*$@ing scary returning to the Salon after 5 years with barely any clientele, and two houses with two mortgages each. Our Saving grace was NAHA. We knew that if we could win any categories our life would change. We would finally make it as Hairdressers and wouldn’t have anything to worry about. We figured a Manufacture would pick us up and we would do Hair shows and Photo shoots to supplement our income.
Saturday July 12th our last clients of the day were Daniel from King Black Acid and his lovely family. We had a great time and the client from hell that DeAnn was expecting stood us up. I remember driving to the Airport Listening to “Oasis, Defiantly Maybe” singing along with tears and thinking how whether we win or loose we will not return home the same as when we left.
To Be Continued