2004-04-30

The day I found myself at a hair show. A show of hair, a competition of coiffure, vanity up against vanity. Hair, make up and clothes are some things I have not been concerned with. That is a lie, but certainly not to this extent of discipline.

Sunny and warm with a 10am start at one of Newcastle’s coolest salons – you call it a salon when the décor is predominantly white and stainless steel and the hairdressers are dressed in monotone. Otherwise, they are hairdressers’ shops.

I had managed to awaken the deep sleeping Nods so we could get there in time. Seconds after arriving at Suki, I was whisked to the basin to have my stunningly copper hair washed. During the week, each of the ‘craft girls had been coloured and coiffed to a metropolitan standard, in order to compete with the big boys in the Sydney hairdressing scene. The coif roll call goes:

- Kylie: gone from blonde to copper with some nice asymmetrical features. Very “I spend too much time in a salon”

- Nods: electric blue and red spiky blonde do. Very Sharon O’Neill.

- Simi: blonde with green bits. Says “Shit! I’m punk!”

- Gilli: reddy dreds with pinky ends, pulled up into a mohawk with hella good buttons sewn along the side. Needs to be seen

- Janice: standard red and brown mullet. For drummin’.

There was hair and make up to be done. Pancake make up does not feel good, and close up it looks kind of ghoulish. But I had signed on as a hairdresser’s model and pancake make up it was.

After 5 hours in the salon (including a fair whack of just waiting around), we left for Sydney where the extravaganza of hair dos would occur. The drive down the freeway in Stripey was without incident, just lots of loose talk and perving at dudes in utes or vans. Inter-vehicular communication is a strength of the Bitchcraft team. We find it easy to attract the attention of our fellow drivers, with 5 girls in a van that has stars and ‘Bitchcraft’ stencilled on it in pink paint.

I had been a tad apprehensive about the car, with its fairly regular overheating. Despite having it fixed and serviced last week, I just didn’t trust the mechanic cuz it wasn’t the usual fella. The new fella couldn’t spell my name and had trouble explaining what he’d done. It made me anxious about the quality of the repairs…

We whined our way through peak hour Sydney traffic, the collective dislike for Sydney and its stupid concept of driving bumper to bumper everyday being expressed regularly. Stripey started to protesteth the stopping and the starting and the not getting anywhere. She whacked her temperature gauge up to the RED HOT ZONE. We had to find refuge and quickly. The arse to arse traffic and clearway made it difficult but we soon managed to finagle a side street. Apprehension was rising: it was after 5.30pm and we were meant to be there already; the air of panic was setting in for some of Bitchcraft, a fairly naturally panicky group.

Pulling over in Lorna Ave, North Ryde as dusk hit, we simply had to wait until the engine cooled on down. Simi, who is a chronic peeing machine, took the opportunity to do an outdoor whaz. No, we weren’t near bushland. Rather we were in deep suburbia, on the nature strip. Someone suggested she pee in the gutter. Fine. Ten minutes later, as I stood holding the seat up as Nods filledd the engine with water, I heard Gilli ask me “Are you standing in her piss?” Yes. Yes I was. Then I dropped my keys in it.

Soon, we were back on the road, cooled and refilled with water. After crawling through more dickheads driving arse to bumper (fuck Sydney) we finally made it to the venue, Balmain Leagues Club. As we pulled into the carpark, Gilli said “Smell the anxiety”. Yes, Bitchcraft were anxious, sweating and starting to get nervous. That is normal when playing locally, let alone travelling through peak hour traffic in Sydney in a potentially over-heating car on the way to a hair show.

We lugged up three flights of stairs (the lift was broken) – which if nothing else got rid of some nervous energy and made us all puff like bitches. We found ourselves in a fantasy of RSL function roomery stuffed to the gills with skinny chicks and really trendy guys with really fancy hair. Oh gosh, Bitchcraft Newie chicks were a bit out of their element, but as usual we carried on regardless.

Soon we were on the stage with our little amps, playing our hits to a semi-interested crowd of Sydney trendites. I was trying to rock out, got in a few leg kicks, but it felt a bit forced. Nod did the splits in an effort to impress upon the judges that our hair was the best.

Hungry after our hard day of coiffing and driving, the ‘craft headed to the bistro (I like to say ‘bee-strow’). Finnicky, worn out and a bit poor, I opted for a bowl of boiled carrot, broccoli and carrot with some roast potatoes.

Soon, a friendly stranger of the hairdressing persuasion let us know that they were announcing the winner upstairs. We quickly left the bistro, Nodder abandoning two mouthfuls of her caesar salad, in the rush. It wasn’t the last time we heard about those two mouthfuls though – Nods the Foodie, dirty that she’d had to leave them behind.

Janice didn’t win. Some Sydney tosser did. His salon was called Get Funked.

Thank fuck it was time to head home. It was 10pm, twelve hours since our day as hairdressers bitches had begun. The roads were much clearer, so the drive home was quite stress free.

As we got to Gladesville, the girls spotted a couple of green P platers in a ute, and as is the tradition, started checking them out. This began a ten minute scene of Stripey and the ute driving side by side up the highway towards Ryde. It started with smiles, moved onto tit flashing and brown eyes. At the encouragement of the dudes in the ute, girls started pashing each other. The young dudes were furiously texting their mates, probably stuff like “We can see girls kissing!!!” The lanes decreased from three to two and I called out to the girls “He’s got some parked cars coming up” – Mr Weenie UteMan would have to do some lane trickery and he did. The driving in parallel was pissing off the cars behind us, and they couldn’t overtake. One angry Sydney driver dude in a prestige car overtook Stripey on the outside in a turning lane, fishtailing his car in the process. Talk about a free live show…

The rest of the drive home was fine, until the car overheated in Hamilton. I made two more drop offs to various ‘craft households with the car teetering on boiling over.