Bad hair decade

Last weekend, my friend Lori drove up from Windsor to visit. We've known each other since grade nine and our friendship has encompassed many drunken escapades, lots of barbecued food, several camping trips, the invention of the Ball Scorcher (1.5 oz. of vodka, E.D. Smith's vegetable cocktail, 7 shakes of Tabasco sauce, combine and serve in a brandy snifter), countless multi-hour telephone conversations, and a whole lot of being there for each other.

It was great to see her again. She brought along her two wolfhounds and a picture of the two of us taken circa 1982. It is very scary. It is very 80s.

Seeing as I'm decades a bunch of years lots a tad older than most of you reading this, I can only hope that you were young enough to be spared the worst of the 80s fashion-victim carnage: the curly perm. Second only to shoulder pads, iridescent green eyeshadow, and maybe headbands, the curly perm was an abomination that had its roots far back in history but only reached its full flower of awfulness in the late 70s and 80s.

How far back in history, you ask? Well, when Lori handed me the picture, and we were both convulsed with laughter, the first words she could get out were, "Geez, Al, you look like Louis the Fourteenth". I replied with the lame comment that at least I didn't have Satan's eyebrows, but she definitely won that round. In my defence (and echoing Grampa Simpson), it was the style at the time. And lots of famous people had that same hairdo:

Like the aforementioned King Louis XIV:




















Olivia Newton John:




















Sir Isaac Newton John:




















Robert Plant:




















Diana Ross:




















All the members of Poison:














the Twenty-Minute Workout chicks:















And me (me and Sir Isaac -- separated at birth, don't you think?):


















There you have it. Total 80s vileness. And I'm challenging anyone else who's old enough to have bad 80s hair pictures to post them. I dare you. I double dog dare you.