Ask A Genius 1154: Dyed Hair and Instruments
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/11/09
*Interview conducted October/November, 2024.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Is there any damage to your hair from dyeing your hair?
Rick Rosner: It depends on how much you dye it. If you dye your hair repeatedly blonde, that’s super harsh if you’re starting from black or dark brown. So yes, you’ll—why are we talking about dyeing your hair? I’m the question guy.
Well, generally not. Though people who work in salons dyeing other people’s hair have a higher cancer rate because that shit’s pretty harsh. Stripping color out of black or brown hair is brutal, and getting color to embed in hair takes powerful chemicals. I’m sure they sell gentler dyes for people who are nervous about that.
Gentler dyes, if they work as well. So, done correctly… you hear about actors who’ve been forced to dye their hair several different colors in succession as they take on different roles, and their hair falls out or breaks from too much time. So, here you go.
Jacobsen: Did you ever play a musical instrument?
Rosner: I took piano lessons. I hated it. I didn’t want to practice. I had no interest in getting good at piano. Though I can see in retrospect, that’s a skill. If you’re at a party with a piano, you can sit down and start knocking out tunes. That might be worth getting laid once over the course of your life.
That, on average, being able to play the piano might be worth one getting lucky. A lot of shit has to happen. You have to be at a party with a piano. You have to be good enough at playing piano that you can sit there and improvise to the tone of the room, and somebody has to be impressed enough to take you home. So that seems like a lot of work for not a lot of payoff.
Then I played the trombone from 4th grade through 8th grade, 9th grade. I was not good. I had little feel for the music. What I should have done was—teachers, not all, but some teachers—felt they could diss me to my face. Because, I guess, by 1st grade or second grade, I was known to be a genius. So that was my thing.
I didn’t walk around with my nose in the air. It was what was known, and it gave our music teacher license to say I sucked. She said I was the least talented music student she’d ever had. And this meant that I never tried singing again until high school when we found out that the show choir and the cast of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar were having parties every night where a lot of people were getting debased.
But we, my friends and I, decided we wanted to be in choir to see if we could get some of that. In choir, I wasn’t the worst fucking singer in the world. If I’d had an earlier interest and pursued it, I possibly could have been a competent singer, which, when I try to sing now, I’m close to being able to carry a tune. I can see liking having that ability.
Did you play an instrument?
Jacobsen: I was in choir. That was a bass in choir. Was in for about 2 and a half years, maybe, and we hired part of the VSO, it was super fun.
Rosner: Did you enjoy it?
Jacobsen: I loved choir. I had so much fun.
Rosner: I did it, but I fell asleep in every class because it didn’t take much for me to fall asleep. I was burning the candle at both ends. And if the teacher was working with the Altos or whatever, I’d be asleep in 20 seconds. It was so… this was 1977 and 78, and the choir teacher was fucking one of his students. Everybody knew it.
The whole choir would make fun of him for it. He was married, but he was having a hot, fucking intense affair with one of the better singers. Given that, I guess, in the seventies, it wasn’t creepy or pervy. They thought it was just, “What the fuck are you doing?” because he was married.
It didn’t have the same feel that it would today. There would be a violation of power dynamics, which would be tantamount to rape. Nobody was thinking, “This isn’t a fun, interesting thing happening in our choir.” Nobody had been taught how to think about power dynamics. The girl was a great singer.
They had obviously bonded initially over their love of singing, and that turned into a romantic relationship. When I returned to high school in the 80s, my sister’s best friend had a history of having relationships with her teachers. She had an affair with one while she was still in school and later married another teacher after graduating. This was Albuquerque, a town that adheres to traditional gender roles—it’s a redneck town.
I’m sure it’s less redneck now, but the more conservative a town is, at least as I observed it in the 80s, the greater the acceptable age difference between guys and the girls they date. So, if you were a 24- or 25-year-old construction worker dating a 16- or 17-year-old girl in Albuquerque in the 80s, nobody would think you’re a predator. The question would simply be, “Is she attractive?” And she probably was, because she was 17, and you were dating her.
Things were different back then, for what it’s worth. Is it better now that we’re aware of power dynamics? Yes, it probably is, as it discourages sexual abuse. But historically, Romeo and Juliet were supposed to be, what, 14 or something? Anyway, back in the 80s in Albuquerque, teachers were paid $2,000 a month. Some teachers were there because they loved teaching, even though the pay was low. Others were there because they were lazy, and teaching isn’t the hardest job. Maybe some teachers were there because they liked the students—I don’t know.
License & Copyright
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.
In-Sight Publishing 