ShahidButtar.com / About me / What's up with my hair? /

My "NoHawk"

Like many artists, I tend to carve my own path.  Messing with my friends and ensuring a great story are never disincentives, so I shaved a stripe down the middle of my scalp in August 2006, shortly before a voyage to Black Rock City, NV for Burning Man.  The ensuing week may have witnessed the wackiest first impressions I've ever conveyed...at least without having opened my mouth.  It's a fun memory for any of several reasons:

• I'd been trying for awhile to get my man Mo to grow out his hair, but he wouldn't go for it since the way his hair grows would leave a patch in the middle.  He said he'd do it if I shaved my hair down the middle, so, as I texted him that evening, "I took the bait."  He came home while I was sitting in a high backed chair with my back to the door, and I turned around as he walked in.  He took one look at me and said, "Oh no...."
  
• A few days later, we were en route to Reno, where we planned to rendezvous with our crew and complete our journey to Black Rock City.  I'd packed and repacked several times in an effort to get my gear in order, and rolled up to the TSA (the airport security people) security screen and fed my bags through the x-ray machine.  They'd recently implemented the ban on liquid products, and found not only a package of pomade (to keep what remained of my hair in the wackiest shape possible), but also a pack of matches and a pocket knife -- all of which had been in other bags before my latest round of repacking.  Both Mo and I have Muslim names, inspiring visions of Guantanamo Bay, where I'm sure we'd have been sent had the TSA guys not been laughing hysterically at the sight of me.  One of them even offered me one last chance to rub some pomade into my hair before throwing it away!
  

Me as a Superhero

I had an opportunity in November 2006 to visit a hospital for a week.  The experience taught me a lot about a great many things: about who my real friends are, about how much of the pressure I associate with time is in fact a self-imposition, and about how much I rely on the support of my tribe.  Riffing on the fact that my mysterious illness had manifested in my foot swelling to twice its nomal size, my friend and colleague Ian Millhiser put together the illustration below using a very groovy hero generator.

What I look like "normally"

I'm a little frumpy left to my own devices.  I'm often in some kind of ridiculous costume when gigging or partying, but from day to day, I'm decidedly plain in person.