The Loctician with No Locs
We are all too familiar (and still mesmerized) by the phenomenon of the beautician whose hair is never done. Now meet the loctician who doesn’t have locs.
Loctician and resident stand-out personality at the De Luxe Gallery in Brooklyn, Mike has had 3 set of locs of his life. Ever comical - yet deep (or at least inquisitive), Mike hosts a real-people-talk style pop culture conversation show after hours from the shop each week.
Covering anything from the Sandusky trial to debating the reality of reality tv shows, plus comic PSAs by Ya Main Man Mike himself, one quickly identifies the charisma that has easily allowed Mike transition in and out of locs without the “hair attachment issues” he finds so many loc-wears to develop towards their length.
Without further adue, Locs & Branches presents the complex simplicity of Ya Main Man Mike as through his answers on the whens and whys of each set of locs and some the wild reactions he for not being “staying the course” in others eyes.
1st Set & Cut: To be honest, Mike admits, in 1995 when he first loc’ed his hair he was just joining in on the fad. Ironically, his first set turned out to be the set he kept for the longest- 5 and a half years.
Mike had been considering cutting his locs for over a year when he and his then-girlfriend thought she might be pregnant – an event the couple was not quite ready for. When Mike found out that she wasn’t pregnant (a Hallelujah moment for sure) he figured, what a better occasion to make that change.
2nd Set & Cut - A show of solidarity: Two and a half years into his second set of locs, Mike and his wife found out they were expecting their second child. Mike’s wife, who also had locs, didn’t want to go through pregnancy with the responsibility of maintaining locs, so he cut his off with her as a show of support. (Awww!!!)
3rd Set & Cut – The story of a working married man: The old no-hair-done beautician adage just caught up with him. Plain (tired) and simple, Mike just couldn’t find the time to take care of locs to his satisfaction while also taking care of children and bills.
While being quite a smooth and Artful Dodger about it all himself, some of the people in Mike’s life took Mike cutting his hair harder than Mike himself. His mother, having only boys, in an apparent sense of shock and mourning commented, “Oh my god! Now I know what it’s like when a daughter goes and cuts all her hair off,” while other friends were not only in shocked, but shunned and stopped talking to him altogether.
Without going into the details of what happens when others place strong judgments and expectations on another person outside of themselves, it rolls off Mike’s shoulders now, pointing out how everybody that really mattered stayed. (Yes, Mom was one them). In light of that positivity Mike shares that the hardest thing about cutting ones locs is the getting over whiplash-affect: “You know that thing where you go to toss your hair back [he gestures] and there’s… [nothing].” LOL.
Follow Mike at @yamainmanmike on Twitter and see episodes of the Corna Convo here on his youtube channel yamainmanmike1.
