Pleading the Case (of hairspray) A Sticky Situation. By Micki McClelland, the rambling correspondent FYI . The word "ramble" is from the Middle Dutch word "rammelen" which means To wonder around in the state of sexual desire. When I was one and twenty, I was already an old trouper, having toiled in the fields of show biz for four glorious years. Booked, billed and I guess blessed as a professional singer, I worked mostly on what entertainers called The Playboy Circuit. For those too young or too cloistered to know the saga of Hugh Hefner's hey-day as headman of a chain of nightclubs that dotted the globe, The Playboy Clubs sprang from, and were immediately successful because of, Playboy Magazine-a periodical given to the celebration of testosterone. Singing three shows a night, seven nights a week and playing a two-week gig in different towns across the world, I lived out of a suitcase and hadn't seen the sun since I was seventeen. Rising from my hotel bed at six p.m. and returning my head to hotel pillow each morning around five a.m., I lived the night life-lived it to the teeth. Packing was always a problem. Because in the 1960's people still expected show biz types to be well-groomed and gorgeously dressed, my costumes were evening gowns. A couple of Helen Rose originals, several full-length things that required a boa accessory, some of flowing skirt, some tight as a tick, my gowns were as important to the show as I was-maybe more important. So, I had a trunk full of costumes, a suitcase filled with street clothes, another suitcase packed with boots (boots were the shoe of choice in those days), a case of make-up, and one bag entirely devoted to hairspray. Hairspray was my Linus blanket. Without my cans of Adorn, I would have been lost-wouldn't have been able to go on-would have given up the spotlight and taken a job as a sacker at Henke-Pilot. For a two-week booking I usually carried a case of Adorn with me-that's 24 cans. For the record, I used every one of them. And felt better for it. I remember the April in 1966 when my hairspray turned on me. I was in Houston to prepare for a month's booking at the London Playboy Club, singing scales in the living room of my parent's home, when my mother interrupted to say the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) had called to demand we go immediately to their office downtown to explain ourselves. A word about my mother. She has even less money sense than I do. Both of us, as a matter of fact, think it grows on trees. If not, then surely the sidewalks are paved with it. I had allowed this woman to prepare my taxes. She had-with gravest sincerity-taken a year's worth of Adorn hairspray as a deduction. A work-related deduction. That's about 576 cans @ around $2 each, making a grand total of: $1,152 (one thousand one hundred and fifty two dollars). Our appointment downtown placed us across the desk from a female who was not only unsprayed, but seemed proud to be the bearer of fly-away hair. I could barely bring myself to look at her. Furthermore, she had on flat shoes. I crossed one knee-high, stiletto-heeled red suede boot over the other one and said: "What's the problem?" In a most sarcastic tone of voice, she informed my mother and myself that the IRS had decided to disallow the hairspray deduction. Additionally, the IRS was deeply suspicious that we were trying to pull a fast one. Not unfamiliar with sarcasm myself, I attempted to explain the ins and outs of show business-the ins being the uptown dolls who sprayed, and sprayed with abandon-and the outs being limp-haired coffee house folk singers. "You mean like Joan Baez?" said the IRS. "Yeah," said I. The end of the story is not a happy one. I had to eat the expense of hairspray, with no relief or understanding from the government. The next year I attempted to deduct Grand Marnier. Had to go downtown, sit across the desk from the same show biz-impaired IRS agent, explain that Grand Marnier was what I gargled with before each performance, that it was the only substance that truly opened my throat for singing, that I never swallowed but spit when I heard the band play my entrance music. That I couldn't possibly go on without my Grand Marnier. I was flatly denied.
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