The Children Are Our Future

Tons of great drawings by local middle school students. Check them out, and then stick around to read a message to these cool kids and their teacher, Tom, who has been a big supporter of the Famous Hairdos of Popular Music from the start. Thanks for looking.



































These drawings (and many that have appeared here before) were facilitated by my friend Tom. In addition to being a super stand-up guy, he is an art teacher in the Milwaukee area and is thus afforded a captive audience with No. 2 pencils who are supposed to listen to his instructions. And sometimes he instructs his students to fill out these sheets after a lesson. From time to time, I meet Tom for a pot of tea and leave with a fresh stack of drawings done by his students. He has been deservedly thanked in every volume of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music to date, and now I want to thank him here as well. Thanks, Tom, and congratulations on your recent engagement.

All of the above drawings were done by summer school students at Wisconsin Hills Middle School in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Biggest thanks go out to them and all the other kids who have drawn in the past.

In this batch, there is one drawing of Jimmy Page's hair devouring Pac-Man and in another drawing a figure sporting Loretta Lynn's hair as a massive moustache comments that his "mustach (sic) way's (sic) a ton," an apparent reference to Public Enemy's 1987 "Miuzi (sic) Weighs a Ton." What I want to know is how middle school students in 2010 are so hip to 1980s popular culture? Furthermore, anyone who ever finds him or herself compelled to utter any portentous proclamations about "kids these days" can take solace in the evidence here: that kids today are clever, funny, and are pretty into animals and fire-breathing monsters. This seems about right to me. And at least one kid thinks that road kill is as funny a punch line as I once did, so if anyone thinks that this might show an alarmingly morbid sense of humor, there is also the possibility that this student might end up a vegan who hates to drive cars. Sometimes humor is the best way to show empathy.

I hope you enjoy these drawings as much as I do.

In other news, the fifth volume of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music can now be ordered online from Quimby's Bookstore in Chicago, which has sold all five volumes on consignment. If you want to get your hands on a copy and support this project and support an awesome bookstore in the process, this might be the most efficient way to go. Check the listing out right here and browse some of their other wares in the process.