Episode V: The Fist Trial Run

I had my first trial run set for October 21st at Capitol School. I already had help from my girlfriend, Allyson, putting up the Mohawk once, so I was 100% confident that I could beat the record. These trial runs at Capitol were just to make sure everything went smooth on the Record Breaking Day. I did NOT want to hold a press conference and get all of these people and businesses together just to show the world how great I was at screwing up a record attempt! I had to make sure that everything went perfectly, or at least as close to perfect as I could get.




So I told you that I met with Calarice Zomer. She is the one that helped pick the students that were going to help with the Mohawk, and helped set everything up for the press conference. And, yes, I did say students. When I first got this idea, I thought I was going to need a seasoned professional hairstylist to help me. However, after seeing some of the students work, and talking with Scott and Clarice, I was absolutely certain that the students here were up to the task. Plus, I liked the idea of having students from a hairstyling school put up the Mohawk. Something about it made it seem….I don’t know…kind of like we were banding together, or forming a team to do something that we were all new to, and we had to figure it out together, and learn as we go. I think it also put a little element of risk to the task in the eyes of other people. I had complete confidence in the students, but when I told other people that it was the students that were going to raise the Hawk, they were surprised and impressed, and it made it a little more exciting to them.

The day came for us to raise the Hawk for the first time. I was charged and excited, but a little apprehensive. I came to Capitol prepared with all of the necessary provisions: Ten cans of hairspray…check. Two big pieces of cardboard…check. Order from Chaos T-shirt…check. Camera…check. Camera woman…check. The camera woman that day was my girlfriend Allyson’s mom, Alyce. I took this picture of her while lying on the table. She usually doesn't have her arms crossed, and has a wonderful smile, but I caught her off guard with this one!



It was 10:00 in the morning. I went in and Clarice introduced me to Elliot and Katie, the two stylists who were now my partners in Mohawk raising crime. We cleared off a large table that was full of mannequin heads for me to lie upon, and we got started. It didn’t take long for a crowd to start gathering. There are a lot of students there, and I must say it was pretty nice lying down on a table that was waist high and surrounded by a bunch of beautiful women.






After about 3 hours of teasing, combing, spraying, flipping, hair drying, and 4 cans of hairspray, it finally looked ready. As I sat up, the applause came...and the Mohawk was erected! I remember Elliot stopped clapping and immediately came to adjust the Mohawk, as it was leaning to the side…a lot! However, it was standing, and we knew that next time we could make it stand straight.



It felt pretty weird. I constantly had a feeling like it was falling over, and it was throwing off my balance. I couldn’t help tilting my head to the right a little bit, so I was walking kind of funny. Katie measured the Mohawk, and it was just under 27 inches. Overall, it was a success, and now we all knew for sure that it could be done, and I could beat the record.



There was a couple things we learned from the trial run. First, we definitely needed a bigger, more sturdy piece of cardboard. We also needed to find a way to prop it up a bit. You can see in the picture of me lying on my side that my head is not straight, and that’s what made the Mohawk curved. We also learned that oil-based hairspray cannot be used, because it is too heavy. It must be water-based. Additionally, even though it took a lot of time and effort, we learned that it was a lot of fun to put up a Mohawk, and we all had a great time doing it!

Get a Haircut, and Get a Real Job. (Or at Least a Haircut).

The day before yesterday, (Friday), I went to Capitol and got my sides shaved and the hawk cut and cleaned up. Tuco tagged along, and he just happened to have a camera, so we took some pics! Ok, actually, I asked him to come along and take some pics. I got some plans fer this hawk, after all, and I want to document everything while it still sits upon my head.

I didn’t stand it up, but I had to thin it out, because I think I figured out a way to put it up without the huge boards, and in half the time. If it is thinner at the base, I think I can just lay down and have someone help brush it and put something a little more heavy duty than hairspray on the base, (not sure what yet), and then just lightly hairspray the top, so as not to make it too heavy. Hopefully I can get it done in under a half hour, because I want to start wearing it up more often. I also wanted to get it braided for when I don’t wear it up.
A very kind and beautiful woman named Octavia was my stylist, and she did an amazing job! She had her work cut out for her, too, because I let the sides and back go for months with no cut or trim. It was looking pretty nasty, check out this mop!
Tuco and I goofed around with Octavia and a few other stylists there while she was working away. We talked with a cool stylist named Brooke who just happened to get a Mohawk herself the day before.

Here's the results of Octavia's work:















Later on that night, we met up with Chad at the Sydney to check out the Filter Kings. They put on an excellent show! We didn’t have a camera for that, but here is a pic of them from another show.
If you haven’t seen them and get a chance to, I would highly recommend doing so.

Oh,I almost forgot. While I was at Capitol, I found out that an article was written about Capitol Schools and me in the May issue of Beauty Launchpad. I can see why, after all, I am a launchpad of beauty. (yea right!)
Anyway, they had a plaque of the article hung up by the door. Pretty cool!

Episode IV: Moving, Networking, and Learning as You Go

So now my ass is movin! I remember thinking that if I could just get a salon and one or two more sponsors to help me, I would be in good shape. I had already contacted Locks of Love, and all they needed was a time and date for the event to approve. I had to get a solon and a venue for that, and a photographer as well was necessary, so those were what I focused on. I live in Benson, so I drive by Paparazzi By Appointment all the time, seeing their cool sign on the building. Plus, I had heard some good things about them, so I gave them a call, and spoke with Laura, who was very gracious. She was into it immediately, and said yes. That was a big weight off my shoulders, because I definitely wanted a professional photographer there, and now I could concentrate on the hairstylist. Still no luck there.

I had a draft of the Big Brain Productions proposal, so I contacted them and dropped off a proposal at their shop for the owner, Smitty. To my surprise, when I called a couple days later, they put me through to Smitty, and he told me to come in right away. It was a surprise, because it is very hard to get an appointment with Smitty, he is so booked up. I went to his absolutely cool shop to meet with him. He was very cordial, and to the point. He told me that he gets a lot of proposals because he involves himself in a lot of events held in Omaha. When he saw mine, he said he was immediately taken by it because it was put together so well and looked professional. He was also drawn in by the charity aspect of the event, and the fact that it was about a world record. Smitty himself is a Guinness World Record holder for most piercings in one person.
Well, I can’t tell you how glad I am to have met Smitty early in the process. There were a lot of things up in the air, and a lot of doubts flying around in my head. Smitty is a very positive person, and having broken a record himself, he encouraged me to go through with it and go all out, because it was one of the most fun things he had done. So he agreed to become a sponsor, and generously donated to the cause.
One thing I regret about meeting with Big Brain, though, and this was a learning experience for me. After he had already agreed to sponsor me, I told him who else I had as sponsors. When he learned that HEBE GB Tattoo was also on the list, he told me it is usually not a good idea to put more than one of the same types of business as a sponsor, because they are competitors, and it may look like they are affiliated. One other tattoo shop told me this before and dropped out, but then I finally got the picture. However, Smitty decided that it would be ok, and went ahead with it. So there is a tip for any of you out there who might be looking for sponsors, don’t put two businesses in the same field on the banner. It’s obvious to me now, but for some reason I didn’t think that way at the beginning. I was thinking more like a television show with commercials, you may see two commercials from different companies selling a similar product in a television show, but that’s not the way to think in this type of event.
Now I was completely confident. I was running around town, dropping off proposals, networking, and getting people excited about my record attempt. According to my emails, on September 28th, 2008, I created my World’s Tallest Mohawk email and MySpace accounts. On October 01, I had decided to hold the event sometime between Election Day and Thanksgiving, during a slow news period. That way there was a better chance of my record attempt getting news coverage. On October 8th, I contacted Clarice Zomer at Capitol School of Hair Styling. She was very excited about the idea, and I sent her a proposal to look over. A couple days later, Scott Mccaig, who is on the Board of Directors at Capitol, called up Todd Murphy. Todd was kind enough to let me put him as a reference in my proposals. He gave them a kind of legitimacy, so it didn’t look like I was just some kid who wasn’t serious about this event, or looking to rip people off. He and Scott had a great conversation, and thanks to Todd, Capitol School of Hairstyling was now the primary sponsor of the record breaking event. We set an appointment for me to go into Capitol and talk about holding the press conference there, do some test runs, and meet everyone who was going to help out.
Now things were rolling! I was very excited, and when I went to Capitol, I knew I had the right place. It was perfect. The people were great, it was an excellent venue for the press conference, and they were willing to help out with whatever I needed.
I have some good photos from the test runs, and the wonderful people at Capitol, so come on back soon to meet them, as well as some new sponsors. And just so ya know, this blog is not just about the sponsors, this is only the beginning. There are many other adventures to come, like the first test run that came out sideways, almost having to pee in front of a surveillance camera, and a tongue lashing from the Reader!

Certificate from Guinness

I just received the certificate in the mail from Guinness for World's Tallest Mohican. It's Official!

Wyane Brekke's video on front page of Guinness Website!

I went on the Guinness website yesterday, and right there on the front page was the video of my record attempt that Wayne Brekke shot. I know it probably wont be on there for long, so I recorded it for keepsake. Here is a screenshot from that recording:

Episode III: Call Me Mr. A.D.D.

Man, things are a bit fuzzy. Trying to remember how this all went down is a little more difficult than I thought it would be, and I think I got a couple things mixed up, probably because of the A.D.D. I want to make this blog a little more detailed, so I went into my notes and stuff to build a little timeline. This part of the blog is for document sake, so before I go any further, I gotta back up a bit, and put some dates in here. I almost wanted to start over, but for some reason I feel like if I put something on a blog and leave it there for more than a day, I have to leave it there forever. Does anyone else feel like that? Weird.
Anyway, according to my notes and emails, on June 6, 2008, I registered to break the record on the Guinness website. I got the record agreement and a notice of application review on June 12th, and sent in the agreement that day. They got back to me on July 24th to tell me they had received the agreement and that they would review everything and get back with me again in 4 to 6 weeks. During this time is when I talked to Todd from Universal Information Services, and Nikki from Hebe GB, but we did not make anything final yet. At last, on August 13th, 2008, I got the go-ahead from Guinness!
They sent me the official guidelines for breaking the record for tallest Mohican, the name and measurements of the current record holder, and what they called a “Record Breaking Pack”. It was pretty cool to get this stuff, because it answered a lot of questions, and was very professional. It made it seem more real, more like it wasn’t just a stunt, but rather an achievement that would be recognized by an elite organization, if I could pull it off. It was also a bit scary, because it sank in that I couldn’t mess around, because Guinness doesn’t mess around, that’s for sure!
The guidelines were very specific, and no detail could be overlooked, otherwise it wouldn’t count. First off, they stressed that NO products could be used in the hair for the attempt, except hairspray, gel, or mousse. No gelatin, or egg whites, or anything like that. I was wondering if ordinary, everyday hair products would even make this mop stand up for 2 seconds! It was comforting to find out, however, that there was no time limit on the feat. That meant all I had to do was stand it up long enough for us to measure it and get pictures and other proof. Speaking of proof, that is another thing Guinness takes very seriously. I had to have two witnesses to be there for the whole process, and then they had to sign an affidavit, which I had to then get notarized. I needed video or photographic evidence that was convincing beyond a doubt. Also, as a requirement, it was necessary to get the attempt into the media. Up until now, I did not think that would be a problem, but for some reason this record breaking pack made me pause, and I suddenly became uncertain as to how much interest anyone, or any media, would have in some guy in Nebraska putting his hair into a Mohawk for 2 minutes. Well, I shook that off pretty quickly, and took solace in the fact that I already had some good people on my side, and the last guy was on a national television show. Suffice to say, the serious nature of Guinness lit a serious fire under my ass, and I knew I had to get to work, and do this right!
So, now we’re back to where we left off. Where was I? Oh, yes, the salons. I mentioned in the last episode that it was difficult to find a salon to sponsor me. I had a couple of friends who were stylists that said they would help, and a list of salons around town. The only thing is, I wanted the salon to be the primary sponsor, so I was asking for more money for the sponsorship. (The sponsorship fees were to help for promotion, charity, and whatever was left over helped me out with school). I had contacted a few salons, and they all turned me down pretty quickly. Most of the salons I contacted said it was not in their budget, but the weird thing is, some of them actually said they did not want to associate themselves with this kind of event. This kind of event? I thought this was tailor made for a salon! However, some of them thought that the Mohawk was not appropriate. I guess they thought it would somehow “tarnish” them. It was only a few of them that said that, but it was surprising to me.
So, my search for a salon continued, as well as my search for other sponsors. I had gone through the phonebook, looked on the internet, and talked to friends to compile a list of small businesses in town to contact. The first ones I contacted were in a certain demographic I was going for, which generally revolved around fashion, music, art, and entertainment kind of businesses, or anything that someone who was into Mohawks might also be into.
And that’s the situation, as of August 23rd, 2008. I had the OK from Guinness, a general plan, and two sponsors so far. I had no date for the event set yet, no venue, no bands, no hair stylist, no photographer, and a lot of work to do. I was feeling a bit scatterbrained, like everything was up in the air, floating around. I guess that’s because it was. I remember fighting with myself a bit, telling myself, “Hey, I got time”, and then thinking, “No, don’t think like that and procrastinate, get yer ass movin!”
That’s it for this episode. I know it was short, so the next one will be posted quickly, and I will make sure to start where I left off on this one, with my ass movin’!

Episode II: Thank Goodness for Friends, and Local Libraries!

So now I was excited! First stop; The Guinness website. I went there and filled out all of the necessary forms and faxes and sent them all in. When I was done, after about 3 days of e-mailing and confirming, the final go-ahead had to come from Guinness, and it was gonna take about four to six weeks for them to get back to me. Ok, that gave me time to do some planning, and there was a lot of planning that had to be done! While I was investigating the Guinness website, I saw all kinds of record attempts being made. Some were grand scale accomplishments by companies, like the most to parachute from a balloon simultaneously sponsored by the Paraclub Flevo of Lelystad, The Netherlands, and some were simple stunts, like the guy who sat in in a bathtub with the most rattlesnakes. Yikes!









What I had in mind was something in between the parachuting people and rattlesnake guy. One thing I did notice is that most of these record attempts had sponsorship. Did I need sponsorship? Heck, I could just find a couple hair styling friends, shave my head, measure, and be done with it. But wait a second; the last guy who did this was on the Ellen show, fer cryin' out loud! And he was on there for doing something that I could top! If I’m gonna do this, I better do it right. I started to get a vision in my head of a press conference with media coverage, and a big measuring ceremony. And why not spread the attention around? I could get my band some publicity; get some charities involved, maybe some business owner friends of mine. Then my wheels really started turning. I need a hairstylist…no…a salon to hold the event, and a benefit concert for charity…yes! I could play in my band with the Mohawk on full display! Of course, the first charity organization that came to mind was Locks of Love. They take donations of hair and weave wigs for cancer patients, so they were a perfect match. I also wanted to get a local charity involved, but that would come later. So…I needed a venue for that, I needed other bands to play, I needed to find the other charity, some conference tables, refreshments, a yardstick…I better do a couple of test runs, I need new cloths, a press release…man…I need help!
Now I had a vision of a whole day of events planned around this record breaking attempt, and no idea where to begin. So where did I go? The library, of course! I checked out an excellent book on how to plan events, get sponsorships, and write press releases and proposals. I also knew that I was lucky to be working at Universal Information Services. I was friends with the Vice president, Todd Murphy, and he deals with the media, media events, and press releases almost on a daily basis. All I had to do was come up with a good enough proposal to convince him to come on board, and then he could help me sort out some of the other things that were whirling around in my mind.
So I read the book, nailed down some demographics, and came up with a proposal for Todd. When I met with him, he loved the idea. I knew that he would see the potential of what I was trying to do, and Universal information Services became my second sponsor. I had already talked to a friend of mine, Nikki Pettis, who runs Hebe GB Tatto, and they were on board.
So the deal with Todd was that I would get their name out there as best as I could while talking to the media and stuff, and in exchange he could help me with proof-reading and writing the press release and proposals, put me in contact with some of his contacts, as well as use their services to record all of the media exposure I would get. Also, as it turned out, his wife, Stephanie, ran a local charity
called Project Nightlights, which helps sick children build their dream bedrooms. That sounded great to me, so now I had another local charity involved.
Of course, Todd is a busy man, and I did not expect him to do all the work for me. I had already written a proposal for the next sponsor I was going to go after, which was Big Brain Productions, Tattoo and Piercing Studio. I already had an appointment with Smitty, the owner of Big Brain before I talked to Todd. I really wanted Todd to know I was serious.
So now the ball was rolling, but I had a few problems. I could not set a date until I heard back from Guinness, because I didn’t want to set it too soon, (like before I heard back from them), and I didn’t want to get too many people and business involved yet, just to hear that my claim had been denied from Guinness. Also, I hadn’t even gotten a stylist yet! I measure my hair myself to make sure I could break the record, but I would need a professional hair stylist to pull this off. As it turned out, to my surprise, getting a salon to become involved as a sponsor was one of the most difficult tasks I was about to tackle, and I thought it would have been the easiest! Weird, huh? I’ll tell ya all about it, in episode III, so stay tuned!

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

OK, sorry ‘bout the Star Wars reference, I couldn’t help it. But the title is fitting in a way. You see, when I got the first inkling of breaking the record for tallest Mohawk, there was a kind of “phantom menace” presence in my life. I had recently gotten over some health issues, (which I won’t go into), and I was working a part-time job at Universal Information Services. I was in a band, called The Filthy Few, and we were having fun playing shows and stuff, but it wasn’t really getting anywhere. There was something in my gut that was telling me it was time to do something. But what? Another band? No, something different. Something good, and grand, and bad-ass. Something that would let me know I still got passion and drive in my life. That’s when I came across Aaron Studham.


I was secretly surfing the net at work one day, (sorry Todd), and I saw a clip of Aaron on the Ellen show. He had the world’s tallest Mohawk. I was interested, and clicked on it to find out the record he set was 24 inches. “24 inches”, I thought, “I could beat that easily!” Then I went back to work, not thinking much of it.
In the next few weeks, it kept coming back to me, gnawing at me. 24 inches…, it seems like the tallest Mohawk should be bigger than that. Maybe I should beat it. I was thinking of cutting my hair anyway. After a while, I kind of forgot about it. Then I started to notice something. At my job, I scan in newspapers from all over the country into a database. In these newspapers, I started noticing stories about Guinness record attempts. They were everywhere. I had not noticed them before, and it wasn’t all different stories. A story about one record attempt could be in hundreds of papers. This really got me thinking. If I did attempt this record, it could get a lot of attention. I could do something with this. Maybe this IS what I have been looking for, that “phantom menace” that had been hovering over me for some time.
I started to talk about it with friends at shows, family, and whoever I could bounce it off of. They all told me to go for it, but I had the feeling most of them thought I would never do it. I don’t blame them; sometimes I get grandiose ideas in my head and start blabbing about them, and then do nothing about it. But this was different, I could do this, and I was kind of excited about it. I could get some pub for my band; maybe get sponsors, who knows what could come from this? There was one thing, though, that made me decide I was going to go for it. I asked myself, “What am I doing? Where am I going?” Nothing. Nowhere. “What else you gonna do?” asked the phantom menace. “This could be fun!” He was right. This could be fun. In fact, it’s going to be fun! That phantom menace was lingering in my heart for some time, and now I knew why. He was there to push me into breaking the record for world’s tallest Mohawk! It sounds kinda stupid, I know, but how many of you out there have something tuggin’ at ya, and you don’t know what it is, or why? Keep listening, and looking, and that opportunity for the answer will finally reveal itself.
So…there it was. I had decided to do it!
Now what?.......

Stay tuned for Episode two!

And just a reminder, this blog won’t have the impact it should if you don’t see the final results of the Record Breaking Day. If you haven’t seen the “Things to Know” section of this blog, check out the videos on the right, and click the "see more videos and pics" button to see how far this event actually went.

Until next time,
Cheers!

NOT Episode I

OK, I know this was supposed to be episode one, but I just found out that a lot of video and pics out there on the Internet are disappearing. So...I went and harvested them so I could put them all up on this blog for keepsake. If you want to see what I have gathered, click on the "see more video and pics" link in the Things to know section to the right. There is some very interesting stuff there, especially the Japanese television shows! Check it out!

BLOG PROLOGUE:A little set up for the ramblings about to be inflicted upon you.

I want to make sure that people who read this understand something. There are thousands of world records attempted, set, and broken every day. Not that I am bragging, (well, maybe a little), but very few of them get the publicity that my record attempt did. Why mine? Because I, and many other people, put a lot of thought, preparation, and work into this to help springboard the event onto the national platform. It was not easy, and we had a little luck on our side, but I believe the process can be duplicated for anyone who wants to, and I think this information is valuable. So if you are thinking of making a world record attempt, organizing an event, looking to get publicity or sponsorship, or all of the above, then this blog will have many nuggets of information that will be very interesting to you.

It’s not all about the record, though. My blog will also have current events and goings on in my life peppered throughout the episodes as well. By the way, that is how I intend to set up this blog. Each time I want to talk about a day in my quest for the world record, or talk about something relevant to the record, I will call it an “Episode”, just to set it apart from the rest of the crap I might throw out at you, like a picture of my cat, or something.



So anyway, enough of the B.S., I think you get the idea. In my next post we will get right to it, and it will be called, “Episode I”. I want to update this blog daily, but that probably won’t happen, because I am a space case. But I won’t leave ya hangin’ for months, or anything. If you are interested, check back every other day, or so, and I should have updates by then. Also, I will soon set up an email alert, or RSS, or twitter, or something like that to alert anyone who might be listening when I have updated.

Talk to you soon,

Eric Hahn