A bald grab for money

By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist  |  October 7, 2005

If you happen to catch a glimpse of Dennis Holt from just the right angle, which
is just about any angle, you might leap to the logical conclusion that the man
has a bird's nest on the crown of his head.

But wait a minute here. That's no bird's nest. It's, it's -- how do I politely
say this? -- it's his hair, abnormally long strands of heavily treated hair,
strands that begin about a quarter of an inch above one ear and reach up and
across to the other side.

In fact, there are people, smart people, observant people, credible people, who
would swear on a stack of their grandmothers' Bibles that Dennis Holt of Boston,
Massachusetts, might have the most egregious comb-over in the United States.

How bad? ''It's probably one of the worst haircuts I've ever seen on a man,"
says Holt's colleague, Brendan Dolan, speaking on the phone yesterday from New
York.

So bad that a few other colleagues, with typical Wall Street bravado, have
repeatedly offered to contribute thousands of dollars to charity if Holt would
just please shave his head. He never has.

''It's all about vanity," Holt, a youthful 61, explained. ''It's my perceived
vanity -- even if I look like a horse's ass. If I want a comb-over, I'll have a
comb-over, and the hell with everyone else."

Holt was telling me this as we sat across from each other at an elegant table in
the 19th-floor conference room of Citigroup's Boston operations, where he works
as a managing director of the global fixed-income division.

Behind him, boats buzzed across the sun-dappled harbor, and planes soared from
the runways of Logan Airport into the crystal blue sky. I noticed none of it. I
couldn't take my eyes off his hair.

''What happens when it rains?" I asked.

''Basically nothing happens," he replied. ''You've got to understand; it has a
lot of hairspray in it."

He added, ''Some of this hair has been there a really long time."

Which brings me to the point. Soon it will finally be gone.

Different people have reacted in different ways to the devastation from
Hurricane Katrina. I talked to one woman, Renee Corcoran, who drove 27 hours
from Reading to Gulfport and handed out $20,000 that her husband raised to help
needy victims. She stayed 2 1/2 weeks, helping a church distribute supplies, all
the while sleeping among the pews.

Holt is making a different, though no less important, contribution. He's shaving
his head.

Next Thursday, after work, he will stride into a financial district
establishment called the High Bar for a head-shearing ceremony. The goal is to
raise tens of thousands of dollars to donate to the Red Cross hurricane relief
fund.

Already, 80 friends, clients, and colleagues have signed up to attend, including
many who will jet in from New York. Many more are expected to just show up. Some
are already bidding upwards of $5,000 to wield the scissors and take the first
cut of Holt's hair.

''Pretty sick, isn't it?" he asked. His longtime barber, Matthew Cascio, will
handle the rest, taking him right down to the scalp.

Holt, an otherwise good-looking guy, said: ''I thought, why not bare my skull
underneath this thing. I'm looking at these people whose souls are bared. They
lost everything. I can expose a little bit of myself."

Come next week, he may not have any hair left, but he'll still have a whole lot
of heart.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.