barbershop lament

For those of you who have been following my laments about graduate school finals… Well the good news is all that nonsense is behind me as of noon today. The bad news? I need a haircut. I have a love/hate relationship with hair. In humid weather it can be pretty unruly, curly and the like, in the summer long hair is too hot, in the winter short hair is too cold. The problem? Well, honestly I am terribly picky about my barber. First of all, there has to be ambiance. If you enter a barbershop that has too many women (I know, I know) you are in the wrong barbershop. It should smell like a cross between musk, rust and bay leaf, with numerous combs floating in a yellowish liquid and a safety razor mounted proudly beside a selection of scissors. The drip stain in the porcelain sink is optional. I prefer a barber who has a few years on him, but not one too old as the “chatty” conversation can become stale and random.

You know a good barbershop the moment you walk into one, and no amount of neon and tacky posters about aftershave are going to conceal the fact. I don’t mind paying for a haircut, I usually drop about $20 with tip on a good haircut, simple, efficient, honest, but have paid much more (and much less) for the same job elsewhere. I like it short on the sides, a little length on the top, trim the sideburns (I won’t pay extra for this) and the hot foam lather and straight edge for the trim around the neck and ears is a must. If they don’t do this, run, don’t walk to the door, a hot foam shave along the neck and ears is as good as most sex when properly applied, (the shave I mean, not the sex). I suspect there is a feminine equivalent in ladies hair salons, but my wife won’t divulge it

I don’t mind the wait in a good barbershop, it should be equipped with Popular Mechanics, National Geographic and a few magazines about hunting, fishing, and cars, none of which are less than two years out of date (and yet so terribly current) The interesting thing is that you can visit the same barbershop a month later and there will be an entirely new selection of out of date magazines for your viewing pleasure.

Alas, in my early thirties I decided to grow my hair long for a couple of years, I had always wanted to do this, and for some reason, being a jobless artist without prospects seemed like the opportune time to adopt the bohemian haircut. The problem was that I fell out of touch with the local barbershop community and much changed in that time, the barbershops that I had identified as “noteworthy” had mostly changed hands, and none for the better. Ultimately I opted for the home haircut solution, which is, to state it plainly, unglamorous. I shave my entire head to one half an inch of hair every two and a half months, with occasional trims on the sides that occur about every intervening six weeks. She ain’t pretty but is sure does do the job. I have tried looking for new barbers, but with children, work and school, I find it increasingly difficult to spend the time searching, especially when the home solution is so readily available. And yet, I can’t help but feel a tinge of sadness during these times, It is probably nostalgia, like the fond remembrance of a lost love like the time you had that killer set of blue jeans that finally wore out and never got replaced. So I shrug my shoulders and rub my hand through my curly locks and count all the blessings of this life and mutter “someday” as I make the trip to the bathroom to pull out the clippers one more time.