Barbershop

I was nowhere near awesome enough to get my hair cut here.

Back when I lived in Salem, I would get my hair cut at Don’s Barber Shop, a humble business that made its home in a tiny strip mall across the street from a much larger strip mall. Don’s was a throwback to the classic barbershops of old – there were five worn leather chairs, one wooden bench that was uncomfortable as it was long, and a low table in front of it littered with magazines that featured articles about the best hunting knife with which to skin a deer. Most of the clientele were old, and all of them were male. We patrons of Don’s Barber Shop were a solemn brotherhood of men united by a single goal: Shorter hair.

Seeing as I named my blog after the cult status of my hair, you the reader can surely imagine how highly I value a good barbershop. My hair is unruly – it is thick like molasses, and upon delving into it with scissors and a comb one will be quick to discover a labyrinth of cowlicks and perhaps a family of gnomes. Indeed, while most people need only a mere barber, I require someone who can truly break my hair’s wild nature and tame it; a Hair Whisperer, if you will. These intrepid masters of the craft are not so easy to find. I once made the grave mistake of trusting an Axe-scented, sideways baseball cap wearing, scissor wielding buffoon with the care of my hair, which resulted in me looking like an Eastern European refugee for the next month.

Over the years I discovered a great many Hair Whisperers at Don’s – there was my first barber, Don (yes, that Don) who died of a heart attack, to be followed by Jeremiah, a lanky man with a lazy eyeball who I later found out carried a handgun at all times, and, after I was too scared to go to Jeremiah again, Clive, who was a great barber up until he stole all the money out of the cash register one night and was arrested halfway to Washington. As you can see, cutting my hair takes severe toll on a man.

In Portland, I’ve found a reliable Hair Whisperer in Barber Dan, a former military barber who steadfastly refuses to take my hair’s shit. He is professional and efficient; there is little small talk. To make idle chit-chat with him while he does battle with my hair would be like talking to He-Man while he’s locked in combat with Skeletor, only He-Man doesn’t run the risk of an embarrassingly botched haircut. As great as Barber Dan is, though, I spend most of my time in Eugene, and it’s not even worth trying to find a Hair Whisperer in a city full of hippies who haven’t had a haircut since Cat Stevens converted to Islam.

So usually I just wait until I go home to get a haircut, which tends to get dicey toward the last few weeks of the term. My hair is thick and heavy as it is, and not getting it cut for three months is like walking around with a sack full of doorknobs tied to your head. Also, while my hair starts out looking very clean cut and proper after a trip to the barber shop, it gradually becomes more and more ragged until it looks like a combination of a bowl cut and a mullet.*

*While the mullet is commonly referred to as “business in front, party in back”, I feel like the terrible form my long-uncut hair takes is more “party in front, party in back, both parties suck”.

A few days ago, I was caught in exactly this situation. I hadn’t had my hair cut for an especially long time, and with each passing day I looked less and less like a progressively minded college student and more and more like a guy whose favorite show is Cops because he’s in four episodes. In desperation, I went in search of a barbershop within walking distance of campus. The closest I came was a salon.

What’s the difference between a barbershop and a salon? When you walk into a barbershop, it is dimly lit. Decoration is sparse or nonexistent. The patrons regard you coolly, and one of the barbers grunts at you to indicate that you should write your name up on the white board, take a seat, and start educating yourself as to the best knife with which to skin a dead deer. A salon, on the other hand, is brightly lit and smells strongly of fruity industrial strength hair chemicals. Colorful pictures of beautiful people adorn the walls, as if to suggest that you, too, could be in a giant wall picture if you play your cards right and keep getting your hair cut at this particular establishment. Bouncy, cheerful people greet you enthusiastically while the constant thump of techno echoes from hidden speakers around the room – the salon has consumed you, and now you can hear its heartbeat.

When I first arrived at the salon, I found that aside from the aesthetics the experience is very much the same. I entered, put my name on a waiting list, and then took a seat on a highly uncomfortable bench to wait for my chance to pay $20 for a haircut. The reading selection was limited – ESPN Magazine and Glamour, the two opposite ends of my disinterest spectrum. I first read an article about the Seattle Sonics’ change to the Oklahoma City Thunder, which I followed up with an article about what it’s like to have sex with a male model (apparently, not all that great). The woman who eventually cut my hair had little to say, save for various muttered epithets about how thick my hair was. She did an admirable job – not Hair Whisperer quality, but good enough to keep me looking like I’m not a convicted sex offender for a few more weeks.

I’ve gained some trust in barbers thanks to this experience – up until now I had trained myself to see every new barber as a horrible haircut waiting to happen, but having walked out of the salon with a well trimmed, slightly fruity haircut, I have a little more confidence in barbers other than my own. Also, should I ever need to get highlights, I know exactly where to go.

Truman Capps had taken over a year to write an entire update about his hair despite the title of the blog – it’s all downhill from here, folks.