Modern Buzzcut

After my annual physical this afternoon at the doc's (I should be blogging for some time, thanks) I walked over to the barbershop. Let's just say that what's left was shaggy, like wispy tendrils from a failed plant. In any case, there was a change and in certain areas, I really despise change.

The barbershop is one of those areas. I want it to stay the same - four chairs, tiled floor, sports magazines and the odd Maxim, lollipops for the kids, old manual cash register, and opera on the radio. A group of older Italian men in blue coats. A certain polite quiet, punctuated only by small-talk about the weather or the stock market. A half hour of relative quiet. Okay, okay. An old school place for men, I'll cop to it. Indeed, when it's really quiet there and the Puccini is ascendant, I'll often extend the visit with a shave.

Today, a difference. The last septuagenarian barber has retired. The young guys, who only a few years ago were callow trainees (or so it seems), have taken over. And they've installed a television. Which was blaring loudly when I sat down in the first chair, some teen show on "the CW." A television. What are they thinking? Prices up a buck or two as well.

I got a decent haircut, but there was another difference. When they held up the mirror to show me the back of my head - and their handiwork - at the conclusion of the haircut, the older guys would always angle it a certain way to spare me the increasing shine emanating from the skin-white wattage of my pate. One of life's small courtesies. No more. Today, the glare was in full view.

So I ask you. What's a fella to do in this modern world?

Comments

[Lance Mannion]

I always leave my glasses in my jacket or on the window sill when I'm in the chair, so the woman who cuts my hair never bothers with the mirror, for which I bless her. What I can't see that I wouldn't see if I could see I can pretend is still there to see, see?

[Tony Alva]

After going without a hair cut from junior year in high school through college graduation, and the dread I felt after being dragged to the barber shop for buzz cuts by my dad (at least until my brother and I staged our famous haircut strike), I built up a healthy fear of barber shops, at least the ones you describe above. It was the kind soft touch of the female persuasion who guided me out of my caveman look. She asked me to trust her as she shore off the locks that hung half way down my back. I never once thought about going back to a barber after that. Salon’s, at least the one’s I frequent, are much like you describe the former state of barber shops of yore, but without Maxim. They tax you more, but it’s normally worth it.

[estiv]

The local old-fashioned barber shop where I had become a regular was sold to some guys in their late twenties or early thirties, who decided to keep it traditional but had no idea how to do so. The old shop had Field & Stream; the new one has current issues of Playboy. Sorry, but twat shots were never part of the ambience of the old barber shops.

It's like Disneyland's Main Street USA--you can see what effect they're after, but you'd never confuse it with the real thing. Plus the price nearly doubled. I might end up going to a salon.

[Richard]

Since I move around a lot, it's always difficult to find a decent barbershop or hair stylist (not that there's anything to style). I even found one place when I lived outside Albany, NY that gave half price hair cuts to bald men since we only have half the hair.

Lance, I always leave my glasses on the shelf where they can be seen. And invariably whomever has cut my hair holds up a mirror and I have to tell them I'm blind without the glasses and with the limited amount of hair I have left, it is generally pretty difficult to screw it up. Although it does happen every now and then.