Challenging Hair

Another of my posts from Ao Vivo from 2007. This is a true story.

For the last few years I've been experiencing an odd occurrence when I go to get my hair cut. So odd, that I bought a haircutting kit for myself, and starting cutting my own hair. For simple cuts like a butch, this is quite easy...buzzzz, buz, buzzzzzz, buzz, click. Done. 

 

Simple. For longer or more complicated cuts one needs the additional help of a couple of mirrors facing each other or a stationary mirror and a special mirror that hooks on your shoulders. These more complicated cuts take a lot more time, but with practice, pretty much anything is achievable.

 

My hair has what one stylist called a strong wave pattern. That means that under certain conditions it is very curly. However, under other conditions, it appears almost straight. Under particularly foul conditions it looks as though someone has glued a guinea pig to my head. I can understand that cutting my hair would present special problems for hair-cutters. What I can't understand is the reaction I've been getting when I walk into a barbershop or hair salon. But more on that later.

 

Because I bought this very clever hair-cutting kit, I started getting asked to cut some of my friends hair. I willing did this with the caveat that I am not an expert and have no hair-cutting training except on myself. The first time I actually cut hair was long ago on my mother and sisters who asked me to simply trim off the very ends of their very, very long hair. Nothing very difficult at all; just get the hair damp and cut in a slight downward curve with the longest part in the middle, or for a change in the mood of the person, straight across. I didn't have my handy-dandy hair-cutting kit at that time.

 

After I got the kit, my first client was a jazz drummer friend who had cancer and pretty much all his hair had fallen out anyway, but I was glad to be able to help in any way I could. The next person who asked me only wanted me to cut his hair very short all over. Not complicated at all; in fact when I thought I had finished he told me he thought it was too long and I took the plastic widgit off the end of the clipper and did it again this time successfully completing the task. Then other people started to ask me to cut their hair. I don't know why, I did not advertise, nor do I especially like cutting hair, but there is a social component that has a certain caché. That means I enjoy doing something for my friends. One friend who has particularly curly hair, falls under the definition of difficult...the hair, not the friend.

 

Curly hair has a tendency to resist control so you have to kind of let it do whatever it wants to do while giving it a kind of push in the direction the grower of the hair has indicated. Given that I am not a trained hair person, I must confess that it is mildly to strongly important to me to be able to satisfy my friends requests and it becomes a matter of pride to leave them looking as good as possible within my skill level. So far, most of my friends have been at least okay with the results. If they harbored any dissatisfaction, it remained unspoken.

 

Now, back to my original odd problem.

 

Before I bought my kit, I had been going into barbershops and hair salons like everyone else. I would enter sit or put my name on a list, or in some cases call to make an appointment for usually between two and three weeks in the future. Sound familiar? I certainly thought my actions were altogether normal. Throughout my life this has been the same. Until about maybe fifteen years ago. 

 

For some reason barbers in general started disappearing, so being a walk-in customer started becoming more difficult. I am not sure why this started happening other than men were wearing their hair longer and barbers didn't seem to have the required skill set, whereas scissor wielding hair "stylists" did and were picking up the slack as well as a lot more money, because naturally cutting hair with a scissors takes a lot longer in addition to having to know all the things you have to know about dyeing, perms, frosting, make-up, etc., etc.

 

So to gain all this knowledge one has to attend a cosmetology college, which I understand is detailed and expensive and actually the graduate rate is comparable to some high schools. So there is a degree of difficulty not suspected by the average citizen. After talking to a couple of people who attended one of these schools I stopped thinking about cosmetology students the way I've seen them portrayed on film and in urban legend. They really have to work very hard and study their subject. I am not joking...it is hard to become a cosmetologist. But cosmetologists do not study what barbers study and barbers have their own schools and don't study what cosmetologists study. I am not sure why. But what they study is not really important to my story. They are both experts in their fields and I appreciate that. I also understand that if I want a barber cut I go to a barber and if I want a style cut I go to a cosmetologist. Not a problem.

 

It is also true that if you stay with a barber or stylist for a while they get to know you and more importantly, your hair and its bad habits. It is also true that if a stylist or barber messes up your hair cut, you should point this out immediately and allow them the opportunity to fix it. If there is nothing to fix offer them a tip. I mean extra money. I approve and agree with all of this. Now, having said that, here is the problem.

 

After spending years with the same stylist she decided she no longer wanted to cut men's hair and made a recommendation to me for another stylist. It was just about here that the problem started.

 

The stylist she recommended was a fellow who, while cutting hair, kept telling the same joke about rabbits running backward...ha ha ha...receding hare line. Funny once to someone who doesn't have receding hair, not funny at all to someone who does, and really, really boring to hear ten times in a row. And he didn't cut hair especially well, in fact, he cut every man's hair exactly the same...just like his. Not bad if you look like him or have the same kind of hair. But I went back quite a few times because he HAD been recommended and I figured the errors he kept making would be corrected over time. That didn't happen so eventually I migrated to another. Then the problem seemed to get worse.

 

I would walk in, the hair pro would ask what I wanted to do, I would tell them and then magically my hair ended up looking like whoever was cutting my hair's hair. Did I say that right? It would end up looking like the hair of the person wielding the scissors or clipper. Somehow, I had become a mirror for the hair cutter. Not bad if the hair cutter was my age, general coloring, and had my guinea pig hair. But that never ever happened. 

 

Slowly I came to the realization that there was a solution to this problem; just go to someone of the opposite sex with truly curly hair or straight hair! I did not reckon with the vast black box of the cosmetological mind. I once went to a young lady with absolutely dead straight hair cut in a modified wedge cut. In her case, the wedge was on the side and she had dyed her hair jet black. On her, it was really quite becoming. Not a chance I thought of walking out of her salon looking like that.

 

Right. I didn't look like her. But if I had dyed my hair black? If I had been about five-two? If I had an impressive rack? Nevermind. Apparently she did her best to make me look like herself; I assume she was severely disappointed. Over the years I have ended up with strawberry blond hair, a shaved head, various other colors, wedge cuts, shag cuts, punk cuts including a kind of mohawk, mullets, rock-and-roll god, and once a cut meant for a man who likes-wants-appreciates-desires, a comb-over. Remember, I have always been asked what I wanted and I have replied in various ways but almost never have I asked for a comb-over, or, if I did, it was by accident.

 

Recently I decided to get a military style haircut because I thought simplicity would be a way of well, simplifying my hair problem. So I went to a barber because barbers know about clippers and military cuts are clipper cuts. I walked in, sat down and waited my turn like everyone else and watched as the barber, one of two in this shop, finished a cut well known in the world as a flat-top.

 

Perfect, I thought, I had flat-tops in the distant past before my problem started. I like flat-tops even though my guinea-pig hair needs a lot of hair glue to train it into that shape. My turn having arrived, I stepped into the chair and being asked what I wanted replied, "I would like a flat-top." And I said it quietly with a kind of controlled excitement, because I was really looking forward to a flat-top after the comb-over.

 

The barber reacted...strangely. He made a noise with his throat that seemed to be a word that didn't quite make it out of his mouth, simultaneously doing a kind of physical jerking with all of his limbs at the same time. As he did his rather odd performance, I stared in astonishment. When he repeated it in a toned down version, I actually felt a little frightened. I thought perhaps he was having a petit mal seizure and I was actually relieved when he finally recovered enough to ask me if I had ever had a flat-top with the implication that if I had not, I not only shouldn't but wouldn't get one in HIS shop. Of course I replied in the affirmative. He had another brief seizure. But he added a kind of petulant foot stomp.

 

More recently, I started looking for someone to cut my hair again and since I was in a different neighborhood and didn't have an appointment, neither did I want to wait for two weeks, I looked around for somewhere that would take walk-ins and began my hair trek…my first disillusion occurred when I couldn't find a barber at all, but I did not give up and started my interviews. It was one o'clock in the afternoon because I was hoping that waiting till after lunch would calm the fears of my approach in any cosmetological heart.

 

I saw one salon which was empty, open till nine and had a lovely looking woman who looked up at me as I made my approach with a lovely smile which quickly faded, then walking very quickly disappeared into the back of her shop and did not re-emerge. Not a good sign but there were others.

 

My next stop took me to a "full service salon" with massage of various sorts, hair, nails, and what-have-you. The woman working looked out at me getting out of my car and quickly disappeared like the first, but reappeared, looking scared but smiling. Now that I reflect, she was shaking a little. "Hi!" she said quite cheerfully. "How can I help you?" The smile was charming and I replied that I was (since I knew getting an appointment was pretty much out of the question) just checking out whether she did men's hair, did I need an appointment, did she take cash, cheque, plastic, that sort of thing.

 

Her eyes started doing this kind of shifting from side to side; not making eye contact is a bad sign but I continued nonetheless. After my rejection at the first place, it was now about 1:15, so with everyone staying open so late, I still had hope. When she finally made eye contact it was as though she had got a really good idea. "I have an appointment coming in at 3:00!" she said almost like she was surprised by the spontaneity of the thought, "soooo..., I can't take you...but the lady who owns the place will be in later, and she might be able to take you next month...or whenever." She then, back in her comfort zone, explained the payment policy of the salon and said, "sorry I can't help you today." I felt she sounded suspiciously relieved but I left anyway.

 

My search finally found one of those chain outfits that seem to always have people waiting and also have a lot of people working to get customers through in the shortest amount of time. There were two men being trimmed and one waiting when I walked in. As I did, if you can imagine the sound of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly theme playing, you will have a notion of what kind of looks crossed the faces of the women working there. One of them, a rather vapid looking bleached blond immediately started asking her customer lots of questions about his sideburns and slooooooowly slooooooooooowly started cutting little tiny hairs off the back of his neck. She had been using clippers but seeing me, shifted instantly to scissors. The other woman knew she had "lost the toss" but slowed her own customers progress to a crawl, which, I might add, made him smile. When a third woman made an appearance, she smiled broadly, I am sure because she thought hope had arrived, but she was wrong because there was the guy ahead of me! The new woman took one oh so casual look at me and walked sloooooooowly to the register to check in, then sloooooooooowly walked into the back room to get her wrap. Then she ever so slooooooooooooowly put her station together and finally turned, and looking at me, said with a strained voice, "who's next?" The young man sitting next to me got up and her color returned to normal.

 

The woman who took me had long, badly conditioned, straight black hair. She also, I saw, had quite a few teeth missing. I was a little scared because I was sure she was thinking, "What a challenge!" She was also Asian, but I didn't think she could figure a way through that. Because my hair had grown to an unprecedented length I know she was startled because when I asked for a flat-top, her mouth opened, revealing the previously mentioned dental absence, and dropping into a kind of shocked/disappointed sneer. 

 

"You wanna fla’-top?" She stated incredulously. I know, it was a question, and it HAD a question mark, but it was a statement. I don't know how she did it.

 

I replied yes, yes I did want a flat-top. But then she asked me whether I wanted a long flat-top or a short flat-top! And somehow I knew I had a problem. The blond across the room smiled and said quickly she was leaving, but she kept staring at me. Being polite I stared back. I noticed that she kept the stare going as she backed out the door. I like to think it was because she thought that a challenge had slipped through her hands.

 

My cutter kept my face turned away from the mirror...a sign I have come to know as bad. She looked perturbed as she touched my head but I was VERY cooperative when she wanted my head in the right position, she was after all, holding a scissors. She kept stepping back and forth like she was trying to get the correct perspective. And I know she was cutting hair because it kept falling around me, retaining of course, its miserable little curves. On a couple of occasions she accidentally had me facing the mirror, but quickly grabbed my nose or my chin and yanked my face away from seeing anything. At last, she turned me toward the mirror and asked triumphantly, "what do you think?" I had her. 

 

“No,” I said, “it doesn't look like a flat-top.”

 

She was over-confidant because she had already removed the paper from around my neck and had the smock half-way off. Without speaking she dropped the tissue paper on the floor and threw the smock back on me without fastening it and resumed cutting. It was clear that my hair had won when she told me she wouldn't charge me. She also, with an asian accent that hadn't been there when we started said something like, "I won tak you now," when I offered to pay.

 

She was not happy, but I still had all my teeth.