The Barbershop

[original post: Dec.04.2006]

I got a haircut today. Yeah, I know... big wow.

Actually, it was quite a concerted effort, as I had to wake up two hours earlier than usual in order to get to work early so that I could leave early and get to the barber before they closed. The drawback of having a 9-5 job is that it has the annoying little habit of blocking out BUSINESS HOURS, essentially stripping me of my title as an American consumer.

It was also a concerted effort because as I woke up this morning, I, for some reason, was sleeping at the far end of my bed with my head poised at the jutting sharp corner of the window sill. I lurched forward in my sleep ten minutes before my alarm went off, slamming my forehead into the sill and painting my hands with blood. Just another manic Monday...

So yeah, it was not a happy morning... but I made it back to Davis in time for my haircut, miraculously.

Leo's barbershop is an anachronism. The entire interior hasn't been touched or modified since 1953. The barbers themselves seem to have stepped out of a street-beat Detective thriller, or a Spike Lee Joint, I can't make up my mind. The walls are adorned with antequated advertisements pushing the "buzz cut" and the "presidential". Hairdos that disappeared during the Cold War.

My barber today is a man that I have known for the last five years, and yet, I do not know his name. I've come in every two months or so for a haircut and I've never learned a single one of their names. He's a Japanese man in his mid to late fifties... reminds me of a scruffier Captain Sulu. He's the best barber there, in my opinion, and his steady hand has only once in five years left me less than satisfied. And after five years, I have molded my request down to specifics. "Just a trim, even all around, scissor-cut, block the back, please."

It's such a peaceful place, the barbershop. Gentle conversation, the sound of a rustling newspaper, the distant voices from outside, and a low television usually following a football game are the only sounds in the shop. I've come to realize that it's one of only a few times during my normal day that I am not inundated my immense amounts of stimuli.

And yet, something always bothered me during the haircuts. Something I later came to identify as a prime source of the peaceful ambiance... the silence.

I always felt an urge to talk to the barber, make some sort of pointless conversation to fill the sound void. I'm just not a talker during haircuts, but I felt like I needed to be. Something about silence scares people, scares me.

And yet, though perceived as awkward, the atmosphere was still pleasantly peaceful and I felt genuinely relaxed and at ease, without the use of words. I suppose that the barber and customer share some sort of implicitly understood relationship, almost a bizarre, physical mentorship of some sort that takes place in the hearts and minds of those involved. Words aren't always necessary.



From Pulp Fiction:

Mia: Don't you hate that?

Vincent: What?

Mia: Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?

Vincent: I don't know. That's a good question.

Mia: That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.

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