Haircuts

Gail and Dino - barbers Rehoboth Beach, DE - 2013

I'm way overdue for a haircut.  Gail, my regular barber has been sick. For the past two weeks, every time I call, her husband answers the phone and says "She won't be in.  She's sick.  I think she has pneumonia."  

I'm in Shaggyville folks. For the past fifteen years, every since my hairline started to recede, I've gotten short haircuts.  Almost a buzz cut.  

You guys out there know how hard it is to get just the right barber to cut your hair the way you like it. Gail cuts my hair exactly the way I want it.

Nino the Barber cutting my hair in Philadelphia 3-31-1994

For over thirty years, when I used to work at Girard/Mellon Bank in Philadelphia my barber was an Italian immigrant (aren't all good barbers of Italian descent?) named Nino.  From 1965 to 1994 Nine was my barber.  Perfecto.  Even better, he didn't talk much when he cut my hair.  His barber shop was located in the basement of the bank building where I worked in Center City Philadelphia.  I would call from my desk to see if he was available and go down during the workday.  My boss didn't mind.  But alas, I eventually left my job in Philadelphia and went back to my hometown of Downingtown.

Nino and Joe Bosso - my Philadelphia barbers 3-31-1994

Much to my surprise the brother team of Tony and Joe Ursini were still cutting hair!  Tony used to cut my hair when I was ten years old.  In fact I used to clean his barber shop on Sundays for $10 and a homemade hoagie compliments of his wife.  Tony was born in the same year (1920) as my father.  And he was still cutting hair!

Brothers Tony and Joe Ursini - 2001

Funny thing, all the years when I was a smacked assed kid getting my hair cut by Tony I always had a cowlick.  After I got away from home and had other barbers cut my hair, I lost the cowlick.  I attributed that fact that my hair "grew up."  WhenI returned to Downingtown and got my hair cut by Tony again, after a nearly 40 year absence, the cowlick returned!  Hey, guess what?  He was combing my hair against the grain.  Thus I tiptoed through that very sensitive field and CHANGED BARBERS.  I started to have Tony's brother Joe cut my hair and the cowlick was gone.  But I still loved going to the Ursini's barber shop.  Such a feeling of "returning home".  Some of you guys will know that feeling if you have a regular barber.  
Sadly Tony died last year.  He was a legend in Downingtown and is sorely missed.  I can no longer get haircuts at Ursini's Barber Shop because they're in Downingtown, Pennsylvania; two and a half hours away.  I would love for Joe to cut my hair, just not practical.

Tony Ursini, World War II and at Downingtown's Veteran's Memorial Wall 2001.

So here I am folks, Shagsville.  Gail only has hours Wednesday through Saturday.  I'll give a call this Wednesday and if she's still sick, I'm going to have to to the unthinkable……get another barber to cut my hair.  I can just imagine what it will look like.  Pray for me folks.

Needing a haircut……BAD

Hair Part Deux

Remember a few days ago when I had a hair issue with my barber?  Well, I took myself down to my barber (Dino) early yesterday morning.  He was surprised to see me again so soon after my haircut of last week.  He said "Another haircut?"  I said "No, I'm here to get more cut off the right side of my head."


Dino scrunched his nose like he smelled a skunk had just walked into his barber shop and said "Whatsa matter?"  Now here is where I had to tread very, very carefully.  One does not want to offend one's barber, especially if he is one of few remaining old school Italian-American barbers who specialize in giving old men like moi good haircuts that old men like moi can never get from the women "stylists" in those overpriced "salons."  You know why they call them "stylists" don't you?  That way they can charge you three times the price of a standard barber and cut your hair so little that you have to go back in two weeks for another "styling."  But I digress.


Yesterday I was in dangerous territory when I went back to my barber for a fix up of my choppy haircut.  There was no point in pissing him off.  I know what happened when he screwed up my hair.  He was cutting it when one of his former female employees came in and was trying to persuade him to join her at her new gig at her STYLIST salon!  OH NO!  So Dino was talking to her, defending all his reasons for staying in his barber shop at the back of the Elements Beauty Supply store in the Safeway Shopping Center in Rehoboth.  All the while he's talking to her he's chopping away at my hair.  I was in a hurry and I certainly didn't want to engage her in conversation as a potential new customer so when Dino whipped off the hair collecting apron he had around my neck, I paid him and sprinted out of his barber shop.  Under normal circumstances I would have looked in the mirror to check my haircut as I always do.  But today I just wanted to get out of there and away from that woman (no offense to any female fans of this blog.)


I told Dino "I need a little cut off here" as I motioned to the upper right side of my hair where there was major Bed Hair sticking out.  He scrunched up his nose again and said "Oh yeah."  He said "I'm sorry."  I told him "No, no.  It's my fault.  You asked me 'how do you like it?' and I said 'Okay'.  It's my fault."  Dino's scrunched up nose returned back to normal and I hopped up in his chair.  I quickly changed the subject by asking him when he was visiting his family for Christmas.  He said "I leave tomorrow to visit my son and his family."  Thank goodness.  I got through the Barber Minefield.  He wasn't pissed off.  I was getting my bad haircut fixed while at the same time allowing Dino to maintain his self-respect.

Wasn't this scenario one of the episodes of "Seinfeld?"


Hey, take a look!  What do you think?  Nice, huh?

Hair

The right sider of my noggin - so wrong - too much hair - uneven

Last week I got a haircut.  


Last week I got a bad haircut.


I didn't realize it until I got home and washed my hair.


The right side of my head has about three inches more hair than the left side.  What could my barber be thinking?  What was I thinking?  Do I have to check my haircut every time I leave?  Apparently I do.


I've been using the same barber for about four years.  He is an old Italian barber.  Most of my life I've been using Italian barbers.  They are a dying breed.  I don't go to stylists.  I don't need to pay a woman $45 to wash my hair and give it a half assed trim and then need a haircut again the next week.  I did that once.  All I got was the boobs hanging in my face when she washed my hair.


No, I'll take the manly haircuts that the old Italian barbers serve up.  As I said, they are literally a dying breed.  I'm hoping my 80 year old barber Dino outlives me because if he doesn't, I'm screwed.  


I've had women cut my hair.  I never got a good butch haircut from a woman.  I'm not being sexiest here, I just never, never have gotten a good haircut from a woman.  


I don't know what was on Dino's mind last week but this lopsided haircut just won't do.  I was going to wait out my haircut and live it until I go back to him for my regular six week haircut.  I can't do it though.  I'm waking up in the morning with a hair drift on the right side of my head.  I look like a dark haired Conan O'Brien.

The left side of Noggin Ron - the way it should be - I'm lopsided

Nope, tomorrow I get this fixed.  

Who Makes the Best Barber?

Yesterday I got a long overdue haircut. My barber, Dino, only works Wednesdays and Thursdays. The past month I was unable to coordinate my time with Dino’s time because of either my work schedule or one of the many Nor’easters that passed through this region.




Last month I needed a haircut so bad I weakened and let one of the women barbers cut my hair. Big Mistake.



I my lifetime I have had my hair cut less than five times by a woman. Each time it was a disaster. In my experience, women cannot cut men’s hair. That includes my Mother. She was the first one to cut my hair when I was a youngster. She literally put a bowl on my head and gave me a Buster Brown haircut. Even then at the tender age of seven I knew this was wrong.



Once in the Seventies I succumbed to the current fad and went to a “stylist.” Not that there was anything wrong with the way Nino (my longtime Italian barber at that time) cut my hair. On the contrary, I was always very pleased with his haircuts. But trying to be “with it”, I went to a stylist on Sansome Street (I worked in center city Philadelphia at that time. What did I get for my efforts? A big price ($24.00 versus the usual $8.00) to have a beautiful woman cut my hair. But wait, there’s more! She washed my hair. Not that I needed my hair washed, it was all part of the “treatment.” So she flattens the barber chair into a horizontal position, swings my head around to the sink then proceeds to wash my hair with on of those doggie spray hoses attached to the sink. All the while she’s doing this her boobs are flouncing around near my head, occasionally bumping into my skull. Now I know what I was paying $24.00 for (plus tip.) Thank you but no thank you (to quote St. Sarah Palin.) I’m not paying $30 to have a cheap thrill in the afternoon.



My next haircut was in the Nineties. I frequented a barber shop in the Lionville Shopping Center. I had yet to find my new Old Italian Barber so I used this barber shop which had three male and two female barbers. One time I was in a hurry and I felt guilty by always turning down the woman barber when she said “Next!” so I consented. Another BIG MISTAKE. When I got home I noticed that there were chunks of my hair that weren’t even cut. I couldn’t believe it. For the first time in my life I went back to the barber and asked the owner if he could fix it. He did but by going back and asking I had alienated all the barbers, including the woman barber. I got a few more haircuts after that incident but I could cut the animosity with a knife. I never went back.



Now to my latest experience with a woman barber. I needed a haircut so bad last month and I couldn’t wait for the next Wednesday or Thursday to roll around (mainly because of the incessant rain on those days), I let the lone woman barber cut my hair. And yet another BIG MISTAKE. I get home and my hair is uneven. WTF? Man oh man. Here we go again. What is so hard about giving me a haircut? I needed a haircut the next week. That’s how bad the haircut she gave me was. Awful.



Yesterday I got my haircut by Dino. He is a 71 year old barber of Italian American descent. He told me that barbering is a dying trade. I could not agree with him more. No more will I subject myself to the ineptitude of a woman barber. I don’t need the cheap thrill of having a woman’s breast swinging around in the proximity to my head. For those guys that do, go for it. I wish women barbers all the success in the world. But for me, all I need is a buzz cut.

The classic "Behind the Head" barber view.  Looks good to me (except for my early morning puffy face.)