The Barber Shop

How does the SacTownGuy decide where to get his haircut? Convienience first and foremost. If I am driving down the street and see a haircut place I will stop. I sometimes check if there are customers waiting. I sometimes check the price. I am not too picky. My hair cut has never required a precision stylist as it is pretty basic; clippers of varying numbers, shave the neck, done. It used to take 15 minutes and now down to about 5 minutes. Anyway, this happened back in the day and is 100% authentic. I have told the story a couple of times and thought you might get a laugh....

Back about 1994 or '95 I was a new young lawyer working for the man. The job sucked but it paid the bills... barely. The legal job market was thin back then so I took whatever job I could get. Worked out well, met the people I needed to meet, left that job after a year, and the rest is history. This was a real crappy job. I was young cocky lawyer, having just past the bar exam, and I had this crap job with a one hour lunch break. They had everything but the time clock there keeping track of me. Ok, so one day I wanted to get my haircut at lunch. I was driving around Broadway and 20th in SacTown. Mixed neighborhood, not white, not black, just a mix. I picked a little barber shop that looked nice, parked my sweet Acura Legend (with booming bass in the trunk) out front on the street and walked inside. Once inside I noticed something... everybody was looking at ME. A few customers, two barbers and they were all looking at me. Normally, with that many people waiting I would leave as I wouldn't want to wait the 20-30 minutes I guessed I would have to wait as I quickly calculauted the wait time. However, I didn't want to walk out like I was scared or uncomfortable because they were looking at me for one reason... the color of my skin. I had wondered into the preveriable "black barber shop." The neighborhood shop made visible to us white people in movies like Coming to America and the Barber Shop. I waited my turn.

At a white barber shop you are in and out in 15 minutes no matter what. As stated, it was back in '94 or '95 when I was working for the man and I was on my lunch break; a strict one hour. However, I didn't want to leave and look like a punk so I kept waiting. The wait turned out to be enjoyable though I was nervous about getting back to my job. As I have always been interested in the black culture this was a great place to sit and watch. The two barbers were distinct; the one was about 60 and looked like he had been cutting hair for about 1,000 years. He was tall and thin, quiet, went about his business, and then would occasionally throw some words of wisdom for everybody. The other barber was younger and built a lot like Ice Cube.

In a white barber shop you sit there, mind your own business, wait your turn. In a black barber shop everybody is talking. As is now well known, via movies and media stories, the black barber shop is a neighborhood gathering place. This day lived up to that as people came and went, some customers and some not, and the stories just kept going and going and going. My favorite story was primarily told by the young barber with some input from the crowd as he told the story. It seems like something like this happend in one of those barber shop movies... but this REALLY was the story being told this day back in the mid'90's. It had been some time before that a regular customer had been in the shop talking about how fast he was. Ice Cube was saying how fast he had been back in high school, breaking football records, etc.... Apparently they ended up with a foot race out front with all customers out there, betting on who would win, etc.... Apparently everybody in the shop on my day had also been there on race day so they kept correcting the story with their recollection of the facts, how much the winner won by, etc.... I don't remember if Ice Cube had won the race or not but I do remember that story went on forever!

As my wait headed toward 2 hours I figured it would be my turn soon....

Finally it was my turn but Ice Cube told me I had to wait for the older guy to cut my hair because, "he used to work in Fresno so has cut hair like yours before...." Like Fresno is the epicenter of white people's hair cutting or something!? The older barber was painfully careful cutting my hair. My cut became the focus of the shop as everybody watched; even Ice Cube was watching. In fact, if I remember correctly I believe the older barber was giving tips to Ice Cube as he cut so that Cube would be ready the next time a white guy wandered in to their shop. It probably took at least a half hour to cut it. Maybe it had been a while since he worked in Fresno!? He did a fine job but took his time. It was probably a combination of lack of practice and pride in his work which resulted in the half hour plus cut!

Anyway, it was an extremely funny experience.