Chapter LXVIII: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

I, being poor, have only my dreams. Dreams aren't legal tender though, so until I make millions of dollars selling my brilliant invention, I am forced go with the cheapest option whenever I need a haircut I can't do myself.

That invariably means some local barber in a rundown shopping center. The flooring is usually yellowed linoleum, and there will be a selection of utterly vapid magazines to peruse, like the March 1993 issue of American Boating. On the back wall is a boy's hairstyle chart that appears to be from the 1950's and show side profiles of fresh-faced white kids with the kinds of haircut that evoke baseball and apple pie.

Half of the scissor happy barbers on duty are ex-Marines whose expertise consists of the generic "boy's short." Alternatively, you might get the Vietnamese lady who feels compelled to chop off your bangs in a straight line across your forehead, no matter what you tell her.

In San Luis Obispo, this place is called University Barbershop, and I went there last week for my first haircut in 4 months. Unexpectedly, it was probably one of the better haircuts I've ever gotten, although I would have liked to keep a tad more on the sides. While my head was being pruned, it occurred to me that barbers have, for some unknown reason, often been portrayed as devious tricksters in literature and the arts.

For example, the oldest story involving haircuts is the tale of Samson and DELILAH and she was definitely tricky, using her feminine wiles to pry out the secret to Samson's strength. To be fair, he was an idiot and didn't make it especially difficult. The first time she asks, he tells her he will lose his strength if she ties him to his bed with 7 bowstrings. Delilah then proceeds to actually do this, so why he would tell her the truth the second time she asks is beyond me.

Maybe something was lost in the translation for Hebrew to Greek? Like, they were actually just flirting the first time she asked, and being tied to the bed was a kinky fantasy Samson wanted to act out.

Fast forward to the 1800's to THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, Rossini's famous opera. In it, the Count Almamiva wants to marry Rosina, but she is locked up by Doctor Bartolo, who wants to marry her himself, so the Count gets his trusty barber, Figaro, to devise a convoluted plan for them to meet. It is unclear why the Count approaches Figaro, unless there is a stereotype of clever barbers.

Continuing on the theme of singing barbers, we find SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, the 1979 Broadway musical. Sweeney Todd, a deranged barber, slits the throats of his customers with a straight razor. His specially designed barber's chair then slides the bodies through the floor to the bakery shop of his neighbor, who cooks the corpses into meat pies. That's pretty devious.

And finally there's BARBERSHOP, which is also about barbers. I haven't actually seen the movie and I'm tired so I'll stop typing now.

[Update] The Inner Critic: Damn, this was a lame post, even for you. Seriously, "BARBERSHOP, which is also about barbers..." Thanks for clearing that up, Jerry. All this time, I thought that a movie titled BARBERSHOP must be about evil gay hamsters who terrorize Chicago, biting off people's scrotums and then clipping their fingernails, all in one swift move. Your stupid discourse about barbers in the arts imploded without reaching anything that resembles a point (or even the ugly cousin of a point), and your "poem" is just a poorly written sentence chopped into seven lines. No wonder you only got one page hit yesterday. Two thumbs down.