Barber Crisis (ATTN: Brandon the British Barber)
January 30th, 2007 by WaS
I’ve never found a hair-cutter I really liked. Since I was little, I tried barbers, hair stylists, salons, and even my father. None were ever good (sorry dad). The reason: my hair is a horrow show. As soon as it starts to get long it gets uneven and then turns into a ridiculous looking afro. In high school I learned the best way to manage this was with a crew-cut. You would think this means that all you have to do is take a clipper, shave away, and be done with it. I later found this is not the case. There are many intricacies to giving a good crew-cut and some people are good at it…and many many more are not.
Over the years there were many cutters of my hair. There was the Becket Butcher (from my summer camp days). He could give a decent crew cut in 2 minutes flat. Then again, when you’re 12 years old, you don’t really care how your hair looks anyway. Fast Freddie was good - but not perfect. There was “Gina”, in the Wall St. 4-5 subway station. She was good until one day she almost fell asleep while cutting my hair and made a huge hole. Dr. Mike was ok, but not great. Lighthand Louie also wasn’t so bad. Okay… I made that guy up.
One day, someone referred me to Brandon the British Barber. I was working downtown at the time and he was working at a barber shop in the basement of the Chase building on Water St. He cut my hair just right, had porno magazines in the store, and gave you a hot towel on your face after the cut. He even liked to talk politics and actually agreed with some of my views! There was always a TV on in the shop with CNN, and Brandon would periodically interject snide commentary about the various stories. Ahhhhh. He was my barber soul-mate.
I went to Brandon for several years and every visit was a perfect cut. He knew exactly how I liked it. Then one day Brandon whispered to me that he was quitting from that shop. He quietly slipped me his card that had his new work address on the Upper West Side. No problem. I’d stuck with Brandon this long, I thought. I’ll go to the UWS to see him.
About 3 weeks after that, I went up to his new shop. I walked in and Brandon was nowhere. I asked the guy at the desk and he told me that Brandon was fired a few days before. What?! Fired? What the hell does a barber have to do to get fired? Slit someone’s throat with a razor blade? Shave obscenities into someone’s head? “Do you know where he went??” My voice was cracking with desperation. I received an abrupt “No!”. I got a haircut there anyway and it was terrible. When I got back to work I immediately called Brandon’s old shop to see if they knew anything. “No!” they said, and hung up on me. Brandon seemed to have pissed a lot of people off. I tried everywhere to find him with no luck. Searched online…nothing. I even found myself peaking into random barber shops I passed on the street to see if he was there. Nothing. Maybe he’s blacklisted from some secret underground cult of barbers? Maybe he pissed off some head barber boss with his political views and had to go back to England?
Since then I’ve been homeless. I’ve tried many random barber shops. Some in subway tunnels, midtown, downtown, Brooklyn, everywhere. None as good as Brandon.
I just came back from my lateset haircut at “Premium Barber Shop”. Ehhh. That inspired me to write this post as a last ditch effort. Maybe Brandon will somehow stumble across it and we’ll be reunited! Cheers to you Brandon the British Barber. May we meet again someday.
you mean you never liked fast freddie??????
wait until I tell him.