I had a haircut on Tuesday. It’s been a while because I have been holding off until my Fiji holiday gets close. I want to be looking sharp in those vacation snaps!
It was starting to get messy and shapeless and there is nothing creative to be done with stringy Anglo-Saxon hair when it gets like that. Nothing which can be done with mine in anycase!
The advancing years are starting to tell and whilst my hair still gets thick and annoying above the ears it is not nearly so on my pate and if you look closely enough through my crowning follicles you can see the surface of my skull getting evermore shiny like the surface of the moon coming into focus for the cameras of a lunar explorer. I’m not going bald but another ten years may see me surreptiously checking Advanced Hair Studio advertisments in the darkest corners of newspaper classifieds and perhaps my enmity towards Shane Warne will subside and he will once again be an inspiration to me, albeit for reasons other than his sporting prowess. The bald man’s hero!
The barber’s shop I go to in Mawson has been there many years and I first had my haircut there when I was a boy and my father would drive me over and we would get a good old fashioned “short back and sides” which has remained my cut of choice ever since. Nothing adventurous for me in the hair fashion stakes.
I can still see the face of the little Greek barber in residence at the time and although he passed to that Hellenic hair salon in the sky many years ago his sidekick from those days, Kerry from Captains Flat still runs the shop and cut my hair on Tuesday.
There is in fact three barber shops in the Mawson shopping precint and at least one of the other two has been there over fifteen years. I have tried this particular shop out a few times and it’s not to my taste not to mention I feel bad about betrying my regular man on the odd occasion I have done so.
There are three of them on board in the other place and it has more of a “production line” feel and the pleasantries seem forced and nearly every time I’ve gone there I have hated the haircut I received. My haircut before the latest one was actually at this shop.
I had gone to the regular place only to find a sign on the door indicating Kerry had gone for ten minutes so instead of wandering around the lanes and alleyways of Mawson shopping centre waiting for my barber to return, I decided to try the rival entity once more and give them a chance to change my lowly opinion of them.
I moped along to the other end of the shopping centre where I found the store, deep in the bowels.
As I walked hesitantly through the doors I tried to display a confident air, as if betraying my regular barber was an everyday occurence and no thoughts of guilt or remorse ever travelled the empty passages between my ears.
The first thing I noticed was that they were busy. It had been a long time since I had sat in Kerry’s place and had to wait more than a few minutes.
One of the barbers, an English fellow called Michael was off but the other two, a little Italian called Joe who appears to own the store and another similarly swarthy yet younger man who may or may not be related to Joe, had their hands full with a couple of old stagers with a couple more waiting. I have noticed over the years that most men who attend these shops are well above average in age and it makes me wonder where all the men my age and younger get their hair cut.
After reading and re-reading a newspaper for several minutes I was finally called and Joe took charge and poked and prodded at my head pushing it this way and that, trying to align it in a way to perfectly suit his well honed style.
I suppose telling a barber you would merely like a “short back and sides” is a fairly ambiguous statement and perhaps a more forthright vocalisation of my wishes would have been appropriate but I figure most barbers understand you wish for nothing fancy, you just want a short haircut!
Joe, when it came to the “short back and sides” part, was fine but conspicuously left it a little too long on top. Now I certainly should have told him to cut it a little shorter up there but being a reserved character I let it go and decided forthwtih I would only see my regular operator when it comes to having my ears lowered from here on in.
Perhaps Joe felt with my thinning hairline a little bit longer on top was appropriate but I didn’t like it and it has coloured my view of his style once more, perhaps unfairly.
As I left Joe’s shop that day I noticed yet another barber’s shop had opened or had been there for sometime and I had missed it as it is in a part of the centre I never visit. I wonder how they all make a go of it. There can’t be that many middle aged and elderly men in Mawson and surrounds who need their hair cut regularly. I will keep it noted in my head that it is there but I am very happy to get back to my original barber and my original haircut which makes me happy. And happy I am.
So that is it from me for today and when a major post like this contains nothing of note but my experience’s when getting my haircut, you know it has been a quiet week. Hope all is going well for you too, wherever you may be.
It was starting to get messy and shapeless and there is nothing creative to be done with stringy Anglo-Saxon hair when it gets like that. Nothing which can be done with mine in anycase!
The advancing years are starting to tell and whilst my hair still gets thick and annoying above the ears it is not nearly so on my pate and if you look closely enough through my crowning follicles you can see the surface of my skull getting evermore shiny like the surface of the moon coming into focus for the cameras of a lunar explorer. I’m not going bald but another ten years may see me surreptiously checking Advanced Hair Studio advertisments in the darkest corners of newspaper classifieds and perhaps my enmity towards Shane Warne will subside and he will once again be an inspiration to me, albeit for reasons other than his sporting prowess. The bald man’s hero!
The barber’s shop I go to in Mawson has been there many years and I first had my haircut there when I was a boy and my father would drive me over and we would get a good old fashioned “short back and sides” which has remained my cut of choice ever since. Nothing adventurous for me in the hair fashion stakes.
I can still see the face of the little Greek barber in residence at the time and although he passed to that Hellenic hair salon in the sky many years ago his sidekick from those days, Kerry from Captains Flat still runs the shop and cut my hair on Tuesday.
There is in fact three barber shops in the Mawson shopping precint and at least one of the other two has been there over fifteen years. I have tried this particular shop out a few times and it’s not to my taste not to mention I feel bad about betrying my regular man on the odd occasion I have done so.
There are three of them on board in the other place and it has more of a “production line” feel and the pleasantries seem forced and nearly every time I’ve gone there I have hated the haircut I received. My haircut before the latest one was actually at this shop.
I had gone to the regular place only to find a sign on the door indicating Kerry had gone for ten minutes so instead of wandering around the lanes and alleyways of Mawson shopping centre waiting for my barber to return, I decided to try the rival entity once more and give them a chance to change my lowly opinion of them.
I moped along to the other end of the shopping centre where I found the store, deep in the bowels.
As I walked hesitantly through the doors I tried to display a confident air, as if betraying my regular barber was an everyday occurence and no thoughts of guilt or remorse ever travelled the empty passages between my ears.
The first thing I noticed was that they were busy. It had been a long time since I had sat in Kerry’s place and had to wait more than a few minutes.
One of the barbers, an English fellow called Michael was off but the other two, a little Italian called Joe who appears to own the store and another similarly swarthy yet younger man who may or may not be related to Joe, had their hands full with a couple of old stagers with a couple more waiting. I have noticed over the years that most men who attend these shops are well above average in age and it makes me wonder where all the men my age and younger get their hair cut.
After reading and re-reading a newspaper for several minutes I was finally called and Joe took charge and poked and prodded at my head pushing it this way and that, trying to align it in a way to perfectly suit his well honed style.
I suppose telling a barber you would merely like a “short back and sides” is a fairly ambiguous statement and perhaps a more forthright vocalisation of my wishes would have been appropriate but I figure most barbers understand you wish for nothing fancy, you just want a short haircut!
Joe, when it came to the “short back and sides” part, was fine but conspicuously left it a little too long on top. Now I certainly should have told him to cut it a little shorter up there but being a reserved character I let it go and decided forthwtih I would only see my regular operator when it comes to having my ears lowered from here on in.
Perhaps Joe felt with my thinning hairline a little bit longer on top was appropriate but I didn’t like it and it has coloured my view of his style once more, perhaps unfairly.
As I left Joe’s shop that day I noticed yet another barber’s shop had opened or had been there for sometime and I had missed it as it is in a part of the centre I never visit. I wonder how they all make a go of it. There can’t be that many middle aged and elderly men in Mawson and surrounds who need their hair cut regularly. I will keep it noted in my head that it is there but I am very happy to get back to my original barber and my original haircut which makes me happy. And happy I am.
So that is it from me for today and when a major post like this contains nothing of note but my experience’s when getting my haircut, you know it has been a quiet week. Hope all is going well for you too, wherever you may be.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 