The Psyche of the Men's Haircut
Balter’s Essays of Mostly Acerbic Witticisms
My first haircut came with a Playboy and a lollipop.
A bit on barbers, betrayal, and bad decisions.
Manhood, one trim at a time.
💈🍭✂️
And, sir, would you like a nudie mag with your haircut?
I suppose I guess I would?
Then again I was just 8 years old and this was the 1970s.
The first haircut I can remember was located in the windowless basement of the Newton Marriott. My father pulled me down the long hallway into carpeted bay encrusted with five ruby red barber chairs. Here there were MEN. Men chewing on cigarettes and cigars; mostly businessmen in suits, chatting with barbers about, well...about men things. And they did so while casually leafing through the pages of a Playboy or Penthouse which were stacked like pancakes on sidetables.
Because, I suppose, getting your haircut is as good a place as any to appreciate the contours of the female form.
Man, I wanted to be the MEN so bad - but all the barber gave me was a lollipop.
By my pre-teens, the hairdoo I sought was one that would make me look just like Billy Idol. No, for real, that was my goal, even though I had absolutely zero sneer about me and my hair flopped straight in a bowl-cut brown. My Mom brought me to Aldo, a hairdresser who fussed and fawned over me until I looked something like a fuzzy baby bird. The result provided me an appropriate dose of middle-school bullying, which reinforced self-deprecating humor into my calling card.
In college, I wore lamb chops, thick and burly sideburns against my neo-hippie shag haircut. On a subway in NYC, a crazy bag lady shouted obscenities and begged for money, but when she got to me she had a wild moment of lucidity, stared at me and coldly offered, "Those side burns are not for you," and so I shaved them off.
The Caesar was an easy-to-manage style that would apparently work with 'different hair types and face shapes'.
And so, in the early 2000s - as the trend was certainly already waning - I figured I'd give it a try, and managed to look just like Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber.
In 2010 or 2011, I began to crown a Darth Vader-style mullet, to counterbalance all that weight I was gaining as a Dad with two young kids. No, I swear, it went well with my pinstripe oversized button down shirts and faded tight jeans. My friend Brian Halligan eventually took matters into his own hands: "You're getting sloppy," he said without flinching. So I picked up running, and learned to appreciate men who operate with transparency (thanks Halligan, you're a mensch).
For a few years before Covid I went to Ali at Tweed Barber, a spot where young professionals made awkward small talk for thirty minutes while getting their hair zipped with a #4 clipper. One day Ali wasn't available so George stepped in, who properly manhandled my obtuse cowlicks.
And so, after much handwringing - and with the air of a cheating husband - I began sneaking to see George on Ali's day off.
Before booking an appointment, I'd scour the schedule just to be sure Ali would be absent. But eventually I misread the schedule and Ali did appear who, in a scene straight from Curb Your Enthusiasm, felt slighted and offended I'd choose a competing barber right under his nose.
And so I sat as George trimmed my hair, while across the room Ali muttered under his breath and made side comments to other barbers, while moderately clicking his scissors in my direction.
During Covid, Sarah cut my hair, guided by a CVS-bought comb and tik tok videos, in a marital give and take that would ultimately result in my having to both empty the dishwasher and fold the laundry.
Eventually she determined the trade unfair, and so I went to Tweed Barber again, only to be assigned to Armando, who spoke little and awkwardly slicked my hair back like a mobster.
This I agreed to because I'm afraid to communicate with a barber about anything other than cars, movies, sports or the weather.
As he finished, I took one look in the mirror, and was terrified by the hitman staring back at me; so I just told him it looked good, and then did a weird half handshake where I slipped him a tip that was twice what it should have been.
To be honest, once I'd washed out all of the cement, it looked pretty good, so a few weeks later snuck back to Tweed, hoping to high heavens George wasn't working.
But then George was there. And, holy hell, so was Ali.
And now both spat on the ground in my direction (not true, but they certainly ignored me as I was now dead to them). So I pretended I didn't know them either, because why do men's haircuts have to be so friggin' awkward anyway?
Anyway, upon reflection, it would seem if you want to understand the male psyche, you need look no further than all of life's lessons bestowed upon them while earning a haircut.