Hair By Fairy

I won't be writing much for the next couple of weeks while I try to find a new apartment in San Francisco.  This is a 24 hour a day dance that requires physical strength, manipulation, wit, bribery and flirtation (and a lot of bullshit).  A lot like advertising then.

However, I thought I should document my first haircut in America.  In words only.  Cameras, quite frankly, can fuck off for at least two weeks.  I look like a twat - not metaphorically....I quite literally look like a twat.  Indeed, I'd be wearing a balaclava if it wasn't so goddam sunny and I didn't think it would scare potential landlords.   

SF is not awash with visibly trendy barbers.  You see the odd hairdressing shop, but they're just for old ladies to sit in, hardwired to giant vibrators.  Bizarrely, even the Castro - the World's Gayest Neighbourhood - seems to be without mincing scissor twirlers.  Instead, individual 'stylists' work at locations throughout the city - usually hidden away in an office block, so you can't judge who the clientele might be.

Well, via the miracle of the world wide interweb, I happened upon Enrique.  I was encouraged by his inability to speak English and his lispy high pitched Spanish - he seemed just gay enough to cope with my unchallenging barnet.  So I made an appointment and set off to see him, downtown...

The next hour was surreal.  He was a little Mexican fella, about as tall as his hair.  Nodding and smiling as I said hair-related words like 'textured' and 'natural' and 'choppy' and 'NOT TOO SHORT', I felt in safe hands.  But then, armed with giant scissors and a razor, those 'safe hands' started visibly shaking.  And then a very strange thing happened.  As he snipped away, a little here and a little there...at random, it seemed....I saw my hair morphing into Enrique's hair.  And as he kept looking in the mirror, I realised that he was using his own locks as a template for mine.  There was magic happening in Enrique's shaky hands.  He was cutting away but my hair was getting BIGGER.  And, when he was done, we smiled at our reflections in the mirror...and as i looked from me to Enrique and Enrique to me, I couldn't work out who was who, what was what, the me from the him.

The spell broken, I asked him to try again.  To make my hair shorter.  And, boy, did he go for it.  But then another strange thing happened.  Having finished the cut, he worked some wax in, enjoying my head with his strokey fingers.  And then, to signal that his artistry was done, he poured two cups of water over my head with a great flourish...and motioned me out of the door. 

So I left with a sodden twat on my head and a soaking wet back and face. 

SEVENTY DOLLARS!   I'm growing a mullet.

Comments

[madnessburgers]

Oh dear... As a recovering mullet victim I'd recommend Maire Rua on Haight street next time. Even my gay friends like it...

[jonnyeye]

thank you madnessburgers - do I know you?!

[madnessburgers]

Oh no, sorry. I followed your link from the Triforce and being relatively new to San Francisco too your observations cracked me up.

[jonnyeye]

ah cool - what you up to out here then?!