pantsfarm

Yesterday I got a hair cut, and for the second time in a row, I paid for it only with my time and the hair off my head. That is, it was a free hair cut by somebody learning hair cutting. Over the Summer, somebody brought it to my attention that from time to time, with frequency depending on the city, it seems, somebody will ask for volunteers to get their hair cut on craigslist. In NYC over the summer, it seemed that there were actually quite a few, while in Chicago, at least for people looking for males who didn’t necessarily want some crazy dye job to accompany some strange hair-do (I forget the exacty circumstances, but there was one that basically said this is what they wanted to do), there weren’t any for at least a little while since I’ve been looking.

Anyway, having now done this twice, I’m a fan of the whole process. I mean, what happened, in both cases, was basically that I neglected my hair for sufficiently long that it looked really badly kept, because it was really badly kept. Then I went online, found somebody who wanted somebody to cut, and arranged when I should meet them at whatever salon they were learning at. In both cases I ended up at what seemed to be these trendy salons, in NY it was Arrojo Studio and in Chicago it was the Wicker Park Art + Science Salon.

As I understand it, depending on where you go, sometimes these places will offer “model” services, which are cheaper than the regular ones, but will take longer, as there’s this whole teaching process. That is, in New York, what I got would have normally cost me $20 but I was provided with this amount by the guy who had posted on craiglist and arranged for me to show up there. In Chicago, it seemed there was never any expectation of a transaction save for me showing up and leaving with less hair. I have no idea what all this talk of shapes and over directing and who knows what else meant, but I guess they’re all terms that get used in men’s hairstyling, at least. Amusing to me, was that in both cases, there were the students, and they all had nothing but adulation about the instructor. The instructor in both cases were astonishingly full of themselves. Maybe it’s something that happens when enough people tell you you’re some sort of hairstyling genius, as it seemed both guys were described as such to me by the student cutting my hair.

When I say student, that’s not to imply that they’re going to do a shoddy job. In the worst case, if a mistake is made, the instructor will come by, make some noise in explaining how everything was done wrong, then just cut it a little shorter, correctly. But in both cases, it seemed they’d been at it for long enough to seem like they knew what they were doing, and since the instructor always seemed to complain more about other people, I figured they were doing all right.

Anyhow, I don’t know how exactly this whole process would work if you aren’t male, or if you didn’t let your hair get so messily long as I’ve done, and I get the impression that it helps a bit to go in completely open to whatever changes they’d like to make. Well, I’m not sure what it helps with, but I never have any idea what to expect out of these things, and so far I haven’t too much to complain about as I’ve been pretty pleased both times. Hey, apparently Art + Science is doing did some sort of free men’s haircut thing today. I wonder if other salons do things like this. I don’t know much about the workings of the salon business, but, I’m not really too concerned. This crazy internet thing has in this small way bettered my life and I’m all for it.

As soon as I track somebody down with a camera, I’ll see if I can get some “after” photos and then I’ll dig up some “before” ones as well.

Right, so, anyway, the thought that prompted me to write all this boring stuff down, was that I really like getting my hair cut. I don’t know, the whole experience of going into a salon or barbershop or whatever and sitting down and having somebody transform the shape of my hair from whatever unkempt mess it was before, into something far more presentable, to me, is a lot of fun. Too bad I have to wait for my hair to grow so much between visits.