I got the haircut done by this blonde lady who is very kind and extremely good at cutting hair. She owns the shop and is a barber - and not a "hair stylist". She and her daughter are the only two who work in there. Her daughter is about 85% as good as she is, which is still darn good, but the lady who owns it is a remarkably fine barber. I tend to get haircuts just before a series of rehearsals and a concert. I mean why should I get my haircut at other times?
When she was recovering from some surgery, I went to this - well - barber shop run by black barber who is the only barber there and virtually all of his patrons are black. He charged me only $10, really gave me a nice haircut, and also trimmed my beard and stuff. I paid him $20. People don't charge enough out here in the country.
She had been charging way too little to cut hair - $15, and Mrs. bloke and I had a stern talk with her and told her that she needed to charge at least $20 and then quickly raise it to at least $25. This time, I was glad to see that she's at least raised her price to $20, because that's still cheap. She doesn't cut corners with the haircuts, and gets out the hot shaving cream and the straight razor to go around my ears and around the back on my neck. That stuff that she should probably charge another $15 to do, but she doesn't.
I had the same barber for about forty years in Memphis, and continued to go to him after I moved away. I stopped going to him when he died, which was probably a good time to stop.
Several times he told me that barbers cut hair, and hair stylists fix hair. I'm pretty sure he was also referring to men and women, but this woman is quite a fine barber, and every bit as good as my previous barber - who worked at some highfalutin barber shops (including one where the barbers wore tuxedos to work every day and haircuts cost $20 back in the 1960s and '70s). Something else he told me a few times was that (the years after he had reached 80) all of his friends were dead, because they all smoked and drank. (I'm pretty sure his single vice was women.)
My wonderful new barber lady doesn't take appointments and customers are stacked up every morning when she is first open, and then they stack up again at lunch time. After lunch, she stays busy until about closing time because people get off work at different hours after that. I slipped in at about 10:00 a.m. and didn't have much of a wait.
My colleague arrived at my house about 11:15, and I did some work on his euphonium and then on the bass trombone that's newly posted about in the repair form. After that, we had just enough time to sort of get cleaned up, eat one of Mrs bloke's hamburgers, and then head off to a rehearsal that was about an hour and a half drive away. It was pretty intense from about 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., and another 3-hour rehearsal tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m..
Tonight, I'm sleeping in this amazing very large third floor of a old mansion that belongs to one of the orchestra's patrons (carved ionic stained wood columns in the sitting room, etc.) This is the lady's of the house hobby room - up here - and there are huge tables and huge cutters and fabric all over the place but all very well organized and it looks very nice up here.
The big band we are working with from Savannah, Georgia loves the cimbasso, how much "burn" it offers, and how well in tune it plays. This new mouthpiece - the prototype thing - can put out some really impressive depth charges / laser beams (yes: both at the same)
Several times he told me that barbers cut hair, and hair stylists fix hair. I'm pretty sure he was also referring to men and women, but this woman is quite a fine barber, and every bit as good as my previous barber - who worked at some highfalutin barber shops (including one where the barbers wore tuxedos to work every day and haircuts cost $20 back in the 1960s and '70s). Something else he told me a few times was that (the years after he had reached 80) all of his friends were dead, because they all smoked and drank. (I'm pretty sure his single vice was women.)
