Shot and a Haircut

I’ve bellied up to one or two bars in the last 14 or so years. Some of the more memorable:

Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, St. Albans, England. On my way to Oxford for my junior year abroad, I sipped my first legal pint here at age 20 (an Old Speckled Hen, if you’re curious).

McMenamins’ Kennedy School, Portland, Oregon. A tandem of brothers showed the kids how to have fun by turning a vacant public elementary school building into a thriving bar and concert venue. They recycle abandoned spaces around the city in creative and profitable ways. Last summer I heard the Hunger Mountain Boys bluegrass band perform to a full house in what had been the school’s gym.

Masta’s Karaoke Bar, Koshigaya, Japan. The proprietor of this hole in the wall was surely the “masta” of the house, and he made all his customers address him as such. He sat at the end of the bar every night and loved to belt out Bon Jovi tunes. In one of the more bizarre decorating choices I’ve ever witnessed, the entire bar was outfitted in a Star Wars/moon rock motif. Somehow it all worked. I was a regular.

But I have to say, for all the bars I’ve seen over the years, I encountered a first at the R Bar on Royal Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter, where the special every Monday night is a shot and a haircut for $10.

The R Bar was described to me on my first visit there as a “hipster bar.” I’m not sure even hipsters themselves really know what that word means, but the description somehow seemed to fit well enough.

Dark red walls and a black ceiling set the tone inside the bar. The black and white antique barber chair sits prominently by the door, just outside the glow of the spotlight. Pool tables, video games, and a big screen TV somehow avoid cramping the space. Ornate chandeliers cast dim light on everything surrounding the chair.

Wispy thin Olivia whisks in at 9:05, with five customers waiting as Monday Night Football clashes with the jukebox. I don’t think many people will argue with the claim that most barbers have bad haircuts. I always wonder if they “do it themselves,” or if they simply get too sick of hair to care at all about their own. But it’s the truth. Olivia had the worst haircut I’ve ever seen.

She barely needed a bag to carry her supplies – a mirror you’d find in a dollar store travel kit, battery powered clippers with four different sized attachments, a rigid plastic comb, and a single pair of the very same scissors I used to cut construction paper in first grade.

In the ten or so minutes it took her to cut my hair, I talked nonstop to Olivia. She just might be the best barber (in terms of conversation) I’ve ever had. Though she loves barbering, Olivia is a musician at heart. She plays piano, and while she studied classical for a while, she has invented her own style. She’s not one for convention.

In all, my haircut actually wound up costing me not ten, but 18 bucks. I drank two Miller High Life’s while I waited my turn (at $2 apiece), tipped the bartender a buck a beer and, of course, threw Olivia a little extra for what actually turned out to be a great haircut…especially after the shot.