Like most men, I love going to the barber shop.  Always have.  A go-to barber shop is like a haven of masculinity; the magazines, the TVs, all of the bull-shitting and ball-busting- all pretty sports-centric.  I’ve also had my head shaved for the majority of my life; it’s just so damn convenient.  Now, I can obviously do this myself, and I often do, because I’m cheap.  And lazy.  Well, to be fair, it’s probably more the lazy part of that equation.  However, there’s something to be said for ponying up the dough for a proper haircut, and it all comes down to the glory of the straight blade.  When the cut’s almost done, and all that’s left is cleaning up the wolfman on the back of your neck, then they hit you with the hot shaving cream / straight blade combo…man, worth the price of admission alone.  Probably 3rd on my favorite-things-in-life list, just behind sex & Ice Cream Snickers, slightly ahead of sweatpants.

Now, one would think that if I really liked getting my hair cut only slightly less than sex but slightly more than sweatpants, that I would happily go out of my way to accomplish this.  One would be wrong.  The usual routine is to let it grow until it reaches ‘product’ length.  This, as the name implies, is where my unusual blend of cowlicks and thick hair necessitates either a haircut, or the use of some sort of product/styling to avoid looking like I took the short bus to school.  Problem- I feel rather douchey with product in my hair (reason being: in any hypothetical argument with myself and some random, first thing I’m calling out is his nicely coiffed hair- don’t wanna be that guy.  Hey, I didn’t say it was a good reason.).  Further complicating things are the women in my life (read: mother, girlfriend) constantly telling me to ‘grow it out’.  So I inevitably end up being the guy I hate every six weeks.

Well, I live in Brooklyn now.  What better place to find my first go-to barber since high school?  However, again being mindful of my cheapness, I refuse to go above $20 to let someone shave my head, so I had to do a bit of looking.  I found three options in my neighborhood, two of which friends had recommended, but were never open.  Then I noticed the third getting off the train one day, and it beckoned to me.  Again, I loved my barbershop growing up.  My barber was an old hispanic guy from LA with knuckle tatts, lots of rings, and a gold necklace with a little revolver medallion on the end.  Scary looking dude, but a total sweetheart.  This shop reminded me of that, only on enough deer antler spray to get Ray Lewis to the Super Bowl (wait a minute…).  An intimate little shop, ceiling to floor glass windows, mirrored walls outlined in neon blue lights, and a huge flat screen that seemed to always have the Knicks on.  Walking by, it looked more like a nightclub.  It’s everything I always wanted a Brooklyn barbershop to be, and I was effing stoked.

I walked in just before close, and caught the tail end of the Knicks/Celtics.  After a short wait, a tall barber named Napoleon with huge dreads calls me over, and asks what I want.  Easy, same thing I’ve been telling barbers since I was 5.

Me: “Number 2, all the way around, and just clean up the back please.”

Napoleon: “I’m sorrry…?”

Me: “Umm.. yeah, just a number 2, all the way around, and clean up my neck please.”

Napoleon (confused): “Ohhh… you mean a caesar?”

Me (even more confused): “uhhh…?”

Napoleon (pointing towards the only other barber working at the time, a Hispanic dude, who was cutting what turned out to be his brother’s hair): “Yeah, just like what those dudes have.  A caesar.”

Casear, as a haircut, was news to me, but apparently it’s extremely common.  Now literally every time I leave the house, caesars fucking everywhere.  So what is it?  From our good friends at the Urban Dictionary:

a caesar is the most common haircut in the streets. you can get a fade or a caesar, and come on fellas, this isnt the 80’s. a caesar for all u ignant people is a black barbers buzz cut…not any super cut piece of shit. caesar is a haircut that white people call a buzz cut…but better..shaped up too.

Right, so the most common haircut in the streets? Check. No super cut piece of shit? Check. Like my usual white buzz cut, only better, and shaped up? Check.  Well then.  How about a few famous examples:

The Namesake

The quintessential

The old balding asshole. Still stylish.

The NBA… literally the entire NBA.

just kidding.

Back to the story.  So I look at these guys, and they pretty much have the Drake version… close enough, just minus the sideburns that were perfectly faded into the chin beard.

Me: “Yeah, basically.  Just even all the way around though. You call that a caesar?”

Napoleon: “Yeah, what do you normally ask for?”

Me: “I just say, ‘shave it all off’…”

Napoleon: “Ha, that’s good…”

So he goes to work, and it’s all smooth sailing with the clippers.  Then he gets out the straight blade, and I don’t really hear him, but think he asks if I want to keep my sideburns (you know, the usual Super Cuts question), of which I have none.  I’m good, I tell him.  Again, he points at our friends across the room for my reference.  Again, no thanks, just the neck. Agreed… I think.

So he hits my neck with the shaving cream, and I go back to enjoying myself, eyes closed.  Then he asks me to lean my head back.  Figuring that we’ve already ironed out the ‘don’t shape me up’ conversation, I comply, eyes still closed.  Fully distracted by the aforementioned ecstasy of the neck shave, I fail to realize what’s happening until I feel the razor on my forehead, chipping away at my front hairline… errrr?  Well, this is certainly a first, but he’s already got one side, so might as well let him even me out.  He shaves off the majority of both cowlicks that normally occupy the corners of my hairline, than again asks me if I want my sides done.  Why fight it?  So I own it, acting like I got exactly what I came for- the hottest cut in the streets.

Sadly (luckily?), there is no photo evidence of this, but I guarantee you, I didn’t look good.  So will I go back?  You betcha ($12 cut in NYC??)- just give me six weeks.  This wasn’t just a haircut, it was a full-on cultural experience.  Walked in business casual, walked out looking like Drake.  YOLO.