Lost Art Of The Buzz
I tend to go for short hair, since it’s easy to deal with and cooler in the summer. I used to get old-fashioned flat-tops done by real barbers. Unfortunately, these are getting harder and harder to find, especially in this area.
A few years ago I knew that the flat-top was dead when I asked for one at one of the chain places (since I couldn’t find a real barber anymore) and saw the look of panic on the young woman’s face. She gave it a valiant effort, it was mostly presentable, but something about it just wasn’t quite right. I had one of the old barbers tell me that my head wasn’t shaped quite right for a flat-top, but he was an old Marine and knew how to make it work anyway.
Anyhow, I don’t see much choice anymore but to just deal with it. I may look a bit like a misshapen cue ball when done, but these days I go to the local chain shop and tell the young woman to use the #4 guard on the clippers and take it all off. It’s a lot harder for them to mess that one up.
If you go someplace that serves military customers you can still usually get that style without much problem. I used to be at a college that had a hair cutting program. In 3 years I saw 1 guy go through the program, everyone else was female. They practice on each other, on dummy heads, and the odd person that goes through there for a cheap haircut by the students – mostly senior citizen women! So the barber/hair stylists you see are mostly women and they practiced on women – not many short haircuts there.
On the plus side, most of these colleges are desperate for guys to practice on, you can get your hair cut for about $4 or so, and if it’s really messed up there is no charge. A couple places had a rule that if the haircut takes over 30 minutes, it’s free.