Posts Tagged ‘oakland’

“Just change, baby!” – Passages in the barber chair

Monday, January 4th, 2010

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Flickr: doggylama

The words every man dreads hearing: “You’re getting a little thin up there.”  And with that – no fanfare, no drama, no time for a neurotic outbreak – my barber Daniel snipped off the strands of my faux combover.  ”It’s 2010,” he went on.  ”Time for a fresh start.”

It was true.   One always wonders about the guy who has that one strand of hair carefully arranged over an obviously bald head.  How does he do that?  How does he face his loved ones when he gets wet?  Isn’t he worried it might be windy today?  For the last year, I was well down the road to becoming one of those guys.

What I learned over the last few years is that nobody plans for a combover.  They’re insidious.  They are the product of years of attrition, denial, compensation and the simple refusal to adapt to new ways of brushing your hair.

Rocky Becker has been a barber for nearly 50 years. He attributes his success and longevity to keeping it simple.

SF Chronicle: Carlos Avila Gonzalez

There’s something comforting about the No BS treatment at traditional men’s barber shops, a fading breed, run for the most part by old guys who have been doing nothing but giving no-BS quick & dirty haircuts for eons.  San Francisco has a couple of fancy locations – Mister and The Barber Lounge – which say they are barber shops but are in reality more like ultra-masculine salons.  More memorable, though, is Original Palace Barber Shop at 2nd and Mission.  Basically a bunch of chairs pushed together in a mound of the eccentric absentee owner’s garbage (must be seen to be believed), Original Palace is staffed by a crew of several 50+ men, all foreign with indeterminate nationalities, and one terribly unlucky woman. Never a wait and never out of there in more than 20 minutes.

My local barber shop is the simply-named Montclair Barber Shop.  Its proprietor, Rocky Becker, a near-silent character I see all the time on Mountain Boulevard smoking and sucking down coffee, was recently profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle.   To be in Rocky’s chair is to be transported somewhere into the early 1970s.  He’s got his Raiders calendar, a few shots of his Harley – and that’s all you get to see because after 5 minutes you are done, $20 and a pile of hair lighter. Not the greatest haircut, but that’s not what you were there for – nothing some pomade and an encore in four weeks can’t fix.

Al Davis, early 1960s

Al Davis, early 1960s, current hairstyle

The Chronicle was principally interested in the shop because of its longtime relationship with Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, who’s been getting his hair cut by Rocky for 49 years.  The Raiders of the 70s were known for their hard partying, rebellious personae and straight-up intimidation of their opponents.  ”Just win, baby” was their mantra. And of course they were one of the most successful franchises, a regular visitor to the playoffs and winner of three Super Bowls.  Al Davis is one of the founders of the modern NFL, one of the world’s great business growth stories, and a member of its Hall Of Fame.

Davis may not be loved, but the media and Raider Nation remains entranced by the Davis mystique.  They are fascinated by Davis for never changing, a throwback – and for almost 40 years one of the cleverest, most influential men in football.  They also lay his lack of success in the last decade – the Raiders now officially own the worst 7-year run in NFL history – for never changing.  ”He still likes to maintain his look,” Becker told the Chronicle. “You’ve got to maintain what you have. Al’s a big believer in that.”

Change is hard work.   Sometimes it needs to be tough love, other times it’s letting someone or something just go to town on you.  You gotta cut off those old strands flying in the wind and move on.

Hurrah for traditional barber shops!  Thank you for letting me stay the same as long as I could and then making me change when it was the right thing to do.  Long may you wave.

Why is Oakland antagonizing its residents?

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Yesterday the SFGate reported that the City Of Oakland had stepped up its enforcement of parking rules in residential areas and increased fees in commercial areas.  On the surface that seems like a good thing, but in practice it’s a bit trickier than it sounds.  Huge swaths of Oakland – not so much the flatlands, but many of its tonier neighborhoods – are full of streets barely wide enough for one lane with a parking strip.  As such, social norms have evolved throughout the city where it’s OK to park facing the wrong way, right up to the lip of a neighbor’s driveway and even sometimes on the sidewalk.  (I’m not really that sympathetic to the latter, though I can see its necessity on some nearby streets.)  On my street, there is parking on either side but not enough room for two facing cars to pass each other without one pulling over.  I’ve lived here two years with nary a complaint or a second look from my neighbors.  (Well, except once from a KRAZY neighbor, but that’s another story…)

Now, virtually unannounced, the City has sent its parking enforcers into residential neighborhoods to pass out parking tickets enforcing the law 100%, plus a mystery $10 recession panic surcharge.  OK, I can understand the City needs to raise some fees.  These are hard times, revenue is falling and the City has a ridiculous budget shortfall: $70mm over on a $500mm total budget, a mighty hunk that needs to be cut.  But somebody should have thought through the Game Theory on this a bit.

Let’s say every car gets ’surprised’ once.  The ticketed owner pays the ticket and the City gets itself a little bonus.  But the cost of resentment, especially in a city with notoriously poor schools, might be too much.  This is a bad time to make people feel angry about their town and government if the goal is to elevate public perceptions, the first psychological step in raising property values and eventually revenue.  If people feel oppressed or underprotected, they will move away.

The connection between the perception of Oakland’s relative quality of life and its schools is especially compelling.  My neighborhood is full of toddlers but curiously free of children over the age of 8 – and no teenagers whatsoever.  Is this because people move away to avoid Oakland’s public schools?  I believe there may be a connection.  Please, Oakland, let’s not give folks any more reason to move & sell their property at when values are low, compressing revenue even further.  Just let us park our damn cars where we’ve always parked.

Related: Rich ‘Big Vinny’ Lieberman would rather have ‘Chicago-style’ governance for Oakland than cluelessness

This month’s good deed

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Sometimes the world demands you stop and help.

I found this guy alone by a shade tree in a not-so-remote area of Anthony Chabot Regional Park.  Covered with bugs and filth, I took about 15 minutes to convince him that I could leash him.  I brought him back to the horse stables where he was immediately surrounded by children.  Patiently and tiredly, he let them pet him with hardly a trace of aggression. Now he’s here at my feet, a mellow slightly scared guy.

Thanks to the folks at Montclair Veterinary Hospital, he’ll be neutered on Tuesday and his cherry eyes will be repaired, all for free.  I’ll be fostering him until I figure out the right rescue agency.

Found Dog at Chabot Equestrian Center, Oakland

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