A Close Shave

If you know me or see me on a regular basis, you are probably well aware that the razor is no friend of mine. In fact I think I could probably count the times I've been full-on "clean shaven" in the past year on my fingers and not have it hinder my typing one bit. I generally keep my looks pretty clean, but I just don't really see the point of having that baby-bottom smooth face. I know it works for a lot of people, but especially when you are goateed like me, having a smooth neck is more of an afterthought than anything else.

Despite my personal feelings about facial smoothness, I was downright impressed the other day when a co-worker told me he was leaving the office on his lunch break to get what he affectionately referred to as a "real man shave". For fear of the fact that we were in San Francisco, and you generally are better off not inquiring into others' grooming habits, I did not ask him to elaborate. However, as is his style, he continued on. It turns out he was getting what I really believe is a real man shave -- he was going somewhere (a barbershop or tonsorial parlor I have to assume) to get a shave in the old-fashioned way: steaming hot towel, hot lather, and a straight razor. I suddenly hold this man in even higher regard than I did before.

See, it's not that I think it's so cool and kooky that he gets a shave like that from time to time, it's just that I find the whole "having someone shave you" be a very intimate experience. I haven't gotten professional shaves, but my barber has been known to do a little fine tuning on the edges and the neck with a straight razor, and the amount of trust I place in the man is through the roof. I mean, granted, I'm already putting a lot of trust in him to cut up my thick and luscious hair in the first place, but if he screws that up, I will just walk out of there kind of looking like a jackass. If he screws up a close shave, I might be walking out of there with a tourniquet. And that's the beauty of the "real man shave" - you are placing complete and total trust in someone who is an artisan in a lost art, and I know that had I the coin to pay for something like that on a somewhat regular basis, I'd be walking around the day of my shave with a swagger that would make John Wayne look like a prancing little dancer. Trying a shave like that on yourself, however, just seems foolhardy. These people are professionals for a reason, and it's hard to carry yourself with a cocksure swagger when you might need stitches for that gash under your chin.