heller!

——THE MAN SHOP——

I wanted to get my haircut at Hair Force One, because I believe in patronizing businesses that understand the value of a good pun. The elderly barber told me that he wished he could cut my hair but he was booked for the rest of the week. Look, I know this might make me sound like a hypocrite, but while I do support puns, I am not willing to wait another shaggy week just to stand by their joke.

So I drove to the barbershop on the other side of town. The Man Shop’s logo is a cartoon woman in a short skirt leaning against a barber pole, if she was not holding scissors, you might confuse her with a prostitute from a 1980s teen sex comedy.

Upon entering The Man Shop immediately informs customers that this is “not your father’s barber shop” as well as “a kick ass place for a guy to get a haircut.” A sign indicates that this establishment is “PG-13 for strong language and smart ass attitudes.” It’s the kind of place a guy can go to escape the tyranny of his wife & kids & boss. He can do things at The Man Shop that he can’t do at home like read Maxim and play pool and say F-words and goof with his buddies, all while he is waiting for a chair to open up.

The Man Shop’s staff are all women, who are ostensibly supposed to be “hot” but are more accurately “pregnant.” The women wear leather tool belts and keep their clippers in Craftsmen boxes, to make you feel at home (especially if you’re Tim “The Toolman” Taylor.)

They provided me with a satisfactory haircut.

Had I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, I may have taken ‘The Man Shop’s quirky brand of PG-13 snark’ home with me. For $12 you can purchase t-shirts emblazoned with slogans pulled from a Tea Party rally.

“The Man Shop supports Gay Marriage—- as long as it is between two hot chicks!”

“I work hard everyday because the millions on welfare depend on me.”

“My illegal alien works for less than your illegal alien.”

If I wanted a xenophobic haircut, I’d just go to “my father’s barber shop.”

Barbershops have historically been spaces where men can be themselves, but a contrived Disneyland strip-mall experience with Fox News rhetoric doesn’t really facilitate that.  The Man Shop is a failed concept that doesn’t understand or care about the complexities of masculinity, but that really wants frost ur tips for $25.