Finding the Best Six-Dollar Haircut

Ms. Sunny Kim, owner-chief executive of the Bestway Technical College.

Ming Zhang works his magic at the Bestway Technical College

Truth: Men go out and buy things. Women go 'Shopping.' Truth: Men get Haircuts. Women get their hair 'Styled.' Truth: curtains hanging on a window frame are curtains hanging on a window frame. To a woman, it's a 'Window Treatment.' When I need a haircut that's exactly what I want. I began this quest into how our daily parlance changes some years ago when I walked into a local barbershop and asked for a haircut. I especially recognized on that fateful day that what something means to a man might not mean the same thing to a woman. The mystery! I didn't have time to go to my regular barber (note the term - this is an important feature in understanding my story) so I opted to go to a local shop which had just recently opened for business. The first thing that threw me off were the line of black plastic-covered, chrome 'styling' chairs and the fact that I didn't see any barbers in the place - just a few young women, mostly Asian, mostly sitting there gossiping and looking dead-panned.

I was ushered into a chair and asked what I wanted. I said I wanted a haircut, make it short, and that I didn't have a lot of time on my hands and had to be somewhere. Snip by tiny snip, here and there, and all about my head with little scissors and a big 'styling' comb caused my frustration to build, but the girl was young and I figured she didn't have much experience. I kept telling her "More, more," and the more time she took. I said, "Look. I want a haircut. Cut my hair. Just cut the damned stuff!" Just then, an older Korean man came out of a back room and having overheard my pleas, told the young miss to step aside. "I know what this man wants," he said, "Here . .Let me take over." He attacked my head with the electric clippers and finished the job in about twenty minutes. It was one of the finest haircuts I had ever received and I thanked him (and tipped him big-time) for his aggressiveness. It ended up he had been a barber in Seoul and had cut a lot of American G.I. heads in his younger days.

Suffice it to say, I never went back to that shop - especially after learning that "Haircuts" were no longer 7 to ten dollars, but were fast approaching 12, 15, even 25 dollars in the new "styling shops." And this was some years ago that I'm talking about. Not today's market in 2010. When I see a friend who obviously has just gotten a haircut, I never fail to ask him, "Hey. Where did you get the haircut and how much did you pay for it?" His answer will tell me volumes about him - his level of vanity or pretentiousness - his level of being suckered into paying for something totally worthless - whether his wife has talked him into going to the same place she goes "to get her hair done" - or whether he continues to go to the same male barber who's probably cut his hair (at a cheap price) for more than a score of years. Take John Edwards for instance. His $400 and $500 haircuts (or in his case, probably 'stylings') were bound to lead him down a path of complete slime-covered shame. Any man who would pay that kind of money for a haircut really needs close scrutiny, and really couldn't be a true male friend to other males. You have to mistrust the judgement of a guy like that, and weren't we right in the end? Good riddance to Johnny. For all you real men out there who want to know the truth, the going rate for a decent haircut nowadays, and probably the Barbers' Union standard, is 11-dollars! Throw in a nice tip for the barber who treats you right and you're probably talking no more than $14 or $15.

Enter the return of the 6-dollar haircut. While Fairfax County (Virginia) slept, the area of Annandale turned into South Korea in what seemed overnight. I mention this as a good thing, because when the Koreans move in there is an explosion of economic development and industriousness, not to mention good shops and restaurants and a sense of order that makes the Prussians pale in comparison. I had to go over to Annandale during the big snow-storms this winter and noticed that three or four more "Beauty Schools" had opened up. Mostly Korean owned and operated, you can walk in and 'trainees' are more than happy to work on your head for a pittance. In all fairness to them, you-get-what-you-pay-for. For this individual, this is the beginning of the same dynamic that worked several years ago here in our area with the advent of the "Chinese Buses" to New York City. Now, the regular bus companies are having to deal with the competition, and they don't like it - they're afraid to admit that our nation's economy was built on competition, new ideas, and working harder than the next guy to build cash-flow. Rest is rust. I don't think Koreans ever sleep - and if you don't believe me, spend some time in Seoul.

Much to my relief (to wallet and mental order) I discovered a Korean-run Beauty School had opened up last year in our town of Vienna. I needed a haircut badly at the end of the third blizzard and decided it was time to try it out. I knew the drill. Go in and for six-dollars let some novice experiment on your head. You are going to get what you pay for. That's the deal. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised at the attention I was given and the haircut I walked away with. I gladly tipped the student who worked on me. They took their time and allowed one or two students to do some clipping so they got the experience. Jae actually did most of the cutting, gently assisted by Ming Zhang, who seemed to have more experience. Hot-Damn! For six-bucks this is such a deal and in the end they gave me exactly what I had come in for. I wanted to meet the owner-manager and the young men and women were happy to introduce her - she's Ms. Sunny Kim, originally from Incheon, Republic of South Korea. She explained the concept of the school and what was expected. I also met some of the students, who are recruited mainly from the Asian and Latino communities. The Bestway Technical College is located at 512 West Maple Avenue in Vienna, Virginia and is open for business six days a week. Put a little adventure in your life - and get a $6 Haircut.

www.btcbeauty.com or info@btcbeauty.com


Phone: (703) 272-3343

Bestway Technical College, 512 Maple Avenue West, Vienna, Virginia 22180

Day-Tripping around New England

High Art Out of Low Places

A younger friend of mine who shares some of my own personal tastes in Latin music asked me last night, "I don't get this Ed, how can you jump from Chopin to discussing bluegrass in so few sentences??" He had just read some of my past writings on my old blog-site, which for all intents and purposes is dead in the water. I had to chuckle at the question. He personally hates bluegrass music. But I don't fault his dislikes. That's part and parcel of being young. You either love or hate bluegrass music. I have a lot of friends my own age who still hate bluegrass. Deep down, I'm hoping they're lying to me and are instead, secretly listening to it. What my friends are not appreciating about this particular music form is that it takes as much musical, instrumental, and organizational talent to produce genuine bluegrass music as it does to organize (and play classical music through, ) a string quartet. I can also very much appreciate that 'high form.' Some of us are gifted with the necessary talents to pull the whole thing off. The majority of us (that includes me,) are not.

So it is with bluegrass or what I'd rather call Appalachian Mountain music. It rarely wavers from a few distinct forms in instrumentation and style. It rarely wavers also in the style of songs and singing. The pattern is set, and for the purist hard-core player or audience member, you will not wobble - although there is somewhat of a dotted-line that you're permitted to crisscross once in a while. I was shocked recently when I was invited by my friend Gary Cole to come out and listen to a new bluegrass band (Dirty River), only to discover they had slipped in a couple old rock and roll songs on their new CD and in their public performances. For the Dirty River Band it worked, the audiences love it, and maybe in the final analysis it will prompt younger audience members to learn to appreciate bluegrass. It certainly has worked in their favor, as Dirty River gains in performing exposure and popularity here in our local area.

I still listen to a lot of other kinds of music. My friends are surprised to know that I have a huge collection of Vietnamese music - both high and low, old and new. I met Roger Green a few years ago (guitar and vocals for the Annapolis Bluegrass Coalition) and he's become my resident expert on the Art of Bluegrass. We've shared some interesting e-mails and conversations about 'The Form.' Beside being one of the best flat-pickers around the Chesapeake Bay area, he's a walking wikipedia of bluegrass knowledge and expresses the same on his weekly radio show out of WRYR.FM. Roger told me once (when we were comparing some bands) "I love bands that are good, but still have that 'Edge' to them." I knew exactly what he meant when he said it. You don't have to be the greatest vocalist or the best picker, but if the group effort melds into something so absolutely audience appealing that people won't let you leave the stage, then you know you've reached the goal of the bluegrass business. What I never told Roger (but he'll read this now,) is that my meeting him and talking to him brought me back to a form of music I had long forgotten after years of classical music and opera. I had stuffed away old long-plays, tapes, and guitar chord books after my college days and never learned to appreciate what I had been listening to - or the rampant Hillbilly music wafting out of the West Virginia radio waves that my dad listened to. The musical form has grown a lot since then and we should also expect ourselves to grow in our musical tastes and to learn to be more appreciative of something that was there long before we were born. No bluegrass, No life. No music, No life. Pray for the musically-challenged who walk among us. And thanks, Roger Green for teaching me a lot.

Brunswick, Maryland: Real People, Real Mountain Music

The boundaries of Northern Virginia form a unique point for me. It's the pinnacle of Appalachian mountain music. Southern Virginia may have its "Crooked Road" winding its way toward the Blue Ridge, but up here we have Route 15 north that's just as rich in the true mountain sound of hard-core bluegrass music. So we'll take the road once again this summer to enjoy some good local stuff, always within easy driving distance of the D.C. metro area. Last year's Darren Beachley and the Legends of the Potomac Benefit (July 29th, 2009) at Brunswick, Maryland High School was the perfect opportunity for us to get out for the day and visit this absolutely beautiful part of Maryland. It's one of those towns left behind in the history of flourishing railroads and industrial river traffic. Today, down at the edge of the Potomac River canoes, kayaks, and lots of people picnicking take the place of the failed canal traffic. Hard to imagine that next to the old canal was once one of the busiest rail yards in the east.

You can get a good panoramic view of 'once was' from the top floor of the town's interesting Railroad Museum. Be sure and bring the kids for this one - the museum has an incredible model railroad exhibit - all the rail lines that once ran up and down the Potomac River and wended their way in and out of Brunswick are scaled down to miniature (with operating HO-sized trains of course!) so you can gain a perspective of just how important the railroad once was in this mountainous region. Allow yourself plenty of time to visit the museum - and get there before 4:00 pm. Other than that, there's not really much to do in Brunswick but slow-poke around and walk its old winding streets and talk to the locals. The fun of it all is trying to imagine what the downtown area must have looked like in its Hay-Day. The town contains some beautifully old and worn architecture. Everything is within walking distance. The day we visited, like every other town in the U.S., we were practically the only people out walking in the downtown area. Nobody walks any more - I've noticed this across America no matter if it's Fort Wayne, Indiana or Modesto, California. We worry about Swine Flu when we should be worrying about how inert we've become. The only way to appreciate our nation's heritage is on foot.

But we were there for that night's music at the local high school - and what a night. For 25 bucks a piece we enjoyed an evening of (local boy) Darren Beachley and the Legends of the Potomac and Kenny Ray Horton and Friends. Volunteers from the Brunswick Junior Baseball League and the Brunswick High School were out in force to handle the crowd of bluegrass fans and serve up lots of good snacks and drinks during break-time. The people of Brunswick are a friendly, down-home crowd - you'll feel welcomed. But the music is the reason to be there - and in Northern Virginia and the panhandle of Maryland, we've got some of the best.

Darren Beachley and the Legends of the Potomac, Kenny Ray Horton and Friends, and Bill Yates and the Country Gentlemen Tribute Band appear once again at Brunswick High School on July 10th, 2010 for a Benefit Concert in honor of the Brunswick Junior Baseball League. Advance tickets must be purchased by contacting Jill Hossler at (301) 371-7675 or e-mail: jshossler@aol.com

The 2009 Brunswick Benefit Concert - Darren Beachley and the Legends of the Potomac

Darren Beachley at Brunswick Benefit, July 2009

Mark Delaney, Norman Wright, Mike Auldridge at Brunswick, July 2009

And Bill Yates? Such a Deal!

Brunswick, Maryland Train Station

Hot News: Jill Hossler, coordinator for the Darren Beachley concert this summer in Brunswick, announced today that Bill Yates and the Country Gentlemen Tribute Band will be joining Darren Beachley and the Legends of the Potomac plus Kenny Ray Horton and Friends for the July 10th, 2010 Event. Tickets are already on sale as noted in my last entry. This is the 2nd Annual Concert to raise funds for the Brunswick Junior Baseball League. The concert will take place at the Brunswick High School Auditorium. It just keeps getting better . . .

You Must Contact Jill Hossler for Tickets: (301) 371-7675 or e-mail jshossler@aol.com

Darren Beachley Returns to Brunswick for Benefit

29 March 2010:

They're back for another round of great music. Jill Hossler of the Brunswick, Maryland Junior Baseball League announced this past weekend that Darren Beachley and the Legends of the Potomac and Kenny Ray Horton will return for a benefit performance on Saturday, July 10th, 2010. The performance will be at the Brunswick High School Auditorium, same as last year. You must contact Jill Hossler for tickets and an early request for tickets is recommended. This benefit drew hundreds to the big auditorium last year, and word will travel fast. This was one of the best bluegrass performances we attended in 2009 and made even more enjoyable by making a day-trip out of it and seeing the sights around Brunswick. The town has a unique train museum and railroad history, and several nice restaurants and antique shops. Situated on the Potomac not far from Point of Rocks, it's a beautiful little town "where nothing much happens" but once was one of the main rail hubs in the Appalachians. So it's the perfect location for this kind of bluegrass event. Notable is the fact that it's also the place Darren Beachley grew up, played baseball, and perfected his music. You don't want to miss this one.

For more information: http://www.eteamz.com/BRUNSWICKJUNIORBB

www.legendsofthepotomac.com

Contact Jill Hossler at (301) 371-7675 or at jshossler@aol.com for advanced ticket purchase