Are you happy Ray?
Reasonably, I try to be.
{Laughter]
Why don't you just show us around and.
Sure, i'll just start over here in this corner.
i got this uh.
So this is your American flag?
Well, i got it in Hawaii on the it's a flag from the USS Missouri.
On Veterans Day they flew this flag and now i just have
all the veterans, active duty, police, fire, first responders that come
into the shop sign it and then just leave it up there.
How many people do you have working in your shop?
Right now there's four of us.
including myself and then i just added these two chairs so
we could have up to six of us but right now there's four
Nice and who's this character up on the wall?
Which guy?
This thing here?
Boar, i just thought i wanted one really bad when we opened
Does it have a name?
No just Boris the boar. i don't know
This is a boar head but,
and then one of our guys is a mailman so I
traded him a can of pomade for this hat.
You got a [yeah] is this a true antique or?
Well yeah the machine is, it's called an Artomat.
There's a guy named Clark, i believe he's in North Carolina,
but he repurposes these for selling art.
So, you put a token in and you pull the handle
instead of a pack of cigarettes you get a little piece of art.
Just pick whatever one you want.
Go on then pick one. You can put it back in later yeah?
No you can keep it!
Oh, but that's five dollars worth right there.
I'll get the five dollars.
Oh wait, we'll do this one
So this is a Barcode Elvis.
A little flip book. Oh that's weird they're bar codes. How weird.
Barcode Elvis.
It's yours, could be a souvenir.
I don't think i've ever had a bar code Elvis before.
Well, you do now!
And this is your, your phone there that's pretty.
i got an antique store um i just always liked old phones like that and
it was in really good condition still has the the guts inside it.
Does the ringer work?
Yeah. [Ring Ring Ring]
I thought it was cool.
So when a customer comes in
I mean, what are you hoping they take away from?
Um I just hope they had a good time
I mean obviously, I hope they enjoy the haircut and like coming here and talking to us
How do you think customers feel when they leave?
I think they feel better especially right now.
You know I didn't realize like how important it was to some people
until I was actually thinking about this with restaurants that I visit.
I've been going trying to go to these places whether it's for takeout or
whatever to support them, but i kind of realized like people are
doing that also for this business because it's important to their routine
or it's important to just how they feel about things you know
that they don't want it to go away.
I feel like everybody's doing what they can to support
the places they care about right now.
So I appreciate that anybody's doing that. It's great.
Now this wasn't your first barbershop was it what was that journey like for you?
Well, yeah it was hard, I mean I had that business and then obviously
because all the guys that were working at that shop,
including the guy I co-owned it with were barbers
and that was still kind of I mean it's less
nowadays, but you know there was
cosmetology and then there was barbers, so I started in that
and I learned a lot of good things that I didn't even know I was learning until later.
But that part of it was hard
because I didn't feel, I felt like almost embarrassed to tell
people I was going to cosmetology school especially where
I'd left the military,
which is the total opposite of going to cosmetology school in a lot of ways.
A lot of people thought I'd kind of like lost my mind.
So, I had that going and then
going through just going to school, I didn't know anything. I really didn't.
I never applied makeup I never did nails
I didn't know how to use a flat iron,
and there was people there that maybe
had some of those things but not all of them. I had all of those things
and you know it was mostly females and
and I just didn't fit. It was kind of fish out of water situation.
And then I had to do that and then when I went back to the shop,
I kind of realized that this isn't good enough even for my own shop
in the sense that I'm not being accepted by my barbers
because I'm not a barber.
So I had to go because it was important to me to do that
and I've had people ask me before, like why didn't you just
keep that license and just learn barbering
because at the time I was trying to really like
demonstrate that i want to be part of this
as equal, so there's no confusion about
oh you're only this
you can't do the things we do it's like no it's not true
I can do it. So, I went to the barber school and also
got that license but by then I was done with that
business relationship and done with that business so I left
and I moved back home but with two licenses
the first shop, I went to I just walked in one day and they're like
we're letting you go
and I was just, " why"?
Because you're getting complaints about your haircuts
How did that make you feel?
I was actually pretty devastated that first time because I had
never been fired from a job like that.
It wasn't because I was a ...
because I've always been a hard worker.
Always showed up on time.
Always be good with those types of things
so to just show up and be fired
I'd never really had that happen before so I didn't take it that well
and then i found another shop to work in
which actually was the shop at the time I really wanted to be in
and I didn't do very good there either.
The guy who was working there he was very good.
I couldn't keep up with him,
but then there was a lot of weirdness between this person
and the owner of the place.
So, I felt weird about that situation but
one day same deal.
I came in he was like look this isn't working out.
You're not going to be able to keep up with us.
So I left that shop.
Went to another shop.
and that was like kind of like it for me
because I'd already lost my business and I lost two jobs and
I went to this third job and the guy was just particularly
like very hard on me. Like before, during, after every kind of service i tried to provide.
He was harsh like very critical so
I'd sit in my car in the morning going 'I don't want to go in there'
Then, 'okay i'm gonna go in there'
and I'd go in and then it was like
it was brutal and then i'd get get back to my car to go home and be like
'all right, I'm not going back.'
Until, once again I went in there.
He had me come in an hour early,
and I was like i'm getting fired!
then I came in and he's like ...
It's kind of sad when you know the the techniques they use to lay you off!
Yeah when he told me to come in at
eight and seven nine, I was like I'm getting fired.
So I just went in, I shook his hand you know and left,
but I was like i'm done I won't be a barber anymore.
Then how long did it take you to actually start kind of picking it back up again?
Well, I didn't fully let it go.
Like I would just cut hair for friends on the side or
I had an event that I would go to and do free haircuts for like Vets and stuff.
But that was it.
And that was like almost almost two years, I think, a year and a half maybe two years
where I wasn't doing this
and I had a friend encourage me to try it give it one more shot.
And then the shop I went to after that, that's when it started to work.
Why do you think that worked?
Um, they let me breathe a little bit.
I think that was part of it.
They let me make some mistakes,
and I was appreciative of that because I wasn't trying to.
I don't think anybody ever tries to do something wrong but
you know it's necessary kind of for the journey.
You're gonna mess up. You know, you're not gonna
I mean, I always feel bad you know if that ever happens,
but you learn from your mistakes and you move on.
So, I felt okay with that. I felt more comfortable.
And then I just went really hardcore after the information
because there was.
When I started this, barbering wasn't really that cool yet.
And there wasn't a lot of information out there to be looked at.
Then it all changed with like Instagram and social media
and then barbering became very important again.
Men's hair became popular again.
So all these videos and pictures and stuff,
like was out there for you to look at and observe
and a lot of it's free so you could you know watch and get better.
So what do you think you brought to this shop that you learned along the way.
Oh man, I mean I've been lucky enough to travel to other places.
I've been you know I've been to Schorem in Holland
i've been to you know Savills Barbershop in the UK
and Ii've been able to go to shows and meet people
and talk to them about how they cut hair
and I try to bring all that information here
and give it to whoever wants to have it
because it wasn't, that wasn't what I got.
I mean there was times where I really wanted to
I think I remember one time for sure where I was like
show me how to do, you know, what you're doing.
Because it's great, but they don't want to do it.
It was weird to me
and i never wanted to have a shop like that.
If i can teach you something that's
gonna make you better even if you leave
which i feel like is inevitable at some point
somebody's gonna leave for whatever reason
Um, that's better than keeping everything to myself.
plus the guys who showed me stuff had to make that same decision.
They had to go, i'm not going to hide this i'm going to give this to you
You may pay for it money or whatever but
now that information is yours but you have to keep that cycle going
that's how everybody, you know, elevates gets better.
So I like that part of it.
It's more of a collective, what would you call it growth
Yeah, I mean because there's guys that are so good
I mean, if they're willing to
teach you what they know, and some of it's just
because they've been doing this for so long.
I mean, I've met guys that have been doing this 30-years
that just, yeah that amount of experience
being given to somebody who's only been to this one year
or five years, and that's how everybody gets better quicker.
And I think that's what i'm seeing now. That's why you're seeing people
leave school and they're like already pretty good.
So, if they keep up with that, they'll take it
like the whole craft goes up,
and it's not as hard for everyone.
Well thank you for talking to us.
Yeah of course, thank you for coming in and seeing us i appreciate it.
We will definitely be back.
Thank you.
you