Lash's Place
Now I’m accustomed to getting great service from my hair dresser or barber. I think that’s mostly because I’ve known most of my hair dressers personally before I ever arrived. I didn’t expect this.
Yesterday I hopped on Yelp to find a local barber or salon to cut my hair for something resembling a reasonable price (anything over 35$ and it better come with a beer and a movie). I found Lash’s Place.
One of the principle features of this establishment was it’s exceptionally long history in San Mateo and the services of one tattooed hair stylist who seemed pretty hip. I called for an appointment, cause isn’t that what you do when you get a haircut these days?
The man who answered turned out to be Lash, the owner of the establishment. He seemed surprised I had discovered the place, especially being from out of town, and slightly surprised I was calling for an appointment. We settled on 4:30pm. Apparently the offer even came with “as many glasses of wine as I wanted“.
I arrived a little early, having had to make a run to the bank, and the place was full of sports paraphanelia, articles on the history of the barbershop and two barbers chairs. Lash’s in the front and the younger tattooed stylist in the back. I settled into a chair to wait with a magazine while Lash finished up with a customer.
When he was ready he greeted me with a warm hand shake and ushered me into the chair.
Almost the entire time he snipped away at the mangled mess that was my unkempt hair we chatted about a variety of topics: my travels, what I did for work, where he had traveled, some of his customers who had traveled and on and on.
He told me about his long time friend Richmond who traveled to south east Asia performing dance routines on rollerskates for 6 years down there.
A regular of his wandered in about halfway through my haircut. The man, whose name I forget now, was a basketball coach for some private school about an hour and a half away. He had driven over an hour and a half to visit Lash for a trim.
At this point he broke out the cups of wine, it was a chilled white, nothing high end but definitely refreshing. The three of us chatted while Lash finished up buzzing and snipping away until I had a polished haircut worthy of any reputable character from a 1940’s film.
The basketball coach sat down for his trim and Lash poured me a second round of wine. We stood around chatting, Lash cutting hair, me sipping on wine when lo-and-behold (sorry for the expression) Richmond showed up.
I chatted with Richmond for a good twenty minutes about his travels in Asia, his booking agents, the bars in Korea and Thailand, venues he performed at and so on. Truly an exceptional character and he encouraged my travel to Korea.
All in all, one of my favorite experiences so far in California this trip. I’m definitely going back to Lash’s the next time I need a haircut here and I may just swing by to visit and sip some wine anyways.
San Francisco, CA – The Coffee Mission, Morning Yoga, and Washboard Trains (2/2-2/3)
Monday – Coffee in the Mission and then they took my money
I began by cycling down into the Mission District. The Mission was traditionally a latin american neighborhood which has been influxed with hipsters, young professionals and students. It has a lively nightlife and artistic community being dubbed as the New Bohemia in 1995 by the San Francisco Chronicle.
I started off at Ritual Coffee Roasters. It’s on Valencia between 21st and 22nd in the Mission (there is a second elsewhere in the city and one in Napa). The atmosphere is relatively minimalistic and the coffee roasting process happens right before you. There are bags of green coffee in the back while employees pour beans into the machines to roast.
Watching the process happen and knowing that the cup of coffee you are enjoying was probably roasted the day you ordered it or the day before at most is exhilarating. There is a directness to the experience of the product, an authenticity you don’t receive even when it is freshly ground.
The staff was exceptionally friendly, and I chatted for a while with one barista who recommended a clover drip of Ethiopian origin and the Sweet Tooth single origin espresso which they were premiering from Brasil. He recommended a local yoga class that he taught on Tuesday and Thursdays a bit farther down in the Mission. I took his card and seated myself to do some work.
The only downside to Ritual, they have no outlets for their customers. So while they provide excellent coffee and free WiFi when your battery is out of energy, that’s it. You’re done. It encourages turnover but definitely discouraged me from returning to spend a lot of time there. I work in four or five hour blocks of time at cafes and being unable to plugin seriously shortens my uptime.
Once my battery had run its course I cycled over to Philz Coffee which is on the corner of 24th and Folsom, also in the Mission. They are known for the One Cup at a Time motto where each cup is prepared individually (at high end cafes this is fast becoming the norm).
I picked up a Yerba Matte Latte (one of my new beverages of choice when I’m working) and settled down. For a popular and established cafe Philz maintained a recently put together atmosphere with an assortment of tables, chairs and couches amongst various plants and adornments. The wifi was solid and power outlets available. Done and done.
Work passed by, I had a poker game to go to down in SoMa at Manu’s. I showed up a touch late (as is my habit) and somehow managed to be the first person anyways. The game was $5 in and while I normally take my parents money at poker, I didn’t even manage to make the third round. Consolation prize, hanging out on the couch and then playing Jungle Speed as more and more players were knocked out. Jungle Speed should be for money, that’d be my kind of game.
Tuesday – Yoga with Men and Redwood City
One the advice of my friendly barista at Ritual, I set out for morning yoga down on 20th St. I didn’t know what to expect, and I’m particularly choosy about my yoga instructors for a few reasons, and arrived just as people were filing into the class. It was all men (rare in my experience of yoga) and I believed I had been invited more on the assumption that I was an attractive young man than for any other reason. The class went well, being traditional Vinyasa with some balances and strength training near the end of the class.
I haven’t regularly practiced yoga since I lived in Montreal and I miss the calm I find after savasana (corpse pose). It is a centering practice that I should pursue more actively and I have this notion in the back of my mind to go to Sedona, AZ and study. Follow in footsteps.
After yoga I stopped at another cafe on Valencia for a quick coffee, journaled for a moment, then headed back to Michael’s to clean up (he was my 2nd host). With a quick turnaround at Michael’s, I headed back out to catch the Bart down to San Mateo to meet up with Carla and Rye.
One thing about San Francisco public transportation, they need a unified system. There is the Bart (Bay Area Rapid Transit) which is basically a subway system, the Muni system which is streetcars and buses, the CalTrain which is a commuter rail, and then most likely a few more in the East Bay which I didn’t have the misfortune to need. None of these systems run on the same cards or fares and it was grating to have to switch between them.
So, while waiting for the next Caltrain (that I had just missed cause I had to buy a different ticket) at the Bart station I pulled out my washboard and practiced some rhythms I had been working on.
I love playing the washboard, although I occasionally find it hard to learn new things without having other musicians to jam with. It is an instrument I can bring anywhere and has brought me a variety of social encounters I would not otherwise have had. It’s a magnet for questions and comments and sitting at the station waiting for Carla and Rye to pick me up I struck up a conversation with a girl sitting next to me. We chatted for a short time about my travels and what she did in the city.
My travels have really begun to break me out of my shell socially, I am able to start conversations with perfect strangers without that incredible discomfort I used to feel. It’s one of the bigger challenges I’ve had in my life and it’s slowly dissolving the more I travel and want to learn about all the people I meet along the way.
Once picked up, we stopped for food in Burlingame and talked for a while. It’s interesting to hear what people think about my current vagabonding, how I’m funding it, why I’m doing it, and what plans I have for the time ahead of me. My latest project Slacker Reform is one of the ways I plan to give back to the world and to help others.
We hung out at their place for a while and they have two adorable cats, one who is 20 lbs and bigger than some dogs I have met. I miss being around cats especially ones that will drape themselves on you as if you were public property.
Carla runs a weekly venue down in Redwood City and I had heard good things about it, that and I wanted to get some dancing on.
Redwood City Swing is held in a ballroom outside of downtown Redwood City. It is a large space with good acoustics and a nice floor. We put together a little jam number using the California routine to showcase for the beginner class. For the entire night I could barely sit down out a song and everyone was incredibly welcoming.
By the end of the night I was wiped. Thankfully they had an incredibly comfortable bed all ready for me. Foam mattress pads and pillows are something I will invest in if I someday decide to settle down.
Vagabonding – Going It Alone
…you should always be ready to go it alone…
Rolf Potts, Vagabonding
Since I left my stationary life behind in November, then flying to Atlanta, GA in December I have been around close friends — that is until I decided to go somewhere I had never been before without a Lindy Hop event to buffer me.
I flew to San Francisco because the flight was cheaper than other places I was hoping to see and I’ve never spent time in California. I had a number of contacts here, people I knew more as acquaintances than as close friends, and they have been gracious and generous. Manu, Shannon, Carla, Michael – some of them people I met for the first time when I put my stuff down in their home have been wonderful and hospitable.
Having been around very close friends for nearly two months without interruption it was when that immediacy disappeared that loneliness hit me.
I didn’t expect loneliness to come on as hard as it did.
Chris Guillebeau just recently wrote about loneliness on the road. He has been traveling a lot longer than I have and his words help me weigh loneliness in a different way.
My thinking is, if I never experience it, I’m probably living a safe, comfortable life.
Vagabonding is an act of pilgrimage.
I am on the road to excise the parts of myself which stand in my way. To come to terms with myself on the edges. To do the things that scare me. To grow in spirit and character.
As these words from Michael Crichton go: “stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your clothes, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inveitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That’s not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating.”
I am not in a foreign country where the culture clashes against my very person or the world around me is alien, yet I am still stripped of my ordinary life. I have not the friends I know with me or the places that make me comfortable.
It forces me to enjoy the simple pleasures that I can find. Walking streets and neighborhoods I have never seen. Sitting on a picnic table with a cup of coffee. Practicing calligraphy. Chatting with strangers at coffee shops, bus stations, and airports.
I am in practice a very socially connected person.
I talk to a number of friends all across the country throughout the day. I keep up with my e-mail, social networking sites, blogs, text messages and phone calls. Yet I am at the same—a solitary person. I need time on my own to recharge. I have spent days living in NYC where I did not talk to or message a single person.
