In Gilbert's Barber Shop
gilbert the barber
haircutting styles
Kam and I are finally getting back on track with our Guadalupe project, and today was blue-sky bright and perfect for wandering. We decided to stop by and talk to Gilbert the barber, who was born (in 1969) and raised here, the son of a Filipino father and a Mexican-American mother.
"My father came here in 1926," he told us. "He was 16 years old and part of a huge Filipino labor force. They were field workers who followed the crops -- lettuce, asparagus, grapes, whatever was growing. Like in the John Steinbeck books. We all came for the American dream...right? All looking for the same thing."
Shortly after the United States entered World War II, Gilbert's father volunteered to serve in the 2nd Filipino Battalion that trained at nearby Camp Cooke, where Vandenberg Air Force Base now is. This was in 1942, the same year my father was stationed there...which certainly matters to no one but me, but it did give me a funny sense of how even the most seemingly unrelated histories brush against each other now and then.
Gilbert grew up in a multicultural world: Mexican, Filipino, Japanese, Swiss-Italian, Portuguese, among others. That's Guadalupe. He emerged with a good-natured openness, even a kind of exuberance. He comes across as a someone who is comfortable in his own skin, some of it exquisitely tattooed, and he's a man who takes pride in his work.
"Haircutting is a dying art," he says. He has a connoisseur's kind of appreciation for the styles of the 1940s and 50s, when a good haircut really mattered and took a bit of artistry. His fondness for the look of those times is apparent in his shop decor: posters of vintage cars and pretty girls, an old pay phone, a bright red Coke machine. Even the little cabinets that hold his tools and shaving brushes are vintage pieces, salvaged from some yard sale or flea market.
"I was the weird kid who would walk into a thrift store and see a refrigerator and say 'look at the nice lines on that thing, those art deco details'..."
I remark on the beautiful chrome hood ornaments and automobile door handles mounted on the restroom doors. They're elegant and substantial, like streamlined streaks of sculpture. Are they really from cars? You bet they are, which prompts some talk about another of Gilbert's passions: old cars. Cool ones. His is a 1949 Mercury.
"Some of those cars, they can just sit there and they're in motion. The lines, the look. And white wall tires? They're a must."
Gilbert and his wife go to conventions, like one in Vegas that’s coming up, which draw car enthusiasts from all over the world. "There's old cars, hot rods, rockabilly, girls all dolled up in vintage clothes and nylons with the seams..."
"Aesthetics is everything in life," he reflects.
By this I figure he means that attention to detail, style, and beauty alters one's experience of the world, heightens the sense of engagement, is mood-shifting and even transformative. If you're gonna live, why not do it with flair? Gilbert is a guy who notices, appreciates, and does his bit for aesthetics' sake.
"You can apply art to everything," he says.