Bull, Boss & Big Black
Brothers in the Barbershop & the Boondocks
I struggled with it for about a month. Was I or was I not going to try and grow some dreads? There were two primary factors in favor of the long hair. In the first case were the looks of two of my favorite black Americans. The first and foremost was Bobby McFerrin, the vocal genius whose collaborations with Chick Corea are some of my favorite jazz compositions of all time. The second was the surprising debut this summer of the head of Roland Fryer. It works for him. The secondary factor was my impending retirement and the feeling that I should communicate something about my ‘wise man on the mountaintop’ attitude and the growing generosity of my philosophical take on humankind. There is something rebellious and loving about a pensive image of Bob Marley that I wanted my own long hair to communicate.
But in the meantime, my mad professor look was begging for some kind of proper attention. As I ganged up with LA’s Major Taylor cyclists for an exhausting ride up and down Pacific Coast Highway, I tried to spy out somebody with dreads - there was no one. Also, my boss will have me presenting in a technical booth in Vegas in a couple months and I have a couple presentations to come shortly, one with Californians for Equal Rights and another with Counterweight. I have to look like my socials portray me. Quite frankly I’m not zen enough for the long hair, so I headed off to that place.
That place I have found in my new neighborhood has several flatscreens, at least eight chairs, with three brothers waiting for each. The Dallas Cowboys were on the tube, the relatively old school hiphop was blasting and brothers talking mucho shit were loudly in evidence. I got there around 5 and there was only one in front of me waiting for Big Black, my man.
Opposite Black, were Bull and Boss, and after two minutes it would be obvious to anyone that these large black men were at one point in their lives deeply into the game of football. Linemen. “You gotta bounce 315 off your chest if you’re serious about this game. We did that when we were 17.” Bull’s son was playing for the local highshool team St. John Bosco and he was yelling a both the holding calls against Dallas and for victory Bosco had 22-7. But most of the time he was talking about how difficult it was to deal with his highschool son’s baby mama, in a way that’s never going to make it into any movie.
As Bull went on and on about what he has had to do to discipline that woman, it got to the point where eyebrows were raised. Still it was funny in a way men understand and vent their mistakes. At some point the conversation turned to other matters including to the attempted suicide of someone known to all three. Bull told the group that he was the one who got him to the hospital. He said the man had been going through some serious shit, but that he kept it all bottled up inside. He told the back of the barbershop “You’ll never see me do anything like that, I’ve spent too much of my life in the church, plus y’all hear me talking about my baby mama. I let it all out. You don’t see me stressing.”
Sportsmanship. You share your scars. You talk the harsh shit so nobody on your team makes the same mistake twice. You deal with that shit right away. Get off the ground and back into the huddle. Iron sharpens iron. Men yell insults and threats at each other. This is the story of a kind of manhood that is absent from our media diets, well that is if you feed in the Hollywood cafeteria. I know what the deal is, and I hear it in the echoes of my own father’s voice when he talks with great reverence for his own father.
What is equally real was Boss’ coming back about being a mama’s boy. Bull you would never get away with that in my house. You know they would call the people on you if you made that kind of threat seriously. Is it worth it? Nah man, that’s still your son’s mother. You better watch how you talk to her in front of him. He’s as big as you are now.
Without a doubt the most fearsome person in my extended family was my paternal grandmother. Also not the kind of meal served up in popular culture is the frightening woman who kills with a glance in a moment. Denis Villeneuve describes the Bene Gesserit in his filming of Dune. His understanding of feminine power is majestically rendered in his film.
And so I got a haircut. My short hair fits better under my bike helmet. I look more like my socials say I do. I touched base across a class divide with men of violent action whom I understand and respect. They say football is not what it used to be. Bull tells us his son complains about his sore wrists. Well that’s what it’s all about. Pain is part of the brutal game. If you don’t want it, go play basketball. Everybody laughs. Bull goes on, nobody is making you play - you’re there because you want to be there. These days they protect the QB too much. I take his word for it, and decide against making a comment that he has revived the spirit of Lyle Alzado, or the most fearsome player I ever met in person, Lawrence Taylor.
This week my street got repaved. It was interesting for me to watch the men moving as construction workers do, with their deliberate pace, sharp awareness around the pneumatics and yellow vests. In or out of earshot are the bosses gesturing slowly. The large machines rumble amidst the tangy smells of tar and asphalt. They said they’d do it in two days and they did. I looked to find out what kind of shoes they wore. Dirty was just about all I could tell, but my bet would be Wolverine by the stitching I could see.
I’m a Patreon subscriber of that engineer Destin Sandlin. You would know if you knew how to listen that he is a Southern Christian. It was a Jesuit novitiate that taught me computer programming in highschool. People forget that there is no contradiction between faith and reason, just as there is none between learning by rote or by induction. One method is simply more efficient for a certain subset of the problems presented to mankind. Destin sent me a baseball from the Rocket City Trash Pandas after he broadcast his machine that sent one through the sound barrier. This time around he investigated some of the engineering behind tractor pulls, but what was notable to me was how he navigated the culture of the non-mainstream.
While the denizens of the chatting class blather back and forth about the necessity and prudence of student loan forgiveness, I tend to be sympathetic the underdog position. Nevertheless, I disagree with the method rather than the aim. Dischargeability has always been the right way to go as far as I’m concerned. As the basic idea goes through the culture I expect those expecting a gimme rather than a bankruptcy will accelerate the acceptability of the populist bribe for future presidents. This, of course, will expand the class gap and squeeze more equality out of the system. People who know how to speak the honest truth of dealing with shit will be marginalized even further.
So this time around I have the small ask that you share this a bit more than your ordinary mind chow. I think I’m one of those who goes there. One of those with admiration for how people honestly bear down under pressure and disrespect, rather than whine about microaggressions. I’m on the side of the swimming infants, the working dogs, the nurses with bloody hands and the diggers with worn down shoes. The men and women who think on their feet to tame the world and don’t blame the world. Those with more attachment to their souls than all the bling in the world.