Getting the edge

Thanks to a certain play and movie, it isn't hard to figure out why getting a straight-edge razor shave has gotten a bad rap.

True, maybe not as bad or enduring as the one dentists have to live with thanks to Laurence "Is it safe?" Olivier in Marathon Man.

But still, mention to anyone you're getting a straight-edge razor shave, and it definitely conjures up certain images. Not all of them pleasant.

Fortunately, not all barbers wielding the blade are named Sweeney. In fact, mine is named Manny.

Every year when I vacation for a week at the Hotel Del Coronado, I walk on Orange Avenue to 10th Street to the Bow Ties and Haircuts Barber Shop. The place has been in Coronado forever, catering not only to vacationing touristas like me, but also many of the military personal from the naval base on the northwest side of island (which explains all the fighter planes thundering over the pool at the Del. I love watching them, but judging by the reactions of other guests it's easy to tell a lot of them didn't see anything about it in the brochure).

Anyway, I'd never had a close shave, in the literal sense, in my life. So one year I decided to try it. I planted myself in Manny's center chair, cleared my head of all the Sweeney thoughts, and went for it.

Now, ask anyone who knows me, I mean really knows me, and they'll tell you that despite appearances to the contrary, I'm really a pampered poodle at heart. Not afraid to admit it. My macho self-esteem isn't threatened. After all, you're reading the blog of a guy who used to go for three-hour haircuts at Giusseppe Franco's in Beverly Hills.

Giusseppe would shake hands with everyone and ask how it was going, offer a cup of espresso, then go upstairs and talk Harleys with his beauty school mate Mickey Rourke. Meanwhile, downstairs the stylists, in short skirts and tight tops, each more beautiful than the next, were dancing to the blaring music as they were cutting away.

Every six weeks, it was like dying and going to MTV.

So when I walked into Bow Ties and Haircuts, it was decidedly old school. Which to my way of thinking is exactly what you want in a barber when he's holding a straight-edge razor to your throat.

When Manny puts the chair back and starts by covering my face with the first of three or four steaming hot towels, I try not to think about the razor he'll be holding to my throat. Instead I try to focus on just how smooth and amazing it's going to feel when he's done.

Occasionally the thought does cross my mind that all those hot towels are there to mop up the blood spurting from my carotid artery, but then I realize I haven't done anything to make Manny mad so it's probably not anything to worry about. Too much.

Manny skillfully guides the blade across the contours of my face, even the curves that I have difficulty navigating. When it's over, the last towel is a cold one, which Manny tells me is to close the pores (if you're following along in your barber-to-english dictionary, you'll see that means stop the bleeding).

Afterwards, my face is amazingly smooth to the touch. This is what a shave is supposed to be.

I thank Manny, and tell him I'll see him next year.

But as I think about how this shave turned out, as opposed to the way it turns out with my little 59-cent Bic disposable razors, I think a year may be a little too long to wait.