Would you believe that a Korean woman unleashed her fists of fury on my back and I willingly paid her $13 plus tip for it? Truth is stranger than fiction and let me tell you a story.
I used to live in the Westbury neighborhood and visited a barber shop owned by a cute little lady; I had my hair cut by the other employee (a retired grizzled ex-Marine) who exchanged less words with me over a period of years than this review so far. To his credit, he "warmed" up to me after 3 years to the point that he talked about the weather with me.
Unfortunately, the shop owner had been plagued with increasing health issues and closed up her shop - I lost track of Paul so I began to roam the countryside looking for a new barber. In the meantime, I've kept a holding pattern with one of those dirt-cheap Vietnamese haircut places.
Seeking to break out of this, I ambled over on Saturday morning to OK Styling after seeing Jim M's review. The place is spic-and-span clean, wonderfully and cheerfully retro with well-kept red barber chairs, polished concrete floors, and lots of manly reading material. Julia Child was on the lone LCD TV. The barbers (Kim and Ben) were each working on a customer, leaving myself and another guy waiting our turn - or so I thought.
After a few minutes, a young lady rolled up outside with one of those Laundromat wheeled carts piled high with freshly washed towels. The other guy jumped up, went to the till and withdrew some cash, then exchanged it for the towels. It turns out that Alan was the third employee and I was the lone waiting customer.
When my turn came, Kim asked me how I wanted it cut - and she dutifully listened. She was intent on the cut and this may have been why she wasn't as chatty with me as she was with the prior customer. She finished then moved on to the straight razor shave, which serves as a relaxing therapeutic balm for me. With a flourish, she whipped the cape away and began dusting me off with a clean towel.
Since I was so relaxed, I forgot that the vigorous massage that happens at the end was about to happen to me. She pushed me forward, began pummeling out a feisty percussive rhythm on my shoulders and back then reached for a power massager. Meekly, I mentioned that this was all unnecessary - but Kim's chipper and loud reply was: "We take care of our customers!" as she continued using me as a human bass drum. I can only imagine the other customer and Ben having a good laugh at seeing a rookie getting introduced to all of this.
At the end, I got a great haircut and straight razor shave in a no-nonsense old-school barbershop. Of course, being the stunt double for "Fists of Fury - Westbury Edition" was lagniappe. I'll be more ready next time to use my Crow pose to defend myself against her massage attack. read more