Use The Force

"I must believe... I can do anything"

You might see my stickers for JFDI. It means "Just F***ing Do It." It's a motto I learned from my friend Alex Hillman, a founder and partner in running Indy Hall in Philadelphia. Since we met and he handed me such a sticker in 2011, it's been my North Star. JFDI is how I have the confidence to lean into bootstrapping being a barber.

Yesterday, I rolled into the parking lot at Portage Park right at 9am. It took three trips to the car to unload the gear I'd need for the day (including the rolling cooler full of beverages). The tent takes the longest to set up by oneself, so it's maybe 20 minutes of futzing around until it's ready. The chair takes maybe 5 minutes to put together. Another five minutes to organize my station and I'm minimally ready to cut hair, which is exactly what happened a half-hour before I planned to start cutting at 10am. My first client tied up his very good boys and they chewed their ball while I did my first mohawk as a student/professional.

As I wrapped my first mohawk at 10am, a woman brought her 2nd grader over, learning about the pop-up in either the Jefferson Park or the Portage Park Facebook Group. After this cut, mom called a friend of hers and she brought her kids for cuts.

There was a lull between 11am and 2pm, when an unhoused couple came by asking about haircuts. Dude's cousin started giving him a haircut but just shaved terrible patch in the left side of his head going in and above the parietal ridge. So that dude got a mohawk because otherwise shaving bald was kinda only other viable option. Because they were unhoused and avoiding surveillance I turned the camera off... and then I was so busy with cuts after him I never got to turn the camera back on.

In all, I felt like this was the best pop-up yet. Every cut was clean and intentional. Every client was super happy with their cut, including the kids who each had their own reservations about anyone touching their hair. I even had a repeat client from last week, who brought his mom. I gave her a beer from the cooler and I worked on my conversational Spanish while cutting her son's hair. She toasted me as the best barber in Chicago, which was nice. He told me I'm now his guy... and that feels unbelievable.

I served 9 clients yesterday, including

• 2x Mohawks
• 3x Kids
• 2x Beards
• 1x 2nd visit
• 1x Unhoused

Thursday, May 28 - 7pm - 9pm @ Happy Day Tavern
I'll be joined by three of my classmates for this very exciting first collaboration with Happy Day Tavern. They have sweet drink and wing specials on Thursdays, and a whole back room to turn into a barbershop for the night. Free cuts. Come get some!

Saturday, May 30 - 10am - 4pm @ Portage Park
With three Saturday pop-ups at Portage Park, I feel like I now have a bit of a residency there, and with the weather getting better, it's getting easier to prepare for a full day of barbering in the park.

Thursday, June 11 - 6pm - 9pm @ Cary's Lounge
Last weekend, Sunday, I told a story at "The Wild Night" from my early defense contracting days of a very wild night I experienced in Taiwan in my last stint in my first gig with the now-defunct Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative. Pete Valavanis, owner of Cary's Lounge followed my story with an incredible tale surviving a night out in Chicago. Andrew Huff, organizer of The Wild Night among other things connected the dots that we should be talking and... now we're popping up at everyone's favorite Chicago classic on Devon!

Things are feeling like they're taking off. I have four other Collaboration Pop-ups in the works between June and August, and I'm really excited to be doing this Summer of Buzz.

I'm so glad you're here. If my story motivates you to JFDI something, please consider sharing what's got you moving closer to making something happen. Your stories of JFDI always fuel me and it takes a lot of focus to quell those voices of self-doubt and do good shit anyway.

Like I said, I'm glad you're here :)