Ryan Heckart | Photographs by Adam Williams
Overview: Ryan Heckart talks with Adam Williams about barbering history, the fall of barbershops through the late 20th century (thanks Beatles!) and the rise again in more recent years.
He tells the story of his barber shop, which he recently opened in Cockeyed Liz’s old brothel, and why he named the shop Green Street when it’s actually located on Main Street in Buena Vista, Colo. And why when he opened his new shop, he absolutely had to have an expensive pair of 101-year-old barber chairs.
Ryan and Adam talk about growing up in Flyover Land, the band Slipknot, the rise of Des Moines, and Ryan’s pride in craft and a career that has taken him to London and back. Among other things. Like, how they’re both introverts who also are professional talkers.
SHOW NOTES, LINKS, CREDITS & TRANSCRIPT
The We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast is a collaboration with Chaffee County Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority, and is supported by the Colorado Public Health & Environment: Office of Health Disparities.
Along with being distributed on podcast listening platforms (e.g. Spotify, Apple), Looking Upstream is broadcast weekly at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays, on KHEN 106.9 community radio FM in Salida, Colo.
Ryan Heckart
Website: greenstreetbv.com
Instagram: instagram.com/greenstreetbv
We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream
Website: wearechaffeepod.com
Instagram: instagram.com/wearechaffeepod
CREDITS
Looking Upstream Host, Producer, Photographer & Website Manager: Adam Williams
Looking Upstream Engineer & Producer: Jon Pray
We Are Chaffee Community Advocacy Coordinator: Lisa Martin
Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment: Andrea Carlstrom
TRANSCRIPT
Note: Transcripts are produced using a transcription service. Although it is largely accurate, minor errors inevitably exist.
[Intro music, guitar instrumental]
Adam Williams (00:13): Welcome to We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream, a conversational podcast of community, humanness and well-being rooted in Chaffee County, Colorado. I’m Adam Williams.
Today, I’m talking with Ryan Heckart. He’s the owner and barber of Green Street Barbershop, which actually is on Main Street in Buena Vista. We talk about where the name Green Street comes from. It’s a cool story with personal meaning for Ryan.
We talk about some barbering history, including the impact of the Beatles on men’s hairstyles in the sixties, and ultimately the fading out of so many barbershops across the country.
In more recent years, there’s been a resurgence of barbershops nationwide. It’s brought an updated and more contemporary aesthetic to the barbers themselves, with their tattoos and personal styles and pride in craft, and to the bag of tricks they use and the hairstyles that walk out of their shops. Ryan keeps Green Street connected to the roots of the trade too. We talk about the century-old barber chairs he uses, and the fact that he has set up shop in Cockeyed Liz’s old brothel.
We bond over our personal roots too. Both of us grew up in neighboring states in the Midwest. We talk about some shared experiences in that. And with that in mind, let me ask you an honest question. If we pulled out a blank map of the United States, could you point to Iowa? That’s where Ryan grew up.
And this question, which might sound strange to some of you, but I get it being from Flyover Land myself, could you name any big celebrities that come from Iowa? Ryan gets into the pride and connection about that and his forever Iowa love.
The Looking Upstream podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority show notes with photos, links in a transcript of the conversation are published at wearechaffeepod.com. You can see more photos and connect with the podcast at wearechaffeepod on Instagram.
[Transition music, guitar instrumental]
Adam Williams: You are Ryan the barber in our household.
Ryan Heckart (01:06): Yes.
Adam Williams (02:13): I mean, that’s how we talk about you with our kids or whatever. It’s like, “Hey, you want a haircut? Do I need to make an appointment with Ryan the barber?” This morning I told my younger son that I was going to be talking with you today for the podcast. I’m like, do you have any questions for Ryan? And unfortunately, my timing was bad. He was already running late for school and he had to jump out. But yeah. So, Ryan, the barber, you’ve got a new shop?
Ryan Heckart (02:37): I do, yep. Right here on Main Street in BV.
Adam Williams (02:40): So it’s on Main Street. Obviously, it’s called Main Street Barber, right?
Ryan Heckart (02:44): No, it’s Green Street Barbershop.
Adam Williams (02:46): I know, I know. So this is what I want to talk about for sure. Why is it called Green Street Barbershop when it’s smack dab in an awesome location on Main Street?
Ryan Heckart (02:55): On Main Street in BV. Yeah. Because I just wanted to confuse everybody as much as I possibly can. Now, ever since I became a barber, my grandmother had told me this story, and since then, if I ever had a barber shop, no matter where it was at, no matter what street it was on, it was going to be Green Street. And the Green Street name comes from my grandmother’s side. Her dad, in the late 1930s, early ’40s, as people were coming out of the Great Depression, and they were also extremely poor as well, but so they lived on the poor side of town and people just didn’t have money for just everyday things.
(03:29): And so my grandfather started to notice, oh, kids need their hair cut. They can’t afford it. And you had all these kids just running around ragging in the early ’40s with long hair, which back then was a huge no-no, you cut your kid’s hair. And so he just started cutting the kid’s hair on his porch and it grew into this thing where he started going into his basement to cut hair and throughout the community and he never charged a dime for it. And then through the community, it was on Green Street and everybody started calling it the Green Street Barbershop.
(04:01): And then during World War II, when the government started helping out with stipends for people to get back on their feet after a great depression, he just stopped and never really talked about it. It was just done. And even when my grandma told me the story, when I first went to barber school, she told me the story and one of her kids had never even heard it. No one ever really talked about it. He just did this small thing for the community and then was done once people got back on their feet. But yeah, it was called the Green Street Barbershop. And so as soon as I became a barber, as soon as I heard that story, I was like, when I do open my barbershop someday, it’ll be called Green Street Barbershop, no matter the location.
Adam Williams (04:39): That’s really cool. So you never met him?
Ryan Heckart (04:42): There are two photos in existence of me and him together, and I’m a little baby. I want to say he passed away when I was maybe a year old, maybe. So not around for too long. But yeah, I don’t remember him now.
Adam Williams (04:55): It’s a really cool story. And then of course, all this time you said ’30s, ’40s, I mean we’re most of a century later and you’re in a way carrying on legacy is the reason were those stories, was he an inspiration for you to become a barber at all or what was the reason for that?
Ryan Heckart (05:14): No. So, like I said, that was the first time I had ever heard that story from my grandma was once I started going to barber school, once she saw that this is the career path I’m taking, how some grandma’s brains work, it just like, oh, clicks a story and she tells you it. But myself and a lot of barbers from my generation, granted I’ve only been doing it for almost 10 years, but it wasn’t as cool back then. And all of us were just sick of our old jobs.
It was the fact that you could work for yourself self. You are blue collar, you get to work with people every day. And it’s like this… I worked with a lot of… I went to not work, but I went to barber school with a lot of guys who were fresh out of jail and this was their last little, I don’t want to go work for somebody because maybe I have a felony or something and I don’t want that to ruin a job application.
(06:07): This is my last re being my own barber, making my own business and creating something out of something. So yeah, I’m just fall into that category of just people who were just like, I was just fed up with the standard work, if you would call it that, just going to a job and Hi boss, clock in, clock out. I hated that and I wanted to take some control back into my own life, which honestly now I’m thinking about barbering set me up for how I ran the rest of my life because I really have, especially in the last couple of years.
Since COVID, I feel like really been like, Nope, this is my life. I’m doing what I want to do, period. I’m going to do what makes me happy. And that’s what I’m chasing. And barbering has helped because I don’t have a boss to be like, “Hey, I’m leaving Iowa.” Which I mean, I did, but there was no stopping me. I was like, I’m going to Colorado and I’m out.
Adam Williams (07:02): You had owned a shop before here, hadn’t you?
Ryan Heckart (07:04): No, no. I just worked at a shop in Des Moines. I worked at quite a few shops in my career. So fresh out of Barber school, I went and I worked at a shop called the Surly Chap in Omaha while my wife was girlfriend back then, but wife now while she was finishing up her education at Creighton, we were there for two years I think.
And then we came back to Des Moines for a short bit. And then we moved to London where I worked for Frank Rimer at Thy Barber and dream job scenario. He was the first one that when I was in barber school, flipping through Instagram, just trying to put myself out there and follow all the barbers that I can possibly find. He was the first person I ever came across was like, this dude is doing the haircuts that I want to do.
(07:54): In my eyes, those are the coolest haircuts you can possibly get. And so when I moved to England, it was like a dream scenario of like, man, this would be cool to work for him. And I applied four times and never got a call, nothing, nothing. And then I saw on Instagram, actually my wife saw that on Instagram that they were hiring and she was like, you need to apply. And I was like, I’m not getting my heart broken again. And at this time it was hard for me to find a job period over there. But being an immigrant in a different country, it was so weird. And especially coming from a niche market like a barber, a lot of barbers were like, “You’re not coming in here. No, absolutely not.” So I just gotten my heart broken over and over and over again, weeks of being there, I had not found a job yet.
(08:40): My wife applied for me. And it was hilarious because I got the phone call from and he was like, “Hey, this is Frank Rimer. Am I speaking to Ryan?” And I was like, I thought it was my buddies. And I hung up on him, I threw some expletives and I was like, screw you guys, this isn’t funny. And I just hung up and then got a call two seconds later, he goes, this is Ryan Heckart, right? And I was like, yeah. He goes, this is Frank Rimer from Thy Barber. And Gut dropped. I mean, up until this point, I have never talked to him on social media. I had never done any of this, just followed from afar. And I ended up getting that job and it was sick. And then after being there for a year, we decided that we were going to leave London.
(09:24): So I left my dream job and came back to Des Moines and that’s where I worked for five years at Franklin Barbershop in Des Moines. And that was the coolest barbershop ever. If you look at my shop and look at Franklin, there’s a lot of similarities. Because from the first time I ever walked into that place, it felt like home. And this was back when I was going to barber school, popping into all the different barbershops around town. The first time I walked into Franklin was like, this is sick. This is where I want to work. This is the environment that I want.
Adam Williams (09:54): Why did you leave London when that was your dream job?
Ryan Heckart (09:57): So hardest thing I ever had to do was one leave this place that we completely fell in love with. And I have been chasing this I big city dream my whole twenties. And I was like landed in London and I hated everywhere I went. And then I finally landed in London. I was like, this place is awesome. This is so cool. Got my dream job. And ultimately we left for a few reasons.
One, Kelly was wrapping up school. That’s what took us there, she was going to get her masters, so she was wrapping up school. And then we… So renting a flat in London, you have to go through… You can find owners who are just renting out a normal landlord, but I’d say about 90% are through real estate agencies. And we got, not scammed, because they were doing the due process, but basically I think we had probably 1,300 pound wrapped up into just applying for a place.
(10:55): And we found this amazing apartment on our favorite side of town right in front of a park. So when you look out our window, you just see woods and it’s like, but we’re in the middle of London and we got a front and a backyard, which is unheard of. It was a perfect spot, super excited. And then we get through the final stage, yeah, everything looks good. And then all of a sudden at the final stage, they didn’t approve us because my wife was a student and I worked in a cash business. And they were just like, sorry, we don’t do business with you guys. And it’s like, well, what about all this $1,300 that we’ve been doing for the last month to get ready to do this and now you’re telling us now. And it was to the point where Frank, who owned the barbershop, got his lawyer involved just so we could get our money back.
(11:37): It was a huge thing and it was just a huge kick in the gut. And it’s just like maybe this is a sign. My wife and I are always about not forcing things. And I think that was just one of those things that we just tried to force and it just didn’t work out. And it was just a good lesson for us to learn, hey, let’s not push or rush anything. And since then we’ve really changed our outlook on life of just like, don’t rush. Good things will come. Just don’t rush anything. Don’t push anything because then something’s going to hiccup. And coming back to Franklin, working there for five years, I just got comfortable and I’m one of those people that I don’t like to be comfortable. I like doing extreme sports.
(12:24): I don’t like nine to five Friday through Monday or Tuesday through Saturday at the barbershop and just going home and hanging out with the wife, even though I loved it and it was nice, but I was like, I’m not having fun doing this. And I think it was because I just got too comfortable. And so moving out of our house, selling my wife’s car, buying a different car that would help better suit us out here and just taking the plunge. And that was the only thing that we have ever forced. And as soon as we got out here, we just let things happen and it’s just worked out tenfold since being here.
Adam Williams (13:01): It seems like you’ve been successful since the moment you got here from outside me looking at, wow, we’ve got a book out here to get appointments with you from my sons or whatever. And you have now opened your own shop this summer that I mean what you’ve been in town-
Ryan Heckart (13:18): Almost not even two years. In a couple of weeks, it’ll be two years.
Adam Williams (13:21): And you’re socially so engaged. It seems like to me, I’m not really out there in such a social way. The podcast is my main connection with people, but you seem like somebody who’s having so much fun and has really become part of the community and has a lot of friends.
Ryan Heckart (13:35): 100%. So when coming here, I grew up on a farm in Iowa in the middle of nowhere. I know what it means to be coming from a small community and coming into a small community, what you have to do. And that was my wife and I’s plan was like, we’re going to come here and we’re going to make friends quickly and we’re just going to fully dive into the community side of things because one, it’s going to help my business. But then also small communities across America, they are very quick to turn your back on you. It’s get in or get out type of situation. And so when we got here, I started at H&K in South Maine on October 6th, and by Christmas I was fully booked, which is insane coming to a small town and we’ve been coming out here for years.
(14:24): But it was one of those things where I’d come out here and be like, how does this town not have a rad barber shop right on Main Street? And it just blew my mind. That wasn’t a thing. So when I came out here, I knew that I… Because I came in with the most expensive haircut in the valley and I took $10 off what I was charging in Des Moines. And I knew that I had to creep people in a little bit of I’m not going to charge you $40 for a haircut. Coming in I think I started at 25 or 30 and it was a hard sell for a lot of people. But then once they realized that I’m not your grandpa’s barber.
Adam Williams (15:00): Yeah, I want to talk about that because there is a difference and I’m hoping that you can shine light for me on being able to somehow describe what that difference is. I grew up going to a barber shop with my dad, been to many over the years and it was a particular thing and it was the cheap version rather than going to a salon somewhere down the street. And now there’s just a different culture and vibe around it, and I think there’s a lot more to it. So how do you view that?
Ryan Heckart (15:26): So especially in the Black community, barbers have always been a thing and they’ve always been very prominent in their communities, but within the last 10, 15 years, barbering has really exploded. And I grew up going to a barber shop that it was like $7 for a haircut.
Adam Williams (15:44): It seemed like you would only have option A or option B, hard stop.
Ryan Heckart (15:47): Yeah, it was sit down. It’s like you’re going to get a short haircut or a longer version of that haircut. Barbering has really changed in the sense of, the way that I try to explain to people is there’s a science behind it now where it’s not just sit down, you’re just going to take some off the ears and taper up the neckline. I take a lot of pride in my consultations when someone gets in my chair of like, what do you want?
Because in my eyes, I want to give you exactly what you asked for. And when I came to town, I would say every other haircut, they’d say like, all right man, what do you want to do? And they’re just, just cut it. And I’m like, okay, I don’t work that way. You got to tell me what you want. And it was also cool to come to town and have these guys sit down and just be like, I don’t care, just make me look good.
(16:32): And then fast-forward two months later after having a couple really good haircuts, they’re coming in with these guys I would never assume would ever get on Pinterest or Instagram. They’re like, could my hair do this? And I’m like, I love getting people excited about their hair because especially with guys, just normal guys, that’s my clientele that I really like are just blue collar, hardworking people and having them get excited about something that they never cared about. It’s super cool to see the growth that guys do have. But yeah, just barbering has just changed to the point where it’s a sit down, you get what you get to sit down, I’m going to give you an experience.
(17:09): One besides just an incredible haircut and our gray eye for detail, the barbers have to where it just boils down to, I want to give you exactly what you want. And modern barbering is figuring that out of, even if I don’t know how to do it, I know my steps. I know how to do it. Because there is a science now. Back then where you’ve just apprentice with a guy down the street and then all of a sudden, two years later you’re cutting, or maybe not even two years later, you’re cutting hair next to them. And it’s like you’re doing the same two haircuts on everybody.
Adam Williams (17:42): Right. For decades.
Ryan Heckart (17:43): For decades.
Adam Williams (17:45): Their entire lives are you get a flat top or you get the little bit longer version that’s a businessman’s haircut or whatever. And that’s all there is.
Ryan Heckart (17:53): And you don’t really get to choose either. I don’t know how many times I would sit, especially growing up because I used to go to the barbershop with my grandpa and it would just be like, I’d never got a say. It was kind like, sit there, shut up, let him cut your hair and we’ll get out of here.
Adam Williams (18:08): That’s the whole point is just cut your hair rather than a style or something that you feel good when you walk out the door with.
Ryan Heckart (18:14): Absolutely. Yeah.
Adam Williams (18:15): It’s just getting hair off your neck and in your ears.
Ryan Heckart (18:18): And I feel like that’s just the way that men have viewed their hair since the ’60s. I love the Beatles, but the Beatles killed barbering. It’s funny, there’s a huge history of how it just plummeted after that because guys started growing their hair out. Barbers didn’t know what to do with long hair, so they were just kind like, I don’t know. And before then, think of all the hairstyles from the ’40s and ’50s.
There were so many rad men’s barber or barber haircuts, but just dwindled away because four lads from England decided to grow their hair out and everybody decided to, and it is funny, just you can see the closing of Barbershops in America post-Beatles in America, and it’s crazy. And it’s just because people started growing their hair out and because their style of learning was just like, I only know how to do two or three haircuts. It’s shifted now where-
Adam Williams (19:09): There has been this resurgence, it seems like, where not only are there probably more barbershops, but they’re cool. They’re cool to go to, they’re cool to have a cut from. I don’t know anything about the numbers. Any chance you’re saying that it fell off at a certain point? Do you know, are there just a lot more of them now?
Ryan Heckart (19:27): I don’t have the stats, but it was a steep decline. And then in the ’70s you had the rock and roll era where kids were still growing their hair. Granted, you still had the guys who were working nine to five at the office coming in and getting haircuts. But the cool haircuts of those decades weren’t in a barbershop. You had to go to somebody who knew how to cut long hair and how to style long hair.
And then in the eighties during the AIDS epidemic, a lot of barbershops also closed just because of blood with razors and it just scared people and they were like, and at that point there wasn’t a lot of new barbers coming up, so it was a good way to wipe your hands clean, just walk away. In the ’90s, that’s when a lot of guys started going to salons to get their short hair cut. And then that’s where if my mom had time, she would take me with her to go get her hair cut, and while I was there like, “Hey, can you trim him up too?” It was that situation.
(20:24): But yeah, I like that. Nowadays if someone leaves, I love that. I know so many cool barbershops around America that’s like, “Oh, I’m going to Portland.” I’m like, “Oh cool. Why are you in Portland?” Check out this barbershop. Or “Oh, I’m going to Chicago’s.” “Oh, you got to go here.” There’s so many cool barbershops in America now that it’s just like I can point you in any direction in the country and be like, stop here, stop here, stop here. There are great barbers in here. They’re going to get what you want. Which was just never been a thing. But the sad thing is that all those historical barber shops are just gone.
(21:04): And I love old barbering. Old shops are the coolest thing ever. I was joking around some of my clients, I can’t wait for my shop to be an old shop just because the history of it. It’s thousands and thousands and thousands of people have come in and it’s just like this is where they go every week or every month to get their haircut for their entire lives.
And there is a barber out in California, I wish I could remember his name, but he decided that he was going to travel around. He’s a photographer and he was like, I’m going to travel around and go to all these old barber shops and document them before they’re gone. So he would interview the barbers, he would take a really cool wide lens shot of the shop so you could see everything in one photo. And there’s so many cool old barber shops, it’s just like sadly, one day we’ll just be gone. That’s a sad thing.
Adam Williams (21:55): You obviously have a lot of energy for this. It feels like there’s passion for it. You love what you do.
Ryan Heckart (22:01): It was one of those things where coming into barbering, I really wasn’t. I mean, I had my hobbies and I was into things, but I also think that helps. I came out of the blue, I never cut hair before going to barber school, and I just was like, I’m just going to try this. And then finding out that I was good at it. And then that I think was what really pushed me of being like, I want to learn everything. I deep dive on things when I get really into stuff. So I wanted to learn everything that I possibly could.
Adam Williams (22:30): Had you ever been good at anything before? Had anybody ever told you, “Man, you’re really good at my mom off?”
Ryan Heckart (22:36): Yeah, my mom was like, “God, you’re really good at me off.” And not really. I was never a standout kid. In high school I was always just… My mom was my drama coach in high school and she was also my English teacher, but drama in high school was that first thing where I was like, it clicked, especially improvisation. And I got to use my goofy self to be good at something and say outrageous things and have my mom laugh for the first time. And she was like, “You’re pretty good at this.” But I think-
Adam Williams (23:10): Was that in performing, you’re saying versus being in the kitchen at home?
Ryan Heckart (23:13): Yeah, and just pushing her buttons, trying to be funny. But other than that, I came into this and then I’ll never forget the day in barber school, I was having the hardest time figuring out how to taper properly, taper the back of the neckline. And it wasn’t until this guy that went school with… What was his name? Deshaun, he came up and he was like, because sometimes you need to be told how to do something differently for it to click.
(23:42): And he just did it. And I was like, I’ll never forget that client leaving and everybody at school, all the guys that had been there for a while, he killed that haircut and it just clicked and I was like, okay, I love this now because I’m good at it. It’s fun. I still get that way about haircut sometimes. Yeah, granted, do I go to work sometimes and it’s nine o’clock in the morning, I’m just like, oh, let’s just get through the day.
I don’t care. But the simplest of haircut can come in and I’m like, this is going to be cool. I’m excited because one, especially with new clients, never, they’re putting me on the line here of I’m going to figure them out. And I love going into a head that I, and pulling off a really good haircut and then just turning them around and hearing this is the best haircut I’ve ever had. And it’s like, heck yeah, dude. That’s awesome.
Adam Williams (24:30): You’re a professional conversationalist, aren’t you?
Ryan Heckart (24:33): Yeah. Which is weird because I’m like… And it shocks people, but I’m a total introvert.
Adam Williams (24:37): I was going to get to that too, maybe because you brought that up on one of the more recent visits I was in, you were cutting one of my son’s hair and I’m like, I can’t believe. Every time we go in there, you and I are talking the whole time, the time it is like this. And I’m like, I was just trying to keep up with you. I was trying to talk because I’m totally quiet. I’m willing to sit and say nothing. But because you and I talked the whole time, I was trying to keep up with you being a conversationalist because I didn’t want to let you down.
Ryan Heckart (25:04): It’s like I don’t want to let my barber down. It is funny because in my early twenties I was very extroverted. I wanted to do everything. I was always going out. I was always going, hanging out with friends. And I don’t know, maybe it’s just the married life, you get married and you marry your best friend, you’re just like, I just want to hang at home. And then also becoming a barber in the last 10 years has been like, you talk so much at work that when you get home or when you get done working, it’s like I don’t really want to talk to anyone.
The first couple years, this is about pretty much the first year of me being in my career, not going to school, I would come home and my wife would be like, “Hey, how was work today?” I’m like, please don’t ask me that. Give me two hours because every 30 minutes I’m like, how’s your day going? It’s like, it’s going great. And so when I get home or when I’m in a social event, because I still am social, but I’m usually the quiet guy.
Adam Williams (26:01): That’s hard for me to imagine because our only interactions are not unlike this, it’s talking all the time. But I want to advocate for introverts a little bit here, and I want you to put in whatever your thoughts are too. I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what introverts are like. We’re just total wallflowers. We’re afraid to speak, afraid to socialize. And I don’t think that’s what it is at all.
Ryan Heckart (26:21): No, I just think we know what makes us comfortable. And that’s not necessarily being the middle of the scene or having to be the loudest guy in the room.
Adam Williams (26:32): I’ve heard somebody describe it as introverts collect their energy in quiet while extroverts get their energy from other people and those interactions.
Ryan Heckart (26:41): Absolutely.
Adam Williams (26:42): And we’re often the ones sitting in the corner thinking it through. I mean, neither of us likes that nine to five boring meetings deal. But I’m usually quiet in those because I’m thinking through possibilities in response to what nobody’s even going to ask me to speak on. Because whoever talks way more is commanding the room. They’re sucking up all the oxygen that an introvert otherwise would be like, hey, I can contribute this.
Ryan Heckart (27:07): And I don’t know, especially when I haven’t been an introvert my whole life because growing up in the middle of nowhere, whenever I would be in a social event, I would take full advantage of it. Oh, I’m going to talk people’s ear off. I’m going to get to meet a bunch of people anymore. I’m just like, we spend our day talking all day. And so when an opportunity does arise where I’m just like, I can just sit here and be quiet, I’m going to, and also just, I think part of getting older is realizing that you don’t always have to be talking, just sit back and enjoy it and just observe people.
(27:45): And I think that’s one of the beauties beautiful things about barbering as well as I, get to be an extrovert. But I just observe people all day and I can get a really good read on people pretty quickly and always my wife sometimes, because I’ll read somebody and I’m like, eh, don’t know how I feel about them. And then she’s like, “Oh, really?” I thought they were cool. And I’m like, oh, that’s okay. And then a couple of months later it comes out and I’m just like I told you.
Adam Williams (28:06): Not everybody has the same level of perceptivity.
Ryan Heckart (28:09): Absolutely. And I think the power of being silent is huge. And I can be loud.
Adam Williams (28:15): We spend our time learning, right?
Ryan Heckart (28:15): Yeah, absolutely.
Adam Williams (28:17): If we’re listening, we’re observing all the body language, everything. We’re not just jumping in and skipping past it because we’re doing all this talking.
Ryan Heckart (28:25): Oh, absolutely.
Adam Williams (28:27): Barber shops have been a gathering place. The old school ones, at least you would go on a walk-in basis. There were no appointments. So maybe there’s one person in front of you, maybe there’s six and everybody would just on a Saturday morning, hang out, wait your turn, you’re hearing all the conversation going on. Maybe you’re participating.
Ryan Heckart (28:46): And you’re meeting people, you’re meeting people in the community that you may not have met before.
Adam Williams (28:50): It seems like that has maybe changed though with this new contemporary style of barbering and maybe since COVID because of appointments being necessary.
Ryan Heckart (28:59): For me, it was COVID. So the shop that I worked at, it was the second or third-oldest barbershop in Iowa. And it’s been around since 1940 or ’52, maybe 1952. And since day one, it was a walk-in shop. And for the three years that I worked there prior to COVID, we were walk-in. We would open on a Saturday, we knew how many the heads we could cut in from a nine to three timeframe.
Adam Williams (29:24): How many?
Ryan Heckart (29:24): Oh gosh. Back then it was probably like… Let me do the math here.
Adam Williams (29:28): I mean, just a ballpark number is fine. I’m just thinking.
Ryan Heckart (29:30): Probably 30, like 25 to 30 with four barbers. And as you’re counting them as they come in-
Adam Williams (29:38): I’m saying individually.
Ryan Heckart (29:40): Yeah. I mean, as a shop we would do… Because we were walk in, so we’re just like, we know that as a shop with four guys, we can take on 30 haircuts in this amount of time and we’d flip her open sign. The guys would rush in because guys would wait. They’d get there at six in the morning, we’d open at nine just to make sure that they were the first ones there so they could get in and get out. The preppers is what we call, they were always early. They were the ones that would come in and nope, I was here first. And you come to get to know those guys.
(30:07): No, he definitely was. I know you weren’t here early before him, but yeah, we would just count him and then as soon as we had count them off, we would literally flip the open sign that we just flipped and it says closed. And those guys would sit there all day and until three o’clock, that last haircut of the day would be in the room at nine A.M. and we would have soda and beer in the fridge and always something stupid on TV, which is where I get it from my shop is you always got to have something because it’s always a conversation piece.
(30:35): But that is the one thing that, and then when COVID happened, when barber shops and salons were allowed to open back up, they were like with one stipulation, you have to do appointments, no more walk-ins because you can’t have people waiting. And so we scrambled and we were like, well, oh, shit, we’ve never done this before. How do you do this? And me and another barber there, we had done appointments before, but not with this big of a clientele. When you’re a walk-in shop, you go and you like your favorite barber, but it’s more like, I like the shop.
I’m going to go to the shop and whoever I get, I get. It’s hard to take your clientele that’s been doing this forever and being like, all right, guys, pump the breaks. We have to start booking now. And once we got all of our clients switched over in end of 2021 I think is when they finally lifted it being like, all right, we can go back to walk-in shops. It was like, we’ve already taught these guys and they’re doing it, so it would be a disservice to them to go back. And ever since then I was just like, I’ll just keep rolling with it. And you’ve seen my space. I only have three chairs, so it’s not really big enough for a walk-in shop, which I would love. A walk-in environment to a barber shop is my absolute favorite.
Adam Williams (31:49): You also have two chairs, barber chairs, and so I’ve wondered about that because you’re obviously just one guy. You’re not cutting hair for two guys at the same time. Is that one for just symmetry aesthetics or is that also, are you going to have visiting barbers come in and have friends from across the country or London or whatever come in and take the chair next to you for a week or whatever in town like tattoo artists do?
Ryan Heckart (32:13): Yeah, that’s the plan is to have guest spots come in and just hoping that one of those guest spots would stick. The reason I built two was one, yes, it would look really weird to have one chair shop there. It’s the symmetry wouldn’t be there. And those chairs can’t be cheap. No, they’re really expensive. They’re really, really expensive.
Adam Williams (32:34): And yours look nice.
Ryan Heckart (32:35): They’re beautiful. They’re 1923 kogans, and they’re my favorite thing I own. When I opened the shop, I looked at my wife and I was like, I don’t care what we spend money on, but we’re spending money on the chairs. I could have a hand mirror that I’m using as a mirror as long as I have a good chair because in my eyes a barber is only good as his chair, truly because it shows you the little things that aren’t necessary.
You don’t have to have a really nice expensive chair, but if you do, it means that you care about your work. And a lot of the companies, modern barber chair companies are making replicas of these chairs, but just not making them as well. And that’s the big shift of why I love vintage chairs because they’re made with cast iron instead of stainless steel like they are now.
Adam Williams (33:27): It’s a hundred years old, you said it’s from 1923.
Ryan Heckart (33:29): It’s 101 years old, yeah both of them are. And they’re my dream chair. And until I took the wrapping off it, when it got delivered, I had never seen those chairs in person. And they’re just cool because the reason I love them is because the grill where your legs rest behind your calves, that part of the chair, is usually just metal and with maybe a piece of padding there.
Well, this is the only chair that I’ve ever seen that has porcelain wrapped around it and there’s designs in the porcelain and I was like, these are the coolest chairs ever. And I remember finding those, like I was saying when I started barber school and I found out my love for it. I wanted to know everything. And so I was looking up the history of chairs and I was looking at the designs and how they shift and why they progressed the way they did and just how they were made.
(34:20): A good barber chair nowadays is max 150 pounds. That’s it. Where mine are 275 pounds a piece. They’re just cast iron. The whole thing is cast iron. And back then when things were getting made in 1920, they were built to last. And granted, my chairs were completely thrashed before because I went through a company and had them fully refurbished from everything from they sandblasted the porcelain and reporsland it and re-chrome new vinyl. They took the old hydraulics out of the chairs, put new hydraulics in the chairs. Everything’s brand new, but it’s just 101 year old chair.
Adam Williams (34:58): We’re getting into details I never knew we needed about barbering.
Ryan Heckart (35:01): Oh, I love, if you want to talk about barber chairs, I’ll go deep like it, but it is such a niche thing that to me, it’s one of those things when I walk into a barber shop that I’ve never been into and it’s kind the first thing that draws my eye. What chair are they working with? Like I said, it’s one of those things, it’s a tall tale of what’s important to them.
Adam Williams (35:24): You’ve mentioned Des Moines a number of times and I learned that about you. The first time I ever sat in your chair. This was before the new shop must’ve been for my beard because I shaved my head and you told me that Des Moines… So I grew up in Northeast Missouri, so I’m right below Iowa.
I went to college most of my undergrad years in Iowa. And you told me things about Des Moines, I had no idea had changed in the many years since then. What’s going on there? What is it like now when you go back home and visit family or whatever if you do, compared to when you grew up and you said you grew up in a small town, I assume was outside of there.
Ryan Heckart (35:58): Well, I grew up about two hours southeast of Des Moines.
Adam Williams (36:01): Okay, so that’s not really where you grew up or went to high school or anything?
Ryan Heckart (36:02): No, not at all. No, no, no. I went to a tiny school that was literally in a cornfield real tiny. I had 40 kids in my class and like-
Adam Williams (36:11): I think that’s even smaller than here.
Ryan Heckart (36:12): It’s super science. So it’s funny when I talk to kids here and I was like, it’s such a small town. I was like, you guys have 80 kids in your class. That’s double the class size I had.
Adam Williams (36:22): It can get smaller for sure.
Ryan Heckart (36:23): It can definitely get smaller. The Des Moines that I remember growing up and going to, when we’d go to the big city, we’d go to Des Moines and was just, I think as a kid with ADHD was just everything I’ve ever wanted. And I think that’s where my fascination with the big city came from. And knowing that when I became an adult, I needed to be in the city, which is just hilarious.
Because I found out that I’m not a city person, I prefer low-key chill. I was just in Denver yesterday, about went and insane just driving in that traffic. But Des Moines now, it’s an exploding place. One of the reasons we left is because it was getting too crazy, there’s hands-on traffic for the first time in Des Moines, which is unheard of. And I think it’s just because Denver or Nashville, they got too big too quick and their infrastructure can’t keep up.
Adam Williams (37:13): Are we talking about a hundred thousand people, 300? How big is this place?
Ryan Heckart (37:17): I don’t know what the metro area is now, but my wife’s hometown is Ankeny, Iowa, which is just north of Des Moines. It’s the northern suburb. And gosh, there are probably over half a million people.
Adam Williams (37:32): In the whole area?
Ryan Heckart (37:34): Just in that town.
Adam Williams (37:35): Just in Ankeny?
Ryan Heckart (37:36): It’s huge.
Adam Williams (37:38): You said half a million?
Ryan Heckart (37:39): Probably.
Adam Williams (37:40): Oh, wow.
Ryan Heckart (37:40): It wouldn’t surprise me. It’s a massive, I mean, I want to say it was her junior, her high school split and they opened up a new high school and she still graduated with 800 some kids in her class. Huge bustling place.
Adam Williams (37:55): Well, and you told me, if I remember right in that first conversation where you were enlightening me about the changes in Des Moines was that tech has gone there from Silicon Valley.
Ryan Heckart (38:05): Yeah. So I guess at least what I’ve been told, being a barber, you get to talk to a lot of people and was that there was some guy who was from Des Moines who worked for Microsoft and they were talking about real estate and how they’re trying to build some new things and some new data centers in the Midwest. So they were looking at Chicago, they were looking at Kansas City, but these cities were blowing up and he was just doing his job. It was like, “Hey, well Des Moines is cheap, you can go and buy land there. You could buy a hundred acres there the way you could buy an acre in California.”
So they came in and just bought, started building these massive data centers. And now it’s getting to the point where I’m pretty sure there’s multiple headquarters there for, Facebook has one, Apple has one.
(38:50): It’s just a weird, so you had all these… It was like in that 2015 Exodus of California, you had all these people moving to Iowa and the biggest shift was now you have people living in Iowa who have money. Granted there’s always been a little bit of money, but you’re from Northern Missouri. Midwest is a humble place. It very much is. And you had all these people, I’m a bit of, I don’t want to say a car enthusiast, but I like nice cars. And so I’d see Porsche’s and Ferrari’s drive around Des Moines now, and it’s like, where am I? This is wild.
Adam Williams (39:23): Go back and see. Now we see them here.
Ryan Heckart (39:25): Yeah.
Adam Williams (39:26): They’re here. They’re probably-
Ryan Heckart (39:27): They’re everywhere, yeah. And so Des Moines just has money now for the first time.
Adam Williams (39:33): I think this still baffles me. This is why I’m asking you about it and because, well, I want to ask you about this now. You’re a bit younger than me. Did you grow up there in, are we saying ’90s or even more recently?
Ryan Heckart (39:45): So when in Des Moines, my life in Des Moines, I did live there for a while.
Adam Williams (39:50): Maybe just in general. I mean, as a kid you said you went to Des Moines maybe for trips or whatever.
Ryan Heckart (39:54): I get that. Yes. I was born in ’93, so late nineties. And then the early two thousands was really rough on Des Moines.
Adam Williams (40:01): Well, you would’ve had internet then, is what I’m getting at by putting this in time, is you would’ve grown up with internet and social media and all of those things that I would not have had. So for me as a kid in Flyover Land, a town of less than 6,000 people in Northern Missouri, all I had were TV shows and movies to be like, that’s out there or magazines or whatever. But it’s like I wanted to go see. I wanted to get out and go see other things. And I wonder what your perspective was or if you felt like maybe less of that urge because with internet, did you feel more connected and as Des Moines changing and then you went and lived there eventually, well, do you not feel like you’re missing out as much as I probably did as a kid.
Ryan Heckart (40:43): So, one, I didn’t grow up with internet. I can remember I was probably eighth grade when we got internet and it was dial-up. You got to remember I was living in the middle of nowhere.
Adam Williams (40:53): What direction of this in Iowa?
Ryan Heckart (40:54): So if Des Moines is smack dab in the middle, and I was directly two hours southeast of there and-
Adam Williams (41:01): Southeast. So you and I would not have necessarily been that far apart from each other?
Ryan Heckart (41:07): Not really, no. I was a hour a half drive from Missouri from the border. It was pretty close. But as you see my shop, I also am a movie fanatic and that’s what I filled my time with as a kid because how you said that was my escapism was watching movies or watching TV shows and getting this fascination with the outside world, if you want to call it that. And when I moved to Des Moines, when I moved to all these different cities, it fulfilled it.
(41:33): But there was something missing. But the cool thing about Des Moines was that it felt like a community. It was, oh, I live on this side of town. I live on this street. Oh, do you know this guy who lives two blocks? Oh yeah, I know him. And it’s like everybody knows everybody in Des Moines, which was really cool. But I think that’s slowly changing where some things are for the better. Des Moines has a lot of cool things. Des Moines has America’s largest skate park that’s super rad. Like Bam Margera was just there skating the other day, which was super sick and Des Moines never. It was the fly-by state. We’re not stopping here and we’re slowly getting things out. It’s like in Des Moines, it’s like, oh, I want to stop there.
Adam Williams (42:15): When I was in my twenties, I met people from when I got out and I started living in different places and was in the Army. And so would travel a lot of places, people, Americans that could not place Missouri on a map to say their lives, they had no idea where it was. No, not a clue. So I assume it’s the same for Iowa and for most of the Midwest, and actually probably a lot of the country.
Ryan Heckart (42:34): Yeah Or thinking that we’re Ohio or Idaho, and it’s like, no, we’re in the middle. And they’re like, yeah, it’s Ohio. And it’s like, no, it’s Iowa.
Adam Williams (42:43): I remember being offended at that because I loved geography, I loved studying maps. I love the idea of what’s out there and I want to travel to all these places. And then there was no reciprocation. You have no idea where I’m from. You couldn’t put me on a map.
Ryan Heckart (42:56): See, but the cool thing is, especially Missouri and Iowa, we have the small things that we, small Midwest states, they love their celebrities who are from there. And we take a lot of pride in those people. Iowa, it’s funny, my wife and I were just talking about Ashton Kutcher and he’s the biggest celebrity in Iowa, and we love him. He’ll always have fans in Iowa because he’s from Iowa. Or for me coming from the music background was like Slipknot having something that, especially-
Adam Williams (43:28): Where’d they come from?
Ryan Heckart (43:29): Des Moines. And it was just like, it’s one of those things like how really good punk music comes out of Salt Lake City. And it’s because such a religious repression on these people that they’re going to create something cool. And in Iowa it was just like nothing was happening. So you’re bored at home and then it’s still a very faith-driven politics. And everybody goes to church in Iowa and everybody goes to church in Missouri. And when you got some kids that are just like, I don’t really fit into that. And then also growing up poor, which most people in the Midwest do because there’s not a lot of money there.
(44:07): It’s just as a kid growing up in Iowa, especially not wealthy, and looking at this band Slipknot and being like, this is the coolest thing ever to happen because they made it one, they made it, and then two, they’re rad. And that’s that huge push that has a kid to be, I remember my parents were like, don’t listen to Slipknot, don’t listen to Slipknot. Which I mean, as a rebellious kid made me, I need to figure out what this Slipknot is.
Adam Williams (44:34): Of course. It’s like, “Oh, who’s this?” You’re talking, oh yeah, let me go find them.
Ryan Heckart (44:37): And they didn’t even tell me, “Oh, they’re from Iowa.” But I remember being a Slipknot and then going to FYE in the mall or whatever, and then finding a Slipknot CD. And I’ll never forget, I was in FYE flipping through CDs and it’s like Iowa. That’s literally when I put the two and two together as a kid. And I was like, I have to get this.
Of course my parents didn’t buy it for me, but I had a really cool older cousin that under the table would hand me. I got my heavier side of music from him. And I remember listening to that album just being like, this is the rat one, the raddest thing I’ve ever heard. Because where I’m from, it is classic rock and country and that is it, which I love classic, I love classic rock. But I never heard something that made other people mad. That’s what they were hearing.
(45:21): My mom hated it. But the cool thing about Iowa was now there are people who my parents who were like, don’t listen to Slipknot. They look at Slipknot is like, it’s cool because in London when people would be judging talking about, where is that place? I’d be like, oh, I’m from Iowa, and they’re like “Iowa.” And I’m like, Des Moines. And they’re like, no. And I was like, you know where Chicago’s at? And I’m like right there. That’s where I’m from. And they’re just like, they just don’t get it. But almost always, if they did know where I was, it’s like, oh, Slipknot. I know exactly where that’s at, really. It’s so cool. That band means so much to people all over the world. And they’re from Podunk, Des Moines. Especially in the ’90s. Like Podunk, Des Moines.
Adam Williams (46:02): I can’t say that I really know much of anything about Slipknot, so I would not have known that they were from Iowa.
Ryan Heckart (46:02): For sure.
Adam Williams (46:08): But it’s interesting that people, I guess fans, they do come to know those things.
Ryan Heckart (46:13): Yeah, well, their first official LP was named Iowa, and it’s just like why would-
Adam Williams (46:21): Yeah. How little of a fan I am then? I didn’t even know
Ryan Heckart (46:23): That for sure. But it was like one of those things, why would you name it Iowa? But it was like, know I ones are very proud that they’re from Iowa. I love Iowa. Do I want to live there? No. Do I want to die there? No. But I do love it. And I think that that love pushes a lot of people in Iowa. None of my siblings, except for my little brother lives there. But we all live in these really rad places all over the country, but we still love Iowa. Iowa’s super cool and it’s just things move a little slower in Iowa, which I appreciate, not in Des Moines, but you drive an hour in any direction out of Des, Moines, and you’re in the middle of cornfield and it’s like Tulane highway chilling. This is great. You want to be here a long time, have your barbershop a long time. I do.
(47:06): My wife and I, we’ve been coming out to Chaffee County for, I don’t know, years, and it was one of those things where, oh, we’ll retire there, we’ll retire there. And then finally getting that push in COVID where we were like, we’re taking control of our lives, we’re going to be where we want to be no matter what.
That’s why we were like, well, let’s go check out BB. We love visiting, we love Chaffee County, we love the Arc Valley. Let’s just go live there and see what it’s like. And then like I said, in two and a half months of me being here, I was fully booked. And at that point I was like, we’re not going anywhere. We love it here. We don’t want to go anywhere.
Adam Williams (47:42): It’s so easy for a lot of us to move in and not really engage in the community in the way that you and your wife have. And you have this mainstay core piece of community having a barbershop and now you’re on Main Street, right in the heart of things. Your shop is in the old brothel?
Ryan Heckart (48:00): Yeah.
Adam Williams (48:01): Cockeyed Liz’s brothel.
Ryan Heckart (48:02): Yeah. My barbershop is in Cockeyed Liz’s room.
Adam Williams (48:05): I love the history. That would really amuse me. Do you see any ghosts? Hear any ghosts?
Ryan Heckart (48:11): No. So before we moved in, we staged the place and we’re like, if there is anything here, we’re cool with you being here. Just please be cool with us being here. But we have never experienced anything. The closest thing ever is my dog just looking off into something. And granted she’s deaf anyways, but getting her attention back is other than that. But who knows? That could just be my dog getting senile.
Adam Williams (48:36): Do you think about-
Ryan Heckart (48:38): That’s a different walls to speak. That was my chairs. The guy who I bought my chairs from is a barber fanatic and he loves him. And I would talk chairs for an hour. I would just call him to see how my chairs were doing. We would just talk barber chairs. And he thought it was really rad that I was a young barber wanting 101 year old chairs.
And I was like, yeah, you think that’s cool? It’s going in a room that’s 50 years older than the chairs. And he goes, what? And I was like, yeah, I explained the story. And his nephew or his son goes to Boulder and I think he graduates this spring. And when he comes out, he said he’s going to pop down just like I need to see the place. And I got to see the chairs. And I told him that the wood, that the chairs are going to be sitting on a hundred and-
Adam Williams (49:23): Those are the original wood blanks?
Ryan Heckart (49:25): That I know of, yes. I think those are the original flooring. And the room on the opposite side of the shop also has the original flooring.
Adam Williams (49:33): And there’s an old fireplace. Is that original?
Ryan Heckart (49:35): Yeah, it’s all original in there.
Adam Williams (49:36): It’s such a cool space.
Ryan Heckart (49:39): The Kingman’s have been awesome. The Kingman’s are who own my building and who are obviously the owners of CKS and they have been so rad during all this. And the floors were the biggest thing because obviously as a barbershop I needed to be cleaning all the time and having hardwood floors, especially hardwood floors from 1870 that have some spots had a quarter inch gap in the floor.
It just became a pain. I was like, I don’t know what I want to do with this. But the cool thing about that room is I loved all the imperfections in it and he even offered was like, hey, we should just maybe professionally get them removed and we can put in a different floor.
(50:15): And I was like, no. And so I went above and beyond and I epoxy sealed the floor so it preserved the wood because I love the history of the building and it looks so rad and I get to have a few nails that stick and the imperfections in the wood and still be able to see what it used to look like without having to ruin it. And now I preserved them. So I love the floors. The floors are probably my favorite part of my barbershop other than my chairs.
Adam Williams (50:39): Other than the chairs. What is something you would’ve been doing if you weren’t a barber? Well, let me ask this way. Obviously you love tattoos. I’m wondering if being a tattoo artist, which is also also I see those in parallel in a certain way.
Ryan Heckart (50:51): For sure. Oh, absolutely. And I think that’s why most modern barbers are covered in tattoos and it’s very similar in a job, but you need one thing to be a tattoo artist. You got to be able to draw at least a little bit and
Adam Williams (51:04): You don’t have it.
Ryan Heckart (51:05): That’s not my forte. I can’t do it. I can look at so and be like, that’s sick, but I can’t do that because as a kid I was always fascinated with tattoos. I thought they were the coolest thing. And also talking about my rebellious childhood of people looked at tattoos. My dad was always like, can’t get tattoos. You can’t get tattoos. Now he has a whole sleeve. But
Adam Williams (51:24): My dad was like, you can’t get your ear pierced. I’ll rip it out.
Ryan Heckart (51:28): Yeah, just, yeah, we were those kids that when your parents, which it was funny because my mom didn’t figure this out, so I was like, well into my teenage years of just tell me the opposite thing. Because if you tell me you don’t want me to do something, more than likely I’m going to do it, or at least tiptoe around it to figure out why you don’t want me to do this.
And so I think that was my tattoo fascination and being obsessed with disappearing myself into movies and music especially. It was seeing my favorite rock stars covered in tattoos and I was like, “This is sick.” And so once I became of age, my dad went with me to get my first tattoo when I was two days after I turned 18 and it was just nonstop from there. I mean it slowed down a lot. I also just like-
Adam Williams (52:10): Why did he go with you? Was he supporting it and into it at that moment for you?
Ryan Heckart (52:17): So my dad has a few tattoos even back then, but they were all hidden. You couldn’t see them.
Adam Williams (52:21): And he didn’t want you to get any?
Ryan Heckart (52:22): No, he didn’t want me to go… Because he would see the posters up on my wall of these guys that have their neck tattoo and their face tattooed.
Adam Williams (52:29): Okay.
Ryan Heckart (52:29): It’s like when I pierced my ears for the first time, my parents knew I was going to stretch my lobes. It was like I didn’t pierce them to have earrings, I pierced them to stretch. They knew as soon as I got that first tattoo, there was no stopping me. But his biggest rule was like, Hey man, don’t get tattooed below your elbow because if you get tattooed below, you’re never going to get a job. And I’ll never forget, and this is the coolest thing ever. My mom was starting up a business and I was helping her with some tax stuff and I showed her my tax return because I’ve been doing my own taxes for a while at this point, and I was showing her and she was like, “Is this you and Kelly’s income combined?” I was like, “No.”
And I go, “That’s just mine.” And she goes, “You made more money than your dad this year.” And I was like, really? And I was just walk it. I was like, “Hey, I made more money than you.” And it was just one of those things to prove to myself, I’m going to do what I want to do and what makes me happy and it’s going to work out. And so I got here covered in tattoos and I think it really comes down to, I love this shift of this tattoos in the workplace thing because if you don’t have a tattoo, I really don’t trust you. There’s something about you that’s just like, but if a guy’s covered in tattoo or if a person’s covered in tattoo, but I’m going to trust you because we can talk about things. One of those weird things.
Adam Williams (53:51): It’s become so mainstream, very much. We went to the open house at school for ourselves. We got one in middle school, one now in high school. Every single one of their classroom teachers-
Ryan Heckart (54:01): Has a tattoo.
Adam Williams (54:01): … had tattoos and showing. Showing. And I was getting so excited that as we went from room to room, I started looking for them. And a 100% of the ones that are their teachers in the classroom with them that were there at open house that night, tattoos multiple.
Ryan Heckart (54:18): And I love it. My dad works in a hospital and he’s got a tattooed sleeve and it’s not a question there anymore. It’s like I love this stigma of, “Oh, you got tattoos, you’re a bad person and it’s going to affect your work habit.” Where most tattooed people that I know are some of the hardest working people I’ve ever met.
Adam Williams (54:34): It’s funny, I saw a meme last night on Instagram that said, you ought to hire somebody who has shown they can sit in a chair for hours with needles being poked into them. That’s exactly what it feels like to sit in a meeting at your company.
Ryan Heckart (54:45): Yeah, yeah, a 100%. Just tattoos are super rad and I love how they’re super personable of, you can get someone’s life figure. If you look at their art long enough, you’re like, “Oh, I got a tattoo with a razor.” So people can be like, “Oh, you’re a barber.” And it’s like, yeah. Or seeing my different musicians tattoos that I have and they’re like, oh, your fans of Led Zeppelin, your fans of the Stones. It’s cool.
I view my tattoos, they tell a story. If I could go back to my first tattoo, there’s so many kids now that Twenty-five-year-old kids who have the sickest tattoos because they planned it out and tattooing industry has shifted so hard in the last 15 years. But I love my style of, I can walk you through my life backing up via tattoos, especially in my early twenties.
(55:38): I feel like your early twenties is a blur to almost everybody. And it’s like, but I can remember that when I got that tattoo, I remember what was going through my head. I remember what I was listening to. I remember the music that I was listening to. I remember what movies I was into at that point. It’s a cool way to walk through somebody’s life with doing it, which is why I love tattoos.
Adam Williams (55:57): Ryan, this has been awesome. This has been fun. Thanks for doing this with me.
Ryan Heckart (56:00): Anytime, man. Anytime. I’d love do it again. Thank you.
[Transition music, guitar instrumental]
Adam Williams (56:09): Thanks for listening to We Are Chaffee’s Looking Upstream podcast. I hope that our conversation here today sparked curiosity for you. And if so, you can learn more in the episode show notes at wearechaffeepod.com.
If you have comments or know someone in Chaffee County, Colorado, who I should consider talking with on the podcast, you can email me at adam@wearechaffeepod. I also invite you to rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever platform you use that has that functionality.
I also welcome you telling others about the Looking Upstream podcast. Help us to keep growing community and connection through conversation.
Once again, I’m Adam Williams, host, producer and photographer. Jon Pray is engineer and producer. Thank you to KHEN 106.9 FM, our community radio partner in Salida, Colorado. And to Andrea Carlstrom, director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment. And to Lisa Martin, Community Advocacy Coordinator for the We Are Chaffee Storytelling Initiative.
The Looking Upstream podcast is a collaboration with the Chaffee County Department of Public Health and the Chaffee Housing Authority. And it’s supported by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Office of Health Equity. You can learn more about the Looking Upstream podcast at wearechaffeepod.com, and on Instagram @wearechaffeepod. You also can learn more about the overall We Are Chaffee Storytelling initiative at wearechaffee.org.
Till the next episode. As we say it, We Are Chaffee, “share stories, make change.”
[Outro music, horns and guitar instrumental]
