Commerce’s Fount of Shear Wisdom

In barber college back in the 1940s, Fernando Carrasco was taught one hard-and-fast rule: “You’re not supposed to talk about politics or religion with your customers.”

Over the last half a century, the Commerce barber has broken that rule with just about every single person who has slipped into his green leather chair and submitted to his mammoth scissor blades.

In the process, 68-year-old “Fernie,” as he is universally known, has become an institution, drawing local gadflies for all the latest gossip and local politicians to test the waters for upcoming projects.

“He is the information center for this city,” lawyer Thomas Roquemore, 77, said as Carrasco gently clipped Roquemore’s eyebrows. “And he is the philosopher of Washington Boulevard.”

Discussing politics can be a perilous practice in Commerce, which has been racked by vicious infighting. Especially for someone dependent on the goodwill of the community for his business.

But Carrasco, who started working in his stepfather’s barbershop at the age of 16, has managed to stay in almost everyone’s good graces, all the while quietly pursuing his own civic goals such as parking rules and regulations governing signs.

“He is an icon in this community,” said customer Jonathan Sanchez, associate publisher of Eastern Group Publications, a chain of bilingual community newspapers headquartered in Commerce. “He’s a visionary, and he sees beyond this election or the next election.”

Carrasco’s secret lies in living by what he calls his “ideology,” a blend of Buddhism, Catholicism, New Age ideas and psychology.

That and the fact that he starts giving haircuts as early as 5 a.m. City officials, swing shift workers and truck drivers ending an overnight haul from the north find the hour convenient.

By a little after noon each day, Carrasco has returned to the house he shares with his wife, his daughter, and cage after cage of tropical birds. He has lived in the house through two previous marriages, and raised two boys from his first marriage.

He says that he never plans to leave. He has been in Commerce since he bought land there after returning from service in the Army during the Korean War. He was one of the original signers calling for the incorporation of Commerce as a city in 1960.

“I love my little city,” he said, ticking off the sense of community, the free bus system and the camp in the mountains the city subsidizes for families. If no customers appear on the dark morning streets, Carrasco climbs into the faded barber chair himself, musing, yet again, on the meaning of life.

“I started studying psychology in 1955 because I developed a phobia of death,” he said. “I’m still trying to figure it all out.”

His shop is his “sanctuary,” Carrasco said, gesturing to the clean, sparse space he shares with two other barbers. One, Jesus “Chuy” Cruz, 75, is a friend from barber college. The other, Yolanda Prendiz, Carrasco has known for just a few years.

The shop lies in central Commerce--a city of 12,000 residents and 40,000 workers southeast of downtown Los Angeles--several blocks from the Citadel, the tire company and outlet mall modeled on an Assyrian palace that is Commerce’s claim to fame.

The shop doesn’t have an old-fashioned barber pole, but it has everything else: a heavy, black, rotary dial phone, a sign proclaiming that “Kissing a man without a mustache is like eating an egg without salt,” and Carrasco’s collection of community commendations stretching back 40 years.

Although Carrasco’s shop has all the classic Norman Rockwell touches, there are also surprises.

The reading material he puts out for his customers--huge tomes on philosophy, psychology and religion instead of magazines devoted to women and sports--really is meant to be read. And discussed. At length.

And while he has the standard pictures of his wife, mother and three children, he’s also got a photo of Shirley MacLaine holding his daughter. He met the actress and reincarnation guru at a conference.

Carrasco takes haircutting instructions from customers in Spanish and English--fitting for a Mexican American born and raised in East Los Angeles. But he can also take instructions in American Sign Language, a skill he learned to communicate with his deaf son.

For decoration, Carrasco has put up two drawings of a nearby intersection in the throes of a controversial construction project. One drawing shows the area as it is now; the other depicts it as city officials say it will become.

Raul T. Romero, the city administrator of Commerce and a frequent dawn visitor to Carrasco’s chair, said the barber’s display was crucial in selling the project to the community. Carrasco took a personal interest in the project because for years he rode his bike the 2.5 miles from his home to his shop. When construction started, he couldn’t get through anymore and had to start driving. But he nevertheless supported it, and urged others to do so as well.

“He really helped me with the PR on that,” Romero said. After he saw Carrasco’s display, Romero copied the posters and put them in businesses all over town.

It’s not the first time Carrasco has quietly helped Romero do his job. When he came to the city three years ago, Romero spent long hours in the chair, talking over city issues with Carrasco.

“People look to see what he has to say. He’s a community leader,” said Mayor Lela R. Leon, who has known Carrasco since she was a child because her father used to get his hair cut there.

Councilman Hugo Argumedo, who does not always see eye to eye with Leon, agrees with her when it comes to Carrasco’s community influence.

“A lot of people know him,” said Argumedo, who was ousted from office in a 1997 recall, only to be reelected in 1998. “You know what they say about hairdressers. . . . He gets a lot of gossip.”

Despite the fact that he could retire and live quite comfortably, Carrasco said he has no plans to leave the shop.

“As long as I can stand up and keep my hands steady and hold my scissors, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing,” he said. “Retirement is a falsity. We retire when they bury us.”

Attorney Roquemore said many have tried over the years to get Carrasco to run for City Council. “But he wouldn’t do it. He wants to be the spokesman for all the people.”

Carrasco adds that his passion is not really politics. And it’s not hair, either.

Underneath his ever-present hat, his own wiry, white hair spirals out at wild angles. It looks as if it’s been a while since Carrasco has been to a barber.

“Haircutting is secondary to me,” he said. “Socializing is primary.”

Carrasco hears a lot: “Family problems, wife problems, money problems. I get the ups and downs, the yin and the yang,” he said.

More than once, he has taken a grieving father or husband into the back room where the 10-inch barber shears get sharpened and grabbed the customer in a huge embrace, urging him to weep and “let it all out.”

“You have to be real careful not to get upset,” he said. “I’ve talked to a lot of barbers about it. You listen to everything, but you don’t swallow everything.”

He pauses, scissors glinting in the morning sun. He uses oversized scissors because of his large hands. As a new idea lights his face, his arms rise like a conductor about to begin a symphony. The blades come clicking down on customer Jesse Armiento’s hair as Carrasco begins to speak.

“One of my ideologies in life is I live by the moment. At this moment, you’re the most important person in the world,” he said. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful world.”