Bob in Los Feliz gave me the best haircut of my life. But it came at a high price. I had to spend two hours with the man.

Though he’s clearly a hair perfectionist, he spent more time talking about his hair styling prowess and worldwide acclaim than he did actually cutting my locks.

While Bob ran about doing errands, my mother—who was visiting from New York—and I admired the autographed photos of celebrities on his wall. Neither of us knows much about The Industry, but we recognized one framed photo. “He cut Leonardo DiCaprio’s hair,” we whispered to each other. We were impressed.

My mother went into another room to get her eyebrows shaped. Bob asked me what I do. “Journalism?” he said. “That’s good. Everyone wants to get written up, so you’ll get lots of perks.” Human rights journalism is more my thing, but I nodded. In his world, I have a feeling writing about Angelina pulls in more respect than covering Darfur.

Bob assessed my face before deciding how to attack my hair. “You have a beautiful nose,” he said.

I don’t.

“Oh, yes,” Bob said. “I would tell you. See my assistant?” He pointed to the beautiful young woman a couple feet away from us, well within earshot. According to Bob, her nose was hideous when she first came to work for him. “I told her, ‘You have an ugly nose.’ ” He promptly took her to have her nose reshaped.

I did not want to confess that I don’t know celebrities or anyone beside Bob, I guess, who has ever touched the hair of a celebrity. I tried to nonchalantly mention Leonardo and the other photographed superstars.

“I put those up for business,” Bob told me. He said that cutting celebrities’ hair is not the sign of a good stylist because the stars only want a “conservative” look. When he is with his hair stylist friends from around the world, he keeps the celebrity cuts a secret.

Bob asked where in New York I get my hair cut. I didn’t feel compelled to mention the Galleria Mall. “Someone my mom goes to,” I said.

“What’s his name?” Bob asked. “I know all the top stylists in New York.”

“Um…I don’t think you’d know him.”

We moved on.

“What kind of products do you use?” he asked.

“Um…the stuff in the lime green bottle,” I said. “It’s really good for curly hair. I think it’s called Garnier.”

“Oh, from the supermarket,” he said. My cover was blown.

A plain-looking, middle-aged woman walked in to have her hair dyed. Bob asked his assistant if the woman had been referred by anyone. When he learned she was just a walk-in, he delegated her hair to the assistant. But first, he stopped cutting my hair to give the woman a color consult.

She told him she has always had semi-permanent hair coloring. He held her hair between his fingers and said, “Whoever told you that was lying.” Bob leaned back and explained, saying he is the world’s premier hair coloring specialist. “I used to be a structural engineer,” he said and then described in minute detail how semi-permanent dye works.

I think the lady was as impatient as I was. Neither of us wanted to know what the dye does to her hair molecules—we just wanted to get our hair styled and move on with our day. We were not going to be in photo shoots anytime soon.

Bob walked away again, and my mom returned from her eyebrow redo. She was quite delighted. “I think these are the best eyebrows I’ve ever had,” she said, turning her face from side to side for me to admire.

“Great, Ma,” I said. “But I think you should go pack your bags. It looks like this is going to be a while.” Her flight was in four hours, and at this pace, we were going to miss it. So much for enjoying a goodbye lunch—we were trapped by the Hollywood hair guru.

Bob came back and started telling me and my mom stories about Sharon Stone and Porsche. What happened to celebrities being side work?

A man walked by with his dog, and Bob motioned for him to come inside. We later learned the dog guy was roommates with the guy from Everwood and appeared on Seventh Heaven. Ten minutes later another good looking young man walked in. He was once in a movie with Robert De Niro. Bob introduced all of us. If I had recognized these so-called stars, I might have been more impressed.

As Bob told us about inventing a famous hairstyle in the 1980s, my mom and I gave eac