In April, Peter Katsikides put a sign in the window of his barbershop on Fourth Street in Santa Monica: “Sorry, back next week, Pete.” He never came back, and we just learned that he died in October at the age of 88 or 89, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press. SMDP's Charles Andrews says he'll be buried this afternoon at 1 at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth.
A few years ago, Off-Ramp contributor Hank Rosenfeld visited Pete at his shop, and filed a surreal report, which I've dug out of the archives and present here as a tribute to a man who loved what he was did.
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It can now be told that Pete was the barber of Whitey Bulger, the fugitive mobster. Pete never knew until he saw a photo of the captured mob boss and realized, with a shock, that it was the customer who came in regularly ... and gave him a good tip every time.
