July! So many links!
Hiya gang. Keepin’ busy, or hardly working? Only a few things to take up your time this month.
Book an okay haircut here if you don’t have time to read this. You’ll be in a hurry and say “I’ll read this drivel later to tell Seth I did” and it’ll get buried and you’ll forget about me. But make like Simple Minds and Don’t You (Forget About Me). That’s a song from the 1980s. Made famous by The Breakfast Club. You know the one.
Don’t mess with the bull. You’ll get the horns.
*More on Principal Vernon below, after these important messages.
Pressing Topics of The Month
A:
I have a new work station thanks to the good people at Black Creek Developments (https://blackcreekdevelopments.com/). It’s so handsome and it’s so nice to have drawers and cabinets to have less clutter, and the colours match the vibe so well. It almost seems like it’s always been there. If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, then this should make me look a little more sane. And no, the chair is not new. Same one as always.
So, thanks Ron. You’re awesome.
2:
Broken Record
I know I’ll sound like a broken record when I say this, but… actually, wait. Something’s been bugging me. They say "broken record” to indicate something repeating itself, because when a record, or as we have to call them now, vinyl, gets a scratch, it has a tendency to jump the grooves and repeat one revolution over and over and over. But it’s not, like, broken. You can simply lift the needle and skip ahead 3 seconds. If the record were broken broken, it wouldn’t be playable. I simply won’t stand for semantics, and it just reinforces throwaway culture.
So I know I’ll sound like a scratched record when I say this, but I have an increasingly full schedule these days and I’m so grateful for you all coming back for not bad haircuts. The last few months have seen longer and longer book-out times (thanks in part to some 3-day weekends to enjoy the summer with my kids), so it’s best to plan at least a week ahead when booking. And since the next time I invade your inbox will be mid-August, the start of Back To School, it’s best I tell you now, if you’re an every-4-weeker: book July, then book August, RFN. At least book your kid in. You can wait if needed. The people at work won’t make fun of your haircut (to your face) but the kids at school will absolutely de-stroy your kid if they show up with a cut that TikTok said was a Spring trend and not a Summer trend. Are you kidding me right now-ah?! You always do this-uh! It’s so toilet! (or whatever kids say these days)
D:
Speaking of a full sked, it’s happened no less than 6 times: a client shows up for their appointment, but they’ve actually shown up a week early. When the week is full, it’ll show you the next available appointment online and suggest Thursday, and you’ll book in, but it’s the next Thursday. So please double check the date and save yourself the hassle! It’s no sweat off my nose, but I worry about your time. You work too hard already. If this happened to you, I hope you got a coffee and had some You time. You should quit your job. Go do that thing you’ve been thinking about.
And now back to Principal Vernon.
As I mentioned, we’ve all seen The Brekkie Club, right? Principal Richard Vernon, played by Paul Gleason, is made to look like the bad guy, just like all adults in 80s movies. But when you watch them now, they just seem logical. Vernon has it out for John Bender (Judd Nelson), and we’re supposed to be on Bender’s side, because he’s the main character. But Bender is, if you’ll pardon my French, a Grade A Jerk. He’s a ne’erdowell, a delinquent. We find out later that it’s because he has abusive parents (furthering my theory that crappy dads are the sole reason the world is the way it is. Be a better dad), but he’s a thorn in Vernon’s side. Sure, Dick took it a little too far when he called Bender names (like “gutless turd”) and yeah, he tried to get him to punch him, but hear me out.
Richard Vernon has a line that says “I make $31,000 a year and I have a home and I’m not about to throw it all away on some punk like you.”
So here’s the thing. I googled Inflation Calculator. $31k in 1985 is the equivalent of $80,895 in 2025. Then I searched average high school principal salary. In Alberta the salary range is $80k - $150k, ($60k-$120k in Red Deer) the provincial avg being $117,759. $80k is 25th percentile. If you search US principals, because Dick is American, a senior principal earns around $142k. The film is set in Shermer, Illinois, the avg Illinois salary is $106k.
Richard is the principal of this high school, and he works detention on Saturdays. He earns less than 75% of his peers and he can’t even get anyone else, not even a rookie teacher, to work Saturdays. He’s just bad at his job. Carl the janitor is the cool one, “the eyes and ears of this institution”. But we’re taught to think janitor is a bad job and Carl is a failure because he wanted to be John Lennon when he was 16. AT LEAST HE HAD A DREAM, VERN!
Richard: Carl, I’ve been teaching for 22 years. And each year, these kids get more and more arrogant.
Carl: Aw, bullsh!@ man. Come on, Vern. The kids haven’t changed. You have. You took a teaching position because you thought it’d be fun, right? Thought you could have summers off. And then you found out it was actually work. That really bummed you out.
Richard: These kids turned on me. They think I’m a big &#cking joke.
See? Carl is the level headed one.
We were told as kids that we didn’t want to end up a plumber, garbage man, or janitor. But now plumbers are like the highest paid trades, garbage collectors have great benefits and pay, and janitors get to work alone and be awesome. I don’t know what they get paid, and it doesn’t matter. Carl gets to rifle through kids’ lockers and read their letters.
Richard signed up for a job he was told paid well, he went to school and it turns out he’s not good at it, so he hates it. He takes it out on kids who already have a rough home life, and he is in no way helping society or today’s (or that day’s) youth. He should’ve quit a few years ago and done something meaningful with his life.
As Petey sang in his new song I Am Not A Cowboy, “the world was built for me and I did nothing in it”
PS Petey’s new album is the album I’ve been waiting for, it’s an instant classic. Listen to it on Spotify here or get it where you can. It’s called The Yips and it’s the best.
Now let’s see if I’ve covered it all. Shop news, check. Shoutout to awesome local business, check. Time wasting ramblings, check. Plugging Petey, check. I think that’s all.
Until next month,
You’re handsome, I look forward to seeing you soon.
Your Second Favourite Barber,
Seth
PS if you have benefits at work or some money to spend on yourself, you can go here, it’s like going to the gym for your brain! Do the future a favour.