Saturday, July 11, 2009

Don’t Mullet Hate. Congratulate!



It's one thing to appreciate mullet humor ("Business in the front, party in the back!"). But it's another animal entirely to be the unintentional recipient of one.

I knew that no good would come of my new haircut as I watched "Cindy" use a razor to hack through the thick terrain of my hair for longer than what seemed necessary. I simply sat still and watched the swaths of darkness fall, fall, fall, onto the cold linoleum.

My inner optimism whispered incessantly: "Maybe after she adds product, and dries it, and straightens it everything is going to be just fine!"

But it wasn't, because when all was said and done and paid for, I emerged into the daylight with a fucking mullet, looking like a soccer Mom heading to my Honda Odyssey to pick up the kids from the babysitter.

[There's nothing disparaging about being a soccer Mom, obviously. But, I'm not one, not now, and I disagree with looking the part before I am the part.]

The mullet is not a new phenomenon, although the southern portion of this country is entirely responsible for its current death grip on certain American subcultures, as well as its exportation overseas.

According to Plague of the Mullet, a website dedicated to utter annihilation of the mullet, the Great Sphinx of Giza, over 4,500 years old, is the first monument depicting a figure (technically a human/lion hybrid) with the royal Egyptian hairdo of choice -- unbelievably, the mullet. Other noteworthy civilizations, such as the Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks all favored the mullet (automatic sunblock for the back of the neck?). I have no idea whether any broads within these cultures sported the popular cut as well, or if they had a greater degree of sense and style.

It wasn't until the 60's and 70's that the mullet began to show its fugliness more prominently in the U.S., although it mostly hibernated in the south until it exploded nationwide in the 1980's (I haven't yet uncovered who or what is to blame).

The site also mentions notable writers, philosophers, and celebrities who have at some point favored business in the front and a party in the back. Plague of the Mullet blames Samuel Taylor Coleridge's unfortunate hairstyle on opium abuse and a bad marriage. In his defense, his hair obviously did not stop him from founding the Romantic Movement along with that slacker William Wordsworth, and writing The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and freaking Kubla Khan.

Other notable mulleters have included Christopher Guest (did mullet magic have something to do with the greatness that is This Is Spinal Tap?), The Incredible Hulk, Joan Jett (still, actually), David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust days, and we can't forget MacGyver.

As for my mullet, it will grow. There's no mental or physical state, in this dimension or any other, in which I can be convinced to intentionally wear a mullet. Not even on Halloween.

[I will concede that it is much better than the horrendous perm (chastity belt) I sported back in high school.]

In the meantime, I'm going to throw on some mullet-influenced glam rock and enjoy the party in the back.

4 comments:

  1. I must say that you seem to be taking death by haircut really well. Does this mean you'll continue to sport the historically significant style through the summer?

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  2. Don't hate on Christopher Guest! He did get Jamie Lee Curtis for a wife.

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  3. Funny enough, as you were posting this, I was at the Joan Jett concert two blocks away...the mullet was mangnificent!

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  4. This post isn't complete without a picture.

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