Observations in Miniature: Archaic Hairstyles

I saw the mother of all mullets last night; it stood out like a beacon to all things NASCAR. I would imagine smaller mullets would bow down to it’s alter and present it with offerings of hairspray. It was awe inspiring in its frosted length and the sheer volume of its split ends which gave the wearer the aura of a chieftain donning a magnificent headdress. Mesmerized by the sight of it I nearly drove into the gas pumps at the Seven Eleven as its owner, a forty something year old man in Nike high tops, red sweatpants, and a black Ozzy Osbourne T-shirt picked something from his teeth with a key.

For those of you unfamiliar with the mullet I will give a brief description of this archaic hairstyle. The mullet is characterized by its length in the back, which may vary from just above the shoulders to mid thigh. The sides are generally cut short, the sideburns sheered away and the top can be spiky to medium in length. Mullets can be the product of a hair dresser but often times are home jobs chopped away by an amateur Edward Scissorhands using a Flowbee Vacuum Haircut System or garden sheers. For a vivid visual picture Davy Crockett in a coonskin hat.

I realize that adults adorning mullets, women included, are generally lost causes and cannot be weaned from this misguided hairstyle. I will not however stand idly by and watch the redneck children of America, so full of life, so full of potential, be brought down by the mullet, all their hopes and dreams dashed by a reluctance of their parents to adapt to socially acceptable forms of hair styling. You wouldn’t think something as small as a mullet could change the course of a person’s life but a mullet can mean the difference between food stamps and Microsoft stock options, or living in a converted chicken coop apartment vs. a château on a lake in the south of France. Bill Clinton didn’t have a mullet but his brother Roger sported one well into the 90’s. Bill went to the White House, Roger went to jail. This is just one of many cases of siblings split by the mullet and the difference it made in their lives. I could go on…

Why is it some of us hang on to hair cuts or clothing styles of bygone eras? Ric Ocasek of the 1980’s band The Cars, one of the founding fathers of the mullet, gave up the hair style when New Wave gave way to Grunge. He knew when to “Shake it Up” and when to cut it off. I would emphatically ask the rest of America still holding onto to this distorted remnant of hair styling past to do the same because life isn’t about how long the back of your hair is compared to the front…no, really it is. I can’t pretend it isn’t, so please cut off your mullets America you’re already fifteen years late.

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