Mullets

I was recently talking to my new friend Jossie over at Ramblings of a Semi-Literate Mind about mullets (seriously go read her blog, and then thank me for sending you there by buying me something she recommends). And I realized, not having touched on the subject here, I need to share something: I have a deep seeded obsession with mullets. A love affair perhaps. No, more like a very intense fascination. The strange way in which I am drawn to and enamored by this ungodly haircut is only trumped by just how fascinatedly interested I am in it.

Think about this for a second. Some hairstyles people have, they just have; either because their hair is straight or curly and/or they can only do a certain few things with said hair. Some people have hairstyles because they are going bald or because of a job, like how you always see clowns with a big red afro.

(Clowns, by the way, scare the bejesus out of me. I am crying right now just writing about clowns.)

But a mullet takes effort. Someone with a mullet went through a process of deciding he (or god forbid, she – oh ye of the “femullet” classification) wanted that look. He (we’ll just use “he” here or I might start crying again) actually thought, “You know what might look cool? Short hair in the front and long hair in the back. Yeah. Totally sweet/bitchin/kick ass. Gime a high five and another Miller Lite bro.”

This is a look that after deciding you want, you have to work hard to craft. To get that perfect blend of 80’s business and timeless douchbaggery is not easy – believe me, I have cut a few mullets into my own bouffant. As a goof, not for serious. C’mon. But more on that later.

And then the maintenance that goes into prepping your horrendous skullcover before you go anywhere. Aside from greasing your pervert moustache (which, let’s face it, most mullets have) you need to blow dry - but just the back! And then you need to generously apply volume-enhancing mousse to keep the coattails of your mullet firmly in place but still light and fluffy enough to able to be thrown over your shoulder whimsically with a flick of your neck. Freak.

I get it if it’s like 1985 and you play hockey or something. I mean, it was the eighties, everyone made mistakes (See: Members Only Jackets and the band Stryper). But now? A mullet?

These are also people who just want too much…

Who do you think you are? You think you can have it both ways? Business in the front and party in the rear? Really?

(Take, “party in the rear” out of context and whoa… Awesome, I know. And mature!).

Maybe it’s my science background, or the fact that I was really bored (or high) for a few years and had nothing better to do (or the ultra-maturity thing. Again) . But I spent the better part of my late teens and early twenties mullet hunting. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I killed and stuffed a bunch of real people who were unlucky enough to be rocking that haircut post-1995.

No, not really.

But I did take photos of many a mullet and kept a photo album of all the mullets I was able to capture on film. I still have the photo album, FYI.

My friends also participated and we had ourselves a nice little crew of mullet hunters. Bear in mind this was mostly back in the day when we were all following that wacky Phish band around the country, so we had the advantage of covering a ton of ground in a short period of time, and seeing some geographically diverse mullets quite often. Which is probably where the earliest forms of mullet classifications came from.

We would find mullets all over – liquor stores, concerts, malls, amusement parks, the south, Pedophiles Anonymous. Ok, I made the last one up – but only because I never went there, I bet that place is teeming with ultra-rad mullets. Seriously. And some sick moustaches too.

I just creeped myself out.

To get a quality photo of a mullet without them knowing was the key to successful mullet hunting. Most mullets are extraordinarily aggressive and can strike without much warning, blinding you with their hairspray before they attack and smothering you with their mullet hair. Icky. The trick was to find a mullet and get your friends to stand in front of or near the subject. Then you would pretend to snap a photo of your friends, but really the mullet would be the focus of the photograph. Clever right?

Well, we eventually took it up a notch when my friends had a party and we went on a mullet scavenger hunt at the Mall of America in Minneapolis (did I mention malls are great hunting grounds: food courts, As Seen On TV store, the stores where they sell those white trashy shirts with like Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian and shit, public bathrooms). There were prizes for best photo captured of a mullet, and there were even categories which I won’t go into detail about right now.

My team decided that to really come back with the best picture and win this competition, we would need to be IN the photo with the mullet. I mentioned most of these creatures are dangerous, remember? Well, being the brave team that we were, and me being the fucking outstandingly intelligent person that I am, we (more like, I) came up with a plan. I am still so proud of myself for this one.

We would approach the mullet and say, “Hey, I know this is weird, but we are all here in Minneapolis for a family reunion. And, well, we’re supposed to do this stupid scavenger hunt thing where we try and find people at random who look like members of our family. And, wouldn’t you know it – you look just like my Uncle Steve. Do you think we could get a picture with you?”

Well, guess who got a shitload of mullets to jump, willingly, smilingly into the photos with us? Yep, us.

Guess who won that mullet hunting competition?

Not us, actually. We weren’t the only ones with ideas of getting into the photos with the mullets, and one of the other teams had like a pro photographer or some shit. Whatever, it was still fun and I came away with some great pictures.

We got pictures of all kinds of mullets: Skullets (bald in front), femullets (female mullet), Kids with mullets (child abuse anyone?), Meximullets (Hispanic persuasion of mullets, also known as Mulletinos), Camaro mullets, Meth mullets, Nascar mullets. You name it. It was a very successful day for us even though we couldn’t pull out the win.

(I did have a close call though with one guy whose mullet was down to his ass, the Uber-Mullet class, and wrapped tightly with like 15 rubber bands. Amazing, I know, it looked like a tail coming out of his neck. He said no to the whole “can I take a picture with you” thing. I jumped next to him anyway and we snapped the picture. He looks very, very angry in the photo. But it was totally worth it, just for the thrill of a near death experience and being so close to an uber-mull at the same time.)

After years of mullet hunting semi-professionally and while I still had long hair but had decided to cut it, I thought I would sculpt myself a nice mullet for a while and see how it felt (in case you're wondering: really, really creepy). To really achieve a high level of mulletude, one cannot just hack away at his head fur in the mirror. No, I decided to bring in a professional.

Actually the “professional” was my roommate and he was begging me to let him be the one to cut it. But whatever.

We spent the better part of an afternoon sculpting the perfect mullet (oxymoron? You be the judge) and then shaving a killer handle bar moustache out of the beard I also had. It was a big day for hair removal, okay, I know. My friends took tons of pictures. They are hilarious - the pictures, not my lameass friends (losers) – the before and after shots are striking.

Well, the resulting “style” was more than I could bear for very long. But something did happen, and it only happened once. Ever. And it happened right after we finished the hair cutting, beard trimming and outfitting. I am not making this up...

A hot girl pulled up in front of our house to ask for directions to an intersection that I think my 3 year old nephew could find after a bong hit. My roommate (the perpetrator of the barbering) said, “Well, I don’t know where that is, but HE might.” At which point I proceeded to channel my inner douchebag, sleezeballiness and rely on the power of the mullet to talk to this looker. I leaned right into her window – mullet, moustache, sleeveless tye-dye shirt, gym shorts and all and lay it on her. Thick.

I flexed my muscles while pointing out directions, I threw my hair (mullet) over my shoulder a few times, I even asked her if she liked my “ponytail”. (I stole that from a mullet that referred to his mane as a ponytail.)

She laughed at me. Expectedly. But who is she to assume things about me and my luscious haircut/moustache combo? How did she know that’s not just how I look? I warned her that real mullets would not appreciate her laughing at them, laughing right in their face no less. And let her off with a stern warning and good story for her pals back at the “I’m directionally retarded home for women.”

The second mullet I wore was for Halloween several years later. It was essentially a repeat of the first (my hair had grown back out, and was again cut into a mullet. I added a variation of the handlebar moustache as well. See a pattern yet?). The difference this time was that I dressed in an old, green track suit and wore fake gold chains. I was “that guy” AKA “The Wad” for Halloween that year. Classic stuff. My girfriend at the time was so repulsed she could barely look at me, and wouldn't kiss me all night. Literally, it was awful. Not getting laid on Halloween when you're single, I get (welcome to this year. Zing! ), but when you go home and sleep in the same bed as your girlfriend who is dressed as Hot Pocahantas? Well that, my friends, is a recipe for some frustrated Blue Balls.

Anway, I figured I owed you guys a post about something near and dear to me, since the rest of this blog so far has been mostly about going to the bathroom and watching TV. I may or may not post pics, I’m not yet sure about how I feel about putting pictures of myself up here. Not than anyone reads this (or do they? Anyone there? I didn’t think so), but I am a frightening sight to see. If I put a picture of me on here, not to mention a picture of me with a goddamn mullet, it would scare people away and likely require several years of counseling if anyone looked directly at it.

So, next time you’re bored go to the mall/amusement park/public bathroom/trailer park and find some mullets to take your own photos of. But be careful, they do not like to be approached by humans.

Otherwise, get your friends to cut a mullet into your head while they take pictures of you.

Good luck and Godspeed.