It's time to push the issue. I'm banging my head of increasingly girly hair along to \Master of Puppets"" in order to properly vent the irritation that paces around inside me like a caged polar bear. Or should I say, I'm listening to ""Master of Mullets,"" because everyone in the band (except for Kirk Hammet's borderline perm-mutation) sure had a hell of a nice one?
If you are thinking right now about how you have to show me your book of mullets, or discuss how one time you cut your hair into a mullet or how your friend's aunt has a mullet, this one is for you.
The mullet is the most tired joke in the world. It's still funny, just like pee, poo or wieners, but not as funny as the ironical like to think. There's a conspiracy, perpetrated by New York hipsters, to keep the ironical in the dark maw of this clich??.
The mullet joke has its merits. The word sounds funny in the same way that booger sounds funny. Say it. Play the penis game with it, where you say it increasingly loudly until someone gets embarrassed or in trouble. Do it, right now in class. You dirty hussy. See, it's a funny word. The hairdo itself gets carried to hilarious extremes involving lines on the side of the head or perms. Finally, the longevity of the style, from the late '70s right up to today, is pretty funny considering the cut's total emasculation at the hands of the mysterious fashion police.
People overlook part of what makes the mullet funny. It's not just that we've all seen them and probably have a relative who used to have one, but sometimes a mullet is truly right for a person; Metallica, Razor Ramone, Bob Seger, Alan Jackson, that guy in Office Space ... these are characters who have some quality mullets working for them.
The ability to wear a mullet well is described by the ratio of a person's badassness to lack of pretense.
What inspired this column is a new CD being hawked on MTV2. It's an apotheosis of the mullet joke; an exaltation of riding the wave of wickedly shallow irony, the kind with the coral of acceptance through clich?? underneath. It's a collection of mullet rock with a cover featuring a cartoon of mulleted rockers. The commercial shows ironically clad people ironically rocking out. It's not just a joke; it's a real album available by credit card or by sending a check to a P.O. box at, you guessed it, Village Square, NY.
I suspect the friends of Gideon Yago are behind this. I'm sure they get off on listening to RATT and secretly remembering their young Rivers Coumo-shared dreams of spandex and leather glory. The friends of Yago are giggling about how they are totally going to keep the mullet joke alive and have the lesser hipsters of America sending them money to do so. Ian Roberts is fuming in the corner, oiling up his pudgy but impressive line of knuckles. Jim Shearer is eating a cookie the Mooney Suzuki gave him and saying, ""Aww, shucks guys, you're so devious."" Five young women in Chucks stand outside waiting to praise them and get taken to the hottest underground club.
They're giggling because they know the joke is played out, but others don't. It's been a few years since the last book of mullets came out. They're afraid they won't be able to hold their knowledge over all the young ironicals' heads. Something is needed to stoke the mullet fire, and the mullet rock joke album is conceived and delivered to do it.
