Fashion Anarchist, Mulling the Mullet, Pondering the Pointy
A reflection on accidental fashion, science fiction grooming, and the best haircuts I ever had.
Warning: This is a long post that I probably should split into three+ parts. Oh well.
I have never had Star Burns
Fashion Anarchist
I’m not cool. Not even close. Much of my wardrobe came from two sources: thrift shops, and clothes I took from anarchist Professor Howard J. Ehrlich after his passing, when his estranged wife invited me to go through his closet. The rest is a weird mix of local makers, vintage (especially Depop finds), and the two mainstream brands I buy—Uniqlo and Lululemon. Still, today, I’m here to talk fashion.
Fashion has never been my passion. It’s more like an accidental hobby. I like vivid, unique colors—something most stores have abandoned. The heyday of American Apparel and neon Uniqlo racks is long gone, replaced by grayscale everything. I wear a visible compression stocking on one leg—not for style, but for circulation. People think it’s a nod to NBA players. It’s not. But the loss of color and “long socks” (leg sleeves) are topics for the next fashion reposts. (ex: https://uxmag.com/articles/why-is-the-world-losing-color ).
My look usually shifts with my music mood—grungier some days, more put-together others. Baggy hip hop fits, tight raver gear, dark metal. You could call me a poser or a chameleon. I’m fine with either. I’m me.
Yes, I own a pair of Crocs with punk-spike Jibbitz. Yes, I have a vintage Rocko’s Modern Life shirt that two different exes tried to steal. Yes, I think a bit too much about lost, stolen, or discarded hoodies and kimonos stolen by exes, and other items, like the DJ Designer Drugs “steroid tank” or my long-lost ‘(Nelson) Mandela tessellation dashiki.’ And yes, I own six cheap watches and not one fancy piece of jewelry, despite my mom being a jewelry seller.
In Israel, I remember when everyone wore horizontal stripes. That slimming design was everywhere. Today, Tel Aviv’s aesthetic is often described as “hipster” or “homeless-adjacent,” but I think the real signature look is oversized tops. I go for them too—partially because I like the breeze, partially because my arms don’t fit into tight sleeves. I’m short, but depending on the cut, I can wear anything from a small to a large.
Tel Aviv fashionistas
Today, I’m not talking shirts. I’m talking hair.
I’ve gone through a lot of hairstyles over the years, but none resonate quite like the mullet. It just works. Business at the front, party pillow in the back. The opposite of (dread)locks, which I found to be like sleeping on a coiled up hose. Last year, I learned that the Beastie Boys actually helped popularize it—not by rocking one, but by writing many essays about the hip new cut in their zine, Grand Royal. I decided to transcribe that legendary piece so people could actually read it, not just squint at grainy JPEGs from the ’90s. It’s a masterpiece of self-aware grooming anthropology. It is also far from PC.
Lately, I’ve also been shaving my sideburns into pointier shapes, sometimes separating them entirely from my beard and letting the acute angles stand on their own. Maybe it makes me look like a Miami club promoter, an Armenian jeweler, or both. I’m just a nerd. It’s an homage to Star Trek. Forward-facing, triangular sideburns are an underrated style choice. People are such squares. They never caught on in the mainstream—maybe that’s why I like it.
I like to dress different. There’s something especially normal about being un-normal.
Below, you’ll find two articles. One is the legendary Beastie Boys essay, Mulling Over the Mullet. I had to manually transcribe it because AI failed me. It was a nightmare task. [Comment if I made mistakes, but some extra line breaks were added for readability.] The other is a short piece on the unexpected backstory behind Star Trek’s signature sideburn style. Hopefully someone writes a more comrepehensive article on these sideburns. Whether you’re a fashion anarchist, a barber, or just a nerd like me, I hope you enjoy.
Note 1: I was originally going to write something on club culture and Carri Munden, the designer behind Cassette Playa. However, it became apparent while following her in 2023/2024 that she is a Hamas supporter and a bigot who hates Jewish people. So maybe I’ll need to follow up with an article on the great fashion from the most bigotted people of the 1930s and today!
Note 2: I need to write about Star Trak Entertainment, Pharrell Williams / The Neptunes / NERD label with homages to Trek. I have a feeling they will make a comeback.
Note 3: “Tonsorial” means “relating to hairdressing.”
[Page 44] MULLING OVER THE MULLET
An Essay on Tonsorial Taste by the Editors of Grand Royal
There's nothing quite as bad as a bad haircut. And perhaps the worst haircut of all is the cut we call "The Mullet." You know the one we’re talking about, the catastrophic coiffure Creem magazine once called the "Bram Tchaikovsky '79 Cut." But you probably know it by another name. Indeed: "Hockey Player Haircut," "Soccer Rocker," "Guido," "Bi-Level," "Shag," "Neckwarmer," "Ape Drape," "Sphinx," "Hack Job," "Lobster," "Mud Flap," "B&T" (Bridge and Tunnel), "River Cut" (as in Colorado River), "Beaver Cut" (as in safe from parental/institutional disapproval), "Boz" (from Brian Bosworth), "Schlong" (Short on the sides, Long in back), "S&L Crisis," and "Long Island Iced Tease” are only a smattering of the synonyms for the Mullet that we came across in our extensive research for this article. Some, like the Floridian slang "Butt Cut," were strictly regional and sometimes inaccurate (Butt Cut, for example, used to refer to parting your hair in the middle).
In any event, there are undoubtedly several other monikers for the Mullet that we’re unaware of, so feel free to send us any additional aliases you may have, and we’ll print them in the next issue.
In the meantime, sit back and enjoy our following presentation on the history, mystery, and meaning of… The Mullet.
[Page 45] THE ETYMOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF THE TERM “MULLET”
We’re not sure where the term “Mullet” came from, but as usual Mike D was the first to use it around here. The New College Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary defines mullet as “any of various fishes of the family Mugilidae,” so it’s possible that Mike was mistaken and actually thinking of a “muskrat,” which of course is the same large, aquatic, North American rodent, Ondatra zibethica, having a musky odor,” immortalized in Captain and Tennille’s 1976 hit “Muskrat Love.” After all, the muskrat, in Webster’s words, has a thick, light brown fur used especially for women’s coats; and certainly such a pelt conjures up an image of the lower-echelon mammalian page-cut indigenous to modern Mullets.
Resident Grand Royal amateur etymologist Dr. C. Warren Fahy notes in Mike’s defense, however, that the mullet fish basically has no neck, and a fish rots from the neck down, so this may be where the slang derives from, especially since most human Mullet Heads achieve this same effect via excessive hair and musculature. Then again, Mr. D. may have been thinking of the more obscure definitions from Webster’s New International Dictionary, second edition, 1932, which states that on the one hand, “mullet” was originally a verb meaning “to curl or dress the hair,” and a noun referring to “the small pincers used to curl hair.” (For a more in-depth look at its origin, see Dr. Fahy’s following ancient history of the Mullet.)
TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE MULLET
Conceptually, the Mullet is as much a state of mind as it is a haircut. It is possible, therefore, to not have a Mullet but be a Mullet Head (e.g. Phil Collins and O.J. Simpson), just as it is possible to have a Mullet but not be a Mullet Head (e.g. Graham Parker and Thurston Moore). Technically, the Mullet is several haircuts in one. “The best of both worlds,” as Rollerderby once put it.
For kids, it’s the ultimate Woodstock II ‘do: new wave on top, a bit b-boy on the sides and rock steady in back. The Mullet is also favored by those adult personages who wish to kick out the jams weekends but stay out of jams on weekdays. From their nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday grind (where the back can be hid in the shirt collar or ponytailed out of sight and mind), to the Saturday morning tailgater/football game (where alumni appreciate the bangs being out of their eyes and the sides above their ears), to the Eagles concert later that night (where you can literally let your hair down), to church and Sunday brunch at the Sizzler (where others are morally obliged to let you do your thing), the Mullet Head is never ill at ease.
In short—or rather, in both short and long—the Mullet is the only hairstyle that allows the post-modern square to live a full life with his parents’ approval. In this sense, the Mullet is truly PG-rated. The question is, does PG stand for Parental Guidance or Poor Guy and Poor Gal?
THE BRUTAL TRUTH ABOUT THE MULLET
Given that the Beastie Boys have gone so far as to write a song called “Mullet Head” (featuring Adrock’s first-ever guitar solo, no less), it’s safe to say that we at Grand Royal are obviously Mullet-heads. Perhaps even that we provide, as derogatory as it might seem, our lives would definitely be lacking without the Mullet. While most people say “another day, another dollar,” we say “another day, another Mullet,” as each new dawn brings with it the promise of another Mullet sighting. We openly engage in this pursuit because we’d like to think that our obsession with the Mullet is a salute to the most entertaining manifestations of the everyday world—i.e., a harmless commentary on other people’s mundane hair appearances into our own entertainment.
Now you might ask, “Don’t these creeps have anything better to do than to make fun of other people’s haircuts?” And the answer is yes and no. Yes, we have a shitload of stuff going on at any given moment, between putting out a magazine, running a record label and being in a band, but no, we don’t have anything better to do than scrutinize other peoples’ hairstyles if, as in this case, that hairstyle threatens the very fabric of the free world. For what was all that World Cup hypola last year but a thinly beiled conspiracy to gas soccer up as our new national sport and saturate the domestic marketplace with a new breed of Mulletized action figures? And for that matter, how “free” can the “free world” be when the so-called Leader of the Free World, Bill Clinton himself, used to have something dangerously close to a Mullet (while his kid brother Roger to this day maintains a full blwon bilevel perm)? As Grand Royal staff chrome-dome Wendell Fite would say: You figure it out.
THE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS OF THE MULLET
While the picture-perfect Mullet requires an Aryan, straight-as-a-door head of hair, many different people of many different ethnicities can and do sport Mullets that are just as vivid and pure as the peoples themselves.
First off, let us not forget the Female Mullet, initially popularized in the post-modern era, as Dr. Tamra Davis points out, by Suzanne Pleshette on The Bob Newhart Show and Florence Henderson in The Brady Bunch, the “Femullet” was later perfected by tomboy tennis pro Martina Navratilova, both on the court and off (i.e., in the dyke bars). In fact, the Mullet is one of the most popular looks among lesbians, a diabolical irony given that those women who are least interested in men are invariable drawn to the most atrocious male hairstyle. Again, you figure it out. The gay male Mullet, by the way, has become virtually extinct after being momentarily in vogue amongst the perennially with-it homosexual populace during its glam-rock heyday (see "The Origin of the Modern Mullet").
Black people have Mullets, too. In fact, some of our best friends are black people with Mullets. The one Ice-T had in that movie with Judd Nelson was particular fierce, as was the literally cartoonish cut that Bishop from the X-Men comic book used to have. Of course there’s always the rare but deadly Dreadlocked Mullet, a look last seen on the now-defunkt wet-suit wearing combo Living Colour, and most likely the reason Lee Perry once remarked that “dread fuck up as far as far as I’m concerned.” Probably the best-known Black Mullet is the Jheri Curl Mullet” or “Poodle Cut” long preferred by pro basketballer Michael Cage and eventually appropriated by your boy Jean Claude Van Damme. The Poodle Cut's female cousin, the “Braided” or “Pepa” Mullet, originally inspired by Bo Derek by way of Rick James, has actually become such a problem in most major cities that a Congressional Subcommittee recently opened an inquiry into the matter (see above photo).
[Image has caption ‘Yo Yo ctr) and author Nelson George (rt) during Senate haearings on the Mullet]
Hispanics, meanwhile, have arguably had more impact on the evolution of the Mullet than any other single group other than the Northern Europeans towheads who bequeathed this bane of manes upon us in the first place. The Mullet is virtually indigenous to Native, Central and South Americans; the great Inca, Aztec and Mayan tribes most likely perfected the Mullet before their civilizations were—not coincidentally—overthrown. More recently, New York City Puerto Ricans and their cholo brosnationwide have directly contributed to the rise of the modern Mullet through their insistence on growing a Daniel Boone racoon tails off the back of their heads while cutting the rest of the hair a consistent length (a particularly heinous fashion crime which they encourage even toddlers to commit).
Our Asian bretheren are by no means immune to Mullets, either. Throughout greater Los Angeles and most other major metropolitan areas, Japanese wannabes, Vietnamese fashion victims, Filipino punks, Korean teens and the Chinese mob can all be seen strutting about with their preposterous so-called “Parrot” cuts, distinguished by an excessively spiked Rod Stewart top coupled with a black velvet drape effect in the back.
And finally, a message for our so-called “hair deprived” friends out there: take pride in the fact that badling guys like Karl Lagerfeld have for years contributed directly to the Mulletization of the masses byshamelessly growing and ponytailing what little they had, regardless of the ramifications this might have on other’s retinas. To be sure, some of our most gruesome and toothsome cultural icons are closet hate pales with might-as-well-be-Mullet wigs (Dick Clark, Ted Danson, Captain Kirk), or pattern cases who use the remains of their Mullet as a host for their “new w(e)ave” hair…
[Page 46] (Bono) or unabashedly bald beings who let their sides grow to alarming length (Eno). Then there are those pathetic, any-day-now terminal cases like Michael Bolton, who’s thinning in front almost as fast as he’s thickening out back. So don’t fret! You too can enjoy the thrill of the Mullet, without the pain and ignominy of Rogaine, plugs, transplants, extensions or Sy Sperling and Mike D reminding you that they’re also a member.
THE SOCIAL DEMOCRACY OF THE MULLET
Thus the Mullet does not discriminate, though it is rare to see one worn by a senior citizen of any stripe. (Note, however, that Gray Mullets, like the Charley Pride “Silver Fox” style that Entertainment Weekly editor emeritus Greg Sandow sports, are relatively prevalent due to the large number of ’60s hippies and ’70s swingers still stubbornly running around.) So don’t think that you need to have Sly Stallone’s stylized headband-Rambo pageboy or the classic porno star/pro wrestler rug in order to fully enjoy the benefits of the bi-level. Finding the right Mullet to match or adapt to any given mug requires only a certain amount of hair and a barber who’s willing and able.
Which brings up the final and most important point about the Mullet: its universality. For unlike the Warren Beatty Shampoo era fagshag, which forced men to frequent unisex hair stylists in a vain Kato Kaelin-type attempt to emulate Farah Fawcett’s feathered flipbacks, the Mullet requires but a simple operation that can be obtained virtually anywhere in America (presumptuous college towns and snooty bohemian enclaves aside).
Grand Royal Beauty and Health Editor Michelle Diamond goes so far as to assert that in the same way the Rolling Stones created a new “rock” by misinterpreting the Blues, so the Mullet may have been born when a midwestern youth brought his shopping mall barber a picture of Rod Stewart and told him to get to work. In an attempt to falsify this theory, we sent Grand Royal Media Assistant Bob Mack to a Hollywood Supercuts and had him say, “make me look like Billy Ray Cyrus.’” (See “You Too Can Be a MulletHead” for the disconcerting result.)
THE ORIGIN OF THE MODERN MULLET
Technically, the Mullet has always been with us, as you can see in Dr. Fahy’s timeline, but the origins of the modern Mullet are traceable to that point in time where the demise of the hippie era coincided with the first rumblings of the glam rock/punk revolution.
As Richard Corson points out in Fashions in Hair: The First Five Years, “the revolution in men’s hair styles had begun in the 1960s with a rebellion against short hair. Then, in the early ‘70s, some of the avant-garde rebelled against long hair and cut their hair short.”
As usual, the avant-garde caught the rest of us off guard, and as a result, all the sheep who had grudgingly bought into the hippie world view and spent a couple years growing their hair long were all of a sudden uncool. Entertainers and athletes—always the first to spot trends—contributed to the problem by either artificially curling their excess tresses into “perms,” or leaving their hair long in back but cutting it elsewhere, as did former Dallas Cowboy Golden Richards, who was more famous for letting his long yellow locks flow out the back of his helmet than he was for catching passes.
You can imagine the confusion among laymen and women: “Should I cut my hair short again? Should I keep it long? Maybe I’ll get a perm like Barbara Streisand and Mac Davis?” Hmm, maybe I’ll just cut a little off the front and take some off the sides…”
This dilemma only intensified when punk rock finally formalized what glam had only hinted at, i.e., a complete rejection of the longhair esthetic (though this too was complicated further still by punks like the Ramones who didn’t exactly have the haircuts correct).
Quite simply, the compromise that arose out of this conflict was the Mullet, pretty much as we know it today. Take, for example, the case of Led Zeppelin. In 1976, after Presence was released, they were still as unrepentant in their unkemptness as they’d always been. By 1979, however, with the release of In Through The Out Door, the full effect of the punk revolution had manifested itself in the band’s new wave look. While none of the members were exactly rocking Mullets, even drummer John Bonham had finally agreed to lose the headband, cut his bangs and exchange the pontytail for barely shoulder-length strands. Though it would be another five years before second-generation Zeppelins like Rush began transmitting a distant early warning to their easily impressionable fans, the history of hair and the very nature of the male psyche had been drastically altered forever. Beginning with Rush’s five-night stand at Radio City Music Hall in September 1983 (where Geddy Lee debuted his Mullet), it was only a hop, skip and a jump to such later ’80s phhenomena as Red-Rocks era Bono, New Jersey nerf metal, L.A. sham glam, Keifer Sutherland in the Lost Boys, Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, Lou Reed, Richard Marx, The Oakland A’s and, and as though the ’90s never started, the Philadelphia Phillies.
THE ONCE AND FUTURE MULLET
Whither the Mullet? Alas, if only it would whither away and die. But of that there is little hope. To be sure, Richard Marx and several of the Philadelphia Phillies have foresaken their Mullets for more manageable, less mangy hair, as has heavy metal mascot Rikki Rachtman, Faith No More bassist Billy Gould and tennis brat Andre Agassi, among others (see our E-Z-Read Before-And-After Comparo Chart below). It was also encouraging to see that Italian soccer players with the absurd, braided Pepa Mullet botch his free kick and thereby give the World Cup to Brazil.
Then again, lifelong Mullet Heads like construction-worker-turned-Liz Taylor beard Larry Fortensky have jockeyed their way into the very “Corridors of Power.” And to paraphrase P.T. Barnum, there’s a Mullet born every minute. The most recent celebrity to succumb is probably James Hetfield of Metallica, who must have become tired of being told that he ooked like The Cowardly Lion because he’s gone and borrowed the burly Paramilitary Mullet long developed by bandmate Jason Newsted (who, in turn, has cut his hair normally). So while entire Mullet genres like Motley Crüe-esque femme metal male have died off, whole new subcultures have mushroomed int heir place—like cyberpunk, which unfortunately has very little to do with punk, at least as far as hair goes. In particular, one of the foremost sci-fi authors of our day, Bruce Sterling, has what eminent futurologist Dr. Erik Davis admits is “an egregious Mullet.”
Which means it’s basically up to You—the next, not the “X” generation. Only you can ensure that this menace is eradicated so that in the future what is hair today will be gone tomorrow.
[Image of REFORMED MULLET HEADS: top to bottom: Rikki Rachtman, Andre Agassi, Todd Marinovich and Bishop come clean]
[Page 47]
Ancient History of the Mullet
As early man stood erect, hair receded, distinguishing the head as a totem of humanity. Unfortunately, whoever discovered the wheel had a Mullet.
By Dr. C. Warren Fahy, Mullet Institute of Technology
There are an average of 100,000 follicles of hair on the human head. Men and women have shaved, braided, tapered, dyed, matted, and teased them for thousands of years, and yet the exact phenomenon known as the “Mullet” was not struck upon until quite recently.
Indeed, if all of human history were reduced to one episode of “I Love Lucy,” the Mullet would not make its cameo until the placard reading “A Desilu Production” appeared on the screen.
That said, numerous precursors of the Mullet have dogged our halting march toward civilization since the dawn of time. Occasionally called the “Ape Drape,” the Mullet has its roots in prehistory, when humankind was covered with hair. So although Neanderthal Man had no blowdryers, mousse sets or permanent hair-kinking techniques, he did have a complete ignorance of personal hygiene. This, coupled with prolonged exposure to the elements, created a primitive Mullet of sorts.
Eventually humankind branched off into its more hirsute cousins in our family tree: the neck lengthened, the frame grew more erect and the cranium expanded. Once the increasingly sophisticated mind inside the head became conscious of the untamed primordial tresses atop the head, the haircut was born..
Since Oriental Man eschewed excess hair early on, Mullet epidemics are few and far between in Asian history. Western Civilization, on the other hand, has been much hairier and is therefore where we begin our search for origins of the modern Mullet.
Lesser civilizations and tribes used hairstyles to identify friend or foe. The Hittite warrior in figure 1 dates from 1500 B.C., while figure 2 shows a member of the Moabite tribe from Biblical times with skinhead and hippie sensibilities served on the same pate.
An Egyptian official in 700 B.C. wore the mane-like wig favored by this most ancient, animal-worshipping civilization (figure 3). By the time Rome conquered Egypt in 200 A.D., Egyptians like the one seen in figure 4 were forced to discard their wigs and wear short hair.
In Greece during the sixth century B.C., vestiges of the primordial persisted in hairstyles of the youth (figure 5), but by the end of that century, short hair was in and the Golden Age was born (figure 6).
Greco-Roman civilization looked down on androgynous hairstyles. Men wore their hair short; women wore it long. When the Romans conquered Gaul and Britain, they dispatched barbers to crop the hair of the vanquished barbarians. This created a festering acrimony in the hearts of the conquered Mullet Heads, who eventually grew their hair back, sacked Rome and ushered in the Dark Ages.
After the Fall of Rome in 476 A.D., the Church createdconfusion by requiring monks to shave the top of their skulls and weave the shorn locks into beastly hairshirts. Important men like Charlemagne (742–814 A.D.) said to hell with this noise and grew their hair as long as they liked, as did the dreaded Visigoths, Vikings and other “Mullitia” who held feral sway over this importunate era.
Not until the Renaissance were medieval styles replaced by resurrected classical values, but while the newly emerging middle class embraced this revival, the ruling classes again clung to the Mullet. Thus the newfound wealth of nations only produced more elaborate Mullet variants in the elite salons of Europe, and by the seventeenth century, in pre-Revolutionary France, we encounter the first example of an entire culture succumbing to pre-Mullet sensibilities.
The wild and wooly constructions in figures 7 and 8 required unsurpassed fussing and maintenance, virtually forcing the French to invent the guillotine.
Other European aristocracies copied the French, but eventually the common man revolted against these bully Mullets, and short hair, at long last, came back in vogue with the Age of Enlightenment.
Today, only the traditional English judge’s wig and das dude from the Scorpions (figures 9 and 10) survive as reminders of the Golden Age of French Mullets.
In America, meanwhile, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (figures 11 and 12) wore austere ponytails, mostly out of politeness to the Mullet-mad European powers they disdained. And with the emergence of close-cropped hotheads like Thomas Paine, America declared its independence and the Mullet was left for dead.
Alas, long live the Mullet. Like a hair plucked from the head, its dormant root resprouted in the New World, where the frontier spread men wide and civilization thin.
By the early 1800s, the lawlessness of the Wild West and the Native American inclination toward the Mullet led to the extremely modern bi-level worn by Buffalo Bill, as well as other eccentricities like the coonskin caps.
As the twentieth century approached, moppy hairstyles like those of Andrew Jackson and Mark Twain became common along with bushy beards, muttonchop whiskers and the cookie duster mustaches later worn by Teddy Roosevelt.
Finally, in the mid-1800s, the American hotelier Hiram Ricker busted out what appears to be the first true Mullet (figure 13). The feathered tresses framing his face, however, were simply an enormous accumulation of whiskers, an effect later popularized by Union officer Ambrose Burnside and sci-fi author Isaac Asimov (figure 14). Ricker’s “weepers,” as he called them, would eventually cause tears aplenty by paving the way for Michael Bolton et al.
With the advent of the electric light and camera came clean-cut hairstyles which were ubiquitous throughout the first half of the twentieth century. By the late ’50s, it was a battle between crewcuts and grease to see which could provide better control over human hair. Then, even as civilized man vowed to reach the moon, a sleeping giant woke and reared its hairy head…
[Page 48] "I Was a Twenty-Something Mullethead for a Day"
By Michael Diamond
11:00 AM: Spike and I let our fingers do the walking (that’s 70s speak for checking the Yellow Pages) and decide on Hollywood Wigs on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. We are reassured that the Mullet wig is in stock when the woman on the phone says, "Ohhh, the shag!"
12:00 PM: Depart for Hollywood dressed in vinyl trousers and listening to KNAC to get into the right mood. This leads us to our first and most important Mullet discovery of the day: Smashing Pumpkins are in fact a heavy-metal band, and KNAC is nothing more than a heavy-metal tribute to the already heavily alternative KROQ. We’d bargained for some Priest and Sabbath but got Al tone Gossard’s Pilots instead.
12:30 p.m. Arrive at Hollywood Wigs, purchase light brown shag and obtain custom Mulletization from perplexed Asian proprietor. Only after repeated requests to look like Billy Ray Cyrus does resident barber cut sides to desired length.
1:00 p.m. Pull up to Musicians Institute of Technology, aka Mullet Institute of Technology, just as classes are letting out. With glue in box in tow, I muster the courage to mingle with students and initiate conversation by asking how the school is. Student Mullet Number One asks me what style of guitar I enjoy playing. I respond, “Rock, riffs, licks, you know,” while looking at ground. Then I ask if the school is very expensive and he confirms that “it’s expensive, but I’m doing it all on loans. I’m paying for it later.”
Next I ask if it’s hard, and he states somewhat cryptically that “anyone can get in, but it’s hard to get out. By the time you reach the third level, it’s very difficult unless you have theory.” He pauses and then asks if I have any theory. I sheepishly but honestly reply no. “Then I strongly suggest you get some before coming here,” he advises. Deflated, I try to mill around for a sec but soon head for Hollywood Boulevard in search of more like-minded Mullets.
1:30 p.m. Proceed to generic rock t-shirt shop on Hollywood Boulevard. Amidst row upon row of black Cypress Hill, Pantera and Megadeth merch, we overhear our favorite Mullet quote of the day: “What I like to do is overdub a bunch of tracks of my leads first, and then I do my vocals.” We’re not exactly sure what that means, but we definitely agree that it’s awesome.
2:30 p.m. Following an uneventful lunch at heavy metal Denny’s, where no significant Mullet sightings can be reported, we head for Aron’s Records in hopes of getting dissed by the high-brow indie-rock cashiers by buying a Joe Satriani box set. Unfortunately, we soon realize that there are way too many Mullet Heads and assorted Hollywood freaks already frequenting the place for management to be fazed by our appearance. I do, however, earn bonus points for sporting DGC A&R honcho Mark “Kate” Kates and conspicuously brushing up against him with my gig bag while sifting through the bins. At first mildly annoyed and then positively terrified, Kates mumbles away with increasing alarm before retreating to the back wall of the store, where I finally corner him and brandish a “demo tape” of “my band.” Kates begins to bolt, but upon closer inspection recongizes and curses me. I finally go to the counter, ask for new Smashing Pumpkins and am mortified to find that the sales-people are more than happy to offer me assistance. (Reached for comment later, Kates revealed that “all I could think was, ‘Git!’ I know it’s been a few years, but this is still L.A. and there are a lot of these guys around. They make me uncomfortable.”)
3:30 p.m. After a quick stop at K-Mart to pick up some more Mullet haberdashery, we arrive at Mullet Mecca: The Guitar Center on Sunset. We bow in front of Eddie Van Halen’s autographed guitar in the front window and enter the same shrine where some of the most important Mullets in history have shopped. I test-drive several different Flying Vs, but when Spike’s wig becomes entangled in his camera’s motor drive, suspicion is aroused.
The store manager walks over and asks us if he can help us with something. We try to keep a straight face and say that we’re just looking for a “gnarly tool.” He then asks us what we really want, and we use the traditional “we’re not from around here” excuse, claiming to be students from out of town in search of only a few snapshots at the world-famous G Center. So why were we putting on wigs and changing our outfits in the parking lot, he asks. We realize that our time as Mullet Heads is almost up.
4:00 p.m. Return to studio for rehearsal in my Fletch disguise, which fools hotel Attack Man for a good five minutes. Following rehearsal (during which Chris Rock compliments my phony Air Jordans), I’m dragged to a chi chi Hollywood Hills shindig with my wife, Tamra, who soon becomes buttonholed in conversation with James Woods.
“Who is the long-haired gentleman that came with you tonight?” the notorious thespian asks with a hint of smirk, but is visibly dismayed (and Tamra even more visibly embarrassed) when she is forced to admit, “It’s my husband.”
I continue partying on till the wee hours while facing the wrathful snarls of the assembled glitterati.
[Page 49] IN DEFENSE OF THE MULLET
By The Captain
I like the Mullet, though I don’t think I’ll be sporting one any time soon. I mean, being from L.A. and all, I don’t think it would work. It’s more of a cold weather cut. The Mullet works better when the air is crisp. You could rock one in San Francisco, for example, but not L.A. Still, it’s a very versatile cut. I’ve seen women rock the Mullet. Little kids. I even saw a dog with a mullet the other day—not a poodle or Mike’s dog Rufus, but an Irish Mullet hound. I think it was a local dog my buddy Pete, who’s riffin’ with his wife, said he should take his kid Calvin and get him a Mullet and a tattoo. That would shut her up!
To me the Mullet is as American as pick-up with rifle racks, tractor pulls, Wal-Mart, wet t-shirt contests, slapping your girl upside the head with a frying pan and living in the woods. In fact, I think it’s time the Mullet became the official cut of the U.S. Armed Forces. Fuck the crew cut. Crew cuts are soft. You won’t see no Mullet on Christopher Street. The Mullet is the white man’s jheri curl. Hell, maybe I will get me a Mullet after all. A Mullet, an El Camino with nitros, a six of Coors, an eight ball of meth and just ride. All time favorite Mullet? Gotta be the incredible Hulk. No question.
A QUICK Q&A WITH SCOTTY BUGATTI, REAL-LIFE MULLETHEAD
by Steve Martin (the Nasty Little Man, not the prematurely gray comedian)
Scotty Bugatti of Bayside, Queens is the real deal: a self-conscious Mullet Head. Like a modern day Hester Prynne (that’s the protagonist from The Scarlet Letter, tough guy), Scotty bears his stigma with heroic pride and resolve. Though beseeched for years by his brother to lose the Mullet, Scotty stands by his mane. “I like it. It’s kinda crazy.”
Why the bi-level? Why not just one length?
It’s the Queens Guido cut. I’m just a robot that follows. I’m immersed intheir substandard environment… Plus, it looks good for my head.
Did you ever have extremely long or extremely short hair? If so, what did you like or dislike about having it all one length?
I had a crew cut when I was really young, but it showed too much face. I had long hair when I was in high school, but it got in my eyes.
What do you say when you sit down in the barber’s chair?
”Spiked on top, don’t touch the back!”
What are the advantages and disadvantages of the bi-level?
The advantages are that it keeps my neck warm and impresses chicks with big hair. Lemme see, disadvantages… I’m mocked by people on the cutting edge of fashion… People at work have said look like a hoodlum.
Do you happen to know any other names for the Mullet?
Just the Guido Cut.
Do you ever yearn for long hair but settle for short ‘n’ long because you live at home and might upset your mother or because you might get in trouble at work?
No. I keep it this way because it’s more manageable on top. And with work, if my hair was long and all one length, I wouldn’t be taken as seriously.
[additional research by Arman Majidi (spelling???)]
YOU TOO CAN BE A MULLETHEAD
Just grow your hair for eight months, go to Supercuts, and ask for the Billy Ray Cyrus.
[Image caption: Before / After Supercut Transformation]
After talking so much talk, we felt compelled to walk some walk, so Bob let his hair grow out til he couldn’t take it no more and went to Supercuts, where he got a shampoo and custom clipjob for 13 bucks. In the ensuring two weeks he learned to live with (and to a certain extent even love) the Mullet.
Immediately afterwards I felt like a new man and posed outside Supercuts next to a Corvette in my polyester DeVito/Schwarznegger/Big Dog summershirt. Everything was fine until that night, when my friend Tracy said, “Oh my God, I’m making out with a guy with a Mullet Head.” When I saw myself in the mirror the next morning, I screamed, having forgotten what I’d done. While such shock of recognition usually occurs whenever I get a rug re-think, this was ridiculous, and for a few days afterwards I grimaced each time I saw my shadow on the sidewalk.
I felt compelled toe xplain myself to both friends and strangers, but my friends took pleasure in claiming that the Mullet looked appropriate on me, while strangers were often offended. “Whaddya mean? I think it’s sexy” said this one female friend of Ubiquitous Virge’s who only asked, “What’s so funny?” and “What’s a Mullet?” when I tried to explain. Apologizing in advance for a Mullet, therefore, is not advised, as most normal people are resigned to thinking it’s fashionable and/or attractive.
One morning I decided to tie my wet hair into a ponytail. But after only a few minutes of feeling like Steven Seagal, I envisioned my mother chasing me with a rolling pin, so I undid the rubberband and watched in dsigust as my hair flared back out into its typically leonine mess.
Since the band was gone at the time, I had to live with the Mullet for two weeks before I could show Mike. Of course, when Mike finally saw my Mullet, he said it was too long in front and too short in back, so when we all went ot Vegas shortly thereafter for the first Lollapooza show, I found the (Dutch) courage to get the top chopped and sides extra short by a black female barber (who, of course, said it looked sexy). And I would have felt sexy had not teenage whiz kid Ben Lee of Noise Addict been there, convulsing in peals of squeals. It was only after outfitting myself in Big Dog shirt, sansabelt sslax and white bucks did my Mullet begin to work social wonders. No sooner had I stepped backstage when no less an arbiter of fashion than Donovan “Nancy Boy” Leitch expressed his admiration for my entire ensemble. Thus filled with piss and vinegar, I even tried to step to Spiek “Hans Solo” Jonze, who, as you can tell from the photo, was positively regaled by my various bon mots. Naturally, my moment in the limelight was cut short as soon as I ventured out into the crowd where several teenage fans made derogatory reference tow hat they perceived as my “disco Travolta” look. When friendly arch nemesis MCA asked me if it wasn’t all getting to be a bit much, I knew the joke was getting old, especially since most people hadn’t seen the humor in the first place. So after the show, as we were hanging out in the hotel lobby, Tracy came up behind me and castrated my Mullet right then and there. Employees whispered, authorities reached for their walkie-talkies and tourists gasped as I took two handfuls of my former hair and ropped them in the trash can.
So was it all worth it and what did it all mean? No and I don’t know, but I can tell you one thing: I somehow feel less of a snob and it sure helped me get more play from Donno and Spike, not to mention better service at House of Pies.
Original link: https://www.handitv.com/stories/the-story-of-the-signature-star-trek-sideburn
Taken without permission.
The Story of the Signature Star Trek Sideburn
By H&I Staff Posted: Nov 11, 2020
As any Trekkie worth their salt is aware, the Star Trek franchise has a lot going on with their sideburn game. Having a pointed shape, most men of the Federation abide by a specific dress code regulation for their hair style.
The origin of the distinct sideburn pointiness came after filming the second pilot for the series, Where No Man Has Gone Before, which is the last episode you can find of Kirk and the crew sporting normal sidebdurns. "Normal" being a lot bushier for the 60's mind you.
With the series being picked up, Gene Roddenberry wanted the cast to commit to having a futuristic hairstyle going forward. For the sole reason of wanting a social life outside the set without having to look like men of the future, the cast disagreed.
So they compromised, giving us the sideburns we know and love today.
According to Leonard Nimoy’s autobiography, I Am Spock, it was Nimoy’s initial idea to go with the pointy look at first. While this appearance was intended for only Spock’s character prior to their compromise, Nimoy commented that the Federation’s adoption of the style was due to the Vulcans being “galactic trendsetters.”
The hairstyle would live on past the original series into the Star Trek film franchise and eventually Star Trek: The Next Generation. Michael Wesmore, the makeup designer and artist for TNG and various other Star Trek spin-offs and specials, would go on to create the “Side-Burn Bible.”
This guide was made to help illustrate the proper technique involved in styling the hair or makeup to help keep the Federation dresscode consistent and at regulation.
What do you think about the sideburn look of the future? Think you could rock it? Thankfully you won’t have to worry about this style for at least a couple hundred years.
Obligatory Simpsons GIF I almost used
That’s all for today. Enjoy the rabbit hole you go down if you decie to look into any of the things I mentioned.
