'One on the sides/don't touch the back; six on the top/and don't cut it whack, Jack ...' The Beastie Boys, Mullet Head
IT'S ALMOST 11PM and I'm standing in a half-empty MTR carriage. An old lady is looking me up and down suspiciously. Two young couples are giggling behind their hands. And a besuited Westerner keeps shooting me snide looks from behind his newspaper.
As the train snakes and wobbles towards Central, a breeze caresses my mane, ruffling the short blond spikes on top and transforming the long, golden tresses flowing down my neck into a billowing bouffant. I sneak a peek at my reflection in the window. I look like a cross between Ziggy Stardust, Martina Navratilova and Dana Carvey in Wayne's World. Tonight, you see, I'm a mullet head.
Of all the ridiculous coiffures down through the ages - powdered periwigs, shock-therapy afros, pink punk spikes, beehives - none elicits such instant contempt as the mullet. Beloved by footballers, heavy-metal guitarists, country singers and the sort of people who attend monster truck shows, the mullet is suddenly everywhere. You may not know the name, but you will surely have seen the 'do'; short or cropped on top, long and luxuriant at the back.
The Prozac-popping mafiosi on The Sopranos name-check it. Jangly popsters Ben Folds Five sing about it, as do hip-hop legends The Beastie Boys. Countless Websites devoted to mullet-watching have sprung up in the past couple of years. Now, there is even a mullet Bible: The Mullet - Hairstyle Of The Gods, by Mark Larson and Barney Hoskyns (St Martins Press/Bloomsbury).
'No one is neutral about the mullet,' says Hoskyns. 'It's the hairstyle that dared not speak its name but everyone knows what it is when it's described.'
Indeed, a veritable mullet lexicon has evolved and Websites like mulletmadness.com lovingly delve into the etymology of this tonsorial travesty.