A Plea Among the Riff-Raff

Yesterday my fella and I were heading up to celebrate our grandboy's 16th birthday.  Traffic through the tunnel that leads to the freeway entrance was stop-and-go, so we had plenty of time to read the spray-painted tunnel walls.  Not a pretty sight.  Now don't get me wrong.  There are plenty of beautiful graffiti tags out there.  But this specific tunnel doesn't sport such a visual treat.

So among the spray-painted riff-raff, we found a pearl.  A small beautifully calligraphic plea to Bring Back the Mullet.  We were able to sit there for a bit and mull over that plea.  Bring back the mullet.  Oh yeah sure...now there was a style that needs be returned *voice fading away*

The mullet.  Yes, the mullet.  Business in front and party in the back.  We think of this style as a 1980s icon, but the beloved style dates pretty far back.  Incidents of the hairstyle were documented more than 1,400 years ago, when Byzantine scholar Procopius wrote of a craze among young Roman men in the 6th Century BCE, who sought to emulate the look of Hun barbarians by growing their hair long all around the head except across the forehead, where they kept it cut short. (here I feel so scholarly when I do this)
 
President James Polk sported a mullet. And of course every great athlete and many entertainers in the 80s gave us this look--Paul McCartney, Billy Ray Cyrus, Andre Agassi, Larry Bird, David Bowie.  The list goes on.  So the mullet is deeply ensconced in history.  

Perhaps we should simply allow the hairstyle remain as a footnote in world history.  Iran agrees.  The Iranian government banned the mullet as an acceptable hairstyle for men, claiming it was part of a "Western cultural invasion.” Barbershops were raided and serial offenders were issued steep fines.  This might be one of the few policies that Iran has created that Americans could agree. 

Others would disagree and will march to the right to wear their hair in any style that floats their boat, flips their skirt, or bounces their ball.  All-in-all I can  appreciate the small voice heard with a sweet little plea posted right there among the tagged riff-raff. 

And so it goes
peace~~~