The curse of the mullet

Gather close children and let me regale you with the spooky tale of the curse of the Spanish mullet.

At first I thought that I had stumbled into some sort of disturbing joke, when, having just arrived in Spain, I notices a relatively high percentage of mullets in the population. I was given excuses relating to football (soccer for my NA readers), grew accustomed to the few guys in residence sporting the do, and went on with my life. But it doesn’t take a very observant person to notice when going out on the town, that something is horribly, horribly wrong.

Oh, I’ve seen mullets in Canada, they exist and sometimes they are referred to as “hockey hair”. You’ve probably seen them too, especially in some of the more rural regions of the country. But generally, people in Canada (and no offense if you are a mullet supporter) wouldn’t be caught dead sporting a mullet.

Not here folks. If you have a weak stomach for bad hair, I’d leave the Madrid area off your next itinerary. I suspect that much of Spain could be suspect as well. Sure it is good for a laugh whenever we see some unknowing “kid” with a pimped out mullet, and we would comment about it among ourselves, but for the most part I had no desire to say anything. But now I can stay silent no longer.

Tonight, Nenad, Pablo and I went to a club in Leganés called: La Cripta. Interesting place, nice Halloween decorations, which I’m not sure whether were a permanent motif, or something for tonight only. Definitely felt a bit old — “the music is too loud”; “do these kids’ parents know they are here?” But that has a lot to do with my personality as well. It was fairly crowded, but nothing unusual for a club-like environment. Not a huge place, but from what I could tell, every second guy in there was sporting a mullet in some form. And these folks have taken mullets to an art form. Truly the next level.

A popular theme is when they shave or buzz the hair on the sides of their head very short and have a “normal” length on top and it flows down their neck like some sort of beast. All sorts of hair types too: you have the greasy limp mullet, you have the curly mullet, and the classic teased and frizzy mullet. The winner tonight though took it all a step further and went for the gold, with the combo style of frizzy thick mane of a mullet in back, combined with what could be best described as a ridge on top. Like a faux-mohawk where you spike the center three inches of your hair from front to back and it converges upon some plane that runs atop the head. And of course, you need plenty of product for the hair, as I assume this style doubles as skull protection from competing males and wayward bullets. I wish I had a photo. I will get one at some point, not like I’m stalking a rare bird in the wild, these things will assault you when you are sleeping if you aren’t careful.

So that’s the sordid story of the Spanish mullet. As a final word to my national cohabitants: cortad vuestro pelo. Gracias.