Mulling over mullet again

[AAllan at AOL.COM]

Metro, Silicon Valley's weekly newspaper, in its January 18-24 2001 issue has
this article:

Hair-Raising History

  From Neanderthal man to the Beastie Boys, the legendary mullet boasts a
long evolution with roots confused by its elusive etymology

By Mary Spicuzza

  THE MULLET PHENOMENON proves once and for all that a visionary musical trio
known as the Beastie Boys were  cultural watchdogs far ahead of their time.
Long before the web birthed its sites devoted to mullet mania, the Beasties
released "Mullet Head," a 1994 B-side single celebrating the bad-hair legend
of the '80s. Besides paying homage to bad hair legends like Joey Buttafuoco,
Kenny G and Van Damme, Beastie Boys Mike D, AdRock and MCA even provide a
mullet-making formula with the lyrics, "Number 1 on the side and don't touch
the back/Number 6 on the topand don't cut it wack, Jack."
  The Beastie Boys magazine, Grand Royal, also devoted an entire issue to bad
hair, beginning with the prophetic words, "There's nothing quite as bad as a
bad haircut. And perhaps the worst haircut of all is the cut we call 'The
Mullet.'" And mullet history was made.
  "A while back we got a letter from the Oxford English Dictionary saying
that we had the first printed use of the word [to describe bad hair]," Grand
Royal staffer Ian Rogers boasts. . . .

The whole article is on the Web at
http://www.metroactive.com:80/metro/cover/mullet2-0103.html

- Allan Metcalf