can someone explain why everyone who played hockey, lacrosse, or soccer in the late 80’s had a fucking mullet?
Young, dumb, and full of cum?
2.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
That’s probably my favorite Madness album cover.
3.
MariedeGournay
I like the painting in the back. It’s like he’s part of the gang.
4.
Bill ORLY
Do you mean 1988-1989? You aren’t that young. To be fair, I had the same haircut and shirt.
5.
lamh35
White boys and their mullets. I seriously would like to know who was the very first person who ever were a mullets and go back in time to punch em in the throat.
Where I’m from white guy + mullets = redneck. Were you a redneck frat boy John C
6.
lamh35
Deleted…duplicate????
7.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
You were in the Jewish fraternity? Gotta say, I didn’t see that coming!
8.
pragmatism
The mullet is the perfect counterbalance to pegged jeans. It’s a yin yang thing.
9.
jharp
You have lost a lot of hair.
10.
Mark S.
What are you drinking, Johnnie Walker straight out of the bottle?
Also, isn’t it circa 1988-89? I’m just trying to get the Cole chronology straight.
11.
Keith G
Looks like the guy in the red shirt was fixing to spew on your shoes.
12.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Mullets are the hairstyle of choice for guys who are too afraid to grow it all out and be a hippie.
You look like you are expressing a serious opinion in that pic. ;)
13.
desertflower
OMG! My son plays lacrosse and he wouldn’t be happy with that picture:)They all shave their heads now..think I’ll show him this, for a good laugh…right after he gets home from lacrosse practice! He would say you all look too “mellow” to play lacrosse.Do it with a long pole!
Did the frat have portraits of all the Board of Trustees, or just their favorites?
18.
WyldPirate
Mullets or the zipperhead were de riguer. Then you had the dreaded mullet and zipperhead combo which was simply wankerific.
19.
hhex65
Well, lacrosse & soccer weren’t really “sports” in the late 80s. They were still just activities for stoners. As for hockey, the mullet is a way to tell if your helmet is on facing the right way.
20.
Comrade Mary
Cute as a button, John. I do like how you’re gesturing. You’re obviously in mid-tirade.
At least you don’t have a rat tail to go with your acid-washed jeans.
Right? Let’s hope so.
I really have no room to talk, though. In 1988-89 I had hair big enough to see from space.
24.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Underage drinking your freshmen year in college, huh? You’re about six months younger than me, meaning we did college at the same time. It was mullet time at that time. I had one for a while in college and all I ever played was flag football. When I got out of the navy in 98 I grew one back for about a year. It was just a collective consciousness thing, kind of like wicked becoming an adjective.
25.
S. cerevisiae
Yeah, I had hair like that once upon a time plus I’m sure I had uglier shirts.
26.
khead
but can someone explain why everyone who played hockey, lacrosse, or soccer in the late 80’s had a fucking mullet?
Dude. It’s not about sports. I didn’t play hockey. Or lacrosse. Or soccer….. I played hoops.
But I had a mullet. And a ponytail.
Because that’s what white folks from WV did with their hair back then.
Mullets still exist in hockey, sadly. Ryan Getzlaf would likely kill for a mullet, in fact.
30.
pragmatism
@Cat Hair Everywhere: In a stellar display of parenting, my dad responded to my request to get a tail thusly: Do you want to look like a horse’s ass?
I thank him for that.
31.
RD
but can someone explain why everyone who played hockey, lacrosse, or soccer in the late 80’s had a fucking mullet?
Cole has already confessed elsewhere to attending summer camp as one of the Reagan Youth:
I attended summer camp with Teen-Age Republicans for several years …
So, uh … that probably answers your question.
.
33.
shortstop
Round here 99% of mullets were gone by the mid-1980s. To continue having one into the late 1980s marked someone as a resident of a state that receives more federal tax dollars than it pays in. I’m serious, but I’m also messing witcha.
Not really, I grew up in Idaho. We got the mullet with our skis at birth.
But we got better. Some of us. Maybe.
40.
Mark
John,
How about a Balloon-Juice weight loss program? I have a plan that will totally kick your ass back to 10% body fat.
41.
Sad Iron
John, it’s simple evolution–sports that require helmets resulted in the evolution of mullets. It’s a way of letting the world know that even though you need to wear a lot of protection, you’re still a Samson underneath it all. Ok, never mind.
I was thinking of a young Bill Dauterive from King of the Hill. ;)
45.
eemom
Sheeyit, I am only 8 years older than you and in that pic you look young enough to be my son.
Fuckin maths….how duz they work?
46.
JC
Are you retarded or not?
Everybody had a mullet back then.
The idea that it was specific to lacrosse is absurd.
And lacrosse and soccer were not on that same footing as hockey or football. They were a joke back then.
King of the nerds frat.
47.
MariedeGournay
@Mark S.: Only the ones known to have done a keg stand.
48.
Anonymous At Work
John,
You are confusing correlation with causation. Playing those sports didn’t make you grow a mullet. People with mullets just gravitated to those sports.
49.
Tim
“…I’d kill to be that skinny again…”
not to be the jerk, but there’s really no excuse for this sort of statement. find a C25k (couch to 5k) program, and eat a plant based, whole foods diet. soon enough you’ll be telling us how you could kick that guy’s ass.
50.
fuckwit
Who is the dude in the painting?
51.
Martin
but can someone explain why everyone who played hockey, lacrosse, or soccer in the late 80’s every fratboy in West Virginia had a fucking mullet?
T,FTFY
I went to college in southern PA about 2 years earlier. Every frat boy there had a fucking mullet as well.
You are confusing correlation with causation. Playing those sports didn’t make you grow a mullet. People with mullets just gravitated to those sports.
I don’t think it’s that simple either. I propose an autocatalytic feedback loop, in which one starts with either a short mullet or participation on one of the listed sports which the result that the other is indulged in, oscillating between the two, with increasing intensity and corresponding mullet length.
.
53.
Rawk Chawk
OMG. You had a mullet.
This explains so very, very much…
54.
Some Guy
So much to love, but I have to say, along with others who have commented on it, the mullet is awesome.
Every time I see one, I cannot help but ask myself “WTF?” I was in college in ’88 as well, that is my era too. Having lived it, I still find mullet’s a mystery. So John, I am asking why? What about that cut drew you in? I am not really judging, I promise, my own hair cuts were (are!) hardly something to be self-righteous about, but I never have understood why. It is like when you saw someone driving a Gremlin in the 70s. You just couldn’t help but wonder why.
My brother, by the way, tricked out a Gremlin with flame decals. That is no lie, you had to see it. I think it is why his life didn’t turn out. Psychic scarring and such.
55.
Fordpowers
Oh that’s just fuckin embarrassing
56.
Violet
Awesome photo. Takes me right back to college. Who’s the old guy in the painting?
57.
FlipYrWhig
1988-89 was my freshman year of college, and I looked pretty much exactly like this, and I’m from New Jersey. The mullet wasn’t a regional thing or a class thing. It was EVERYWHERE. Feathered, layered, parted in the middle. It was metal, it was jock, you can’t stop it, you can only hope to contain it.
Also that year I met the woman I would marry. We had identical hairstyles.
58.
jeff
Neither I nor anyone I knew had a mullet, and I’m the same age. Also, I’m from the South.
There were a lot of people with mullets, and they beat me and chased me in their muscle cars…but we never passed a civilized word.
I hope John isn’t the guy that punched both my front teeth out.
59.
trollhattan
Heh, you said “mullet.”
Westminster spoiler alert: best of show did not go to an actual dog this year. Arrrrrgh!
best of show did not go to an actual dog this year.
Kick dog? I hate kick dogs.
61.
blueneck
Business up front, party in the back!
Why? For me, it all started with simple economics. I could cut my own hair if I only had to deal with the front and the sides. Seriously. And by my senior year in ’88, my mullet was simply breathtaking….
62.
moderateindy
Where did you play Lax Cole? I played at the same time in college 84-88 in the Midwest and I don’t think we had more than 1 or 2 mullets on the team, but both were hockey players. One was a hockey player/ metal head who drove muscle cars. He never had a chance, mullets were in his DNA.
63.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@trollhattan: What, a cat won it? I’m watching it now.
Add wrestling to that list. My son had an awesome mullet – still one of my favorite pictures of him.
67.
burnspbesq
In 1988, I had Professional Services Hair.
When I played HS lax, I had hair like Byron, the leader of the rogue telepaths from the last season of B5. Frank Urso was my hero. There were still defenseman who used wooden sticks, but everybody else had migrated to plastic. I still have my old STX stick with a mesh pocket. It weighs about three times as much as a current stick.
68.
Warren Terra
Treating this as an Open Thread:
You know that Christian Scientist Employer snark that’s been going around since the whole ObamaCare Threatens God thing cropped up? The one that says that according to Republican Logic your boss that worships Bozo The Clown should be able to provide health care that consists only of cream pies to the face?
Well, that criticism doesn’t faze the Republicans – indeed, they embrace it:
“The Respect the Rights of Conscience Act doesn’t mention any medical procedure. It doesn’t mention anything specifically. It treats Christian Scientists like Catholics, and Muslims just like Methodists,” Blunt says. “The principle is you cannot tell people they have to do things that violate their faith beliefs. It’s as simple as that.”
Frankly, I’m gobsmacked, as if struck with a cream pie to the face.
not to be the jerk, but there’s really no excuse for this sort of statement. find a C25k (couch to 5k) program, and eat a plant based, whole foods diet. soon enough you’ll be telling us how you could kick that guy’s ass.
I’ve started eating salads during lunch, and I’m pretty satisfied with that. THey are damn good tasty salads too. I’m addicted. It also pisses off my co-workers which is an added bonus. :)
“The Respect the Rights of Conscience Act doesn’t mention any medical procedure. It doesn’t mention anything specifically. It treats Christian Scientists like Catholics, and Muslims just like Methodists,” Blunt says. “The principle is you cannot tell people they have to do things that violate their faith beliefs. It’s as simple as that.”
Awesome. I’m going to start a business and have all of my employees healed by the force.
75.
Spaghetti Lee
I’m in college right now, and I don’t see many mullets. I do see plenty of hipsters with beards big enough to smuggle a hamster, so maybe you got the better end of that deal.
76.
Ash Can
John Houseman is looking over your shoulder in that photo, and watching you drink. Or is that Richard J. Daley?
77.
Suffern ACE
I had a mullet because Brian Bothworth and Jim Mmahon were outrageous badasses.
“The principle is you cannot tell people they have to do things that violate their faith beliefs. It’s as simple as that.”
No, just, no, fucking no.
That’s not the principle you’re standing for, Sen. Doucheface. The principle you’re standing for is that employers can tell their employees they can’t do things because it violates their employers’ “faith beliefs.”
I mean, they do realize that the policy isn’t mandatory birth control for devout Catholics, even against their will, right?
He’s protecting the religious liberty of money. Catholic money can’t be spent on birth control, and Mormon money can’t be spent on coffee, and Jewish money can’t be spent on ham. Even after the money is paid to someone else who doesn’t give a shit about that religion. That’s just stupid. And that’s his principle.
“You can’t make me do something contrary to my faith” is one thing. “You can’t make me give money to a business that reimburses my workers for medical treatments they pursue in accordance with their own consciences if there’s any chance it uses any of anyone’s money on blocking sperm from their God-intended destination” is really not an article of anyone’s faith. That’s where we are with this.
Why is it the employer’s money where all the fretting about conscience is concentrated? Why isn’t it the employee’s? The company has to provide insurance, and a devout Catholic boss and a devout Catholic employee just won’t use it for sexy-sexy, problem solved.
The idea that my boss gets to stop me from observing _my_ beliefs, secular or religious, by citing _his_ beliefs, that’s totally contrary to any definition of “liberty” or “religious liberty” ever, ahem, conceived.
For fuck’s sake.
Literally.
79.
noodler
JC, $10 bux says that you are pointing to the “hi-fi” and saying “put that whitesnake tune on again” Guy next to you is kickin it in WHITE Jeans! Guy on the floor is rocking an Aussie style men at work/crocodile dundee hat. Dig the 80’s! Time to go dial up some VH1. Someone sent to me an 80’s pic of me last year…. But that was so long ago, before we dipped our bread in olive oil.
80.
p.a.
@desertflower: shaved heads? Is ‘flow’ already obsolete?
81.
C Nelson Reilly
Bush 41 funded the mullet. That shit’s down the memory hole now but it goes way deeper than you think. Ron Insana was a key player. I’ll post evidence next week.
82.
sloan
That’s a wicked sweet mullet. I was rockin’ the short-long for a good 6-8 years but that was in Canada (that is my excuse anyway). Gotta agree with the others who pointed out that was just the style back then. The important thing is you don’t have a mullet now. And why did my laptop bluescreen when I opened that picture in a new tab?
83.
YellowJournalism
“best of show did not go to an actual dog this year.”
Fuck! Corporations are pets, too?!
84.
ChuckM
If you really want to lose weight, don’t eat anything after 5pm. Eat a big breakfast and a satisfying luch and a snack (no more than a regular sandwich) just before 5PM and then weigh yourself after a week, lose 2-3lbs easily in a week if you stick to it. I lost 15lb over a 3 month period doing this. Now everytie I see my weight creeping back, I do the “stop eating by 5PM” for a few days and I am back to where I want to be.
I suppose I could find a 71 or so photo of me with my hair down to my shoulders. We’re talking about a LOT of hair, very thick curly dense hair.
I find it a bit difficult to point and laugh at the mullet, and no, I sure never had one.
90.
Fester Addams
Weird, it sort of reminds me of that photo of R-money and his fraternity brothers, ‘cept without all the $100 bills and the nice suits.
91.
Omnes Omnibus
@moderateindy: 82-86 here. Mullets were worn by hockey players from MN and ND. Most of the rest of us looked like we were extras from Risky Business – North Shore Preppy.
92.
mattski
Looks like the dude in red is about to hurl or has already blown chunks as we liked to say
edit. looks like someone already beat me to the punch
Sorry, but the mullet did not start off as a redneck thing. Let’s be real, rednecks don’t start trends in hair.
At one point the preps were wearing their hair a little long in back. Some of us just grew it longer and longer.
You should not be that embarrassed by the weak mullet you were sporting Cole. The time frame was OK. Me, on the other hand, wore a mullet a little too long into the early 90’s. THAT is embarassing.
Gremlin had a f/r layout with the best fuel mileage in a production car, and could be fitted with a v8 engine. I would kill (dick Cheney) for a clean example today.
96.
SFAW
Lacrosse? I take back all the mean things I ever said about you, John. It’s a great sport, I miss being able to play.
And the rest of you cabrons harshin’ on lacrosse – sod off, you commies, it’s the true American (as opposed to ‘Murican) sport, and a lot more fun/interesting than those Euro-dink sports like football and “football” (as the Brits call soccer).
97.
SFAW
Fuck! Corporations are pets, too?!
The bill for my new keyboard is winging its way to you.
Next time, give us a heads-up before writing something like that.
98.
quannlace
but can someone explain why everyone who played hockey, lacrosse, or soccer in the late 80’s had a fucking mullet?
I guess for the same reason, today, chefs on TV are covered in tattoo’s.
99.
Paul in KY
@Matt Mangels: I was thinking more a young Jerry Lee Lewis pointing out which cousin he’s thinking of boning ;-)
Put blonde curly hair on him & you can see the resemblance.
100.
Ordovician Bighorn Dolomite (formerly rarely seen poster Fe E)
Yeah, another guy about your age, and I too had a mullet in that time frame. Of course in college I played Ultimate instead of LaCrosse–so I am by definition better than you at this point.
The good news is I cut my mullet off within a year of starting college, and then just grew the whole thing out to full-on hippie in the space of a couple of years.
101.
SFAW
burnspbesq @ 67
Frank Urso was my hero.
Aahhh!! UNCLEAN!!! (I was a Hopkins and Cornell fan in those days.)
That being said, Urso was a tremendous talent and great, great player. I was at the Cornell-Maryland championship in 1976, possibly the best game I’ve ever seen – Urso, Eamon (may he R.I.P.), Mike French – I still talk about it (until people tell me to STFU).
Thanks for reminding me of that.
102.
Jager
About a year ago a friend sent me a picture of a St Patrick’s Day Frat Party in’65 when I was 19, a group shot, looked like Animal House and not a mullet in sight. About 65 drunken prepsters and their dates. My big brother knocked up his girl friend that night in a Alpha Romeo roadster, he had to trade it for a Chevelle nine months later.
103.
Gus
@lamh35: Mullets were also the first thing I noticed. In the ’80s the mullet/redneck correlation wasn’t necessarily true. I rocked one for a while, and I’m definitely not a redneck. I really hope no pictures exist of me with that ridiculous hairstyle.
104.
Mark
@Cain: If you’re still checking this thread, it’s nothing too complex:
1) Diligent recording of calories in google spreadsheets
2) Get some friends if you can and make it a competition
3) Figure out your RMR online and target that as your daily intake
4) Cardio exercise 5-6 days per week (I play hockey 2-3x and run 2-3x)
5) Target 120 g protein per day and limit sugar intake
6) Let yourself exceed your calorie intake by 500 cals two days per week
7) Don’t eat in restaurants the other 5 days
I was a lazy POS and I went from 190 to 225 over the course of 10 years. I then went from 26% body fat to 15% in six months and kept it off for the next six months. Now I am trying to go from 15% to 10%.
105.
SFAW
Mark –
Or, as Milo (I think) said to Opus:
Eat Less and Exercise!
106.
tesslibrarian
The mullet was probably *because* you played soccer. I was sports editor of my high school newspaper in 1988-89, and always sent someone else to cover those smarmy, mullet-headed jerks.
And no offense intended–at my high school, the soccer guys thought they were on a whole different level of cool; they were mostly the really rich kids whose mamas wouldn’t let them play football or baseball. I hope they’ve all mellowed/had successful therapy by now.
Villago Delenda Est
Young, dumb, and full of cum?
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
That’s probably my favorite Madness album cover.
MariedeGournay
I like the painting in the back. It’s like he’s part of the gang.
Bill ORLY
Do you mean 1988-1989? You aren’t that young. To be fair, I had the same haircut and shirt.
lamh35
White boys and their mullets. I seriously would like to know who was the very first person who ever were a mullets and go back in time to punch em in the throat.
Where I’m from white guy + mullets = redneck. Were you a redneck frat boy John C
lamh35
Deleted…duplicate????
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
You were in the Jewish fraternity? Gotta say, I didn’t see that coming!
pragmatism
The mullet is the perfect counterbalance to pegged jeans. It’s a yin yang thing.
jharp
You have lost a lot of hair.
Mark S.
What are you drinking, Johnnie Walker straight out of the bottle?
Also, isn’t it circa 1988-89? I’m just trying to get the Cole chronology straight.
Keith G
Looks like the guy in the red shirt was fixing to spew on your shoes.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Mullets are the hairstyle of choice for guys who are too afraid to grow it all out and be a hippie.
You look like you are expressing a serious opinion in that pic. ;)
desertflower
OMG! My son plays lacrosse and he wouldn’t be happy with that picture:)They all shave their heads now..think I’ll show him this, for a good laugh…right after he gets home from lacrosse practice! He would say you all look too “mellow” to play lacrosse.Do it with a long pole!
lamh35
Wow, in 1988, I was 11 or 12 in 1988 depending on the month.
How old are you?
JGabriel
DougJarvus Green-Ellis:
Damn. Front pager wins the thread on the second comment.
.
TheMightyTrowel
Mullets are not restricted to north american sports alone. Behold the Aussie Rules Football mullet!
Mark S.
@MariedeGournay:
Did the frat have portraits of all the Board of Trustees, or just their favorites?
WyldPirate
Mullets or the zipperhead were de riguer. Then you had the dreaded mullet and zipperhead combo which was simply wankerific.
hhex65
Well, lacrosse & soccer weren’t really “sports” in the late 80s. They were still just activities for stoners. As for hockey, the mullet is a way to tell if your helmet is on facing the right way.
Comrade Mary
Cute as a button, John. I do like how you’re gesturing. You’re obviously in mid-tirade.
TheMightyTrowel
(dammit! link fail! F@ckign Fox!)
try this: http://www.foxsports.com.au/galleries/gallery-fn5fbpok-1226026239504?page=6#gallery
Debbie(aussie)
lamh35 if memory serves, John is 41.
Cat Hair Everywhere
At least you don’t have a rat tail to go with your acid-washed jeans.
Right? Let’s hope so.
I really have no room to talk, though. In 1988-89 I had hair big enough to see from space.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Underage drinking your freshmen year in college, huh? You’re about six months younger than me, meaning we did college at the same time. It was mullet time at that time. I had one for a while in college and all I ever played was flag football. When I got out of the navy in 98 I grew one back for about a year. It was just a collective consciousness thing, kind of like wicked becoming an adjective.
S. cerevisiae
Yeah, I had hair like that once upon a time plus I’m sure I had uglier shirts.
khead
Dude. It’s not about sports. I didn’t play hockey. Or lacrosse. Or soccer….. I played hoops.
But I had a mullet. And a ponytail.
Because that’s what white folks from WV did with their hair back then.
BGinCHI
Holy shit, is that a painting of Ron Insana??
Freaky prescient.
PaulW
The mullet was so that you could show off your hair under the helmets in hockey and lacrosse. Soccer players were just lazy at the barber’s shop…
JenJen
Mullets still exist in hockey, sadly. Ryan Getzlaf would likely kill for a mullet, in fact.
pragmatism
@Cat Hair Everywhere: In a stellar display of parenting, my dad responded to my request to get a tail thusly: Do you want to look like a horse’s ass?
I thank him for that.
RD
Blame Canada.
JGabriel
@lamh35:
Cole has already confessed elsewhere to attending summer camp as one of the Reagan Youth:
So, uh … that probably answers your question.
.
shortstop
Round here 99% of mullets were gone by the mid-1980s. To continue having one into the late 1980s marked someone as a resident of a state that receives more federal tax dollars than it pays in. I’m serious, but I’m also messing witcha.
Matt Mangels
Was anyone else’s first thought upon seeing this young John Cole “Paul McCartney”? Just me?
lamh35
@JGabriel: Ha. Yep question def answered
Punchy
Im loving the acid-wash jeans…..
kdaug
@Cat Hair Everywhere:
Hey, now. My last boss has a rat tail, and he took it up to the ISS on a Soyuz.
Pretty sure it was the first rat tail in LEO.
Comrade Mary
@Matt Mangels: Not just you. I typed it but backspaced, I swear.
Sisyphus
You are dead to me.
Not really, I grew up in Idaho. We got the mullet with our skis at birth.
But we got better. Some of us. Maybe.
Mark
John,
How about a Balloon-Juice weight loss program? I have a plan that will totally kick your ass back to 10% body fat.
Sad Iron
John, it’s simple evolution–sports that require helmets resulted in the evolution of mullets. It’s a way of letting the world know that even though you need to wear a lot of protection, you’re still a Samson underneath it all. Ok, never mind.
Old Dan and Little Ann
What time did the Omega Mus finally show up?
SIA
@Cat Hair Everywhere: Haha! My own hair was quite enormous as well.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Matt Mangels:
I was thinking of a young Bill Dauterive from King of the Hill. ;)
eemom
Sheeyit, I am only 8 years older than you and in that pic you look young enough to be my son.
Fuckin maths….how duz they work?
JC
Are you retarded or not?
Everybody had a mullet back then.
The idea that it was specific to lacrosse is absurd.
And lacrosse and soccer were not on that same footing as hockey or football. They were a joke back then.
King of the nerds frat.
MariedeGournay
@Mark S.: Only the ones known to have done a keg stand.
Anonymous At Work
John,
You are confusing correlation with causation. Playing those sports didn’t make you grow a mullet. People with mullets just gravitated to those sports.
Tim
“…I’d kill to be that skinny again…”
not to be the jerk, but there’s really no excuse for this sort of statement. find a C25k (couch to 5k) program, and eat a plant based, whole foods diet. soon enough you’ll be telling us how you could kick that guy’s ass.
fuckwit
Who is the dude in the painting?
Martin
T,FTFY
I went to college in southern PA about 2 years earlier. Every frat boy there had a fucking mullet as well.
JGabriel
@Anonymous At Work:
I don’t think it’s that simple either. I propose an autocatalytic feedback loop, in which one starts with either a short mullet or participation on one of the listed sports which the result that the other is indulged in, oscillating between the two, with increasing intensity and corresponding mullet length.
.
Rawk Chawk
OMG. You had a mullet.
This explains so very, very much…
Some Guy
So much to love, but I have to say, along with others who have commented on it, the mullet is awesome.
Every time I see one, I cannot help but ask myself “WTF?” I was in college in ’88 as well, that is my era too. Having lived it, I still find mullet’s a mystery. So John, I am asking why? What about that cut drew you in? I am not really judging, I promise, my own hair cuts were (are!) hardly something to be self-righteous about, but I never have understood why. It is like when you saw someone driving a Gremlin in the 70s. You just couldn’t help but wonder why.
My brother, by the way, tricked out a Gremlin with flame decals. That is no lie, you had to see it. I think it is why his life didn’t turn out. Psychic scarring and such.
Fordpowers
Oh that’s just fuckin embarrassing
Violet
Awesome photo. Takes me right back to college. Who’s the old guy in the painting?
FlipYrWhig
1988-89 was my freshman year of college, and I looked pretty much exactly like this, and I’m from New Jersey. The mullet wasn’t a regional thing or a class thing. It was EVERYWHERE. Feathered, layered, parted in the middle. It was metal, it was jock, you can’t stop it, you can only hope to contain it.
Also that year I met the woman I would marry. We had identical hairstyles.
jeff
Neither I nor anyone I knew had a mullet, and I’m the same age. Also, I’m from the South.
There were a lot of people with mullets, and they beat me and chased me in their muscle cars…but we never passed a civilized word.
I hope John isn’t the guy that punched both my front teeth out.
trollhattan
Heh, you said “mullet.”
Westminster spoiler alert: best of show did not go to an actual dog this year. Arrrrrgh!
Martin
@trollhattan:
Kick dog? I hate kick dogs.
blueneck
Business up front, party in the back!
Why? For me, it all started with simple economics. I could cut my own hair if I only had to deal with the front and the sides. Seriously. And by my senior year in ’88, my mullet was simply breathtaking….
moderateindy
Where did you play Lax Cole? I played at the same time in college 84-88 in the Midwest and I don’t think we had more than 1 or 2 mullets on the team, but both were hockey players. One was a hockey player/ metal head who drove muscle cars. He never had a chance, mullets were in his DNA.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@trollhattan: What, a cat won it? I’m watching it now.
Just Some Fuckhead
ts;dr
Hill Dweller
@blueneck:
The Kentucky Conundrum
mcmullje
Add wrestling to that list. My son had an awesome mullet – still one of my favorite pictures of him.
burnspbesq
In 1988, I had Professional Services Hair.
When I played HS lax, I had hair like Byron, the leader of the rogue telepaths from the last season of B5. Frank Urso was my hero. There were still defenseman who used wooden sticks, but everybody else had migrated to plastic. I still have my old STX stick with a mesh pocket. It weighs about three times as much as a current stick.
Warren Terra
Treating this as an Open Thread:
You know that Christian Scientist Employer snark that’s been going around since the whole ObamaCare Threatens God thing cropped up? The one that says that according to Republican Logic your boss that worships Bozo The Clown should be able to provide health care that consists only of cream pies to the face?
Well, that criticism doesn’t faze the Republicans – indeed, they embrace it:
Frankly, I’m gobsmacked, as if struck with a cream pie to the face.
Cain
@Mark:
Tell me!
Cain
@Tim:
I’ve started eating salads during lunch, and I’m pretty satisfied with that. THey are damn good tasty salads too. I’m addicted. It also pisses off my co-workers which is an added bonus. :)
Cain
@fuckwit:
Looked like Chevy Chase to me.
burnspbesq
That Staffordshire Bull Terrier looks like one bad muthafucka.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Even Bono had a mullet back in the day.
I know we like to forget this. But there it is.
Martin
@Warren Terra:
Awesome. I’m going to start a business and have all of my employees healed by the force.
Spaghetti Lee
I’m in college right now, and I don’t see many mullets. I do see plenty of hipsters with beards big enough to smuggle a hamster, so maybe you got the better end of that deal.
Ash Can
John Houseman is looking over your shoulder in that photo, and watching you drink. Or is that Richard J. Daley?
Suffern ACE
I had a mullet because Brian Bothworth and Jim Mmahon were outrageous badasses.
FlipYrWhig
@Warren Terra:
No, just, no, fucking no.
That’s not the principle you’re standing for, Sen. Doucheface. The principle you’re standing for is that employers can tell their employees they can’t do things because it violates their employers’ “faith beliefs.”
I mean, they do realize that the policy isn’t mandatory birth control for devout Catholics, even against their will, right?
He’s protecting the religious liberty of money. Catholic money can’t be spent on birth control, and Mormon money can’t be spent on coffee, and Jewish money can’t be spent on ham. Even after the money is paid to someone else who doesn’t give a shit about that religion. That’s just stupid. And that’s his principle.
“You can’t make me do something contrary to my faith” is one thing. “You can’t make me give money to a business that reimburses my workers for medical treatments they pursue in accordance with their own consciences if there’s any chance it uses any of anyone’s money on blocking sperm from their God-intended destination” is really not an article of anyone’s faith. That’s where we are with this.
Why is it the employer’s money where all the fretting about conscience is concentrated? Why isn’t it the employee’s? The company has to provide insurance, and a devout Catholic boss and a devout Catholic employee just won’t use it for sexy-sexy, problem solved.
The idea that my boss gets to stop me from observing _my_ beliefs, secular or religious, by citing _his_ beliefs, that’s totally contrary to any definition of “liberty” or “religious liberty” ever, ahem, conceived.
For fuck’s sake.
Literally.
noodler
JC, $10 bux says that you are pointing to the “hi-fi” and saying “put that whitesnake tune on again” Guy next to you is kickin it in WHITE Jeans! Guy on the floor is rocking an Aussie style men at work/crocodile dundee hat. Dig the 80’s! Time to go dial up some VH1. Someone sent to me an 80’s pic of me last year…. But that was so long ago, before we dipped our bread in olive oil.
p.a.
@desertflower: shaved heads? Is ‘flow’ already obsolete?
C Nelson Reilly
Bush 41 funded the mullet. That shit’s down the memory hole now but it goes way deeper than you think. Ron Insana was a key player. I’ll post evidence next week.
sloan
That’s a wicked sweet mullet. I was rockin’ the short-long for a good 6-8 years but that was in Canada (that is my excuse anyway). Gotta agree with the others who pointed out that was just the style back then. The important thing is you don’t have a mullet now. And why did my laptop bluescreen when I opened that picture in a new tab?
YellowJournalism
“best of show did not go to an actual dog this year.”
Fuck! Corporations are pets, too?!
ChuckM
If you really want to lose weight, don’t eat anything after 5pm. Eat a big breakfast and a satisfying luch and a snack (no more than a regular sandwich) just before 5PM and then weigh yourself after a week, lose 2-3lbs easily in a week if you stick to it. I lost 15lb over a 3 month period doing this. Now everytie I see my weight creeping back, I do the “stop eating by 5PM” for a few days and I am back to where I want to be.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@YellowJournalism: It appears to have gone to a duster.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
I…No, that would be mean.
Cole, you….No, that would be worse.
I give up. Just promise to never do that again. Any of it.
Thlayli
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
No. That’s Alpha Sigma Phi. The “Jewish fraternity” (one of them) is Alpha Epsilon Pi.
My Alpha Sig chapter in Miami had several Jewish guys, but that just kinda happened. (And our composite for 1987-88 was Mullet City.)
harlana
MULLET ALERT!
Chuck Butcher
I suppose I could find a 71 or so photo of me with my hair down to my shoulders. We’re talking about a LOT of hair, very thick curly dense hair.
I find it a bit difficult to point and laugh at the mullet, and no, I sure never had one.
Fester Addams
Weird, it sort of reminds me of that photo of R-money and his fraternity brothers, ‘cept without all the $100 bills and the nice suits.
Omnes Omnibus
@moderateindy: 82-86 here. Mullets were worn by hockey players from MN and ND. Most of the rest of us looked like we were extras from Risky Business – North Shore Preppy.
mattski
Looks like the dude in red is about to hurl or has already blown chunks as we liked to say
edit. looks like someone already beat me to the punch
Jamey
@jharp: “THAT’S WHAT THEY TELL ME!!!”
The Other Bob
Sorry, but the mullet did not start off as a redneck thing. Let’s be real, rednecks don’t start trends in hair.
At one point the preps were wearing their hair a little long in back. Some of us just grew it longer and longer.
You should not be that embarrassed by the weak mullet you were sporting Cole. The time frame was OK. Me, on the other hand, wore a mullet a little too long into the early 90’s. THAT is embarassing.
Lojasmo
@Some Guy:
Gremlin had a f/r layout with the best fuel mileage in a production car, and could be fitted with a v8 engine. I would kill (dick Cheney) for a clean example today.
SFAW
Lacrosse? I take back all the mean things I ever said about you, John. It’s a great sport, I miss being able to play.
And the rest of you cabrons harshin’ on lacrosse – sod off, you commies, it’s the true American (as opposed to ‘Murican) sport, and a lot more fun/interesting than those Euro-dink sports like football and “football” (as the Brits call soccer).
SFAW
The bill for my new keyboard is winging its way to you.
Next time, give us a heads-up before writing something like that.
quannlace
I guess for the same reason, today, chefs on TV are covered in tattoo’s.
Paul in KY
@Matt Mangels: I was thinking more a young Jerry Lee Lewis pointing out which cousin he’s thinking of boning ;-)
Put blonde curly hair on him & you can see the resemblance.
Ordovician Bighorn Dolomite (formerly rarely seen poster Fe E)
Yeah, another guy about your age, and I too had a mullet in that time frame. Of course in college I played Ultimate instead of LaCrosse–so I am by definition better than you at this point.
The good news is I cut my mullet off within a year of starting college, and then just grew the whole thing out to full-on hippie in the space of a couple of years.
SFAW
burnspbesq @ 67
Aahhh!! UNCLEAN!!! (I was a Hopkins and Cornell fan in those days.)
That being said, Urso was a tremendous talent and great, great player. I was at the Cornell-Maryland championship in 1976, possibly the best game I’ve ever seen – Urso, Eamon (may he R.I.P.), Mike French – I still talk about it (until people tell me to STFU).
Thanks for reminding me of that.
Jager
About a year ago a friend sent me a picture of a St Patrick’s Day Frat Party in’65 when I was 19, a group shot, looked like Animal House and not a mullet in sight. About 65 drunken prepsters and their dates. My big brother knocked up his girl friend that night in a Alpha Romeo roadster, he had to trade it for a Chevelle nine months later.
Gus
@lamh35: Mullets were also the first thing I noticed. In the ’80s the mullet/redneck correlation wasn’t necessarily true. I rocked one for a while, and I’m definitely not a redneck. I really hope no pictures exist of me with that ridiculous hairstyle.
Mark
@Cain: If you’re still checking this thread, it’s nothing too complex:
1) Diligent recording of calories in google spreadsheets
2) Get some friends if you can and make it a competition
3) Figure out your RMR online and target that as your daily intake
4) Cardio exercise 5-6 days per week (I play hockey 2-3x and run 2-3x)
5) Target 120 g protein per day and limit sugar intake
6) Let yourself exceed your calorie intake by 500 cals two days per week
7) Don’t eat in restaurants the other 5 days
I was a lazy POS and I went from 190 to 225 over the course of 10 years. I then went from 26% body fat to 15% in six months and kept it off for the next six months. Now I am trying to go from 15% to 10%.
SFAW
Mark –
Or, as Milo (I think) said to Opus:
Eat Less and Exercise!
tesslibrarian
The mullet was probably *because* you played soccer. I was sports editor of my high school newspaper in 1988-89, and always sent someone else to cover those smarmy, mullet-headed jerks.
And no offense intended–at my high school, the soccer guys thought they were on a whole different level of cool; they were mostly the really rich kids whose mamas wouldn’t let them play football or baseball. I hope they’ve all mellowed/had successful therapy by now.
JC
@Lojasmo: Gremlins were awesome.
IrishGirl
Dude, what are you drinking?! It looks just like a whiskey bottle….
fuckwit
It wasn’t just jocks. It was all over country music, probably still is.
Have some mullets!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jaxdj4wLHnA