I'm bringing back the MULLET

I vote to bring back the mullet. Yes, I actually said that. No, I am not remaining anonymous. Yes, you heard me right . . . “Bring back the mullet! Bring back the mullet!” (Must be eighteen or older to participate. I will not be party to the damage which may or may not occur when forcefully cutting and shaping a small child's hair into a mullet - although I do admit subjecting my own children to wearing them, in my defense, I am a professional.)

Lately, given the everyday violence, the ongoing war and the poor economic conditions that have been wiping out an entire class of people, my people - the middle class, I was remembering the finer times of grander decades past – like the decadent eighties - a decade of abundance; prosperity; Dallas; Dynasty; the birth of MTV (when they actually played music); kick-your-ass shoulder pads; bright neon colors and bold eccentric patterns; save-us-looking-at-your-crack parachute pants; cheap gas and heavy metal; sexy exercise apparel without the hard work of actually working out; lots of makeup (on the women too) . . . and of course; big, BIG hair.

I’ve been in the beauty and fashion industries for over thirty years; I have seen many styles and trends come and go; I have experienced the underlying moods and attitudes that came and went with them . . . as art imitates life.

So, I was thinking of the possibility of the process in reverse: ‘life imitating art’ by taking the current depressed times back to a trend that would lift our spirits. And what better time or trend then the light-hearted days of BIG HAIR?

Hair, hair, long and big, beautiful hair has, through history, signified abundance, wealth, power, strength, freedom, sex and fun.

From kings and queens, politicians and barristers to wrestlers and bounty hunters. . . big hair makes a big statement.

One shaves his or her head to rid oneself of materialistic thoughts, to simplify ones existence, to minimize ones ego for spiritual purposes and to ignore the fact that one simply doesn’t have enough of the luscious adornment on top to make a statement. (Exception to the rule: Telly ‘Kojak’ Savalas . . . he was born bald and sexy)

Samson, whose power and strength came from his long hair, loses his strength when Delilah orders a servant to shave his locks.
Now what do you think about my idea of bringing back the big hair of the eighties, namely the mullet, and the philosophy of the mullet which is one we desperately need to re-adopt if we are to regain our sense of play during such sad and serious times . . . the philosophy being of course: “Business in the front; party in the back!”

A side note of history: David Bowie - the epitome of cool, the ultimate pop cult hero - wore the first mullet I can remember back in the seventies, and in all my excitement I cut my sister’s hair just like his (although she wasn’t really going for that much of an extreme and I had to pay for her Slurpies for a long time afterwards). Then, Florence Henderson shagged out the mullet and made it too mom-friendly and almost destroyed it forever.

Until along came our hair hero . . . Billy Ray Cyrus.

Billy Ray is, of course, the most recognized poster boy for the mullet. His poor achy breaky heart was ne’er broke again after he smiled a mischievous smile and turned around. Oh yeah! He wore his secrets down his back. We girls loved the party he had goin’ on and the fact that he was sharing the fun with us.

Now his daughter Mylie Cyrus - aka the mega-sensation Hanna Montana - has brought the Cyrus name back into the spotlight inspiring the younger generation of tweens and teens with her own special talent and style. But where does that leave us? What about us; the generation stuck between braced-teeth youthful optimism and not-yet-exhausted-social-security benefits? We need a hero. We need more laughter in our lives. We need something to occasionally take our minds off of the constant influx of bad news. We need more HAIR. We need a hair hero!

All I’m asking is for Billy Ray to step up to the plate and into my chair; to fulfill his duty as an American citizen; to help boost the economy and the morale of the American people by once again sporting a mullet . . . and wearing it proudly.

So, what do you say, Billy Ray? Don’t break my heart . . .

And while I’m on the subject of big hair, how about them Mall bangs . . . now that would definitely boost mall traffic, retail sales and lift the economy. Plus, it would put a fun, retro-spin on people watching.

After Love, There is Only Art

It is my feeling that the reality in which we live is not real at all. Our struggles, our battles, our wars, our religious beliefs, our political stances, our morals, our societal rules . . . We have been programmed. We have been overcome. We no longer have access to our own minds, our original God-given minds. Everything we feel, see, do, think, is being dictated to us in doses proportionate to our energy. We are helpless pawns in a game of chess played out by something we cannot see. Something we cannot comprehend. Something that the majority of us deny with every molecule of our being; with every vague and distant memory we erase; with every breath we forcefully take; but "it," the invisible transplanted mind, nevertheless, exists. When our suspicions surface as anxiety, extreme discontent, depression, madness, or the likes, we are deemed ill or crazy and our symptoms are quickly sedated . . . masked. I think it all stems back to the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden - a story that has a deep-seeded truth within its core: God (the Universe, our Higher Power, our Creator) gave man and woman everything by bestowing upon (us) the freedom of expression; the powers of co-creation; the God mind. We were once expressions of infiniteness . . . in other words, He gave us art - heart - and it was good. Our hearts and our minds were, once upon a time, ONE in the same with God. Then, the serpent "the foreign being" appeared and offered man and woman a new mind, separate from God. . . the chance (risk) to attain knowledge without having to look to God. "It" led us to believe we needed to find answers to questions that do not and never did exist in the completeness of our original mind. And with that new foreign mind came our first belief: the belief we that are separate, that we possess an individual mind. We based that belief on our newfound freedom (within our new mind) to conjure perspectives, opinions and judgments. We had fundamentally created our ego. And with the ego, came our second belief; self-awareness - we are different. We found ourselves naked and ashamed of our own skin. Then, our third belief; that we are better than . . . God . . . We created arrogance. As creators, we were on a roll. But, it was not our own mind doing the creating, for we no longer had access to our own mind. Subsequently, we kicked ourselves out of the Garden of Eden, and since then we have spent the rest of our time on Earth blaming God or blaming the serpent or blaming ourselves - which is actually our favorite pastime: indulging in self-reflection and self-pity. So, here we are; call us zombies, call us pawns, call us puppets, call us food for thought (the thought of a foreign mind, that is). Call us Pavlovian dogs that cry when stimulated in particular ways, that laugh when stimulated in other particular ways, that fight when stimulated in yet other particular ways . . . and we blindly and so foolishly call ourselves individuals. Our only way to salvation is to release ourselves from the grip of this predatory mind; whether you call it the serpent in the Garden of Eden, or the devil, or societal values, or political beliefs, or religious creeds . . . whatever you wish to call it is irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact it is real, it exists, it is the reality in which we live. "Wake up people! Stop being Pavlov's pets!" Easier said than done, I know. For allowing something else to do our thinking and the rule-making and the moral setting, etc. takes the responsibility off of us and gives us more time to do what we do best; breathe . . . exist . . . pay the bills . . . cry at the horribly sad stories on the news . . . scream out against the war . . . point fingers at Bush or the Pope . . . make it to church on time . . . shop the sales at Nieman's . . . drink another cocktail . . . bitch out the cable man or the grocery clerk or the waitress . . . complain about the high gas prices . . . reflect upon what terrible people we are, you know, all the really important things that affect our lives every day. All the things we deem as real in our lives. But NONE of that is real. None of that is important in the BIG picture - in the grand scheme of life. None of that exists - all that exists is love and all that is real is ART. Art is our only true freedom of expression as creators. It is possibly our last and only link left to our original GOD heart/mind. It is how we express and acknowledge the suppression of our minds. It is how we express the love we are struggling to remember. It is how we express our deepest, most intimate, REAL selves . . . the real selves that we fighting to regain (whether we know it or not) as our own (while engaged in this cold war). Art is our true expression of our infiniteness. In reality, there exists no religion, no politics, no borders. There exists only love . . . and it's purist expression, art. For every painting, for every crayoned picture hanging on a refrigerator, for every symphony and musical composition, for every 5th grade flute concert, for every opera, every ballet, every preschool tap recital, every song sung, every pastry baked, every reduction sauce perfected, for every undercooked cake from an easy bake oven, for every novel never published, for every poem misunderstood, for every floral arrangement on a dinner table, for every variety of fillings inside each chocolate in a box, for every engine ever built to be more powerful than the last, for every scarf ever knitted, for every letter ever written, for every snowman ever rolled, for every angel made by a child in the snow . . . Art is the finest, purist expression of love. Above: Guernica by Picasso depicts scenes of death, violence, brutality, helplessness, suffering people and animals, buildings wrenched by violence and chaos. One might say, this does not look like an expression of love and I say to that; this is the highest expression of love for this is the TRUTH. This is the reality we have chosen with our free will and the subsequent loss of our original God minds.

Signs, Omens or Nothing at All

And in today's news: The All American Calvary had to be sent in to rescue a damsel in distress (played by ME) and her loyal lady in waiting (played by Emmy Lou), from the hills of green in the Royal land of Oak. The recent drop in temperatures chilled me to my bones whilst my cloak and its warmth teased me from the far side of the glass of my carriage windows. For an hour, Emmy and I were forced to wait amongst the peasant squirrels and their nutty shenanigans.
But, we held our heads high, sat, leaning against a tree, and waited. Occasionally, Emmy would protect my dignity and chase the curious peasants away.
In other words . . . I locked my keys in my car when Emmy and I went to the park today. . . I called AA and they sent "The Calvary Locksmith" out to open my door.
Ok, so this is the third time I have needed help getting inside my car this year. I think I locked my keys in my car once before - in my entire life - and now three times in this last year. Something about my 'keys' . . . some significance . . . I don't know?
But, on the way home, a truck pulled up next to me at a light . . . the name on the side was: I am the Phoenix. Ok - now in that I see the significance.