Monday, August 10, 2009

The Infestation is Back

Walking around the streets of Moscow, the past 6 or 10 months, I have had an uneasy and growing feeling that something was wrong, something was off, there was a disturbance in the force, if you will.

The people were the same, serious, going about their business, as in all large cities, but something subtle had changed or rather was changed, gathering momentum, growing, like an subtly seen infestation that would one day over whelm all of us.

It was not until two months ago, when I took a business trip to the Ural Mountains region, to visit some heavy manufacturers that supply us, that I was able to finally put my finger on it. You see, in the provincial cities, especially those on the edge of the main population belt, the malignent thing, this God aweful creation, was spreading and at a rate that it was fully pronounced.

What was it? What so unsettled me? Was it Jihovas Witnesses or some other Western cult import? Was it corruption? Well that's already there, even if somewhat reduced from the Yeltsin era. Was it the Crisis, of which we used to hear so much in the papers?

No. It was much worse. Away from the main western cities, such as Moscow or Novgorod, away from the fashion capitals and trend setters, it had moved with the speed of the plague....

THE MULLET!

The business in the front, party in the back hair "style", the cursed creation that rose out of some back wood hell hole in N.America, in the 1960s, and spread through the less educated and less astute, through out the world, was back. It was brought to popularity, however by a Welsh pop singer, Tom Jones. Ah, yes, the Welsh, that bastion of trend setting. In truth, it had never fully left, but like a simmering plague has laid low, just below public notice, throughout the civilized world. Occassionally, it would make a come back, an explosive of tastelessness. The last time I saw so many mullets was in Bavaria back in the late 1990s, where it is called the "Vokuhila". It looked just as bad on Germans as it does on my fellow Russians.

Seeing this infestation first hand, amongst the "hip" school and university kids, forced me to do some research, where was it big and where was it spreading to? Besides still being a big deal amongst American and Canadian country people, the bastions of the modern Mullet seems to be central Spain in the West, Romania in the East. But most likely, it came to us in force from Germans, who travel throughout Russia and from Russians travelling throughout Germany and with whom we have many business dealings. It would seem that the Vokuhila is coming back in force. Why? God only knows.

There is no known cure for the Mullet, at least none that our government or society has found, so dear readers, if you happen to have one, do us Russians a kindess and tell us how to cure this plague.

18 comments:

Libertarian Advocate said...

As you said, there is NO CURE!

Piotr P. said...

Clearly, Stas, you’re either drunk or delusional, if you think the biggest Russian problem is the Mullet. What about the TB epidemics that takes thousands of Russian lives each months (about 11 million Russians are infected and the number is growing), the pandemic of deaths in auto accidents (with one fourth the number of American drivers, Russians manage to kill twice as many on the roads each year), the wave of corruption, the economic crisis which has caused untold suffering and pain of an average Russian worker? Wow, you must REALLY be loving your country and your people, if you wanna talk about the Mullet pandemic… Shame on you.

Unknown said...

The surest cure is a pair of scissors. ;-)

Of course, to do that would require trampling on someone else's rights, since my rights end short of actually being able to cut that hideous thing off.

So, since we can't do anything (physically) about it, and we are unlikely to change their minds (I'm talking about the mulletheads, not the Jehovah's Witnesses, although there are some similarities...), I say we just ignore them, pretend they don't exist, and teach our children to be better people than that.

Jacob Gittes said...

Nice to see a light-hearted post like this.
I'm from a northern Midwest USA hockey town, so I know of the dreaded mullet and it's tendency to recur.

taken said...

What do you mean, there is no known cure for the Mullet.

Scissors are a cure.

vonbach said...

You have discovered our plan for world domination too late! The mullet shall spread and sap the will of peoples everywhere! MWHAHAHAHAHA!
Ahem... Sorry couldn't resist.

What Would Paul Kersey Do? said...

There is no mullet in America, nor for Real American Heroes.

http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2009/08/83-real-american-heroes.html

BlackSeaBrew said...

The only known cure is to remove the head of the infected person. A proper burning of the remains after putting a wooden stake through the infected victim's heart probably would be good insurance. Why this plague on earth pervades all societies is beyond me.

Unknown said...

Funny Stuff! a little break from your normal serious posts. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

PS- enjoy the mullet!

-Brian in Allen, Texas, USA

Stanislav said...

.

JP said...

Cute article.

"Besides still being a big deal amongst American and Canadian country people..."

Uh, no. ;)

drlmg said...

Ha Ha Ha ! I love how you can be so intelligent, serious, knowledgeable, wise, and thought provoking (I could go on and on, honestly) yet so funny at the same time. You are a brilliant writer and thinker. I am in the southeast US (Atlanta, GA), luckily the mullet is not popular around here..... yet! A few names for them here...
Tennessee top hat, Kentucky waterfall, ape drape, mud flap, etc.

Stanislav said...

@Piotr

Outside the fact this was a humourous post, something that is obviously beyond you...lets gets to blasting your "statistics" away as usual and proving you to be full of shit.

11 million cases of TB?

Lets try 119,000 by gov statistics. And even if they under reported by 90%, that would still be little over 1 million.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060127/43221133.html

Care to site your numbers? Yes, Russian driving is horrible, but than again, Americans manage to shoot more people every year, all balances out. Russia does not have anything like a Detroit, a New Orleans (with military check points and army police), an urban DC with crackheads and such or ethnic cleansing by Mexicans in Los Angles.

And that Crisis suffering was created by the US and UK...you have all the suffering at your feet.

Piotr P. said...

Oh, I finally see what you’re about: it is about instant gratification, some kind of ego petting exercise, eh? You really DON’T care for your poor countrymen, you prefer to be petted on the back by your pen-pals from allover the world on the blog… How truly sickening. The WHO classified the TB situation in Russia as a “major epidemic”, with, on average, about 55,000 people dying from it each ear and over 10.5M infected (hence my numbers, refer to the WHO’s 2008 world health report). It is disingenuous on your part to sweep under the rug what every educated health professional know. The US Health Dept. in fact advices Americans against travelling to certain parts of Russia, such as the Volga region and the Ural region due to high probability of TB infection. Furthermore, America loses about 200 people per year from death by firearms. This is less than what the Red Army loses every year from murder and suicide by the hand of its own soldiers… Firearm murders, per capita, in Russia are 2.3 times the rate of those in America. As far as traffic accidents, Russia leads Eurasia (sadly) in it, and is second in the world only to Africa. That rate is almost 11 (ELEVEN) times as high as the US. It is truly pathetic you defend such statistics or, even worse, writes frivolous pieces about hairstyles, while thousands of your compatriots are dying in misery.

Anonymous said...

The most famous person to popularise the mullet recently is Dog The Bounty Hunter.

There was also the Russian guy who won the Eurovision song contest in 2008 did he not?

Stanislav said...

@Piotr

-----The WHO classified the TB situation in Russia as a “major epidemic”, with, on average, about 55,000 people dying from it each ear and over 10.5M infected (hence my numbers, refer to the WHO’s 2008 world health report). -----

Piotr, lets see, according to WHO, region wide, in 2007 there were

TB is a Region-wide pandemic. In 2006, European Union (EU) countries reported 81 600 TB cases, and Kazakhstan, Romania, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan accounted for 72% of the TB burden in the WHO European Region. The Russian Federation has the 11th highest TB burden in the world.

So, lets see, that's 72% of of 81,600 (2006 numbers) and spread between Kazakhstan, Romania, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, hardly your 55K per year. Really, you need to do real research.

http://www.euro.who.int/tuberculosis/20090108_1?language=Russian

Unknown said...

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/Soulta/TheMullet.png

Unknown said...

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/Soulta/TheMullet.png