Saturday, June 28, 2008

In defense of my mullet.

This incredibly kick-ass live cover of "My Back Pages", which includes some of the most influential and rockin' musicians of our time (or any time for that matter)---i.e. Neil Young, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Roger McGuinn, the late-George Harrison, and The Man, himself---was part of the 30th Anniversary Bob Dylan tribute concert in 1992. In 1992, I had a mullet, which many of my friends consider to be on the later-end of mulletdom; thus, making me incredibly un-hip, backwards and behind the times. I finally severed my mullet in 1993, shortly before entering college. However, it's worthy of mention, I quickly replaced the mullet with a spider plant, pseudo-Cobain doo, where I kept the top long and shaved the sides and the back, which, in retrospect, was an even bigger douche doo. Then I grew it all out and became the sensitive ponytail man, an even more ridiculous hair-persona. Basically, I sucked throughout my formative years and beyond. Actually, I'm still a douche with a Supercuts Special.

However, my point for posting this clip is to exonerate myself. Look carefully. George Harrison--- a fucking Beatle, for God's sake!---and Roger McGuinn have mullets. And if you examine this even closer, Neil Young has a little bit of bangs, hence, a mullet. You see, I wasn't a complete turd if Neil friggin' Young was rocking the mullet, too. My mullet had some street cred in 1992. So, hypothetically, were you to visit my parents' place in Rhode Island and see my high school senior portrait framed on the wall in their den and say something like, "Hey, look at Graziano and his lame-ass mullet five years after mullets were popular," I'd say, "Lick my ball-bag, dickwad. George Harrison had a mullet, too."

With enough coaxing, I might post a pic of my mullet on this blog. Maybe. Then again, I'm a public school teacher. Let's change that to doubtful.

Question: Can anyone make out a single word Bob Dylan is singing here? I'm not entirely sure he's singing in English.

6 comments:

Andrew Scott said...

Ball-bag? You've only got one? Ouch.

Nate Graziano said...

Silly, silly man. The "ball-bag" is the sack holds both balls. As far as I know, unless you happen to have four balls---and that's a lot of nuts, you only have one ball-bag.

Of course, mind you, I'm a complete idiot, so I might be entirely wrong.

Anonymous said...

You do realize that Neil Young spent the entirety of the 1980's being completely uncool, right? Not to mention that breif period around 2002ish when he wrote that song about 9/11. I'm just saying, the dude has made some mistakes.

-Brian

Nate Graziano said...

The album "Freedom" wasn't cool? Giving it to Daddy Bush and corporatization of America in the late-80s wasn't cool? I'd beg to differ on that one. Besides, if you wrote albums like "After The Gold Rush," "Tonight's the Night" "Harvest" and "Rust Never Sleeps", on top of playing with Crosby, Stills and Nash, I think you're afforded a couple of mulligans. And cool is the 80s was entirely relative, seeing the whole nation was coked to the gills. Ozzy had bangs and bit the heads off bats, for God's sake. Nope. I'm not buying this argument. Neil could've worn adult diapers and shit himself on stage and still been cool on the merit of the body of his work as a musician.

Anonymous said...

Writing Everybody Knows This is Nowhere and On the Beach alone would be fair enough game for Neil to record techno remixes for the rest of his career and still be amazing. I would never argue he isn't the coolest man to ever walk this earth -- he is -- I'm just saying, 1992 Neil isn't the one I'd shoot for. I'd aim for '74.

And I'm not buying that "Let's Roll" is anything but a lame "pump up" rally that got Don Imus all teary-eyed. Neil should know better.

-Brian

Nate Graziano said...

Maybe he wrote "Let's Impeach the President" to let us know that Neil from the "Ohio" and "The Campaigner" days hadn't abandoned us completely.

No argument that an early/mid 70s Neil ranked supreme. I truly believe "Tonight's The Night" is one of, if not, his best album. And it sold so poorly. But isn't that always the case?

But I also think the best album he's put in the past thirty years was "Greendale" and that was universally panned, too.

However, point taken: the early-80s computer-age nonsense with the use of the synthosizers and the voice box (the only song I can think of where the voice box is semi-cool is AIC's "Man in the Box")is painful. The neo-bebop crap circa the same time, in the words of Garth: "Suck my will to live."