Posted by dull thud on October 21, 2001 at 09:16:46:
dull thud #4
Featuring Cressida, the Worm
Wonder
Cut Your Hair.
Ellen stopped with the cup halfway to her lips. "No," she said,
"absolutely not."
"Come on," said dull thud. "Just once, for old times’ sake."
"No."
"Aw, don’t be shy. It’ll be fun."
She had been in her new job – music editor at the Parodopolis Times – for all of three weeks. Prior to that, she’d run a moderately successful fanzine, Asleep At The Wheel, to which dull thud had contributed essays and reviews. But now she’d sold out to The Man, and she was in no hurry to jeopardise her position by dishing out freebies to old friends. Especially the one who’d started (and thereby concluded) an interview with Elton John with the words "so, Reg, what’s your hair made out of these days?"
"Look, thud, I really can’t. You don’t work for the paper, and in any event Michael Jackson only gives about three interviews a year…"
"Which is all the more reason to let me do it."
"…which is all the more reason to send someone who WON’T steam in and make a string of kiddy-fiddling jokes for a cheap laugh. And make references to I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles. And get us heavily sued."
"Aw, would I do a thing like that?"
They looked at each other. The clock ticked. Eventually, thud got up. "Aye, whatever. I’ll, uh, see you around."
"Right."
He left her cramped office on the fourth floor of the Times building and made for the stairs, with a sideways glance at the preening fashion writers huddled around water coolers, arguing about chiffon, this year’s black and whether Jimmy Choos were so last week or so the week before. On the next floor down was the newsroom itself, abuzz with the biggest story of the day; Congressman Burdon’s controversial proposals for the regulation - in truth, almost an outright ban - of stupid, stupid hairstyles. Burdon, a powerful rhetorician, made a convincing case, illustrating it with photos of David Lee Roth, Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Vanilla Ice.
More liberal commentators called it a massive infringement of personal freedoms; this was countered with suggestions that banning the ridiculous baldy combover could only be for the wearers’ own good, and furthermore that had proper legislation been in place twenty years ago A Flock Of Seagulls would never have happened. To which the liberals replied "yeah, fair enough". Special consideration was made, however, for cases where the hairstyle was integral to the person’s means of income. Specifically the mighty mullet and its importance to German rock bands and players of Australian Rules football.
And so the Mullet Registration Act was born. The message to Kentucky inbreds was clear: license your mullet, and if it goes beyond the agreed top-back length ratio there’ll be trouble. An amendment to the Offensive Weapons laws would give police powers to seize offensive haircuts and put them beyond use, usually by means of an electric shaver.
thud, meanwhile, made for the Library. He wasn’t really too disappointed by Ellen’s response; he’d long since come to understand that trying to get favours out of mainstream journalists was as thankless a task as explaining to Captain Astounding why Jim Bergerac was better than Magnum P.I.. Right now he had to work through a pile of acoustics literature about twice his own height.
Six hours later he emerged, shambling into the street with a half-pound of photocopies in his pockets and a crick in his neck. He scuffed his heels. Here on the city’s east side the streets were wide and the buildings gothic. Long-established jewellers’ shops stood side by side with world-famous restaurants and high-priced couturiers. It was nearing nine p.m. and the trendy bars were beginning to fill up.
On the corner, overlooking Off-Central Park, was the city’s most prestigious hotel; the Parodopolis Sheraton. Crowds were forming around the steps, and thud noted hysterical squeals and the flashing of cameras. He contacted his psychic tapeworm, riding shotgun in his intestines.
"Cressida?"
"~~Here. Celebs gathering?~~"
"Looks like it."
"~~Yes, I heard about it last night. Big product launch of some sort.~~"
"Not too many security bods about. Any talentless, self-deluding pop nonces good for hurling abuse at?"
"~~I think they mentioned Destiny’s Child would make an appearance. And that one you hate off Friends~~.
"What, Courtney Cox?"
"~~No, the other one.~~"
"Matt LeBlanc?"
"~~No...~~"
"Matthew Perry?"
And so on. Until: "~~oh, and John Travolta too.~~"
thud’s face lit up. "Bullseye! There’s work to be done."
thud squeezed through the crowd for a better look. Limos were disgorging minor celebrities. He managed to sneak a look into the hotel foyer in time to see a surprisingly tubby middle-aged man with a bad haircut be ushered into an elevator.
"Blast. Missed him."
"~~Shame. Can we go now? ~~"
thud wasn’t listening. "Seems a pity to waste the chance. We’re crashing the party."
"~~Just so you can insult a fading actor?~~"
"Fading Scientologist actor."
"~~You don’t think you might ...stick out a bit?~~"
thud unzipped his leather jacket and tucked his Anal Genocide t-shirt into his stained jeans. "What, I look alright, don’t I?"
"~~I hear the slept-in-a-dumpster look is going to be big this season.~~"
"Better than Bjork at the Oscars, anyway."
"~~That was couture. It’s not supposed to look good, just expensive. Home?~~"
thud ignored her. He had no problem porting up onto a balcony and into a room. He nodded greetings to the minor politician vocally enjoying the company of someone clearly not his wife and went into the corridor, leaving the door propped open. He’d been in the Sheraton before, and knew that the big function rooms were all on this floor. He worked his way to the front of the building.
The doorway into what was clearly the venue for the party was guarded by six burly security officers wearing orange jackets and with their baseball caps pulled well down. The burliest took one look and put out a hand.
"Uh, I’m a friend of John’s," said thud weakly. The ogre shook his head.
Around a corner and out of sight, dull thud kicked a plant pot to pieces. "That was the lamest thing I’ve ever, ever heard."
"~~Not great. But don’t worry, there’s been worse.~~"
"Such as?"
"~~Such as Sony trying to persuade the kids that Pearl Jam meant anything other than a slang term for semen. Admit defeat. Why are you so desperate to get in anyway?~~"
"’Cause I think I saw Kenny G in there. I’ve spent years waiting for a chance to tell him that he’s a - " ...and here followed a mighty deluge of invective that lasted a good four minutes and would have made Lenny Bruce blush. The air sizzled. It was a long time before Cressida, dazed, could reply.
"~~Any special reason you can’t just write him a letter?~~"
"It’d be more fun face to face."
"~~True. Okay, but straight home after.~~"
"Yes mum."
* * *
thud resolved to port up from the near-empty basement bar. He reckoned one corner of the bar put him exactly below the function room toilets. This would ensure that his arrival met with minimum fuss. Unless they were occupied, of course.
A rush of air.
An oddly nasal shriek.
Ah. He nodded his apologies to Barbra Streisand and walked out of the cubicle. A bevy of minor soap actresses were chattering excitedly into the mirrors and rubbing their noses. thud passed a dollar to the suspicious attendant and slipped into the main hall.
"~~So do you enjoy making people wet themselves in surprise, or what?~~"
"I suppose it’s one of life’s little pleasures. Whoo, look at all these people. Look at these appalling dresses. It’s like the back pages of the National Enquirer."
"~~Not that I want to you rush you, but I’m picking up a waft of bowel-slackening boredom from over by the piano. I suspect you’ll find Kenny G running through some new tunes.~~"
"Gotcha."
But before he could cross the hall to address the nauseating frizzy-haired non-jazz wankshaft, a series of very unpleasant things happened. No-one had noticed the baseball-capped security men slipping into the hall, but everyone noticed when they slammed the doors shut behind them. One clambered up onto the piano. He stared around the room and dramatically whipped off his cap.
The guests gasped. Above the chunky blond moustache was surely the mightiest mullet the world had ever seen. Two little wisps curled around his ears, leading up to a plateau as broad, flat, and well-tended as the deck of an aircraft carrier, and a good two inches from the top of his head. From there, a Niagara of peroxided locks cascaded down to his waist. It was truly awesome.
At a signal from the apparent leader, the others did likewise. Every one sported a full-on pick-up truck mullet. It surely meant trouble. This was confirmed as they each produced a Kalashnikov. They motioned the terrified guests over against one wall.
"Good evening," the leader began. "We are the Mullet Liberation Front. You may consider yourselves our hostages." Which was probably a fair assessment. He stared around the room. "Let me explain. The mullet - yea, the very haircut of the Gods - has today been effectively outlawed. We cannot allow this. We are therefore holding you until the authorities reverse their decision..."
They proceeded to pile furniture against the doors. thud, stuck shoulder-to-shoulder between Mia Hamm and someone who may or may not have been in Starship Troopers, looked around for someone with day-saving potential. Cressida was ahead of him.
"~~I checked. It’s just us.~~"
"Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan."
"~~No you haven’t.~~"
"I know."
"~~Well, there’s no sign they’re going to start shooting everyone. We probably won’t need to do anything anyway.~~"
The mullet mullah continued. "...and while we wait, let’s spread the word."
Two neanderthals grabbed
Anna Kournikova from the crowd and roughly bundled
her into a chair.
Oh no, thought thud, surely they’re not going to...
But they were. As the sobbing product-endorsement machine and former crap tennis player was held in place, a third mullet produced a set of electric hair clippers. They buzzed evilly and glinted in the chandelier-light. The mullets began to chant: LONG AT THE BACK, SHORT ON TOP! LONG AT THE BACK, SHORT ON TOP! Within seconds, it was over. Kournikova was handed a mirror. She patted the half-inch hairs on top of her head and whimpered "my L’Oreal contract...".
Cressida writhed in anguish. "~~Oh, the humanity… do something, thud!~~"
"Um..."
"~~Quickly, people’s careers are dying out there.~~"
"Can we not wait and see if they do Kenny G?"
"~~WHAT?~~"
"I said - never mind." thud studied the positions of the chandeliers dotted around the hall and weighed up his chances. In the red corner, six muscular men armed with assault rifles and a fanatical devotion to their ludicrous hairstyles. In the blue corner, an intestinal parasite with the ability to transmute nearby objects into things that rhyme with them and a sickly rocker who could - well, fall on people. At this point, your run-of-the-mill barrel-chested four-colour hero would no doubt say something like HA! ONLY SIX? NOW THOSE ARE THE KIND OF ODDS I LIKE! blah, blah. dull thud, on the other hand, and to use one of his more picturesque expressions, was cacking his boots.
"I could, um, port upstairs and send for help?"
There would be no point; already the alarm had been raised. There was a battering at the doors but the furniture piled against them was holding firm.
"~~Oh, thud, don’t be such a weed.~~"
"It’s not that. It’s - look, how can two people disable six fast enough that no-one else is at risk of getting shot?"
"~~Well, let’s see. What’s the usual approach? Exile would wade in, blast everyone and shout a lot. Visionary would run away and hide behind something. Donar would - ~~"
" - Smite. Yes, I know. But one of those is a super-strong energy-controlling mutant, one a bullet-proof god and the other is blessed with a Very Sensible Wife. I’m not." thud was almost - but not quite - too worried to laugh heartily as he watched ethereal Irish bint Enya being ritually shorn.
"~~Okay, we’ll just have to catch them off-guard.~~"
"Holmes, you astound me."
"~~Sorry. Alright, we’ll just have to...~~" Her tone brightened. "~~...use their skills against them.~~"
"Use their haircuts against them?"
"~~Sort of. What do we know about mullet culture?~~"
"People with mullets tend to be educationally subnormal truck-driving latent homosexuals."
"~~And consequently?~~"
"They like REO Speedwagon. So?"
"~~You know when you get a song really stuck in your head?~~"
"Not as bad as when you get a song stuck in my head. Wake up to Stimmung again? No thanks."
"~~Well, think happy thoughts.~~"
So saying, Cressida gently poked her way into the minds of the Mullet Liberation Front and started softly crooning the Speedwagon’s excruciating Keep On Loving You. The six men relaxed slightly but kept their guns - and clippers - trained on the guests. Bo Derek actually looked quite pleased with her new ‘do.
But as thud watched, the terrorists began mouthing the words and nodding in time. "~~Okay,~~" beamed Cressida, "~~wait for it...~~" Suddenly, the mullets threw back their heads as one, dropped their weapons and strummed empty space, faces contorted in the classic orgasmic air-guitarist pose.
"~~Go!~~"
thud went. He broke from the pack, dashed across the room, snatched up the weapons and tossed them to the cast of NYPD Blue, who might not know how to use them but at least had nice commanding voices. Just as the MLF began to react, the doors were finally forced open. The police charged in and it was all over.
* * *
dull thud dawdled behind as the celebs staggered down the steps vowing to sue everyone. More flashbulbs and hubbub, and microphones waving in all directions. Christopher Walken raised his hands. "Ladies and gentlemen of the press," he shouted, "our rescuer."
thud looked like a rabbit in headlights as fifty microphones were thrust into his face. Questions came thick and fast. The eyes of a nation would be upon him. Your primetime chance to speak directly to two hundred and sixty million people. So what do you say? His mind blanked. Except for…
"Yeah, um. I’d just like to take this opportunity to say… that Kenny G is - ". And on he went. For four minutes, by which time everyone else had left.