Over-the-air TV has entered a renaissance with the advent of digital signals. Channels can now specialize their programming and show more than the same old, same old prime-time network shows. Much of this programming is of the vintage variety. One such channel — Charge! — shows older action movies and the like. Since I never check the schedule, I never know what I’m going to see when I flip past it. Sometimes it’s a treat. For example, I once turned it on and saw a monkey in a ninja suit (Unmasking The Idol). As spectacular as that was, that’s not what I’m going to write about, for last Friday night I saw something even more awe-inspiring than a monkey in a ninja suit. I saw what is possibly the most amazing mullet in history.

Check out this screen capture. It’s the best I could get, but the screenshot’s imperfections lend themselves to the aura of this mullet. You cannot take this mullet in all in at once. Your mind can only comprehend this mullet in portions, not its totality. To comprehend the totality of this mullet would be to see in the very heart of the universe and be driven to madness. This mullet may be what H.P. Lovecraft saw in his dreams. This mullet may have inspired the Shoggoth. This mullet transcends mere mulletdom. This mullet is not business in front and a party in back, not unless the business in question is something that has Willy Wonka-style bylaws and the party in back is every college boozer of all time mashed together and soaked in ecstasy. This mullet is a mullet to end all mullets. This mullet is too epic for rednecks and too powerful for royalty. This mullet destroyed the statue of Ozymandias.

The movie this mullet was featured in was called Rage and Honor (it now occurs to me, maybe the title represents the mullet, honor in front and rage in back…or maybe rage in front and honor in back; it could go either way; such is the zen of this mullet). Once the movie finished, I watched the end credits. There had to be a mullet wrangler, and I had to know the name of this person, nay hero, who could subdue such a beast for the camera. Surely their name was something like Hercules or Athena. No mullet wrangler showed up, however. I can only guess this is because the mullet wrangler was killed by this mullet that only a fool would try to tame. Check out its scraggly frizziness. This mullet is a wild animal. Outside the cave where this mullet lives is surely littered with the bones of dragons. And look at the way it spreads over Brian Thompson’s shoulders and chest. This mullet may have also been the basis of Spider-Man’s great nemesis, Venom. The threat of this mullet could unite the planet in peace. Only if we all worked together could we hope to survive it.

My esteem for Brian Thompson has increased immeasurably. Surely the man that grew this mullet has tiger blood flowing through his veins, tiger blood mixed with panther spit, Jack Daniels, Chuck Norris’s sweat and the tears of all four presidents on Mount Rushmore gathered during a solar eclipse and distilled by the flames of a volcano on Mercury during a lightning storm. And then they bleached the mullet. This mullet was so strong it could go beyond platinum blonde with the amount of bleach it absorbed. It absorbed enough bleach to be Busey-blonde.

I did not see the whole movie, but I read up on it. You know what happened? During one part, Thompson is shirtless, his mullet holding sway over all as he holds his hand over an open flame. Then he shatters a block of ice with magnificence. I’m glad I didn’t see that. I’m not sure what that amount of awesome would have done to my perception of time and space. As for what I did see of the movie, I’m not sure what it was about. As far as I could tell, all characters were in orbit around the mullet. In fact, it distracted from all else so much they eventually tried to restrain it in a pony tail. Fools! As if a mere ponytail could contain such power. All they did was create a new hairstyle to dominate the galaxy — the !!!PEGASUSTAIL!!!

I think we can safely add Brian Thompson to the pantheon of greatest actors ever. He already achieved great villain status with Cobra. He was terrifying in that role. It took me a while to realize how good of a villain he was in that movie because he is such a scary character. He is not like Hans Gruber, who you like because he has charisma and is charming in his intelligence, planning and wit. The villain in Cobra is on the other side of the scale, pure evil. Thompson’s monologue and physical presence at the end of that movie is chilling. “You won’t do it, pig. You won’t shoot. Murder is against the law. You have to take me in. If…you can. Even I have rights, don’t I, pig? Take me in. They’ll say I’m insane, won’t they? The court is civilized, isn’t it, pig?” Combine such roles with that mullet, and, as far as I’m concerned, give Thompson his lifetime achievement Oscar immediately.

And when Thompson gives his speech, all he has to do is point at the glorious picture above, which will be displayed as the stage’s backdrop and say, “As for the age-old question of to be or not to be, there’s no longer any need to mull it…”