Snob

Estaría ubicada en el centro de la fortaleza y sobre un afloramiento

Ecce Homo by Elías García Martínez, before (L) and after (R) its "improvement"

There's many path of to artistic fame, but Cecilia Gimenez's is unique: back in 2012, the amateur octagenarian artist decided to help "restore" a deteriorated fresco called Ecce Homo at her local church, painted over 100-years ago by Spanish painter Elias Garcia Martinez.

The end result of Gimenez' "restoration," described as a "crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic," was widely mocked on the Internet. The restored version has been called "Ecce Mono" (or Behold the Monkey, a pun on its original name) and "Potato Jesus."

The ridicule was so bad that the priest of the church had considered covering up the painting. But thank goodness that didn't happen, because the botched painting turned out to be quite a boon to the local town of Borja, Spain. Since gaining worldwide attention, the infamous fresco has raised more than 50,000 euros (US$66,660) for a local charity and drawn more than 40,000 visitors.

And things are definitely looking up for Gimenez: the 80-year-old artist has sold her art on eBay for thousands of dollars. She now has her own art exhibit, where two dozens of her other works are on show. No word, however, on whether she'll attempt another restoration anytime soon.

In the days before online video, a long-bearded man dancing with his pet raccoon to Aretha Franklin on his porch in rural Tennessee would have gone unnoticed, just one weird blissful moment in a world full of them. But Mark “Coonrippy” Brown’s clip (above) of him dancing with his four-legged companion Gunshow has gone viral viral since he posted it in July 2012, racking up more than 1 million views on YouTube and attracting so much attention it was featured on The Tonight Show and Good Morning America, which are like YouTube for old people.

It got some not-so-welcome attention, however—according to Coonrippy, the video became so popular that the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) decided to step in and confiscate his raccoon, Rebekah, in late July. (By this time, Gunshow had gone on to that great hollow tree in the sky, but Coonrippy had a new raccoon pet.) Rebakah was taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center, even though arguably all she needed to be “rehabilitated” from was having a decent life as part of a family. She even got to take showers:

Coonrippy, a former animal control officer who lives in Gallatin, isn’t taking this lying down. He’s launched something of a media offense, telling his raccoon-loving fans on Facebook and YouTube to call upon Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to free Rebekah and return her to him. He’s given interviews to all sorts of radio and TV stations, and his story of one man fighting the unfeeling law that stole his furry loved one has captured the imagination of the nearly 5,000 people who signed a petition at Change.org. (That petition wasn’t even started by Coonrippy, but by a stranger in California who heard about his cause.) It remains to be seen whether Haslam will pardon Rebekah, but this seems to be a clear-cut case of the government abusing its power and taking what it has no right to take. I recently spoke with Coonrippy on the phone while he was driving to an undisclosed location to take a much-needed break from the media.

VICE: What law did the TWRA accuse you of breaking, exactly? Is it illegal to keep raccoons as pets?
Mark “Coonrippy” Brown: You cannot keep any wildlife in captivity. But my argument with them was that if this is the case, then every elementary school and biology class in high school and college is in violation if they've got tadpoles in an aquarium or a garter snake, or even if a child brings a box turtle to show-and-tell.

They didn't care for that line of argument, it seems.
Well, they did say something along the lines of schools are in violation, but they're not going to do a walkaround in every school in Tennessee. But when you have a raccoon on your shoulder in the shower and you make a viral video, if you've already had one viral video under your belt, it kind of draws a little attention to yourself.

Do you have any other animals besides Rebekah?
We've got a couple of rabbits that we raise. They're out there in the yard somewhere. But I can't distinguish those from the other nine hanging around. We have a possum; his name is Henry. We throw food outside for him around eight or nine, and he'll show up and eat it.

We had another raccoon while I was an animal control officer. I got a phone call from the police department that said there was a rabid raccoon. When I got there, the raccoon was disoriented so I put him in a cage. I brought him home and got to looking at him, thought I'd give him something to drink, and put a bowl of water in his cage. I saw him drinking water, so I knew he could swallow—I knew he wasn't rabid. And then I put some scraps of food out there, and he ate them. After about 15 minutes later, we opened the door and let him out. He meandered off about a foot, then turned around, went right back into the cage, and continued eating. We named him John Boat. He's still out there somewhere; we used to see him quite often. I haven't seen him in a while, but I'm sure he's still out there.

So you have a special sort of feeling towards racoons?
Yeah, I've been called the raccoon whisperer. [laughs]

Has this been the case your whole life?
Well, I've had wild pets ever since I was able to go catch one. I had a skunk named Pepé Le Pew. I had a deer one time named Trophy—that was not a good name to give a buck deer... I had a hog one time with a broken leg, his name was Aesop, as in the fables. The list goes on and on. I had two squirrels named Heckle and Jeckle. I had an owl, a little screech owl named Mr. Bird—I come to find out he was Mrs. Bird. She flew off and had lots of babies. She used to come around all the time, but I haven't seen her lately. My place was pretty much a haven for wildlife. It still is.

But the whole story about Rebekah is a high school agriculture teacher had a chicken house project somewhere and there was a raccoon in there killing chickens. So she ordered two of his students to kill the raccoon. After they killed this raccoon they found out she had two babies. They called me because they knew I had a history of [looking after] orphaned animals.

The officials told me that if Rebekah is too domesticated, she'll more than likely be used as an educational tool at TWRA-hosted events. But she’ll be in captivity. And the other side is, if she is released back into the wild, then a $28 hunting license is all you need to go legally shoot her out of the top of a tree. You can have your coon dogs chase her through the woods. I protected her from both captivity and from being killed. But that's what weird: You can't get a permit to keep one, yet you can get a permit to kill one.

Was she like a pet when she was with you? Or did she come and go?
She could come and go as she pleased. But when she was there and we weren’t, we treated her no different than you would treat your house cat or your house dog. I had a mansion of a cage inside the house that she stayed in. It’s just like your dog—you keep them penned up so they don't chew your furniture up and crap all over the house while you're gone. Then when I come home we let her out and she did what she did. But she did use the litter box too, by the way.

Did you train her to do that?
Well yes and no. If you sense she needs to do her business and you set her in the litter box once or twice, she’ll always go back to the same place. With raccoons, once you get them using the bathroom in one place, they'll always go back to it.

Do you think people should not be allowed to keep raccoons generally?
Well yes and no. You know, we’ve got so many laws out there right now that it's actually pathetic. And this is the way it's always been. When there are not enough criminals, our government actually creates them. But I'm not saying everybody who wants a raccoon should go out and have one. I wouldn't recommend anyone having a raccoon, unless they know a little bit about the behavior of that animal. And I wouldn’t go out and try to domesticate a raccoon that was taken from its mother, or a month old, or two months old. You've got to imprint them. When they open their eyes [for the first time] and you're what they see, then that's where the imprint starts. But it's real hard to domesticate something that already knows what it is.

Hopefully no one who doesn’t have your expertise will go out and get a raccoon.
Yeah, you've got to have some experience. You've got to know what you're doing. You can't just raise it if you haven't a clue what to do. And I happen to know. It's just one of my areas of expertise. Some people are experts in electricity. Some people are experts at working on automobiles. Some people are experts at heart surgery. I happen to be an expert at whispering to 'coons, I guess.

@HCheadle

More on how people and animals live together in harmony:

The Man Who Eats Roadkill

Have Animals Declared War on Us?

The British Badger War Begins

An excellent NOVA documentary in which a international team rebuilds a medieval trebuchet.

(via sciencedump)

Sponsored by #ogilvychange — Little ideas from big thinkers

Ya se ha vallado la churrería e iniciado las labores de acopio de materiales

 
Okay, maybe that’s a slight bit of an overstatement, but not by that much…

Dangerous Minds pal Taylor Jessen writes:

It’s possible that every dirty little secret left in this world may have been compiled into the following Reddit list by the time you click on the link. This is truly epic. And not all bad news (especially if you like Peggy on Mad Men).

He’s right, this is a ton of fun to wade through. I got lost there for the past hour, it was as addictive as Internet K Hole.

Here are some of the top upvoted secrets as I type this, keep in mind that it’s changing constantly:

Diverdave76 writes:

I was a deep sea diver for 10 years in the Gulf of Mexico. Huge oil spills happen and are covered up hundreds of times a year by every company. The entire industry is in on it. The bottom of the gulf is a disgusting garbage dump. Every boat dumps their trash into the gulf no one obeys the laws and the coast guard doesn’t enforce shit.

geekmuseNU writes:

I work on a farm. When they say you should wash your produce thoroughly at home, they’re not joking.

‘Nuff said, there, eh?

jmhoneycutt8 posted:

Half of the so claimed ‘services’ they offer at Jiffy Lube never get completed, either by laziness or it may be impossible to do it the proper way on certain cars. The store’s hours distributed for employees are directly affected by ‘average ticket sales’, which means (at least when I was store manager at one) that if we didn’t have an average of $65+ at the end of the day per car, then we got wrote up. Jiffy Lube is a dirty, evil company that takes advantage of people, and that’s why I left to take a lower position elsewhere. Even though I made less money, I knew I wouldn’t be selling people things they didn’t need. Felt good quitting that fucking place.

Drix22 writes

If you’re in a mental hospital, with a legal guardian who’s been appointed to you because a judge found that you are incapable of making your own decisions you can still vote for the president- and in any other election you like. Voting day at the mental hospital was a shit show.

Like the Madhatter’s red state Tea party?

bridow writes:

I’m a celebrity event photographer in Hollywood. Most of the smaller award shows winners like the MTV VMAs, Teen Choice Awards, etc…already know they are going to win. This motivates the talent to come to the event. During the show they are backstage talking with friends and take a seat during a commercial break just before their award is announced. The few exceptions are the Oscars and Golden Globes where the audience is mostly celebrities.

ShitKickingRampage followed up that one with:

As a former MTV employee, I can confirm. Most of the time the awards are offered to get the artist to come to the event in the first place. They would make up awards to get artists to show up. People watch to see famous people, who are there to be seen. Behind the stage, we just shuffle them from their dressing rooms out to the floor, back to their rooms and then out to the press room where they will get photographed by the AP and photo agencies. It’s a closed off back stage area, where after getting their photo they will step out the door and into a car.

pigmaster8992 had this to say about the veal industry. Not for the squeamish:

I knew a man who was a 4th generation veal guy. One of the last people to be in NYs meatpacking industry he explained to me why I should never eat veal (and I dont)
The “european way” of veal was to cage baby calfs with a chain around their neck so they dont move even an inch. Now the American way which was legally implemented is to have about 12 baby cows in a pen 10x10. This way they have a little movement and its considered more “humane”
Well NY restaurants consider white veal to be the industry standard. Meaning the whiter the meat the better it tastes (it doesnt actually taste any different its an old italian myth) so in order to get white meat what does that mean? You have the bleed out the animal.

In order to bleed out the animal while its alive they pump the calfs with chemicals to make them anemic. But because they are anemic and living in spaces where there are 12 to a pen, they constantly get sick. So in order to keep them alive the have to pump them FULL of antibiotics just so they are barely alive before they are slaughtered. This guy looked me dead in the face and said “dont EVER eat veal” and he owns a business in veal. Guess he didnt expect me to be a redditor…

wakemeupplz writes:

Most people who say this are ignored as kooks, but having worked in pharmaceutical research, I can confirm this:

• We already have developed better, safer medicines than most of the crap currently on the market. However due to the following reasons, most of it will never reach the market.
• FDA Approval costs a fair amount of money and time, and for a “new drug” to be approved takes bloody years. The slightest fuckup in testing and back to the beginning.
• Money. If a new drug discovery is not going to be as profitable as the stuff currently on the market, it will simply be patented and sat on. Research funding: Not enough of it anymore to properly explore all the possibilities.

le_marsh writes:

video editor for major porn company:

90% of every anal scene has to have faecal matter edited out. Baby wipes are stock piled on every single set. I have seen lots of porn stars shit themselves accidentally…. this is the life i chose.

Read much more at reddit.

 
Happy birthday Bukowski. You are seriously missed.

“Something for The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks And You” is Charles Bukowski at his absolute best—angry, bitter, sad, beautiful and funny. From the 1974 collection Burning In Water, Drowning In Flame.

The video is composed of found footage and excerpts from the works of Arthur Lipsett and Gregory Markopoulos.

On August 16, the reaper took ‘em all:

• 1938: delta blues legend Robert Johnson — age 27, cause unknown.

• 1948: Babe Ruth — age 53, cancer; died in his sleep at Memorial Hospital in NYC.

• 1949: “Gone With The Wind” author Margaret Mitchell — age 48, hit by a car.

• 1956: Bela Lugosi — age 73, heart attack on his couch in Los Angeles.

• 1977: Elvis Presley — age 42, found on the toilet at Graceland in Memphis.

• 1978: silent film star Jean Acker — age 84, natural causes.

image via blogotheque

Follow @BrianAbrams

To start with the beginning: Jack Sheppard was a notorious English robber who inspired John Gay to write The Beggar's Opera (1728). Two centuries later, the German composer Kurt Weill and dramatist Bertolt Brecht adapted it into a musical as a socialist critique of capitalism and the modern world: Die Dreigroschenoper. It was about to open when the lead actor demanded a song to introduce his character. It was this song that would open the play and at its premiere, it was Kurt Gerron who would be the first to sing the Moriat of Macky Messer as the street singer setting the scene.

In 1931 Die Dreigroschenoper was made into a movie with Ernst Busch in the role of the street singer. As the play was translated into English as The Threepenny Opera, first in 1933, more successfully in 1954, Macky Messer became Mack the Knife. Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill's estranged wife, played the role of Jenny in 1956, winning a Tony Award in the process. She of course had already recorded her own version of the German original, but was also present in the studio when Louis Armstrong recorded his version of Mack the Knife, namechecking her in the process.

It wouldn't be the last time that Mack the Knife would get new lyrics, most famously by Ella Fitzgerald when she forgot the lyrics during a concert in Berlin -- and got a Grammy for her troubles. Robbie Williams also improvised, during the 2012 Diamond Jubilee.

Sinatra sung it. So did Nick Cave. And Dee Snider. Miloš Kopecký sung it, translated in Czech, halfway between the menace of the original and the cheerful cheese of Mack the Knife. Bavarian indie band SLUT proved it could be updated and still keep its menace, while Westlife, well, the less said, the better.

Everybody has done it: Hildegard Knef, smoky and throaty, Pearl Bailey and Dinah Shore, hilariously, Liberace, ...uniquely.. Mina did it in Italian, Ernie Kovacs as a punchline.

Sometimes it's done as pastiche, sometimes a capella, sometimes it's reinterpreted as an industrial song. Some do it in whiteface, some do it operatically and sometimes it's just Muppets.

Even actors got in on the, well, act: Bruce Willis murdering it in Hudson Hawk, Kevin Spacey did it in Beyond the Sea and there we are almost to the version everybody's waiting for, Bobby Darin's 1959 interpretation that kicked it all off, made a bitter attack song into a Vegas standard. That's show business.

When Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in 1987, I would denounce all faith in being cool and try to fully embrace being a Trekkie. Breaking this record would be my way to become a small part of Star Trek history.

More Star Trek:

We Went to a Star Trek Convention to Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of TNG

Off Hollywood - Brent Spiner

Comic-Con 2013 Cosplay Photo Dump

 
Apollo Music purchased a small home a little over a year ago with at least 250,000 records inside of it. There’s no backstory on their website about the previous owner or what they plan to do with the home after all the vinyl has been removed. Probably just sell it, I guess?

Apparently these photos were taken partway through the clean-out (when Apollo first got there they couldn’t even enter the doorways). It took over 6 months to remove and pack all the vinyl from the home.

I can only imagine the floors in the home must be warped from the weight of all those records!

You can see more photos at Apollo.

 

 

 

 
Via KMFW

 

 

Read more at Ilovecoffe.jp

Sherlock Holmes gets to be brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, a polymath genius. Female characters get to be Strong. - I hate Strong Female Characters.

The venus symbol made out of impractical bras.

Feminism, like everything in the world except for maybe the fact that water is good for people to drink, is a complex and nuanced thing. I love many parts of feminism and am grateful for many people who are or were feminists. I have the right to vote because of feminism. I feel entitled to walk home alone at night without being molested (whether I actually get to walk home without being catcalled or grabbed or not) because of feminism. My ability to choose to work in the on-camera side of the sex industry instead of other possible careers is mostly because of feminism, too. I should also point out that I am Caucasian, was raised middle class, and check a lot of the “conventionally attractive” boxes. All of these things confer unmerited privilege upon me in most parts of the United States, and the closer to the top of the privilege heap a person is the more options they usually have open to them. 

Having a job that involves talking to the press means inevitably everything from my politics to my chewing-gum habits are up for debate and discussion. I've been told that I must be a feminist, that my job is feminist, that I absolutely cannot be a feminist, and, one time, that my vagina should be revoked for crimes against women.

To me, the word feminist is heavy with sometimes-opposing connotations. When feminists fight for the rights of all people to be paid fairly by specifically campaigning to correct male/female pay inequalities or defend the rights of people with fertile uteruses to have accessible birth control, I think it is a wonderful thing. When feminists persecute anyone who isn’t biologically female or infantalize other women who make choices they disagree with, I find it offensive. When feminists debate whether the act of applying lipstick is empowering or not, I find it trivial. My disagreement with some of the extremes of feminism isn’t the reason I’m frequently uncomfortable calling myself a feminist though. I’m conflicted about applying the label to myself because I rarely do things specifically for the purpose of furthering women’s rights. Avoiding giving a straight answer about whether I’m feminist or not is kind of a cop-out though. Shirking the word feels like turning my back on the women who fought to give me many of the advantages I have. So here goes: Hi, I’m Stoya. My politics and I are feminist... But my job is not.

My because-I-wanted-to motivations for working in pornography are not necessarily the motivations of all sex workers. Not all women are the same, not all feminists are the same, not all sex workers are the same, not all sex work is the same, and not all people are the same. This bears constant repeating because I see people (including myself) fall into the generalization trap pretty often. I’ve probably already generalized at least once in this column. But let’s get back to the relationship between feminism and my choice to work in the sex industry.

The concept of choice can be tricky. There’s a difference between choosing to hand your wallet over to someone who has a loaded gun pointed at your head and choosing to give money to someone because of altruism or wanting to present them with a gift. There’s an analogous difference between entering sex work because of financial pressures and lack of other options (whether that lack is perceived or factual) and becoming a sex worker because of exhibitionism, desire for the experience, or because you really really really wanted to have sex with James Deen or Rocco Siffredi or whoever.

That second scenario where someone chooses to enter sex work for sex work’s sake is possible because of all the doors that were opened by feminists over the past 150 years. But my choice to work in pornography doesn’t make me a feminist any more than my choice to take an Aleve when I have a headache makes me a pharmacist.

I use my body to make gender-binary-heterosexual-oriented pornography for a production company that aims to have as much mass appeal as possible. I don’t agree with everything about the way mainstream pornography or the specific company I work for operates but I do pick my battles. I ingest a lot of calories because protruding hip bones are more concerning than arousing to most people. I also regularly put an insane amount of goo on my skin. When I get to set, I sit my body down in a chair and let the makeup and hair stylists do their job of making me look as conventionally sexy as they can. This process frequently involves false eyelashes and curling irons. When they’re done with me I usually put on high heels, some fantastically impractical underwear, and sometimes other clothing for the sake of looking accurate for whatever character I’m playing in the setup before the sex. 

Once the dialogue has been shot I have sex with one or more people while the crew captures it on video. My sexual partners on camera are people who I want to be having sex with and hopefully people who also want to be having sex with me. At least one of these people almost always has a penis and the scenes follow a certain arc. They start with kissing which leads into removal of clothing. Once the genitals in question are visible oral sex is performed. Penetrative sex (specifically penis in vagina) comes next, in various positions. Sometimes more oral sex happens in between these positions and occasionally anal sex as well. Eventually the male performer ejaculates and the scene ends shortly afterwards because the male climax is, well, a natural climax and sex scenes don’t usually call for falling action or denouement.

Nothing about the pornographic material I perform in does anything to intentionally further feminism. It is bluntly superficial entertainment that caters to one of the most basic human desires. Pornography exists and is not going to go away anytime in the near future. I see it as neither inherently empowering nor disempowering. Showing up on set and doing my job is not an act of feminism. 

As entertainment, mainstream pornography is no more responsible for educating viewers about sexual health and etiquette than Lions Gate is responsible for reminding kids that it’s actually not OK to kill each other despite what they may have seen in The Hunger Games. It isn’t Michael Bay or Megan Fox’s job to mention in every interview that giant robots from outer space are fictional, nor is it the job of every pornographic performer to discuss the testing protocols we use or how consent is given before shooting. I do feel the need to discuss these sorts of things, and there are other performers like Jiz Lee, Danny Wylde, and Jessica Drake who seem to feel a similar need to highlight the context already available for adult films and provide further context. 

But what about the wider reaching cultural effects of pornography? I can’t entirely discount the accusation that seeing a video in which I go from giving a blowjob directly to being pounded in the ass has inspired the occasional man to rudely shove his penis into his partner’s rectum without discussion or care. Whoever those guys are, they could probably use a refresher in the difference between TV and real life. In contrast to these butt-burgling-boogey-jerks are the messages I get every week saying that seeing my body or vagina portrayed as some kind of sex symbol made someone feel more comfortable about their own body. Also, the people who’ve said they didn’t realize that things like syphilis can still be transmitted even with a properly used condom and now see the benefit of regular testing and asking to see the tests of their partners in addition to barrier use. 

As long as I continue to enjoy performing in pornography and the positive social effects seem to outweigh the negative ones I’m going to keep doing it, but let’s not pretend that performing in mainstream porn is any sort of liberating act for all womankind.

Previously - Stoya on Ethics, Porn, and Workers' Rights

@Stoya

 

The Tibetan Mastiff is the biggest and most expensive dog in the world. It has a big fluffy mane that makes it look like kind of a lion. Check it out:

But make no mistake, the Tibetan Mastiff is definitely a member of the canine family, not feline. That, however, didn’t stop a zoo in China from trying to pass it off.

According to AFP a zoo in People’s Park of Luohe, in the central province of Henan, had a large Mastiff its African Lion display. It was found out when visitors to the zoo heard it bark. To be fair, they do have a pretty ferocious bark:

But yeah, it’s definitely not a lion. The zoo claims it does actually have a lion, but it had been moved to a different location for breeding. They also apparently had fox-like creatures in their leopard display.

Here’s the picture from Sina Weibo in its full, depressing glory:

H/t: The Verge
Follow @alexandergmoore

Keith Morris and I have been pals for about a million years, ever since I crashed on his floor after another drunken night hanging out in LA during the 1970s. In the 80s, when I was working at SPIN, I borrowed a copy of Hardcore California (a book about the Southern California punk scene) from him and never returned it. I’d shudder whenever I came across the book. Last year I finally sent it back to him with my most sincere apologies, and that sort of rekindled our friendship. Since I’ve always been confused about Keith’s time in Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, and the whole California hardcore scene, I thought what better way to get some clarity than to interview Keith and let him explain it himself? We talked on the phone for four or five hours and Keith laid out the entire history of the hardcore scene. It probably helped that I started off by saying, “Talk to me like I’m a moron and don’t know any of this stuff.” 

A month after we finished the interview, Greg Ginn, the guy who co-founded Black Flag with Morris, initiated a lawsuit against Keith, along with Dez Cadena, Chuck Dukowski, Bill Stevenson, and Stephen Egerton, because they have been touring under the name Flag, giving the fans a taste of true hardcore punk rock. Henry Rollins is also named in the lawsuit. Since Greg Ginn’s Black Flag has become a bloated, monotonous carcass of everything we hate about rock 'n' roll, Flag got together to pass the torch to a new generation of headbangers and shame Greg Ginn’s band by showing the world how the noise should be played. 

As this lawsuit travels through the courts, take a few minutes, as we travel back to those dark days of the 1970s when the world was one giant macraméd happy face and teenage angst was drowning in the swill of the deadly folk rock, back when a few fuckups dared to challenge the status quo….

"The guy from the Parks Department told us afterward he'd never allow this to happen ever again. That was probably one of the greatest compliments we ever got." —Keith Morris on an early performance at Polliwog Park. Image via

SEEDS OF DISCONTENT

The way that I met Greg Ginn was through his younger sister, Erica, while I was working at this record store, Rubicon, on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach in 1975. The gentleman who owned the record store, Michael, had a mad crush on Erica. So Greg Ginn would walk down to the record store with his sister—and Erica and Michael would go off to do whatever young lovers do—hold hands and watch the seagulls fly or the surfers on Hermosa Beach. You know, they’d get lunch or beer or cigarettes, and I would be left to run the record store while Greg Ginn hung around, waiting for his sister.

They were always playing Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles and the first three Springsteen records and Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in the record store, and I wasn’t real excited about listening to them. What was happening, as this music was being played, was the seeds of my musical rebellion were starting to come to fruition. 

I thought, I’m not into any of this. I need to be listening to Black Sabbath, I need to be listening to Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges, I need to be listening to the New York Dolls, and I need to be listening to power trios blasting off, trying to remove my skull!

So after Michael and Erica left, I’d take off the Joni Mitchell and put on Uriah Heap and Deep Purple, ya know, just anything loud and abrasive. Greg actually didn’t have any choice because I was the guy behind the counter, but I liked Greg. I liked talking to him. You know, it was cool hanging out with him. He seemed like a good guy. He liked a majority of the stuff that I’d play, and the comments Greg would make would be right along with what I was thinking. That’s how we came together. That’s where the seeds of Black Flag were planted, in that record store in Hermosa Beach.

MINIRIOTS

Michael had purchased some tickets for the Journey and Thin Lizzy concert at the Santa Monica Civic Center. The three of us—Michael, Ginn, and me—drove up to the concert in my Chevy Impala. Afterward, Greg said, “I gotta handful of songs. Why don’t we put together a band?”

See, we were a couple of nerds. We weren’t part of the local music scene. We were just a couple of guys that were going through this blindly. I didn’t know how to play an instrument, but I wanted to learn. I played a little bit of bass, but not enough to amount to anything. So we didn’t rehearse yet. We had to find players. We went through three bass players before Chuck Dukowski joined, and that’s when Black Flag became a band, because Chuck Dukowski brought a work ethic. Now we were gonna start practicing, ya know? We’re gonna learn these songs! We’re not gonna flip-flop around like a fish on the deck of a boat!

Now it was time to find a real drummer and so we put an ad in the Pennysaver, your local weekly, throwaway newspaper. One of the guys who answered the ad was Robo [Roberto Valverde], who brought his secret weapon, the cumbia, with him.  

So the three- and four-hour rehearsals started to kick in. We kind of resembled a band, but none of our friends liked what we were doing. The best we could get would be playing in a garage in a backyard, but those shows would erupt into a full-scale miniriots. We would have the bikers and the football players and the cheerleaders and the drug dealers and the surf-rat ho-dads all fighting on the front lawn.

Occasionally some musician friends would show up, like Juan, the bass player in Ratt, who’d just laugh and say, “This is hilarious!”

PUNK ROCK

The punk stuff was just to starting to bubble up here in LA—like the Germs and the Runaways. We didn’t have our ear close enough to the ground to know about it. We were still going to Ted Nugent and Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Anaheim Stadium, stuff like that. We would go to anything that interested us, but we ended up falling in love with the Ramones. The Ramones were a huge influence, and not only did I see them when they played at the Whiskey but they actually threw a party, like an all-night party over at the Tropicana Motel. There were so many people at the party that I’m surprised the Tropicana allowed it to happen. There was a minimum 100 to 150 people there. The Screamers were there, and the Germs were there. I’m sure some of the guys from the Dickies were there, too.  

And, here we are, these guys from the South Bay, and if I met the Ramones or conversed with them, it was beyond me, because of my condition: I was completely drunk. And that’s when I cut all my hair off. I found a pair of hedge trimmers and cut off my hair, that left it all spiky, almost like a flat top, a kind off skinhead scenario. So I felt really proud of myself. 

Of course, the next day I went to work hungover, with this really horrible haircut. My old man was pissed off. He wanted to know what was up. His partner’s wife accused me of being a royal sinner, that I was never gonna be allowed to get into heaven. Ya know, silly, non-sensical crap like that. 

Greg Ginn, via

THE MASK                                         

We didn’t know where to go to get a gig. So after a couple of years of being locked in the rehearsal space, after one of our practices, Greg Ginn and I went up to the Masque in LA, the bastion of punk rock, and cornered one of my heroes, Brendan Mullen. We were kind of grungy looking characters—I hadn’t cut my hair yet, so we looked like the guys that roadied for Peter Frampton.

We were impressed with Brendan because we were impressed with the Masque—that’s where we got to see the Germs and the Weirdoes. So we bothered Brendan to the point where he just gave in. He said, “All right, I’ll let you play, you can be the opening band on closing night.”

So we played closing night of the original Masque, but I don’t remember it because I loved to break open a six-pack or two on a regular basis and snort some Hollywood Happy Powder. I would get around Derf and Philo and Spit from Fear—they’d become friends of mine and we all became drinking buddies. And maybe Darby Crash would come hang out with us. I wasn’t thinking about getting laid, I was too drunk to even worry about what I was gonna do with my penis. I was more concerned with getting fucked up. 

I mean, I was one of those guys sitting in the parking lot outside of the Hollywood Bowl drinking prescription peach-flavored cough syrup before sneaking into the Hollywood Bowl to see the Allman Brothers, yaknow? 

WHITE FLAG

Greg Ginn and I started drifting. Our friendship started to dissolve about halfway through my second year of being in the band. We weren’t playing a lot of shows. All we were doing was rehearsing, but what were we rehearsing for? Yaknow, it was like we were playing to just please ourselves. We made a couple of trips to San Francisco and that was pretty cool, but there started to be a shift in the plates. What I mean by that is when Gary joined the band, people started taking sides. It was no longer, “All for one and one for all and let’s go party!” You know, “Hey guys, let’s be bros! Let’s party down!”  

What had happened was it had turned into three against one. I, apparently, was impeding their progress because of my drunken antics and because they wanted to learn more songs. My mentality was as follows: That’s all fine and great, but why are we learning new songs? What for?

It got to the point where I wasn’t having any fun. I mean, we would go out and play and while we were playing, while we were on stage, I was having a great time, but all the other stuff that was attached to it just started to kind of grind on me. And there was a power struggle going on and I didn’t want to get involved in that. Everytime we got into some kind of argument or there was a group discussion, I was the freckle-faced stepchild, ya know, the orphan. Eventually I just said, “Guys, I’m outta here.”

As it turned out, because I spent a lot of time with Chuck Dukowski, now I got to hear all of the post-Keith Morris Black Flag stories. Chuck told me that Greg Ginn was gonna kick me outta the band because I was keeping them from moving forward. That was one thing that I’d never picked up from Greg Ginn. I never saw him as being particularly ambitious, or the king of an empire, that he would eventually become. 

But it didn’t start getting ugly until the Circle Jerks started playing live.

MASTURBATION IN THE ROUND                                                             

After I left Black Flag, I was living in an abandoned Baptist Church in Hermosa Beach at the corner of Pier and Hermosa Avenue. After it was abandoned by its followers, some hippies moved in and began to rent out sections of the church for glass-blowing and pottery and stuff like that. The guy who was in charge was a guy named Red, who actually dealt LSD to the Grateful Dead—ha, ha, ha! And one of the things that’s happening in the church was that Redd Kross was rehearsing there. 

So Redd Kross was down in the basement one Saturday afternoon, and I run into Greg Hetson and Keith “Lucky” Lehrer, who were going into the basement to audition. Redd Kross was auditioning drummers and Lucky was the drummer that they were auditioning that day. So they’re down there for about an hour. I’m just sitting in the hallway just drinking beer, and Greg and Lucky are the first two to come out and they’re shaking their heads. 

I can see that Greg Hetson is really upset, so I said, “How’s it goin’? It sounded really happening!” But they’re shaking their heads with a disillusioned look on each of their faces. So I said, “Greg, what’s happening?” And Greg said, “Well, it sounded great, it sounded amazing, but the brothers didn’t like Lucky because he was too proficient. He was too good of a drummer…”

That’s when it dawned on me, I said, “Look we gotta vocalist, a guitar player, and a drummer. All we need is a bass player!” And a couple of weeks later I ran into Rodger Rodgerson in front of the Anti-Club over in Hollywood, and drafted him. That's pretty much how the Circle Jerks got together.

RAYMOND PETTIBON

Raymond Pettibon is Greg Ginn’s younger brother, and he has been a part of this since the very beginning. We went to high school together. I mean, granted we weren’t all in the same classes, but there was a point in time when we were all at Maricosta High School in Manhattan Beach. We were all Mustangs—green and gold were our school colors, just like the Green Bay Packers.

And Raymond’s always been a fan of Black Flag. See, we were called Panic before we were called Black Flag, but then there was some French band named Panic released a 45. When we found this out, we looked at each other and went, “We gotta change our name because we can’t afford to deal with any lawsuits!” 

I mean, what lawyer would represent us? Like, “Does anyone even know a lawyer? What’s a lawyer?”

So Raymond was the guy that came up with the name Black Flag. He also designed the band’s logo, ya know, the four bars that create the waving flag? It’s a great design. It lives forever. And the name, the Circle Jerks, was another Raymond Pettibon creation, because we had run through six or seven names, Plastic Hippy, The Runs, White Hassle... Like don’t hassle me, white man!

Anyways, we didn’t like any of the names and one day we were hanging out with Raymond in one of the bedrooms in his parent’s house in Hermosa Beach. And Greg Hetson and I were looking at each other and it was like we need to come up with a name for the band. So I pull a book off the shelf, the American Slang Dictionary, and we’re like breezing through it. I’m looking at all the different names and all of a sudden there’s Circle Jerk. And I’m thinking, Well, the Rolling Stones, that’s a pretty terrible name...

It always seems that the worst names, the most terrible names, are the most remembered. 

So I thought, Circle Jerk, no, Circle Jerks, plural, because there’s four of us. Greg nodded his head and that’s where that went down. So we could almost blame it on Raymond Pettibon again. 

Raymond was one of the first three bass players we had before we found Chuck Dukowski. He was one of those bassists that couldn’t play the bass guitar.

We were party buddies. One night we’re at a John Cale/Zeros show at the Whiskey and he was drunk out of his mind and he picked up some girl and they were dry humping on the floor of the Whiskey a Go Go. Raymond didn’t really get involved in any of the inner workings of Black Flag, he was just a fan, yaknow? He grew up with us. He got along with his brother Greg, but they don’t speak now, because one of them is an incredibly horrible person—and it’s not Raymond.

BUT WHO IS THE LEAD SINGER?  

There were two vocalists in Black Flag sandwiched in between Henry Rollins and me. A lot of people, when they think about Black Flag they think of Henry Rollins, because Henry was on every album. Or just about every album. That’s one of the amazing things about Black Flag; there were four different lead vocalists and each one of us brought our own flavor to the party, yaknow? 

So Henry came in after Dez, and Dez came in after Ron Reyes, and Ron came in after me. Ron was only in the band for six months. He just wasn’t into it. I don’t know what his excuse was or his reasons were for leaving, but I was told that the EP Black Flag put out with Ron, the Jealous Again EP, were the best songs that Black Flag ever did. 

Henry Rollins used Black Flag as a springboard for all the other stuff that he’s done, and I wholeheartedly applaud him. Greg Ginn doesn’t like the fact that Henry is more successful than him. I’m surprised that Henry made it as far as he did with Greg Ginn, because Greg was always saying “I can’t have him upstaging me! Oh, he’s doing all of the interviews!” But Henry would upstage him just by walking onstage. I mean, Henry was a punk-rock sex symbol. So I think Greg was happy to have him, but also resented him.

You have to understand that Greg became very egotistical. He was like, “Well, I’ve got this great record label with all of these bands. There’s all of this stuff going on, and I’m in control!”  And so Greg Ginn quit the band. I don’t know when. All I know is that Greg  quit and left Henry with Black Flag and that’s when Henry decided to do his own thing with the Henry Rollins Band. But I don’t really know anything about that time. 

I just know that Greg Ginn was never a vocalist, and Greg will never be a vocalist. But as a guitar player, I’d put Greg up there with Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and Jimmy Hendrix. He was one great guitar players of all time.       

I was the first lead vocalist, but I’m not a singer either. I was the lead screamer. I’m not going to be the guy that goes to the wedding and they’re gonna ask me to sing a song.

I woulda been on the first record that Black Flag released, the Nervous Breakdown EP, but I’d left the band. I am on Everything Went Black. I’m on one side of three sides and I’m on another compilation, I think it’s called Wasted Again. There’s enough recorded material and that would equate me being owed quite a large chunk of royalties. But I’ve never gotten any royalties from Black Flag.

Ginn doesn’t pay royalties. He once invited me to get up onstage and sing four or five songs with him. I looked Greg in the eye and said, “Sure, cut me a check for $75,000 for back royalties.” That would’ve been just the tip of the iceberg, but he just laughed in my face.

REUNIONS SUCK 

The Circle Jerks were out on tour in 2003 and we played a big festival over here by the LA Coliseum. A couple of the guys from Golden Voice, the promoters that we’ve dealt with for the majority of our lives, said to me, “Keith we need your help, we’re doing two nights of Black Flag at the Hollywood Palladium…” 

I said, “Don’t even fill me in on the details, just let me know when you’re doing it. Of course, I’ll be there; I’ll be a part of it. What do I need to do?”

When I was asked to participate in the Hollywood Palladium show, it was being advertised as “Black Flag: The First Four Years.” It’s one of these situations where you’re looking at maybe $100,000 over the course of two nights and it was supposed to be a benefit for cats. So I was thinking, “Wow, they’re gonna have Ron and Dez and Chuck and Robo down here, too! So I will get to hang out with some of my friends!”

So I went to my first rehearsal and it was pretty brutal. These other guys—not Dez or Ron or Chuck or Robo—were playing the songs, and they didn’t even know what the songs were. They were looking at each other, waiting around for the riff to go around like five or six times. It was pretty ridiculous. I shook my head. I’d had enough. I was wasting my time. Still, I wanted to know when Chuck Dukowski was gonna show up because I know that Chuck shows up, shit was gonna happen. I actually called Greg and said, “So when is Chuck going to be showing up for rehearsal?”

Greg said, “I haven’t talked with Chuck yet...”

Then I actually talked with Chuck at Amoeba Records in Hollywood, during the West Memphis Three benefit, and I asked him, “So do you know about the Black Flag reunion at the Hollywood Palladium?”

Chuck says, “No, nobody’s talked to me about it...” 

I said, “Well, I guess you’re learning about it now….”

So I left the rehearsal that night thinking I’m not going back until I know when Robo and Chuck Dukowski are gonna be there. I called Dez to see if anybody reached out to him, to see when he was coming in. But he didn’t call back, so I just left a message on his machine. I woulda called Robo too, if I knew how to get a hold of Robo.

Then I got my ass handed to me by Greg Ginn on the phone, who told me, “I will call you when it’s time to rehearse, stop talking shit behind everyone’s back, stop trying to mess everything up….” 

I said, “Well have you talked with Robo? When is Robo getting in?”

Greg said, “That’s really none of your business. I’ll call you when it’s your turn…”

That’s when I realized that Greg never intended to have the original band onstage.

THE BIG SHOW

The promoter called me and wanted to know, “Well, who’s gonna be onstage? We’re sold out the first night and we need to fill up the second night. We wanna run some ads, so who’s playing in the band? We wanna advertise everyone that’s playing.”

I told him, “I can’t tell ya, I don’t know, I’ve been left in the dark...” 

He says, “Well you’re supposed to know this stuff!” And it just started getting uglier and uglier. I realized why I quit the band in the first place. Initially I was just beyond jazzed, I was beyond stoked, but then getting around all these people and hearing the conversations and getting my ass chewed out for stuff that I wasn’t doing. I was like, “Are you fucking kidding? These are all the reasons I left the band in the first place!”

So the promoter calls me a couple weeks before the show and says “Greg has told me that on a couple of occasions, you’ve been spreading vicious rumors and you’ve been talking shit behind everybody’s back, so you’re services are not going to be necessary.” At first I wanted to be bummed out, but then I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked him.

Two days before the show the promoter calls me back and says, “Keith, we’ve reserved a couple of tables in the balcony, so you can invite all your friends, you can hang out in the balcony, and if you choose to go down on stage and sing a few songs, feel free.” 

And I said, “Well thank you for the offer, but I won’t be there.” 

A few days later I get a call from him and he apologized to me for the way that he talked to me on the phone. Which didn’t really bother me too much because it’s par for the course with stuff like this, but at the end of our conversation he says, “Well I hope that we’re still friends??” 

I said, “Rick, we’re always gonna be friends. No matter what, any of this stuff that goes down, we’re always going to be friends.” 

The sad thing is that Rick mixed some medication and died shortly after that.

So no, I didn’t go to the show but I heard all of the rumors, I heard all of the critiques. They were actually throwing trash cans at the stage. There were people that had purchased tickets for both nights trying to sell their tickets for the second night. I heard nothing but horror stories.

FLAG IT!

Gary Tovar, the head guy at Golden Voice asked Chuck Dukowski to come to his anniversary party and give a speech to 4,000 people. So Chuck thinks about it and says, “Well, no, I’m a musician, let me try something else.”

So he calls me and Billy Stevenson. So we agreed to play the Nervous Breakdown EP at the Golden Voice 30th-anniversary party before the Descendents, who were headlining that Sunday night. So we play the anniversary party and everyone goes crazy. So we’re backstage, me, Chuck, Billy, Stephen, and Dez Cadena, and we’re looking at each other. We’ve had a great time, and among the four of us, we decided that maybe we should play out as a band. 

We came up with the name Flag and start playing out, and all of our shows have been great. We really enjoy playing with each other. We enjoy each other’s company. I mean granted, we’re all a bunch of older guys, and occasionally somebody gets grumpy and grouchy, but that’s what old people do.

KARMA

Raymond Pettibon and I were sitting down to eat a couple of sandwiches, a short while back, and he looks at me and tells me that he knows how his brother has treated everybody that he ever dealt with like shit. Ya know, Raymond tells me he knows Greg’s not been cool to everybody. I’m like, “So what else is new?” But then Raymond tells me that if I ever get in a financial bind or health situation that I can feel free to walk into his studio and take whatever I want to and sell it. 

This is one of the greatest artists of our time and he’s extending that kind of an invitation to me? Not only was I flattered, but I also realized that he and I were real close at one time, ya know? In the circle we were running with in that church—and in Black Flag, and the whole South Bay underground scene—me and Raymond had a lot of things in common. We were both fans of the Dodgers and the Angels, we were both fans of Superman and Batman. We were really close.

But I never took him up on his offer. I had no need to. I was always in a financial situation where I was able to pay my bills. I get by on the skin of my teeth, but I don’t need a lot of money after discovering the greatness of the farmers' market.

 

Previously - Among The War Pigs

Back in 1975, Legs McNeil co-founded Punk Magazine, which is part of the reason you know even know what that word means. He also wrote Please Kill Me, which basically makes him the Studs Terkel of punk rock. In addition to his work as a columnist for VICE, he continues to write for his personal blog, pleasekillme.com. 

 

You should also follow him on Twitter - @Legs__McNeil

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