Jason Traeger
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Anyone who knows me knows I've never been one to revel in the past. I'm the last one to cast a misty-eyed glance back at the "good old days". In my experience the people who take this angle are usually the ones who weren't there. Whatever mistakes, false starts and missed opportunities I've had the pleasure of having, I was wherever I was for better or worse.

This blog is not meant to romanticize any choices I made or any particular era. It's simply a place where I share stories and take stock of where I've been as a way to figure out where I might want to go next. I'll celebrate some people along the way, some of them you'll know or know of, others will be new to you. I'm glad to have known every one of them.

The posts are in no thematic or chronological order. The date at the end of the post's title refers to how the content of the post relates to me personally. I make no claim about the accuracy of my recollections I only promise that I'll be as honest and accurate as I can be. If you were there and you remember things differently than I do, or you find evidence that contradicts my memory (I wouldn't be surprised or upset) feel free to let me know.

Rather than editing the posts for historical accuracy, I'll put ( * ) next to any parts that have been challenged or updated for that reason.


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November 26, 2012
THE JASON TRAEGER SHOW  OLYMPIA 2000  My Stand-up comedy career can be divided into three periods. As a child I made a practice of memorizing routines and bits by Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin and George Carlin to perform for my friends and classmates. In fact my first performance in front of an audience was in 1977 when I did a medley of bits culled from Steve Martin’s classic albums of that era in front of my fourth grade class at Moorlands Elementary School in Bothell, Wa.  I was a big hit with the kids but my teacher was less approving. She was especially upset when I did the joke “…when a person asks me in a restaurant ‘mind if I smoke?’, I ask them ‘mind if I fart?’” Of course the joke that drew the most ire from my teacher got the biggest laugh of all from the kids. I was hooked! As a nine year old stand-up in the late 70’s I found it exceedingly difficult to make a career of it. This was, after all, a few years before the comedy explosion of the 80’s and at the time I wasn’t allowed to stay up past 9pm so it was tough. Once I’d exhausted all the audiences in my immediate surroundings I put my comedy dreams on the back burner to pursue the completion of my primary school education. It wasn’t until about 25 years later while living in Olympia, WA. that I got back into Stand-up. I don’t remember exactly what inspired me to start hitting open mics at that time. I do remember feeling inspired after seeing Mitch Hedberg and Marc Maron a few months apart at a club in Oly that briefly hosted comedy around that time. I think those shows helped push me to give it another go. The time was right. This second, middle-era of my Stand-up career started primarily at Seattle’s Comedy Underground and at Giggles out in the U District and then at Comedy Underground’s Tacoma location. I eventually moved back to California (I’d lived there in the 80’s and 90’s) spending sometime in SF performing at places like Brainwash, then in LA performing at various spots around town most frequently at the Lucy’s Laundromat on Sunset in Silverlake. This era culminated with a national tour I did doing Stand-up as an opener for musical acts Scout Niblett and Swearing at Motorists. I learned a lot on that tour. Among other things I learned that doing Stand-up in Baton Rouge, LA. at a biker/frat bar is not for the faint of heart. I also learned that while it seems like a bad idea to do a fistful of magic mushrooms before going onstage in front of hundreds in Dallas, TX., it’s not as bad an idea as you might think. When I got back to LA after that tour I didn’t know which way was up and I’d pretty much lost the trail completely in my life. I just didn’t have the center of gravity to do much of anything so I moved back to the Northwest, bounced around a little, went to art school, studied painting, blew through some money, played music, got jobs, left jobs, lost jobs, I was in a fantastic art collective called Oregon Painting Society that did comedy shows from time to time, did tons of shows with OPS, performed at the Tate Modern in London, quit drugs and alcohol, did a couple Stand-up shows in art-world settings, and all kinds of other stuff. About five months ago I started doing Stand-up again here in Portland. This begins the third chapter of my career. I don’t know why I started back up exactly. It’s true I was running out of patience with the vagaries of the art world, I couldn’t afford to throw every penny toward a painting career that got plenty of attention but almost no sales at all, I also was transitioning into being single again, and I was frankly a little bored with music. I wanted a form of expression that was compatible with working a lot and being strapped for cash. More than anything else though I just felt a calling to get back into it. In Portland I’ve found Stand-up comedy heaven. It’s a great scene with tons of open mics in a bunch of great rooms. There are a slew of talented young and not-so young comics, the scene is creative, fresh, friendly and I can’t imagine it’s not at the beginning of a comedy explosion of sorts. All the pieces are in place. I am more excited by and engaged in comedy than I’ve ever been and it feels great.  I’ve also been able to combine my love of visual art with my comedy career by sketching the ever changing faces and places of Portland comedy. I show my drawings on my Portland Stand-up Comedy Sketchbook Tumblr. The above flyer is from a show at the ABC house in Olympia that was a held as a fundraising benefit prior to my move to California. I’m a little unsure as to what year that would’ve been. 2000 maybe? The flyer was drawn by my dear friend and brilliant artist Tae Won Yu. The bill featured my friends Lindsay Arnold who was making the rounds as a Stand-up at the time and Jared Warren of KARP, The Whip, Big Business and Melvins fame. Jared was between bands and was another one of my Stand-up Comedy mates for my trips up to Seattle to The Comedy Underground. Both Jared and Lindsay were and still are hilarious. Lindsay is a lawyer now and Jared is a rockstar still.  Me? I’m a Stand-up comic! If you wanna see me do my thing go to almost any open mic in Portland. If I’m not on stage just look for the guy with the sketchbook. (The Jason Traeger Show flyer by Tae Won Yu from my personal archives.)

THE JASON TRAEGER SHOW  OLYMPIA 2000 

My Stand-up comedy career can be divided into three periods.

As a child I made a practice of memorizing routines and bits by Cheech and Chong, Steve Martin and George Carlin to perform for my friends and classmates. In fact my first performance in front of an audience was in 1977 when I did a medley of bits culled from Steve Martin’s classic albums of that era in front of my fourth grade class at Moorlands Elementary School in Bothell, Wa. 

I was a big hit with the kids but my teacher was less approving. She was especially upset when I did the joke “…when a person asks me in a restaurant ‘mind if I smoke?’, I ask them ‘mind if I fart?’” Of course the joke that drew the most ire from my teacher got the biggest laugh of all from the kids. I was hooked!

As a nine year old stand-up in the late 70’s I found it exceedingly difficult to make a career of it. This was, after all, a few years before the comedy explosion of the 80’s and at the time I wasn’t allowed to stay up past 9pm so it was tough. Once I’d exhausted all the audiences in my immediate surroundings I put my comedy dreams on the back burner to pursue the completion of my primary school education.

It wasn’t until about 25 years later while living in Olympia, WA. that I got back into Stand-up. I don’t remember exactly what inspired me to start hitting open mics at that time. I do remember feeling inspired after seeing Mitch Hedberg and Marc Maron a few months apart at a club in Oly that briefly hosted comedy around that time. I think those shows helped push me to give it another go. The time was right.

This second, middle-era of my Stand-up career started primarily at Seattle’s Comedy Underground and at Giggles out in the U District and then at Comedy Underground’s Tacoma location. I eventually moved back to California (I’d lived there in the 80’s and 90’s) spending sometime in SF performing at places like Brainwash, then in LA performing at various spots around town most frequently at the Lucy’s Laundromat on Sunset in Silverlake. This era culminated with a national tour I did doing Stand-up as an opener for musical acts Scout Niblett and Swearing at Motorists. I learned a lot on that tour. Among other things I learned that doing Stand-up in Baton Rouge, LA. at a biker/frat bar is not for the faint of heart. I also learned that while it seems like a bad idea to do a fistful of magic mushrooms before going onstage in front of hundreds in Dallas, TX., it’s not as bad an idea as you might think.

When I got back to LA after that tour I didn’t know which way was up and I’d pretty much lost the trail completely in my life. I just didn’t have the center of gravity to do much of anything so I moved back to the Northwest, bounced around a little, went to art school, studied painting, blew through some money, played music, got jobs, left jobs, lost jobs, I was in a fantastic art collective called Oregon Painting Society that did comedy shows from time to time, did tons of shows with OPS, performed at the Tate Modern in London, quit drugs and alcohol, did a couple Stand-up shows in art-world settings, and all kinds of other stuff.

About five months ago I started doing Stand-up again here in Portland. This begins the third chapter of my career. I don’t know why I started back up exactly. It’s true I was running out of patience with the vagaries of the art world, I couldn’t afford to throw every penny toward a painting career that got plenty of attention but almost no sales at all, I also was transitioning into being single again, and I was frankly a little bored with music. I wanted a form of expression that was compatible with working a lot and being strapped for cash. More than anything else though I just felt a calling to get back into it.

In Portland I’ve found Stand-up comedy heaven. It’s a great scene with tons of open mics in a bunch of great rooms. There are a slew of talented young and not-so young comics, the scene is creative, fresh, friendly and I can’t imagine it’s not at the beginning of a comedy explosion of sorts. All the pieces are in place. I am more excited by and engaged in comedy than I’ve ever been and it feels great. 

I’ve also been able to combine my love of visual art with my comedy career by sketching the ever changing faces and places of Portland comedy. I show my drawings on my Portland Stand-up Comedy Sketchbook Tumblr.

The above flyer is from a show at the ABC house in Olympia that was a held as a fundraising benefit prior to my move to California. I’m a little unsure as to what year that would’ve been. 2000 maybe? The flyer was drawn by my dear friend and brilliant artist Tae Won Yu. The bill featured my friends Lindsay Arnold who was making the rounds as a Stand-up at the time and Jared Warren of KARP, The Whip, Big Business and Melvins fame. Jared was between bands and was another one of my Stand-up Comedy mates for my trips up to Seattle to The Comedy Underground. Both Jared and Lindsay were and still are hilarious. Lindsay is a lawyer now and Jared is a rockstar still. 

Me? I’m a Stand-up comic! If you wanna see me do my thing go to almost any open mic in Portland. If I’m not on stage just look for the guy with the sketchbook.

(The Jason Traeger Show flyer by Tae Won Yu from my personal archives.)

4:10pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvY73cX5
(Notes: 8)
  
Filed under: Jared Warren abc house karp karp lives melvins metal olympia polar bears punk tae won yu tight bros from way back when stand up comedy open mic portland san francisco lucy's laundry mart mitch hedberg marc maron 
June 4, 2012

THUS SPAKE SRI RAMAKRISHNA BOOK  FROM GARY FLOYD  SAN FRANCISCO 1990

Gary Floyd is one of the sweetest human beings I’ve ever known. I love the man.

It’s funny how now that I’m in my forties, the majority of people I hang out with on a regular basis are younger than I am. Many of them in their twenties. When I was in my late teens and early twenties I didn’t seem to have any friends that weren’t at least a generation, and usually a few generations, ahead of me. Gary Floyd is one of those older, wiser friends I cherished so much at that time of my life and still cherish to this day even though I only ever see him nowadays on Facebook. Whatever its faults, thank gosh for Facebook, huh?

I’d like to share with my readers the news that Gary is having a stent put in near his heart today at 2:00pm Pacific Time. Gary has always been a big believer and powerful practitioner of spiritual energetics (meaning: he likes and gives GOOD VIBES ). So I’m posting this today as a way to rally and urge all who love him to focus your best thoughts, prayers, and intentions out into the world and toward the man in his hour of physical challenge.

If you don’t know Gary, his legacy of true rebellion, free spirited conscious living, and music make today your Get Acquainted with Gary Floyd Day! You’ll be glad you did!

(Sri Ramakrishna booklet given to me by Gary Floyd in 1988)

10:41am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvMl03kg
(Notes: 8)
  
Filed under: gary floyd debbie gordon the dicks sister double happiness san francisco austin texas punk punk rock 
April 29, 2012
TRAD’R SAM DRINK MENU SAN FRANCISCO 1987-1992 I did a lot of drinking between my early teens and my early forties. I took a few years off  once or twice but by and large alcohol figured significantly in my life all that time. That’s thirty years of very regular sipping, slurping, guzzling and gulping. I drank in every mode and mindset imaginable in those years. I drank socially in groups and crowds and often had a blast. I was more often than not funny, popular, witty, warm, and charming. People liked to drink with me because I was very rarely an out-of-control, boring, or boorish drunk. I had countless very meaningful, genuinely profound conversations and bonding sessions with good friends, close acquaintances, and with complete strangers while lit, smashed, and getting smasher’d. I also drank alone a lot. These words immediately read as sad and tragic but it wasn’t always, or even mostly depressing or bummerish when I drank solo. In fact many times I had wonderful hours drinking alone, joking, cooking, and singing to myself. I did some of my best thinking and creating in those years while alone and buzzed. Looking back, this was probably due in part to the fact that I was buzzed so much of the time when I did any creating or living good or bad, happy or sad. Everything I did straight I also did under the influence. I worked. I travelled. I read. I watched movies. I wrote. I slept. I dreamed. I played music. I performed. I argued.  I joked. I cried. I laughed. I made out. I had sex. I fell in love. I drove. I rode. I walked, talked, staggered, ran, and crawled, all under the spell of that warm sensation that comes with alcohol consumption. I could go into long a list of major life milestones I had while ripped, tipsied or merely feelin’ it. I won’t though because you get the idea. There are a bunch. I drank when I was happy, sad, lonely, when I was content, when I lacked confidence, when I brimmed with it, when I wanted out, when I wanted in, when I wanted to celebrate, annihilate, or obliterate whatever I liked, loved, hated or loathed about people, places, things, situations, and my station in life. I didn’t need much reason, or any reason at all, to pull a cork, twist a cap, crack a can, or pop a lid. Sometimes I was able to stop drinking exactly when I wanted to, other times I couldn’t seem to stop at all. I first started drinking in my late adolescence as I was struggling with the difficult task of trying to grow a garden of the heart and mind under the shadow of an oppressive, opaque cloud of inadequacy, low self-esteem, and fear. I experienced a tough transition between the magically inclined, imagination-centered world of my childhood and the harsher, more demanding social reality of teendom. Like many thoughtful, creative kids I wasn’t thrilled about entering this new world. In alcohol I found a panacea custom made for me. Early on it gave me the added confidence to be social, a devil-may-care attitude, and the courage to take risks when they needed taking. It boosted my sense of myself as a thinker (a genius even!) when as the titanic waves of free-form association, inspiration, and revelation came crashing in I was able to stand up (on wobbly legs) and ride that wave where ever it took me. Plus it was fun, cool, and it was social to drink. So it was game on. Looking at it now, I can see that all my life I drank the way I did for a complex web of motivations, many of which I may never fully understand. One obvious thread I have identified is the mysterious force of genetic predisposition. I’m ¾ Irish ¼ German. I don’t have to explain that these bloodlines in the human family aren’t exactly known for shying away from beers and boozes. We likes the drinks. It also didn’t hurt that my parents weren’t drinkers but many in my extended family were. This meant I had plenty of exposure to alcohol without having been forced to live through the first hand devastation of in-your-face alcoholism of the kind that might’ve put me off the stuff all together. It might also be worth noting that when I was young the world was run by the generation that had survived The Great Depression and two World Wars. This generation set the tone for a culture that was totally unapologetic about drinking. (questions? see the TV show Madmen for details) I started out experimenting with beer. As a young Punk Rock kid I liked getting trashed at Jr. High parties in Tacoma, at Punk parties with an older crowd, and on The Ave in Seattle. Sometimes we’d sit on the roof of Domino’s Pizza on The Ave and pound Mickey’s Big Mouths or we might make a plastic jug full of O.J. and vodka and drink it on the sidewalk until I’d find myself leaning against a plate glass window, trying hard to make sense of the visual field spinning around me. I remember really enjoying the feeling of wild freedom that accompanied these times. As I got older, alcohol was still my party pal but it was also a companion when I found myself feeling let down, alone, and lonely. Drinking seemed to be the one thing that would always keep me afloat when I was adrift on a grey ocean of sadness, bitterness, and hopelessness about my life and the world around me. Alcohol didn’t give me some line about looking on the sunny side and it didn’t judge or reject me because of my grim attitude. I may not have the love, talent, sex, money, fame, and adulation I want and deserve, and this world may be completely unjust and f-cked, but I have you my sweet friend. You’ll always be there for me. A refuge, a distraction, a collaborator, a lover, a pal. Never hard to find, you don’t ask me to be someone I’m not. All you ask is that I meet you half way and you’ll make sure we get to oblivion together.  It seemed like the least I could do, considering everything I was getting from the deal! So I did it, and did it, and did it again. The bargain seemed to work out most of the time too. I got pretty blitzed as a teen whenever and wherever I could get away with it but it wasn’t until I was a legal drinker in San Francisco in the late 80’s and early 90’s that I really hit my stride with the stuff. In that era I still drank in houses, apartments, at parties, in parks, the streets, and on the beaches but mostly I drank all over the city in all kinds of bars. I drank at stripped-down rocker bars on Haight St., super divey dive bars in the Tenderloin, dancey gay bars and quiet, soft-chaired old queen bars on Castro and all over the city. The big political Irish pubs on Geary and Clement Streets were some of my favorites. I liked getting hammered at Chinese places in Chinatown and in the Richmond District, Piano bars in the Marina District, South of Market punk bars, weird old-man bars out in the foggy Avenues, gimmicky yuppie spots in Pacific Heights, wood-paneled cigar bars in the Financial District, Post-Beatnik North Beach literary bars, Italian bars in North Beach too. I drank in old union laborer joints and mariachi places in the Mission. I got fuzzy, feely, friendly and I got ripped, blitzed, blotto and smashed in these spots. I could go on and on… I walked into these establishments stone-cold sober, lightly buzzed, and already smashed. I entered them eagerly, sadly, bored, excited, in a group, with a friend, and all alone. I breezed out into the afternoon with buzz, I limped out into the night exhausted and broke, and too often I staggered out into it with one hand cupped over an eye wondering how the city could get away with installing sidewalks at such a ridiculously impractical angle! I usually made it home alright, although I did from time to time find myself regaining consciousness in a doorway as the city woke up around me… Good morning lady walking your dog! Good morning joggers! Top of the morning to you delivery guy…you wouldn’t happen to be delivering a truck load of aspirin would you? No? Oh, that’s too bad… excuse me while I…BlaaaAAAAARRRph!… No huge disasters befell me but I made a fool of myself plenty of times, had tons of epic hangovers, made my girlfriend miserable, I more than once narrowly avoided being hit by cars. I fell off some barstools, did a slurred fake Irish accent once or twice (ouch!), may have skipped out on a tab or two. I shared WAY more than a few color-corrected, hyper-saturated accounts of my life and times. I definitely put in some long hours in some smoky, drinky dojos earning a black-belt in b.s. and blarney. To my credit as a drinker, or maybe it was due to the kindness and irresponsibility of the bar staff, I was never cut-off and I was never asked to leave a bar, not even once that I can remember. I never got in a fight, I can’t even recall ever exchanging heated words with anyone. I never threw up in a toilet stall, I hardly ever spilled a drink. I was never arrested. I was polite to ladies. I didn’t break or even bruise too many hearts. I didn’t pick up any souvenereal diseases because most often once I was trashed I only wanted to be left alone to savor my moment of confusion and peace in peace. I did more than my fair share of embarrassing sh-t but mostly I kept it together. It is possible I’m forgetting some truly awful story from those days, after all I was drinking at the time. I wasn’t particularly into the romance of it all like a lot of younger drinkers are about their drinking. The fact that I didn’t read Bukowski or listen to Tom Waits is more proof of this fact than anyone should ever want or need. I didn’t aspire to write or be a character like them either. I just liked the way booze made me feel. It’s just as well that I didn’t try to be a writer anyhow because most of my material wouldn’t have been such a great a read. My best/worst drunky drinky stories are simple tales of garden variety, slack-jawed, bleary-eyed, sub-felonious idiocy and not much else. A good example of this sort of sorry narrative mini-arc might be one like the time I found myself wending my way home in the wee hours of the morning, taking the scenic route while in a drunken stupor. I stopped along my journey to take a piss all over a beautiful vintage Vespa scooter innocently parked on the sidewalk in The Haight. I recall feeling inexplicably justified  and somewhat delighted in this unwarranted random assault on another person’s prized possession. …take thad you yubbie Mod, Vezpaaah riding azz-ole! Bay backz a bidge, huh…muhvugger?…haha…ha…take thad!…blaaahwww, haw haw… The stuff of legends…I can almost hear Tom Waits’ gravelly voice singing this tale, only in his song a one-eyed Mod dwarf would probably come out of his house to punch me in the nuts… I felt terrible about that act the next day for obvious reasons and I still feel bad about it today. Such a stupid sh-tty thing to do. I didn’t do a lot of stuff like that but in 30 years of drinking I did enough stupid sh-t to feel like I should issue a blanket apology to the world at large. Sorry!  Sh-t like that hurts others, sends bad vibes into the world, and put major dents in my own shaky self-esteem too. Enough dents you have a banged up car, bang a car up long enough it stops working altogether. Not a great way to get where you wanna go in life. I don’t recall where I picked up the vintage Trad’r Sam menu pictured above I think it might belong to my brother. It looks to me like it dates from the 1940’s or 50’s. By the look of the place I’d guess not a lot had changed about it by the time my brother, my friends and I started walking in (and staggering out) the door of the place in the 80’s. The prices might have gone up, but not as much as one might suppose. It was still very reasonable. Trad’r Sam was a classic, well trodden, dog-eared, first-wave Tiki bar that made no bones about serving huge, super-charged boozy drinks. Just look at the drink special on that old menu: “…A LOW-DOWN SNEAKER WRECKER” What does that even mean?  Is it a promise you’ll vomit? I guess so! All the drinks on the menu had descriptive subheadings like that when we drank there. “This will have you seeing double”, “Guaranteed to give you sea-legs” stuff like that.  We used to joke that they’d built the slurred voice into its very name, as in “I …hic…love Trdrrr Samz …hic…” The power of the potions was enough of a draw for me but there was plenty to like about the place. The friendly middle aged female bartenders were warm and welcoming. They hosted a wide, unpredictable variety of drinkers that included elderly neighborhood regulars, working men tying one on after a hard day, gal pals out for a wild night, college-kid spring break types there for the implied sun and fun of the decor, and other assorted low-lifes, weirdos and absolutely normal, well-adjusted aspiring alcoholics like myself. Like I’ve said, it wasn’t hard to get a little too brightly lit by Tradr Sam’s tiki-torch concoctions. I remember one time as I approached the front door watching a guy walk out, turn, walk nose first into the wall of the alcove the door was set in, apologize to the wall, straighten his hat, and keep on walking. A point for politeness goes to the gentleman in the hat! The place usually had a vibe of hazy joviality but occasionally the pineapple did turn sour. I was there one time when two older guys started arguing at the bar until one of them stood up, pulled his sportcoat back to reveal a shoulder-holstered revolver. As he did this he repeatedly issued a very sincere sounding promise the other guy: …Punch me and I’ll KILL ya! Go on…PUNCH ME…do it! I’ll kill ya!…c’mon… Then a short guy suffering from a potentially lethal case of alcohol induced courage, stood up and put his hands to their chests and set about calming them down. Eventually he prevailed and the men sat back down on their stools. Later when I asked the bartender about the potentially homicidal scene that had unfolded a little earlier she told me “I’d have called the cops but he IS ONE so I didn’t bother…the cops were ALREADY HERE! Haha..” Yeeeah…hahaha, uhuuuh…(gulp) One last story, I can’t resist… One time my brother Gavin, our third brother by a different father and mother Sean Kelly, and I were drinking at Trad’r Sam until we closed the place and stumbled into the frigid young morning. We were completely out of our heads and we decided it might be a nice to stagger the twenty or so blocks between Trad’r Sam and Ocean Beach so we could enjoy the bracing December air with our toes in the sand and the smell of salt water in our nostrils. Its hard to say where the warm numbness we’d acquired in Trad’r Sam’s tropical climes gave way to the hypothermic non-feeling we began to experience once we reached the dark emptiness and white noise roar of the beach. Whatever the source of the non-sensation, we were feeling none of it by the time we started wrestling and pile-driving one another into the wet sand and having whip-fights with the long leathery lashes of seaweed lying all around. One of these seaweed whip battles was in full swing when I became aware of a white light illuminating the misty ocean air all around us. Maybe this was it. Had my core temperature dipped so low that St. Peter himself was scooping me up from the sand to deliver me to the lap of Heaven? Or maybe, juuust maybe, it was an SFPD patrol car doing a routine scan of the beach? …yeah...it’s the cops. The light stayed trained on us from beyond the tall concrete wall above the sand while we stood there illuminated, clutching our seaweed ropes, mouth’s agape, panting like dogs, squinting, covered head to toe in wet sand, in a halo of our rapidly cooling body fog and breath. We are so…BUSTED. We… are going to…jail. Then after a minute or two the light went out. Our eyes readjusted to the darkness. The ocean roared and the patrol car drove away. Can you imagine the laughs those cops had looking at us standing there with our seaweed, like three drowned rats? It must’ve made their night.  I don’t know what happened next except that we somehow dragged ourselves the sixty or so blocks between the crashing waves and our beds back home. I’ll also say that the next day Sean Kelly had a Christmas tree in his apartment that hadn’t been there the day before and the tree had a strangely rounded stump on it as though it had been dragged for miles along a sidewalk. He may have had a brutal hangover that day but at least he also had… A Christmas miracle! Oh yeah, if you want to know why I quit drinking it’s simple: I’m not getting any younger and I know my chances of living longer and better would increase if I did, I knew I’d be happier and more honest with myself and others if I did, and I came to realize there was tons of stuff I wanted to do that I’d never get around to doing if I didn’t quit. So I quit and not once have I been sorry I did. Trad’r Sam’s menu from my personal archive.

TRAD’R SAM DRINK MENU SAN FRANCISCO 1987-1992

I did a lot of drinking between my early teens and my early forties. I took a few years off  once or twice but by and large alcohol figured significantly in my life all that time. That’s thirty years of very regular sipping, slurping, guzzling and gulping.

I drank in every mode and mindset imaginable in those years.

I drank socially in groups and crowds and often had a blast. I was more often than not funny, popular, witty, warm, and charming. People liked to drink with me because I was very rarely an out-of-control, boring, or boorish drunk. I had countless very meaningful, genuinely profound conversations and bonding sessions with good friends, close acquaintances, and with complete strangers while lit, smashed, and getting smasher’d.

I also drank alone a lot. These words immediately read as sad and tragic but it wasn’t always, or even mostly depressing or bummerish when I drank solo. In fact many times I had wonderful hours drinking alone, joking, cooking, and singing to myself. I did some of my best thinking and creating in those years while alone and buzzed. Looking back, this was probably due in part to the fact that I was buzzed so much of the time when I did any creating or living good or bad, happy or sad.

Everything I did straight I also did under the influence. I worked. I travelled. I read. I watched movies. I wrote. I slept. I dreamed. I played music. I performed. I argued.  I joked. I cried. I laughed. I made out. I had sex. I fell in love. I drove. I rode. I walked, talked, staggered, ran, and crawled, all under the spell of that warm sensation that comes with alcohol consumption.

I could go into long a list of major life milestones I had while ripped, tipsied or merely feelin’ it. I won’t though because you get the idea. There are a bunch.

I drank when I was happy, sad, lonely, when I was content, when I lacked confidence, when I brimmed with it, when I wanted out, when I wanted in, when I wanted to celebrate, annihilate, or obliterate whatever I liked, loved, hated or loathed about people, places, things, situations, and my station in life. I didn’t need much reason, or any reason at all, to pull a cork, twist a cap, crack a can, or pop a lid. Sometimes I was able to stop drinking exactly when I wanted to, other times I couldn’t seem to stop at all.

I first started drinking in my late adolescence as I was struggling with the difficult task of trying to grow a garden of the heart and mind under the shadow of an oppressive, opaque cloud of inadequacy, low self-esteem, and fear. I experienced a tough transition between the magically inclined, imagination-centered world of my childhood and the harsher, more demanding social reality of teendom. Like many thoughtful, creative kids I wasn’t thrilled about entering this new world.

In alcohol I found a panacea custom made for me. Early on it gave me the added confidence to be social, a devil-may-care attitude, and the courage to take risks when they needed taking. It boosted my sense of myself as a thinker (a genius even!) when as the titanic waves of free-form association, inspiration, and revelation came crashing in I was able to stand up (on wobbly legs) and ride that wave where ever it took me. Plus it was fun, cool, and it was social to drink. So it was game on.

Looking at it now, I can see that all my life I drank the way I did for a complex web of motivations, many of which I may never fully understand. One obvious thread I have identified is the mysterious force of genetic predisposition. I’m ¾ Irish ¼ German. I don’t have to explain that these bloodlines in the human family aren’t exactly known for shying away from beers and boozes. We likes the drinks.

It also didn’t hurt that my parents weren’t drinkers but many in my extended family were. This meant I had plenty of exposure to alcohol without having been forced to live through the first hand devastation of in-your-face alcoholism of the kind that might’ve put me off the stuff all together. It might also be worth noting that when I was young the world was run by the generation that had survived The Great Depression and two World Wars. This generation set the tone for a culture that was totally unapologetic about drinking. (questions? see the TV show Madmen for details)

I started out experimenting with beer. As a young Punk Rock kid I liked getting trashed at Jr. High parties in Tacoma, at Punk parties with an older crowd, and on The Ave in Seattle. Sometimes we’d sit on the roof of Domino’s Pizza on The Ave and pound Mickey’s Big Mouths or we might make a plastic jug full of O.J. and vodka and drink it on the sidewalk until I’d find myself leaning against a plate glass window, trying hard to make sense of the visual field spinning around me. I remember really enjoying the feeling of wild freedom that accompanied these times.

As I got older, alcohol was still my party pal but it was also a companion when I found myself feeling let down, alone, and lonely. Drinking seemed to be the one thing that would always keep me afloat when I was adrift on a grey ocean of sadness, bitterness, and hopelessness about my life and the world around me. Alcohol didn’t give me some line about looking on the sunny side and it didn’t judge or reject me because of my grim attitude.

I may not have the love, talent, sex, money, fame, and adulation I want and deserve, and this world may be completely unjust and f-cked, but I have you my sweet friend. You’ll always be there for me. A refuge, a distraction, a collaborator, a lover, a pal. Never hard to find, you don’t ask me to be someone I’m not. All you ask is that I meet you half way and you’ll make sure we get to oblivion together. 

It seemed like the least I could do, considering everything I was getting from the deal! So I did it, and did it, and did it again. The bargain seemed to work out most of the time too.

I got pretty blitzed as a teen whenever and wherever I could get away with it but it wasn’t until I was a legal drinker in San Francisco in the late 80’s and early 90’s that I really hit my stride with the stuff. In that era I still drank in houses, apartments, at parties, in parks, the streets, and on the beaches but mostly I drank all over the city in all kinds of bars.

I drank at stripped-down rocker bars on Haight St., super divey dive bars in the Tenderloin, dancey gay bars and quiet, soft-chaired old queen bars on Castro and all over the city. The big political Irish pubs on Geary and Clement Streets were some of my favorites. I liked getting hammered at Chinese places in Chinatown and in the Richmond District, Piano bars in the Marina District, South of Market punk bars, weird old-man bars out in the foggy Avenues, gimmicky yuppie spots in Pacific Heights, wood-paneled cigar bars in the Financial District, Post-Beatnik North Beach literary bars, Italian bars in North Beach too. I drank in old union laborer joints and mariachi places in the Mission. I got fuzzy, feely, friendly and I got ripped, blitzed, blotto and smashed in these spots. I could go on and on…

I walked into these establishments stone-cold sober, lightly buzzed, and already smashed. I entered them eagerly, sadly, bored, excited, in a group, with a friend, and all alone. I breezed out into the afternoon with buzz, I limped out into the night exhausted and broke, and too often I staggered out into it with one hand cupped over an eye wondering how the city could get away with installing sidewalks at such a ridiculously impractical angle!

I usually made it home alright, although I did from time to time find myself regaining consciousness in a doorway as the city woke up around me…

Good morning lady walking your dog! Good morning joggers! Top of the morning to you delivery guy…you wouldn’t happen to be delivering a truck load of aspirin would you? No? Oh, that’s too bad… excuse me while I…BlaaaAAAAARRRph!…

No huge disasters befell me but I made a fool of myself plenty of times, had tons of epic hangovers, made my girlfriend miserable, I more than once narrowly avoided being hit by cars. I fell off some barstools, did a slurred fake Irish accent once or twice (ouch!), may have skipped out on a tab or two. I shared WAY more than a few color-corrected, hyper-saturated accounts of my life and times. I definitely put in some long hours in some smoky, drinky dojos earning a black-belt in b.s. and blarney.

To my credit as a drinker, or maybe it was due to the kindness and irresponsibility of the bar staff, I was never cut-off and I was never asked to leave a bar, not even once that I can remember. I never got in a fight, I can’t even recall ever exchanging heated words with anyone. I never threw up in a toilet stall, I hardly ever spilled a drink. I was never arrested. I was polite to ladies. I didn’t break or even bruise too many hearts. I didn’t pick up any souvenereal diseases because most often once I was trashed I only wanted to be left alone to savor my moment of confusion and peace in peace.

I did more than my fair share of embarrassing sh-t but mostly I kept it together. It is possible I’m forgetting some truly awful story from those days, after all I was drinking at the time.

I wasn’t particularly into the romance of it all like a lot of younger drinkers are about their drinking. The fact that I didn’t read Bukowski or listen to Tom Waits is more proof of this fact than anyone should ever want or need. I didn’t aspire to write or be a character like them either. I just liked the way booze made me feel. It’s just as well that I didn’t try to be a writer anyhow because most of my material wouldn’t have been such a great a read.

My best/worst drunky drinky stories are simple tales of garden variety, slack-jawed, bleary-eyed, sub-felonious idiocy and not much else. A good example of this sort of sorry narrative mini-arc might be one like the time I found myself wending my way home in the wee hours of the morning, taking the scenic route while in a drunken stupor. I stopped along my journey to take a piss all over a beautiful vintage Vespa scooter innocently parked on the sidewalk in The Haight. I recall feeling inexplicably justified  and somewhat delighted in this unwarranted random assault on another person’s prized possession.

…take thad you yubbie Mod, Vezpaaah riding azz-ole! Bay backz a bidge, huh…muhvugger?…haha…ha…take thad!…blaaahwww, haw haw…

The stuff of legends…I can almost hear Tom Waits’ gravelly voice singing this tale, only in his song a one-eyed Mod dwarf would probably come out of his house to punch me in the nuts…

I felt terrible about that act the next day for obvious reasons and I still feel bad about it today. Such a stupid sh-tty thing to do. I didn’t do a lot of stuff like that but in 30 years of drinking I did enough stupid sh-t to feel like I should issue a blanket apology to the world at large. Sorry!  Sh-t like that hurts others, sends bad vibes into the world, and put major dents in my own shaky self-esteem too. Enough dents you have a banged up car, bang a car up long enough it stops working altogether. Not a great way to get where you wanna go in life.

I don’t recall where I picked up the vintage Trad’r Sam menu pictured above I think it might belong to my brother. It looks to me like it dates from the 1940’s or 50’s. By the look of the place I’d guess not a lot had changed about it by the time my brother, my friends and I started walking in (and staggering out) the door of the place in the 80’s. The prices might have gone up, but not as much as one might suppose. It was still very reasonable.

Trad’r Sam was a classic, well trodden, dog-eared, first-wave Tiki bar that made no bones about serving huge, super-charged boozy drinks. Just look at the drink special on that old menu: “…A LOW-DOWN SNEAKER WRECKER” What does that even mean?  Is it a promise you’ll vomit? I guess so!

All the drinks on the menu had descriptive subheadings like that when we drank there. “This will have you seeing double”, “Guaranteed to give you sea-legs” stuff like that.  We used to joke that they’d built the slurred voice into its very name, as in “I …hic…love Trdrrr Samz …hic…” The power of the potions was enough of a draw for me but there was plenty to like about the place.

The friendly middle aged female bartenders were warm and welcoming. They hosted a wide, unpredictable variety of drinkers that included elderly neighborhood regulars, working men tying one on after a hard day, gal pals out for a wild night, college-kid spring break types there for the implied sun and fun of the decor, and other assorted low-lifes, weirdos and absolutely normal, well-adjusted aspiring alcoholics like myself.

Like I’ve said, it wasn’t hard to get a little too brightly lit by Tradr Sam’s tiki-torch concoctions. I remember one time as I approached the front door watching a guy walk out, turn, walk nose first into the wall of the alcove the door was set in, apologize to the wall, straighten his hat, and keep on walking. A point for politeness goes to the gentleman in the hat!

The place usually had a vibe of hazy joviality but occasionally the pineapple did turn sour. I was there one time when two older guys started arguing at the bar until one of them stood up, pulled his sportcoat back to reveal a shoulder-holstered revolver. As he did this he repeatedly issued a very sincere sounding promise the other guy:

…Punch me and I’ll KILL ya! Go on…PUNCH ME…do it! I’ll kill ya!…c’mon…

Then a short guy suffering from a potentially lethal case of alcohol induced courage, stood up and put his hands to their chests and set about calming them down. Eventually he prevailed and the men sat back down on their stools.

Later when I asked the bartender about the potentially homicidal scene that had unfolded a little earlier she told me “I’d have called the cops but he IS ONE so I didn’t bother…the cops were ALREADY HERE! Haha..”

Yeeeah…hahaha, uhuuuh…(gulp)

One last story, I can’t resist…

One time my brother Gavin, our third brother by a different father and mother Sean Kelly, and I were drinking at Trad’r Sam until we closed the place and stumbled into the frigid young morning. We were completely out of our heads and we decided it might be a nice to stagger the twenty or so blocks between Trad’r Sam and Ocean Beach so we could enjoy the bracing December air with our toes in the sand and the smell of salt water in our nostrils.

Its hard to say where the warm numbness we’d acquired in Trad’r Sam’s tropical climes gave way to the hypothermic non-feeling we began to experience once we reached the dark emptiness and white noise roar of the beach. Whatever the source of the non-sensation, we were feeling none of it by the time we started wrestling and pile-driving one another into the wet sand and having whip-fights with the long leathery lashes of seaweed lying all around.

One of these seaweed whip battles was in full swing when I became aware of a white light illuminating the misty ocean air all around us. Maybe this was it. Had my core temperature dipped so low that St. Peter himself was scooping me up from the sand to deliver me to the lap of Heaven? Or maybe, juuust maybe, it was an SFPD patrol car doing a routine scan of the beach?

…yeah...it’s the cops.

The light stayed trained on us from beyond the tall concrete wall above the sand while we stood there illuminated, clutching our seaweed ropes, mouth’s agape, panting like dogs, squinting, covered head to toe in wet sand, in a halo of our rapidly cooling body fog and breath.

We are so…BUSTED. We… are going to…jail.

Then after a minute or two the light went out. Our eyes readjusted to the darkness. The ocean roared and the patrol car drove away. Can you imagine the laughs those cops had looking at us standing there with our seaweed, like three drowned rats? It must’ve made their night. 

I don’t know what happened next except that we somehow dragged ourselves the sixty or so blocks between the crashing waves and our beds back home. I’ll also say that the next day Sean Kelly had a Christmas tree in his apartment that hadn’t been there the day before and the tree had a strangely rounded stump on it as though it had been dragged for miles along a sidewalk. He may have had a brutal hangover that day but at least he also had…

A Christmas miracle!

Oh yeah, if you want to know why I quit drinking it’s simple: I’m not getting any younger and I know my chances of living longer and better would increase if I did, I knew I’d be happier and more honest with myself and others if I did, and I came to realize there was tons of stuff I wanted to do that I’d never get around to doing if I didn’t quit. So I quit and not once have I been sorry I did.

Trad’r Sam’s menu from my personal archive.

10:11am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvKYnDZ0
(Notes: 10)
  
Filed under: trad'r sams san francisco drinking drunk alcoholism alcohol booze 
April 18, 2012
SEAN PATRICK KELLY JASON O’DONNELL TRAEGER COUCH POTATOES SAN DIEGO 1985 Sean Kelly is one of those guys.  Like all my very best friends we’re a little different and a lot alike. If someone asked me to tell my best Sean Kelly story I’d ask them if they were kidding. There are just too many good ones. I’ve known Sean since we were teens. This photo was taken when he joined my family for a while in high school. He may have moved out of the house but as far I’m concerned he’s never stopped being a part of the family.  I’ll tell a Sean Kelly story in a future post. I can’t promise it’ll be the best one but you can be sure it’ll be a good one! Photo of Sean and me on my mom’s couch in Leucadia, CA. from my personal archives.

SEAN PATRICK KELLY JASON O’DONNELL TRAEGER COUCH POTATOES SAN DIEGO 1985

Sean Kelly is one of those guys. 

Like all my very best friends we’re a little different and a lot alike. If someone asked me to tell my best Sean Kelly story I’d ask them if they were kidding. There are just too many good ones. I’ve known Sean since we were teens. This photo was taken when he joined my family for a while in high school. He may have moved out of the house but as far I’m concerned he’s never stopped being a part of the family. 

I’ll tell a Sean Kelly story in a future post. I can’t promise it’ll be the best one but you can be sure it’ll be a good one!

Photo of Sean and me on my mom’s couch in Leucadia, CA. from my personal archives.

5:29pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvJum0fV
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: sean kelly tight bros from way back when olympia san francisco los angeles san diego portland leucadia 
April 4, 2012
MAXIMUMROCKNROLL COVER DRAWING PUNK ROCK SOCIAL NETWORK SAN FRANCISCO 1988 I drew the cover of MAXIMUMROCKNROLL magazine twice. This one from August of 1988 is the better of the two. In terms of style I was definitely attempting to channel the hand of  R.Crumb for this drawing. In terms of content I was probably subconsciously formulating a ten-year life plan for myself (thankfully I managed to stay out of the trash barrel!). I did my fair share of drawing for MRR between 1985 and the time this cover came out. I also did a little bit of writing too, mostly record reviews, a couple interviews, and a few columns as I recall. Looking at this cover and thumbing through the pages of the zine got me thinking about the role MRR specifically and fanzines in general, played in building and reinforcing the Punk/Hardcore network that grew to cover a good deal of the planet between the end of the 70’s and the arrival of the Internet in the 90’s. This is the same network that paved the way for the indie rock explosion and all the permutations that would follow. Many people talk about about the history of Punk in terms of authenticity, often framing the topic as a state of perpetual decline from the originality and uncompromising brilliance of The Velvets and The Stooges to the consumerist, parent approved, Hot Topic, Punk-style era of Blink 182 and the Warped Tour. When I first got into Hardcore in the early 80’s I remember some older people telling me Punk was dead, that it had died with Sid Vicious or whatever. They were of the opinion that the cool, creative, revolutionary “first wave” bands like the Talking Heads, Ramones, Television etc. had been replaced by mindless, suburban, generic Hardcore and that the interesting part was essentially over. I had a different take on the thing then and I still do now. I might even venture to say that I think the most revolutionary phase of the Punk movement, the one that would have the most widely felt ramifications for the culture at large, was just beginning with the birth of the North American Hardcore scene. This might not have always been true artistically speaking, but it was true in practical and infrastructural terms because this was the era when the Punk “scene” evolved into the worldwide Punk/Hardcore network. It is my contention that as enthusiastic participants in that scene my fellow compatriots and I had the privilege of test driving a Beta version of the technologically-facilitated, hyper-connected future that would arrive in the 90’s and change the world in the Oughts. We Punks weren’t content to wait around for the technology to arrive before we built a user-generated, open source, social network. We built one for ourselves using the tools available to us at the time, things like photocopiers, landlines, word of mouth, locomotion, and the good old Postal Service. Today many of us take our socially networked lives for granted but back then it was a different story. When I was a young spiky-haired Punk the world was the same size it is now but our experience of it was different. It felt much bigger because our experience of it was smaller. While this was true for grown-ups, it was especially true for kids. Most kids at my school didn’t have a clue what life was like for kids in other cities, let alone other countries. If they knew another kid in another part of the country it was because they visited their cousins in Cleveland every summer or something. Sure, there were the odd school-sanctioned pen pal projects you might participate in but for the most part your friends and your understanding of other kids’ experiences were gathered the old fashioned way: from your immediate surroundings. It was different for the engaged Punk rocker. A single issue of a fanzine like Flipside, We Got Power!, Suburban Voice, Forced Exposure  and certainly and perhaps foremost of all MAXIMUMROCKNROLL could keep you busy for months. The pages of these zines would yield countless addresses of bands, record labels, of smaller zines, artists, people who put on shows, and also of kids just like you who had sent in letters talking about what it was like to be a Punk/Freak where they lived. The letters came from big cities like L.A. or New York but more often they came from from smaller ones like Lansing, Poughkeepsie, or Tallahassee. They weren’t only from America either, you were also just as likely to come across contact info for someone living in Sao Paulo, Melbourne, Tokyo or Rome. All you had to do was write to one of these addresses and you’d almost always get something in return. Being the era it was, that something could take a few days or a even few months to arrive but when it did it was an envelope or box that usually contained a multi-page handwritten letter, often written on the backs of a show flyers from that city or region. The envelope might have xeroxed paper stickers inside it or plastered on it. If you ordered a record from a band or a label you could expect to get a handwritten note and some extra stuff in that package too. It was very satisfying as a kid in middle school to have such broad and fruitful interactions with people from other places who shared my love of the music and culture. This gave me the feeling of inhabiting a world that was bigger, more interesting, and a little more wild than the world the other kids at my school lived in. They couldn’t reasonably hope to meet, interview, or maybe even become friends with their favorite bands but I could. The thought certainly never crossed their minds that they could be having weekly interactions with people from all over the country and all over the world if they wanted to either. Looking back I can see that I felt like my world was wider and more connected because it was! Maybe I’m missing something, but when I try to think of another place in the culture at that time where a similar organic network was being built I can’t come up with another equivalent example. If anyone thinks of one, let me know. When I was 15 and I moved to another part of the country I didn’t have to wait to make new friends or find a place to fit in. As a matter of fact, the day I arrived with my mom and our stuff at our new rental house in San Diego there was a note taped to the front door that had been left by some Punk pen pals of mine saying they’d be back to pick me up in a few hours to take me to see Battalion of Saints and Social Distortion. Amazing! What’s even more amazing is that one of those guys who came to pick me up that night is my very best and oldest friend to this day: Martin Sprouse. A couple months ago Martin and I went to L.A. to visit the other guy that was in the car that night, our very good friend and all around great human being, Pat Weekend. I wouldn’t blame someone for thinking I was full of sh-t if I were to tell them I met two of my oldest friends on a social network in 1983 but it’s true. It’s just that the name of that  social network wasn’t Facebook it was PUNK ROCK. MAXIMUMROCKNROLL cover by me from my personal archives.

MAXIMUMROCKNROLL COVER DRAWING PUNK ROCK SOCIAL NETWORK SAN FRANCISCO 1988

I drew the cover of MAXIMUMROCKNROLL magazine twice. This one from August of 1988 is the better of the two. In terms of style I was definitely attempting to channel the hand of  R.Crumb for this drawing. In terms of content I was probably subconsciously formulating a ten-year life plan for myself (thankfully I managed to stay out of the trash barrel!). I did my fair share of drawing for MRR between 1985 and the time this cover came out. I also did a little bit of writing too, mostly record reviews, a couple interviews, and a few columns as I recall.

Looking at this cover and thumbing through the pages of the zine got me thinking about the role MRR specifically and fanzines in general, played in building and reinforcing the Punk/Hardcore network that grew to cover a good deal of the planet between the end of the 70’s and the arrival of the Internet in the 90’s. This is the same network that paved the way for the indie rock explosion and all the permutations that would follow.

Many people talk about about the history of Punk in terms of authenticity, often framing the topic as a state of perpetual decline from the originality and uncompromising brilliance of The Velvets and The Stooges to the consumerist, parent approved, Hot Topic, Punk-style era of Blink 182 and the Warped Tour.

When I first got into Hardcore in the early 80’s I remember some older people telling me Punk was dead, that it had died with Sid Vicious or whatever. They were of the opinion that the cool, creative, revolutionary “first wave” bands like the Talking Heads, Ramones, Television etc. had been replaced by mindless, suburban, generic Hardcore and that the interesting part was essentially over.

I had a different take on the thing then and I still do now. I might even venture to say that I think the most revolutionary phase of the Punk movement, the one that would have the most widely felt ramifications for the culture at large, was just beginning with the birth of the North American Hardcore scene. This might not have always been true artistically speaking, but it was true in practical and infrastructural terms because this was the era when the Punk “scene” evolved into the worldwide Punk/Hardcore network.

It is my contention that as enthusiastic participants in that scene my fellow compatriots and I had the privilege of test driving a Beta version of the technologically-facilitated, hyper-connected future that would arrive in the 90’s and change the world in the Oughts.

We Punks weren’t content to wait around for the technology to arrive before we built a user-generated, open source, social network. We built one for ourselves using the tools available to us at the time, things like photocopiers, landlines, word of mouth, locomotion, and the good old Postal Service. Today many of us take our socially networked lives for granted but back then it was a different story.

When I was a young spiky-haired Punk the world was the same size it is now but our experience of it was different. It felt much bigger because our experience of it was smaller. While this was true for grown-ups, it was especially true for kids. Most kids at my school didn’t have a clue what life was like for kids in other cities, let alone other countries. If they knew another kid in another part of the country it was because they visited their cousins in Cleveland every summer or something. Sure, there were the odd school-sanctioned pen pal projects you might participate in but for the most part your friends and your understanding of other kids’ experiences were gathered the old fashioned way: from your immediate surroundings.

It was different for the engaged Punk rocker. A single issue of a fanzine like Flipside, We Got Power!, Suburban Voice, Forced Exposure  and certainly and perhaps foremost of all MAXIMUMROCKNROLL could keep you busy for months. The pages of these zines would yield countless addresses of bands, record labels, of smaller zines, artists, people who put on shows, and also of kids just like you who had sent in letters talking about what it was like to be a Punk/Freak where they lived. The letters came from big cities like L.A. or New York but more often they came from from smaller ones like Lansing, Poughkeepsie, or Tallahassee. They weren’t only from America either, you were also just as likely to come across contact info for someone living in Sao Paulo, Melbourne, Tokyo or Rome.

All you had to do was write to one of these addresses and you’d almost always get something in return. Being the era it was, that something could take a few days or a even few months to arrive but when it did it was an envelope or box that usually contained a multi-page handwritten letter, often written on the backs of a show flyers from that city or region. The envelope might have xeroxed paper stickers inside it or plastered on it. If you ordered a record from a band or a label you could expect to get a handwritten note and some extra stuff in that package too.

It was very satisfying as a kid in middle school to have such broad and fruitful interactions with people from other places who shared my love of the music and culture. This gave me the feeling of inhabiting a world that was bigger, more interesting, and a little more wild than the world the other kids at my school lived in.

They couldn’t reasonably hope to meet, interview, or maybe even become friends with their favorite bands but I could. The thought certainly never crossed their minds that they could be having weekly interactions with people from all over the country and all over the world if they wanted to either. Looking back I can see that I felt like my world was wider and more connected because it was!

Maybe I’m missing something, but when I try to think of another place in the culture at that time where a similar organic network was being built I can’t come up with another equivalent example. If anyone thinks of one, let me know.

When I was 15 and I moved to another part of the country I didn’t have to wait to make new friends or find a place to fit in. As a matter of fact, the day I arrived with my mom and our stuff at our new rental house in San Diego there was a note taped to the front door that had been left by some Punk pen pals of mine saying they’d be back to pick me up in a few hours to take me to see Battalion of Saints and Social Distortion.

Amazing!

What’s even more amazing is that one of those guys who came to pick me up that night is my very best and oldest friend to this day: Martin Sprouse. A couple months ago Martin and I went to L.A. to visit the other guy that was in the car that night, our very good friend and all around great human being, Pat Weekend.

I wouldn’t blame someone for thinking I was full of sh-t if I were to tell them I met two of my oldest friends on a social network in 1983 but it’s true. It’s just that the name of that  social network wasn’t Facebook it was PUNK ROCK.


MAXIMUMROCKNROLL cover by me from my personal archives.


1:47pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvJ4vNa9
(Notes: 17)
  
Filed under: velvet undergroud the stooges Maximumrocknroll maximum rock n roll flipside Fanzine suburban voice forced exposure we got power punk hardcore blink 182 warped tour hot topic facebook martin sprouse social distortion battalion of saints san diego san francisco TALKING HEADS ramones television robert crumb 
April 3, 2012
“MIXED NUTS” AND “BIG SHINEYS” AMERICA 1985-95 I could write a book about my experiences with Skinheads back in the day but I wouldn’t want to because I’m just not that interested in the subject. I want to make it very clear that while I will talk about Skinheads in this post, this post is NOT about Skinheads. This post is about how we as human beings might approach the obstacles we find standing between ourselves and our personal freedom and happiness. Now, as a way of discussing that subject, I’ll talk a little about Skinheads… In the mid to late 80’s and early 90’s most of the Skinheads I encountered came in one of two varieties I call the “Mixed Nuts” and “Big Shineys”. The ones who didn’t come in these varieties, ones I didn’t mind and sometimes even liked seemed to have largely disappeared from the scene by this time. These were individuals who loved the style, and related to the subculture as it had evolved in England from the 60’s. They listened to Oi!, Ska, and Punk and could be found at shows hanging out like anyone else. (It’s worth noting that I can’t recall ever seeing a good, bad, or ugly Skinhead put on a show, put out a fanzine, play in a band or do much of anything besides hang out…just saying.) One guy like this who springs to mind was a cool dude my friends and I used to look forward to running into up in L.A. in the 80’s when we went to shows at places like the Olympic Auditorium or Perkins Palace. He was a slight, stylish guy, with the old Last Resort “crucified skin” black and white line drawing tattooed on his forearm. He went by the name “Skin Ed” he was cool, had good style, and knew the subculture. He’s not the kind of Skinhead I disliked. The kind I’m talking about, the ones who started showing up later, the ones I’m calling “Mixed Nuts” and “Big Shineys” were not cool, didn’t have love for their chosen subculture, weren’t stylish, and I’ve never met a soul who looked forward to seeing these types show up anywhere. Even if their presence at shows wasn’t outright menacing it was always was very tiresome. Both of these varieties moved around and appeared almost exclusively in groups, that’s why I’m comfortable making generalizations about them: they invited such treatment. First I’ll describe the “Mixed Nuts”. These types would show up at Punk shows looking like a motley collection of strays who’d found each other wandering around in a field. A typical group of “Mixed Nuts” might look like this: There’d be “the skinny one “ with a pronounced adam’s apple and a bird-like profile, the big “overweight one” who was rosy cheeked and looked like he actually needed his suspenders, “the girl”would be there. She might have a “Skin-Chick” haircut (peroxide bangs in front and back and close cropped in between) although she might not sport the look at all and might instead have a normal, if world-weary, look and feel of girl from a bad home. Then you’d have the mid to big “tough-guy” character and maybe a smaller “short guy” and sometimes the group would be rounded out with a “heavy metal style guy” or an “older, non-Skinhead guy” with a baseball hat, a mustache, and a beer belly. It wasn’t difficult to imagine how these ones had found each other. They met in some corner of either a smaller town or a crappy suburb somewhere. One met the other in High School, they in turn met another guy at a job, the girlfriend of one of the guys started hanging out, the older guy had a house and beer, another showed up and you have the group. The look and some ideology spread around and everybody went shopping. The “Mixed Nuts” outfits were a little scrappy and rough around the edges: Army surplus combat boots on one of them, Doc Martens on another, wide suspenders on one, skinny suspenders on the other, a dirty t-shirt here, a bad tattoo there, patchy scalp, an ill-fitting flight jacket, no flight jacket at all…that’s the look. Now what to do? Let’s go to the punk show and cause some problems. The other variety, the “Big Shineys”, were a somewhat different story.  I remember encountering this type a lot toward the end of my L.A. show going days. I also ran into them in San Francisco and at 924 Gilman in Berkeley of all places. I saw them on the road in Seattle, Portland, Florida, Atlanta, Texas, and at a few other stops. This variety of Skinhead also arrived at the shows in a cluster but they weren’t such a visual grab-bag. The uniforms were more dialed. They had shinier boots, shinier flight jackets, with newer looking patches on them. Their heads were usually shinier too. Their tattoos were more crisply rendered and these markings had obviously been acquiredafterhaving adopted the look and the ideology that went along with it.  That’s the “Shiny” part of the name.  The “Big” part doesn’t just refer to the fact that, yes, these guys were often bigger physically than the “Mixed Nuts”. Their attitudes were bigger too. The girls were meaner, they wanted to see violence. The girls and the short guys started stuff, the big guys finished it, and the others joined in on the mess when they could do so safely. Their numbers were often bigger too. Instead of five there’d be 10 maybe 15 of them. In L.A. I remember some shows where there were 50 or more of the “Big Shinys”. I’d be lying if I said that this kind of situation was only tiresome and not frightening because the fact is, this sort of scene was frightening. 50 or more “Big Shineys” at a show was a situation that was impossible to ignore or to do much about. Of course you always do something in the face of any obstacle standing between you and your happiness whether you think you’re doing something or not. So the question is: what do you do? As far as I can tell, you have three options when facing any challenge to your freedom, liberty, safety, and happiness: You can leave, you can ignore the challenge, or you can oppose the threat (aka: fight). That’s about it. Leaving is usually the first option you take in any sitiuation if you don’t get off on fighting or are not heavily invested in an outcome one way or the other. This was what happened to me and my friends toward the end of my first decade of Punk shows. The scene had gotten so dumb and so boring and most of the bands were so sh-tty and uninteresting that none of us cared an awful lot if thugs and gangsters took over. As far as we were concerned they could have it. “ Here are the keys to the scene fellas, knock yourselves out! Oh and while you’re at it, please take that last suggestion literally.”  We might’ve told them as we walked out the door. The second option, ignoring the threat, is one I’ve seen exercised too many times to count in the Punk show context. I understand avoiding confrontation and blending in, we’ve all done it. But If I had to count on my fingers all the times I heard a Punk rocker at a show defend thugs, thuggery, and the rights of thugs with an argument about them having a “right to be there too” or how “they’re not so bad, I’ve talked to them before” or “they’re just drunk” or whatever hair-brained, excuse for saving one’s own ass a person might think of, I’d need to use all my fingers and my toes and your fingers and your toes too in order to do the counting. Sad but true. Ignoring, in my opinion, is the worst option when dealing with an issue. The fact is if you love something and you’re invested in it and you have any guts or ability at all you have to resort to some version of the third and final option available to you when dealing with a challenge, threat, or attack on your freedom or the freedom of others: You have to fight. There are two ways to fight, maybe more, but mostly it comes down to either trying to give as good as you get or to employ a non-violent means of persuasion against your foe. Both methods can be effective when applied judiciously and appropriately. I definitely suggest the non-violent methods are the most creative, effective, and ultimately most inspiring way of dealing with a threat. When it came to Skinheads specifically, I’ve seen a few versions of the “give as good as you get” strategy employed in defending a show or scene. In the end the result is always pretty much the same: someone gets hurt very badly or even gets killed. I once visited a very together and established anarchist squat in Amsterdam in the 80’s and as my host was showing me around the large room in the complex where they held shows, I noticed a couple large steel barrels by the front door filled with dented, scuffed-up baseball bats, heavy sticks and clubs. I asked him what they were for and he said, in his hard Dutch accent, “Doze are for de Skinheads…when de show up we lock de doors, pass out de bats, and den we let dem in…de don’t come around anymore.” Simple but effective I suppose. The most interesting and best example of fighting back against Skinheads with non-violence that I can think of took place at a Fugazi show in Olympia in the 90’s. Fugazi’s fans and friends were beyond dedicated. The band rocked so hard and were such pillars of righteousness and integrity that they organically amassed tremendous amounts of emotional and spiritual currency and goodwill with the people who bought their records and came to see them play. Their shows were always an event wherever and whenever they stopped but in Olympia in the 90’s their connection with the people was particularly intense and full of love. So when a good-sized collection of “Mixed Nuts” Skinheads showed up to cause grief at the sold-out, capacity 800, Capitol Theater just before Fugazi took the stage, no one was in any mood to humor their nonsense. Being the nice, respectful, peaceful scene Olympia was, I was a little concerned when I saw the “Mixed Nuts” walk onto the dance floor, swaggering and menacing the folks around them. I wasn’t sure how people would respond. I was expecting trouble and I positioned myself in the room in case it kicked off. Again, I’m not a brawler by any stretch I just thought I might be able to do something and I knew I wouldn’t be alone. It turns out I didn’t have to do much at all. No one had to. As soon as Ian noticed this cluster being pushy and making “Roman” salutes toward the stage, the band stopped playing. Guy asked the attention-seekers if they were indeed Romans since they were making a Roman salute. Everyone laughed at them. He told them he really didn’t like to see Romans f-cking up everyone’s good time. Ian suggested that these individuals ought to find another place to entertain themselves that evening. The large, amped-up crowd was immediately agitated by all this. As anyone who ever saw the band or has heard a live recording of them knows, Fugazi were masters at creating live sets that segued with great fluidity and momentum through their catalog so any unwanted interruption was difficult to take but a willful interruption from outside, negative forces was intolerable. I could go into more play-by-play analysis but I’ll end my account of the show by telling you that from the stage Ian ended up handing each of the Skinheads a five dollar refund while the crowd continued to laugh and jeer at them. He then asked the crowd to part like the Red Sea which they did, and he asked the Romans to leave. The crowd began a simple and very loud chant directed at the trouble makers, it went like this: “LEAVE! LEAVE! LEAVE!” Then they left the same way they came. The chanting gave way to a joyous eruption, the band launched into a song, and the rest of the show was as good as any I’ve ever seen from them or any other band. You can decide for yourself why the Fugazi show worked out differently than a dozen other Punk shows might have. I think it comes down to one thing above all else: the level and depth of emotional investment among the people was too widespread and too strong for them to tolerate or knuckle under in the face of the threat. The Romans weren’t just messing up an evening’s entertainment product, they were messing with an engaged community. I’m trying to think of ways these principles can be applied not only to social and political problems but also to personal, emotional, and spiritual challenges. It’s interesting to consider. Nutcracker photo from the web.

“MIXED NUTS” AND “BIG SHINEYS” AMERICA 1985-95

I could write a book about my experiences with Skinheads back in the day but I wouldn’t want to because I’m just not that interested in the subject. I want to make it very clear that while I will talk about Skinheads in this post, this post is NOT about Skinheads.

This post is about how we as human beings might approach the obstacles we find standing between ourselves and our personal freedom and happiness.

Now, as a way of discussing that subject, I’ll talk a little about Skinheads…

In the mid to late 80’s and early 90’s most of the Skinheads I encountered came in one of two varieties I call the “Mixed Nuts” and “Big Shineys”.

The ones who didn’t come in these varieties, ones I didn’t mind and sometimes even liked seemed to have largely disappeared from the scene by this time. These were individuals who loved the style, and related to the subculture as it had evolved in England from the 60’s. They listened to Oi!, Ska, and Punk and could be found at shows hanging out like anyone else.

(It’s worth noting that I can’t recall ever seeing a good, bad, or ugly Skinhead put on a show, put out a fanzine, play in a band or do much of anything besides hang out…just saying.)

One guy like this who springs to mind was a cool dude my friends and I used to look forward to running into up in L.A. in the 80’s when we went to shows at places like the Olympic Auditorium or Perkins Palace. He was a slight, stylish guy, with the old Last Resort “crucified skin” black and white line drawing tattooed on his forearm. He went by the name “Skin Ed” he was cool, had good style, and knew the subculture.

He’s not the kind of Skinhead I disliked. The kind I’m talking about, the ones who started showing up later, the ones I’m calling “Mixed Nuts” and “Big Shineys” were not cool, didn’t have love for their chosen subculture, weren’t stylish, and I’ve never met a soul who looked forward to seeing these types show up anywhere. Even if their presence at shows wasn’t outright menacing it was always was very tiresome.

Both of these varieties moved around and appeared almost exclusively in groups, that’s why I’m comfortable making generalizations about them: they invited such treatment.

First I’ll describe the “Mixed Nuts”. These types would show up at Punk shows looking like a motley collection of strays who’d found each other wandering around in a field. A typical group of “Mixed Nuts” might look like this:

There’d be “the skinny one “ with a pronounced adam’s apple and a bird-like profile, the big “overweight one” who was rosy cheeked and looked like he actually needed his suspenders, “the girl”would be there. She might have a “Skin-Chick” haircut (peroxide bangs in front and back and close cropped in between) although she might not sport the look at all and might instead have a normal, if world-weary, look and feel of girl from a bad home. Then you’d have the mid to big “tough-guy” character and maybe a smaller “short guy” and sometimes the group would be rounded out with a “heavy metal style guy” or an “older, non-Skinhead guy” with a baseball hat, a mustache, and a beer belly.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine how these ones had found each other. They met in some corner of either a smaller town or a crappy suburb somewhere. One met the other in High School, they in turn met another guy at a job, the girlfriend of one of the guys started hanging out, the older guy had a house and beer, another showed up and you have the group. The look and some ideology spread around and everybody went shopping.

The “Mixed Nuts” outfits were a little scrappy and rough around the edges: Army surplus combat boots on one of them, Doc Martens on another, wide suspenders on one, skinny suspenders on the other, a dirty t-shirt here, a bad tattoo there, patchy scalp, an ill-fitting flight jacket, no flight jacket at all…that’s the look.

Now what to do? Let’s go to the punk show and cause some problems.

The other variety, the “Big Shineys”, were a somewhat different story.  I remember encountering this type a lot toward the end of my L.A. show going days. I also ran into them in San Francisco and at 924 Gilman in Berkeley of all places. I saw them on the road in Seattle, Portland, Florida, Atlanta, Texas, and at a few other stops.

This variety of Skinhead also arrived at the shows in a cluster but they weren’t such a visual grab-bag. The uniforms were more dialed. They had shinier boots, shinier flight jackets, with newer looking patches on them. Their heads were usually shinier too. Their tattoos were more crisply rendered and these markings had obviously been acquiredafterhaving adopted the look and the ideology that went along with it. 

That’s the “Shiny” part of the name. 

The “Big” part doesn’t just refer to the fact that, yes, these guys were often bigger physically than the “Mixed Nuts”. Their attitudes were bigger too. The girls were meaner, they wanted to see violence. The girls and the short guys started stuff, the big guys finished it, and the others joined in on the mess when they could do so safely.

Their numbers were often bigger too. Instead of five there’d be 10 maybe 15 of them. In L.A. I remember some shows where there were 50 or more of the “Big Shinys”. I’d be lying if I said that this kind of situation was only tiresome and not frightening because the fact is, this sort of scene was frightening. 50 or more “Big Shineys” at a show was a situation that was impossible to ignore or to do much about.

Of course you always do something in the face of any obstacle standing between you and your happiness whether you think you’re doing something or not. So the question is: what do you do?

As far as I can tell, you have three options when facing any challenge to your freedom, liberty, safety, and happiness: You can leave, you can ignore the challenge, or you can oppose the threat (aka: fight).

That’s about it.

Leaving is usually the first option you take in any sitiuation if you don’t get off on fighting or are not heavily invested in an outcome one way or the other. This was what happened to me and my friends toward the end of my first decade of Punk shows. The scene had gotten so dumb and so boring and most of the bands were so sh-tty and uninteresting that none of us cared an awful lot if thugs and gangsters took over. As far as we were concerned they could have it. “ Here are the keys to the scene fellas, knock yourselves out! Oh and while you’re at it, please take that last suggestion literally.”  We might’ve told them as we walked out the door.

The second option, ignoring the threat, is one I’ve seen exercised too many times to count in the Punk show context. I understand avoiding confrontation and blending in, we’ve all done it. But If I had to count on my fingers all the times I heard a Punk rocker at a show defend thugs, thuggery, and the rights of thugs with an argument about them having a “right to be there too” or how “they’re not so bad, I’ve talked to them before” or “they’re just drunk” or whatever hair-brained, excuse for saving one’s own ass a person might think of, I’d need to use all my fingers and my toes and your fingers and your toes too in order to do the counting. Sad but true.

Ignoring, in my opinion, is the worst option when dealing with an issue. The fact is if you love something and you’re invested in it and you have any guts or ability at all you have to resort to some version of the third and final option available to you when dealing with a challenge, threat, or attack on your freedom or the freedom of others:

You have to fight.

There are two ways to fight, maybe more, but mostly it comes down to either trying to give as good as you get or to employ a non-violent means of persuasion against your foe. Both methods can be effective when applied judiciously and appropriately. I definitely suggest the non-violent methods are the most creative, effective, and ultimately most inspiring way of dealing with a threat.

When it came to Skinheads specifically, I’ve seen a few versions of the “give as good as you get” strategy employed in defending a show or scene. In the end the result is always pretty much the same: someone gets hurt very badly or even gets killed.

I once visited a very together and established anarchist squat in Amsterdam in the 80’s and as my host was showing me around the large room in the complex where they held shows, I noticed a couple large steel barrels by the front door filled with dented, scuffed-up baseball bats, heavy sticks and clubs. I asked him what they were for and he said, in his hard Dutch accent, “Doze are for de Skinheads…when de show up we lock de doors, pass out de bats, and den we let dem in…de don’t come around anymore.” Simple but effective I suppose.

The most interesting and best example of fighting back against Skinheads with non-violence that I can think of took place at a Fugazi show in Olympia in the 90’s.

Fugazi’s fans and friends were beyond dedicated. The band rocked so hard and were such pillars of righteousness and integrity that they organically amassed tremendous amounts of emotional and spiritual currency and goodwill with the people who bought their records and came to see them play. Their shows were always an event wherever and whenever they stopped but in Olympia in the 90’s their connection with the people was particularly intense and full of love.

So when a good-sized collection of “Mixed Nuts” Skinheads showed up to cause grief at the sold-out, capacity 800, Capitol Theater just before Fugazi took the stage, no one was in any mood to humor their nonsense.

Being the nice, respectful, peaceful scene Olympia was, I was a little concerned when I saw the “Mixed Nuts” walk onto the dance floor, swaggering and menacing the folks around them. I wasn’t sure how people would respond. I was expecting trouble and I positioned myself in the room in case it kicked off. Again, I’m not a brawler by any stretch I just thought I might be able to do something and I knew I wouldn’t be alone.

It turns out I didn’t have to do much at all. No one had to.

As soon as Ian noticed this cluster being pushy and making “Roman” salutes toward the stage, the band stopped playing. Guy asked the attention-seekers if they were indeed Romans since they were making a Roman salute. Everyone laughed at them. He told them he really didn’t like to see Romans f-cking up everyone’s good time. Ian suggested that these individuals ought to find another place to entertain themselves that evening.

The large, amped-up crowd was immediately agitated by all this. As anyone who ever saw the band or has heard a live recording of them knows, Fugazi were masters at creating live sets that segued with great fluidity and momentum through their catalog so any unwanted interruption was difficult to take but a willful interruption from outside, negative forces was intolerable.

I could go into more play-by-play analysis but I’ll end my account of the show by telling you that from the stage Ian ended up handing each of the Skinheads a five dollar refund while the crowd continued to laugh and jeer at them. He then asked the crowd to part like the Red Sea which they did, and he asked the Romans to leave.

The crowd began a simple and very loud chant directed at the trouble makers, it went like this: “LEAVE! LEAVE! LEAVE!”

Then they left the same way they came.

The chanting gave way to a joyous eruption, the band launched into a song, and the rest of the show was as good as any I’ve ever seen from them or any other band.

You can decide for yourself why the Fugazi show worked out differently than a dozen other Punk shows might have. I think it comes down to one thing above all else: the level and depth of emotional investment among the people was too widespread and too strong for them to tolerate or knuckle under in the face of the threat. The Romans weren’t just messing up an evening’s entertainment product, they were messing with an engaged community.

I’m trying to think of ways these principles can be applied not only to social and political problems but also to personal, emotional, and spiritual challenges. It’s interesting to consider.

Nutcracker photo from the web.

8:52am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvJ0cIZP
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: skinheads fugazi punk oi! ska olympia san francisco roman salute perkin's palace community organizing non-violent resistance violent resistance subculture england 
March 21, 2012
924 GILMAN ST PROJECT late 80’s 924 Gilman St project in Berkeley,CA. This photo was most likely taken in the first couple years of Gilman’s existence. (L to R) Matt Freeman (OP IVY/RANCID), Martin Brohm (Isocracy), myself, Martin Sprouse (huge influence, major gateway person in my California years, best friend then and to this very day still is), and Chris Dodge (SPAZZ). To say I played a super miniscule role in the formation of 924 Gilman would still qualify as something of an exaggeration, but I did talk a lot about it with Tim Yo and Martin as the idea congealed and I did do a little drywalling and painting…or maybe I was there watching other people drywall and paint?  Photo by (?)

924 GILMAN ST PROJECT late 80’s

924 Gilman St project in Berkeley,CA. This photo was most likely taken in the first couple years of Gilman’s existence. (L to R) Matt Freeman (OP IVY/RANCID), Martin Brohm (Isocracy), myself, Martin Sprouse (huge influence, major gateway person in my California years, best friend then and to this very day still is), and Chris Dodge (SPAZZ). To say I played a super miniscule role in the formation of 924 Gilman would still qualify as something of an exaggeration, but I did talk a lot about it with Tim Yo and Martin as the idea congealed and I did do a little drywalling and painting…or maybe I was there watching other people drywall and paint? 

Photo by (?)

10:04pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvINTEIP
(Notes: 6)
  
Filed under: 924 Gilman street berekeley isocracy martin sprouse maximum rocknroll mrr op ivy operation ivy rancid san francisco spazz 
March 21, 2012
WHAT ARE YOU POINTING AT? 1989 I drew the cover for this 10” compilation released by Very Small Records in 1989. I signed the work “Otto” which was my alter ego when working as the mailorder guy at Alternative Tentacles Records. The title of the comp. was a typical Bay Area/Gilman St. era joke on all the (predominately East Coast) Straight Edge bands who were known for a type of onstage posturing that included a lot of heartfelt and I’m sure very meaningful pointing. Don’t get me wrong I liked many of these East Coast hardcore bands, it is simply a fact that they pointed a lot. So there.

WHAT ARE YOU POINTING AT? 1989

I drew the cover for this 10” compilation released by Very Small Records in 1989. I signed the work “Otto” which was my alter ego when working as the mailorder guy at Alternative Tentacles Records. The title of the comp. was a typical Bay Area/Gilman St. era joke on all the (predominately East Coast) Straight Edge bands who were known for a type of onstage posturing that included a lot of heartfelt and I’m sure very meaningful pointing. Don’t get me wrong I liked many of these East Coast hardcore bands, it is simply a fact that they pointed a lot. So there.

10:31am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvILJwDl
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: david hayes econochrist gilman hardcore screeching weasel straight edge what are you pointing at? berkeley david hayes san francisco straight edge 
March 20, 2012
LARD BACK COVER 1989 Back of LARD 12”. 1989. In Bottom right corner: Label logo: Jason Traeger. Biafra did the lettering. All you handwriting analysts out there should get to work.

LARD BACK COVER 1989

Back of LARD 12”. 1989. In Bottom right corner: Label logo: Jason Traeger. Biafra did the lettering. All you handwriting analysts out there should get to work.

4:15pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIJAWU8
Filed under: alternative tentacles biafra jello lard san francisco al jourgensen 
March 20, 2012
LARD RECORD ILLUSTRATION 1989 LARD  Illustration 1989. I was into Robert Crumb during this period, I think his influence shows a little in this drawing I did for the inner label of the Lard 12” released by Alternative Tentacles Records. I worked for AT from 87-90 I believe. I did mailorder and all Biafra’s record trades and a bunch of other stuff. That was a cool job to get after high school. 

LARD RECORD ILLUSTRATION 1989

LARD  Illustration 1989. I was into Robert Crumb during this period, I think his influence shows a little in this drawing I did for the inner label of the Lard 12” released by Alternative Tentacles Records. I worked for AT from 87-90 I believe. I did mailorder and all Biafra’s record trades and a bunch of other stuff. That was a cool job to get after high school. 

4:01pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIJ7EZn
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: alternative tentacles biafra lard time to melt sanfrancisco san francisco 
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