James Spooner aka Razzle started Kidney Room zine and label in the mid-1990s, firmly planted in the ABC No Rio NYC punk scene. Without any formal training, learning about documentary filmmaking with the help of friends working at a local video store, he created the award-winning documentary AFROPUNK about the roles of African-Americans within the overwhelmingly white US punk scene. Applying his punk approach and ethics he moved on to making films, events and is now settled in Los Angeles where he pioneered vegan-friendly tattooing. In this episode we dig into the struggles a punk kid can face when trying to work with “normals”. James is a great example of defining success on one's own terms, and the ability to self-reflect and evolve over time while still staying true to the ethos of punk rock. For Full Length Episodes And Merchandise Go To https://www.patreon.com/killedbydesk Follow: Killed By Desk Insta: @killedbydeskpodcast Twitter: @killedbydesk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/killedbydesk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/killedbydesk
Links:
Monocle Tattoo
James’ Instagrams
https://www.instagram.com/spoonersnofun/
https://www.instagram.com/monocletattoo
James Spooner Wiki Page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Spooner
Afropunk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJQRJZU0Zhc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fanQHFAxXH0
ABC No Rio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_No_Rio
Next Door Today, “$1000 Sneakers”
https://aliferivingtonclub.com/
Ryan Bland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhQLNZmRXLA
Reconstruction Records
https://nypunkandhardcore.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/reconstruction-records-no-1/
More Than Music Festival
http://morethanmusic.tripod.com/
Wreckage Records
https://www.discogs.com/label/42497-Wreck-Age
Ebullition Records
http://www.ebullition.com/catalog.html
Gern Blandsten Records
https://www.discogs.com/label/15176-Gern-Blandsten
Brendan SFA
https://twitter.com/brendansfa?lang=en
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fiorello_H._LaGuardia_High_School_alumni
Reel Life Video Store
https://www.yelp.com/biz/reel-life-brooklyn
“Jacuzzi Joe”
https://www.discogs.com/artist/691531-Joe-Martin-3
Punk Planet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_Planet
Rip it Up: The Black Experience in Rock 'n' Roll
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272636.Rip_it_Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB8ArSuxUU0
Earth Crisis
https://genius.com/Earth-crisis-firestorm-lyrics
Red pigment reactions
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4799043/
Red dyes in food
https://www.verywellhealth.com/red-and-yellow-may-be-the-cause-3956894
The Bangles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsmVgoXDq2w
Gorilla Biscuits
https://www.interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=37882&
Moe Mitchell
Ian Mackaye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TFNXUsr7gM&feature=youtu.be
http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2018/11/17/minor-threat-reunion-photo/
Tropical Fantasy
https://newsone.com/2022788/black-urban-legends-tropical-fantasy-soda/
Stonewall 25 show being referenced was not listed as notable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_25
Celebratory Brick - Just add water
https://usamagictricks.com/foam-brick-goshman-p-40562.html
hey this is bill florio
yo this is mc charlie boswell
hey everyone it's dave harrison
today's guest on killed by desk is james spooner
james spooner is known for afropunk
both the documentary and the music
festival
he's a tattoo artist now which is pretty
cool vegan tattoos
he's working on those comic books i know
he uh he's been posting a lot to
instagram some of that stuff's really
cool as well yes i know james when he
was kind of like an already kid living
in the west village
i was friends with a lot of his friends
they were there a few years younger than
me
and i was a really nice human being i
connected with him a few times over
the years um see how he's doing really
proud of his accomplishments
and i think we just had like a good
earnest conversation with him about you
know just like
where your career could go when you're
trying to do things that are creative i
think it's i think it's just tough
i would say this is this was definitely
one of our deeper conversations i mean
you know not everything has to be super
silly and and this was really one where
i think a lot of his answers made us
think a lot i think that his
forthrightness was really impressive to
me the ability to look at what he's done
and i think even james if you're
listening i think you're a little too
hard on yourself i think you've done a
really
you've built a really amazing career in
a lot of areas and i and
i personally was really impressed with
uh with what he had to say and and what
he's gone through yeah and i like james
because he's not really a band guy he
did like
scenes and he did a record label he put
out a lot of like emo-ish bands
don't forget the heckling well no he
just was a fan of my heckling he didn't
he wasn't he's too nice to heckle people
but yeah let's listen to james let's go
roll the tape all right
james could you just introduce yourself
like you're introducing yourself to
someone you just met hi
i'm james spooner i'm a tattoo artist
and
illustrator and filmmaker comic book
artist
i do a bunch of junk cool i knew you
when you were a teenager
and as far as i understand you got into
punk at such an early age
it's been described that you were kind
of raised by the punk scene
and here's what friend of yours said
basically i'm paraphrasing james got
into the puck at such an early
age it seems like the punk scene raised
him and instilled values he feels he
must always adhere to what do you think
about that yeah i mean i don't think i
got into it too much earlier than
most people you know like 13 12 whatever
but i definitely bought into it and
once i think it was probably around when
we met
when i was like 15 or 16 that i first
really became entrenched in like the diy
culture
and that's what really like hooked me
and
what i really bought into and i think
that i've used all the things that i
learned
in the punk scene throughout my life in
all of my like
public ventures businesses or like ways
of
of existing in the world cool so like
like you just said like your
businesses or whatever you know you
mentioned you're a cartoonist
a tattoo artist could you just walk us
through like a little bit of what you
consider your professional career
sure i think that like it all started
when i was like
17 16 or 17 and i had a zine and a
record label
and a distribution zine table like that
whole
kind of i was the guy with the record
box at every show
and then around like 19 and 20 i started
getting really
serious about fine arts and i was doing
sculpture and trying to like
make it for whatever that means in like
the fine arts world but
i i quickly understood like how that
word
world works and that it's probably not
something that's going to be like the
best way for me to
you know make my messages put my
messages out there
around when i was 25 i released
uh afropunk so i've worked on it for a
couple years and that's when i
25 is when i was officially like a
filmmaker
you know screening my movie and and
whatnot and
subsequently well i guess before i
should say before that
i was i started djing and doing throwing
parties and stuff like that
so the djing and like promotion and all
the stuff that i learned through both
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00:05:00.000 --> 00:10:00.000
the punk scene and the new york
nightlife world i translated into
like promoting my film and starting
doing like
afropunk shows and then that you know
exploded into festivals and all this
stuff i bowed out
after like the fourth festival and moved
to
los angeles to try to continue a film
career
and like again i kind of like learned
like hollywood
and the mainstream stuff wasn't really
for me and i kind of fell into tattooing
and i have been a tattooer for since for
11 years
but in the last like three to four three
or four years
i've been uh working on cartoons i've
been cartooning and
working on comics and i'm aiming to
release
my first full-length graphic novel in
the next i mean it should be done within
a year so when it's released i don't
know so you're
writing and illustrating that graphic
novel and what's the
what's the subject matter again it's
it's about my first year in the punk
scene
so it's kind of like learning a lot of
times when we get into punk we're
attracted to like the
the anger aggressive kind of nihilistic
nature of like
things but once i learned about like diy
and the politics and all the things that
are that are also connected to the punk
scene
that's what really gripped me so that's
what i'm that's what i
am doing or like that the comic is
really kind of that
trajectory of learning what is what punk
rock is really all about
so you were attracted to the nihilism
were you part of that
burrowism movement don't know what that
is
so i would say no you want me to that's
like when people just used to stand
there and scream brooklyn
it was always it was it was cool when
you screened brooklyn
or bronx but when you set this queens it
kind of never really worked
no i got into the punk scene in southern
california in the desert
in like a very small very white power
racist hardcore scene or punk rock scene
and i moved
to new york two years later so the comic
all takes place in the desert with the
exception of this
one christmas vacation where i was
visiting my father and that's where i
like met
real hardcore kids who like introduced
me to
things like abc no rio and you mentioned
before that you met bill when you were
16 and now you're saying you met real
hardcore kids so i'm guessing
the bill at that time
i'm not counting him hold on a second so
wait you say it's a white power scene
was it the kind of thing where you
were afraid of them or you were part of
that scene or are you just saying like
there was it was an oppressive type of
scene that you had to like
skitter around yeah it was the very
first punk that i met
was also black so i had this
introduction
as if like i'm supposed to be there but
then what i
realized is that like we were the
outliers
but we were because we're all like 13
and these kids are like even if they're
claiming to be white power like they
don't really know what they're about so
they're like you know we're white power
but you guys are okay you know right
right right
that's what i thought yeah then when we
get around the older kids who actually
know what they're talking about
they're like yeah but why are you
hanging out with this these two [ __ ]
so it was a weird thing where like my
best friend
or one of my one of my good friends is
mexican
and his best friend since he was like
three years old
was like full like aryan nation white
power kid you know so then he met me
and he was like thought i was really
cool and we all got along but like there
was always this
question of like are they just being
nice to me because they're gonna like
take me somewhere and
kill me or you know like it's like that
kind of there's always whispers of like
they're gonna jump you for your boots
and that kind of stuff you know yeah i
feel like when you got into new york
you definitely gravitated to quite the
opposite of that does that sound right
when i moved to new york all of a sudden
there are brown kids everywhere so
i became one of my first kind of closest
friends was
ryan bland who at the time was in a band
called bushmon
now he's in this band called ache and
he's like a hardcore guy
and he's black and his band was all
black at that time
and then uh you know and there are
always you're from new york you know
there are like they're just always brown
people of
various races all over so it became less
of an issue
and then it became more of an issue as i
left new york
to like like there was a mo i think once
i found like reconstruction records and
started like wanting something other
than the like
new york tough guy thing i found like
the suburban hardcore which spoke more
to me politically and whatever
but that was a lot more white so while
those kids weren't
racist in a outwardly way i definitely
felt other
you know in this like you guys are rich
suburban kids
and i'm from new york yeah no i mean i
remember
we both attended the columbus
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00:10:00.000 --> 00:15:00.000
more than music festival right and
i actually went there because i thought
there was going to be a bunch of
straight edge bands to make fun of and i
guess that was the year before
so you know it just was a lot of that
kind of like san diego
screamo type of stuff i mean do you
think you gravitated toward that music
because of the message or because of the
actual music or just because of the
people because
that's that's what i find i find
interesting about you the thing that i
resonate with is that kind of like where
riot grill meets straight edge meets
like krusty kids diy thing and it
certainly was the music but it was also
the people because like
when i was more of a new york hardcore
guy like i liked
those like shitty wreckage bands that
you know we're playing at the time but
once i heard that stuff from san diego
that were
like that abolition gravity record stuff
or even like
guern blanstein stuff like it really
that stuff really moved me and what they
were saying
was definitely resonating more than just
the standard kind of like you stab me in
the back
brotherhood type stuff got it so this is
all brendan
from sfa's fault like
like we've said over messages like punk
rock generations go in five years
so like i've never met that dude you
know he's just a
it's a generation older than me you know
what i'm saying you never went to cbgb's
i did but i got there
after the heyday so yeah but he was
sitting at the door he was a fixture
right there yeah yeah
you're right him and jimmy g were like
the two guys at the door by the way hi
james i'm dave i
joined late but uh whenever i went it
was always jimmy and
brendan at the door no you're right
you're right i um and when you say that
i'm like okay i know exactly who you're
talking about did you ever buy any
videotapes from him
i did i didn't so you guys are like new
york guys like
i'm a new york guy bill's from yonkers
but yeah like i got there in time for
like first
last gorilla biscuit show you know i got
there in time for like
burn and those bands but did you see
minus swinging that
a plastic rubber hammer in the pit i i
think he missed that he missed it i
remember seeing like
marauder and like like scared of those
guys like all that stuff was like big
dudes who like didn't had tattoos and
didn't wear shirts and like
really seemed like they were trying to
beat people up and totally the opposite
of abc no rio a few months after that
yeah and that's i think what was
attractive about abc
and about like the suburban shows was it
what like i didn't fear for my life
what about walking to abc you know not
now now it's like this thousand dollar
sneakers next door
and you can't even there's like two
million dollar condos
down the street of course i volunteered
there in 94
and i lived there in 95 and i definitely
remember
getting offered heroin in like 16
different ways
just between like houston and rivington
body bag tray bag
like you know all of these things it's
just like wow you guys are really doing
a drug called body bag
the first show we played at abc and this
is before the matinees because
we we were first uh we played down that
night show
and my current wife but she wasn't my
wife at the time came with her friend
and they took a cab from queens
and the cab driver wouldn't let them out
and she's like no no this is it
and he pulled the car on the sidewalk
and he says well you get out
and leave your friend here and and get
your get your boyfriend and bring him
upstairs to prove that this is the right
place
so that's how bad it was back then yeah
i i believe it
so james how old were you when you moved
to new york 14 14 okay so you so you
went to high school in new york
and then what happened from there what
high school did you go to i went to
laguardia high school oh
wow artsy i'm an artsy kid
you had to take an audition to get in
there right yeah we had to audition
so i want to jump to tattooing right so
was tattooing a natural progression like
how did you land there right you
obviously did some had some art training
you know this kind of thing why did you
pick tattooing well i was
working like as a producer on this like
internet show in 08 and then the economy
collapsed and they like canned everybody
so i was on unemployment and at the time
i was like really into like riding bikes
and stuff and
i met another black guy at a bike co-op
and we became friends he had heard of me
through afropunk
and it turned out that he was a tattooer
and i kind of naively
asked him if he would teach me and he
said yeah so
um gave me like a really shoddy
apprenticeship but it was really just
the okay that i needed you know it was
just like he opened the door
and i just went for it and i worked at a
bunch of like really shitty shops for a
while until i could get up a clientele
and it was really you know a year in i
figured out or it was the first time i
heard about vegan tattooing and i
realized that like all the products i
4
00:15:00.000 --> 00:20:00.000
was using were not vegan
and i'd been i've been vegan since i was
16
so i was like oh why am i not offering
this as a service
and then it turned out that i was the
first person in all of california to do
vegan tattoos
so i had this insane clientele like
overnight which got me good
a lot faster so you were new to
tattooing but you weren't new to art
right you had a visual arts background
before that correct
yeah i mean a lot of tattooing is
unlearning
the fine arts stuff because it's more of
a
illustration background that you need
than a
like you know when i was in art school
it was all about like
value drawing and no you're not allowed
to use any lines and all the stuff so i
had to like
unlearn that stuff it came in handy like
years later when i was ready to do
portraits and stuff like that but
your standard tattoo is like line work
filling
coloring i had to learn stuff plus i
hadn't really drawn anything in
in almost a decade because i'd been
doing film work and
let's touch upon that a little bit so i
saw something i think it was on your
instagram where you were talking about i
think you shared some early footage that
you had shot and you said you know just
to prepare for afropunk so you had the
idea for the documentary
before you knew how to make a film
correct is how did that come about
and did you learn solely to to get this
message out that you felt was
super important yeah 100 i like it's the
same like punk rock attitude of like
i don't know how to play an instrument
but i want to be in a band it was the
same thing so
i didn't go to film school or anything
but i knew that i wanted to make this
documentary and
that i wanted to tell this story and
that film was going to be the best way
for me to tell the story
so started renting documentaries
actually bill did you work at that
that video store in williamsburg no but
i i know the people that where
jacuzzi joe's store yeah okay
it was like all reconstruction people in
there yeah i had a little bit better job
at that point but they didn't get the
same lunch they got it
two slices garlic nuts and a coke that's
right three bucks so i live
down the street from that video store
and i was friends with somebody they had
on their computer like
not to charge me so like every day i
would just go and rent a documentary and
watch it
so that i would like learn what i liked
and didn't like and
i was kind of like learning on the job
how did you land that not to charge me
card i don't know i mean it's just that
like
i think it was because it was all
reconstruction kids and they were like
oh i remember razzle from
back in the day i would give you a free
card for sure yeah so it was like
i'm trying to remember who was there i
thought it would have been you but it
was like simone
maybe freedom maybe i don't know i can't
remember
so the whole time you were doing this
research did you tell people what you
what you wanted to do or was it more of
a secret like i'm gonna get to the point
where i feel
like i'm ready to make this and then i'm
gonna reveal it how did that come about
i'm sure i was like talking about it
like i mean it was really
if you remember like 2001 things were
really
there wasn't a lot of internet there
wasn't facebook or any of that myspace
any of that
so i had to get an email address you
know like i had to buy a computer
everything was like brand new i started
with like final cut one
so everything was just like here's some
new technology
let me try to figure out how to make it
work so i was like
on like punkplanet.com like hey do you
guys know any black people
like you know trying to like find you
know because i figured there's a black
kid in every scene
so somebody's gonna be like oh yeah
black chuck i know him
like you should talk to him you know oh
jesus it is always like yeah it's like
it's like oh black danny or that that's
so [ __ ] up yeah so i had to go find
black danny and black chuck
and and interview him basically you know
what's even worse
when they did a book about a black uh
rock they featured bug out the side
that's right
why'd they do that why i could read it
for you
it's called rip it up i bought it for 50
cents because it has this paragraph but
it's called
rip it up the black experience in rock
and roll by candia crazy horse
yes so do you own it i don't but i
actually they gave me
the opportunity to do the book but i
just didn't have the time or energy so i
i knew candia kind of i was like she's a
black journalist
like rock journalist maybe she'll want
to do it you know well i wish you had
written it because this is what this is
what we got out of it
not that we should be in this book at
all but it said even though it was the
public enemy era i decided that probe
blackness
shouldn't stop me from flexing my head
with the whities i finally broke down
and went with chaka to a hardcore show
at this place on the lower east side
called the lismar lounge bug out society
played they did a song called lees and
pumas and they were throwing white
castle hamburgers at the 60 of us who
watched in the dark lismore was a dirty
[ __ ] basement that she entered via
those steel trapdoors
that led to the street level people are
starving and these white boys are
throwing hamburgers i didn't get it
we are a part of black history month
okay i think that's great what are you
talking about yeah i would have said
that probably was an accurate depiction
of what
happened
because i was telling my girlfriend lisa
about you bill
and the story that i have that like will
5
00:20:00.000 --> 00:25:00.000
go down
in like hardcore infamy for me is the
more guitars prank on earth crisis
remember this yes i was thinking about
it this morning
you could explain it i could tell you
how my little part in it with you
so what i remember is that it was like
the new bedford fest or one of those
like
massachusetts straight edge new year's
eve festival
and earth crisis was headlining and they
had like a balcony
above the stage and for some reason i
don't know
if you let me in on this or whatever but
i knew that you had
like prepared 20 blow-up guitars
like that you would have in a swimming
pool or something and then
earth crisis plays a song and you're
yelling over the stage
more guitar more guitar and then they're
like oh i guess we need more guitar like
in the mic they're telling the sound man
more guitar and then they go to play
their second song and then you
just threw all those guitars over the
balcony
and then all the kids in the in the
crowd have these guitars and they're
like hitting each other with them
making the earthquake tough guy fans who
want to like mosh
really upset because everyone is just
having a good time and they want amash
you know this morning i was taking a
walk and i thought about that moment
and the one vivid memory i have is you i
mean you're a little bit taller than
everybody you were totally rocking out
with the guitar
in the middle of all these people with
different expressions and it just made
me it made it all worth it
probably in the biggest pants in the
room yeah we shared a moment there i
really appreciate your your part in that
even if it was just like
making a funny face i thought it was the
most hilarious because i was straight
edged but i was never and i was vegan
but i was never like an earth crisis guy
so there were those moments where like
remember when
riding things on your arms or whatever
was like a hardcore thing i like jumped
up i was on syracuse
and i wrote [ __ ] your vegan power on my
arms and like went up on
stage when earth crisis was playing and
like i feel like i formed a small
movement there of copycats
i remember when writing on your head was
a skinhead thing
if any band deserved that though it
would be earth crisis i had a friend on
long island who who let them stay with
them
stay at his parents house after uh they
played the pee whack i think
and the mom was like a super traditional
suburban mom so she cooked breakfast for
the band and she made bacon and eggs
and they were so angry they like threw
the bread they're like we don't eat this
[ __ ] blah and i was so angry about it
and the mom started crying she was like
i don't i just tried to be nice for
these boys on tour
it just became a horrible thing go back
to afropunk though what was your end
goal of making the film besides getting
your message out did you ever think
you'd make some money on it did you have
a plan to do that
tour once you've got it done where where
were you gonna go with it did you have
like a thought or vision
honestly i felt like i would screen it
in new york twice
in in la once and that would be the end
of it and move on
with my life it was not until i went the
second
screening was at the um american black
film festival
and at that time it was in miami and
there was three consecutive screenings
and all of them were sold out
and it was like super mainstream black
folk
and i was just like and then uh people
were telling me like oh like
i relate to this i was like the only
black person at my
banking job or i'm the only whatever it
is they they related in their own way
and it made me realize that like
i wasn't just making this like punk this
critique of punk rock but it was a
metaphor for something much larger
that i didn't have an understanding of
at the time so
once i got that i was like holy [ __ ]
like there are people who are going to
be interested in this
beyond people in the punk scene and that
turned out to be the case that like
every time i would do a screening
especially in like a big city and
certainly in new york it would just be
like a hundred randos would come
and i did like a screening at pianos
like really early on like maybe like the
fifth or sixth show
and like a friend of mine worked there
so he just gave me the door he's like
you know you can just have the space for
an hour and a half or whatever it's
going to take and you can have the door
and like a hundred people came and i was
charging seven bucks so i like
made rent in one day i was like holy
[ __ ] like this is
like actually something that i can like
do
and then once it occurred to me that
like i should
start doing shows like putting on bands
and play the film before it just kind of
turned into like
a scene and all of a sudden kids were
calling themselves afropunks and that
was really weird and not my intention
but it kind of just started taking on a
life of its own
which i just helped perpetuate were you
working a day job at that point when you
put out the film no i was a
dj and party promoter so i've like only
had a day job once
it was like first four months what was
that that's when i was doing that
production job
and then the economy tanked and i
started tattooing so
i ran it to you at the airport i don't
know in like 2010 i didn't recognize you
and you were like mr slick i was like
wow that guy really
he's really slicking it out like what
6
00:25:00.000 --> 00:30:00.000
point where you're at at that point
you're at the airport so you're flying
somewhere 2010
i don't remember that so that's how cool
i am
i mean you had to be like hey it's
razzle i'm like oh razzle
yeah i mean if i came up to you that
just shows you that i'm like i was
humble enough to be like hey you're
[ __ ] bill florio
so you got worse after that
i don't know i mean i feel like maybe it
was just an awkward interaction because
i don't remember
like i don't think that there are very
many moments where i've
been like like i really thought i was
the [ __ ] and in 2010
i was like two years into tattooing so i
was like super humble because my [ __ ]
stuck
i was like being like berated by my
people i worked with like on a daily
basis about how much i stuck
so i don't think what about the what
about the people you tattooed they have
to live with it forever yeah
well luckily people have a really low
standard of like
i've seen that you know i realized that
when we were playing a show with tbgb's
and mike [ __ ] came in with that b
is for [ __ ] tattoo
how would you think he paid for that
back then 25 bucks
i bet he paid less than you paid for
that book you bought
let's go with that a little bit so you
know it sounds like you had trouble
working with others you have customers
right you have customers today
and you have this vegan tattooing
bringing them in
and you know is it true that people want
a vegan tattooer as much as they want
vegan tattoos
you're gonna have to sit with them for
hours right no no no i mean i
at a certain point i opened a shop and i
had like three or four
people working with me none of whom were
vegan but we all did we all provided
that
service and there were like a handful of
people who like you know
if it was like the choice between the
their tattoo or
not being vegan or being vegan like i'm
sure they would prefer
them to be vegan because they know that
the money they're giving them is not
going to buy
ribs later but i always get chicken and
ribs because then i know two animals
were killed
for your buck i understand so
yes they're happy to invest in their
chosen community but at the same time
they also want a tattoo that like like i
had a partner
who specialized in like watercolor like
style stuff that i just do not do
so if that's what they want then that's
he's the right guy to go to but do
people come to you because of who you
are and what you've done with your film
work i mean i feel like with someone
like
siv i think people go a good chunk of
people go to him for tattoos because
he said yes exactly so like do you run
into the same thing have you had people
come to either like
i'm not vegan i actually don't give a
[ __ ] about that but i loved afropunk
i would say that my clientele fits into
two categories either they're
vegan or they're black and sometimes
they're black and vegan but
the black folks it's typically word of
mouth
from either early on in my career it was
through afropunk yes
and later i also have been very vocal
about
the importance of knowing how to tattoo
uh darker skin tones
so if you do like a google search for
like tattooing
dark skin tones there's very little out
there and i'm like at the top of that
list
so i get a lot of black clients who are
just looking for higher quality tattoos
is that like an opportunity for like a
multi-million dollar business because in
the beauty product industry wasn't that
like a huge
success story yeah i mean there's
definitely i
charge market value market rate and
black folks from all like walks of life
come to me
specifically for this service and some
come from out of state or whatever
so they're certainly for some kind of
person who was
more of a marketing exploitive kind of
whatever
like i've always been like i just need
to do enough to get by
so that i can like make the art well i'm
kind of thinking about what you're
talking about you're giving this
information
for free on the internet you know doing
the dark tones but i mean
there must be some knowledge there that
can be uh packaged like you know with
the
the beauty product and so forth that
they sell the commodity
is there some way to you know use that
knowledge to sell the inks to tattoos so
they know they have the product
available
and the knowledge how to use it i use
the same ink on everybody so it's not
that it's it's about knowing like
there's like trial and error basically
if there are a lot of tattooers who are
fantastic
tattooers who do shitty tattoos on black
folks because they don't know
what colors to use and not use they
don't know like how to design it in such
a way that like
in five years the whole thing won't
close up and look like a blob but yeah
so you you
know what you know what you know what
colors work i mean
half the stuff you buy is just about how
they package it and market it
so you take the colors you sell those
colors as a package with the
instructions and the know-how on how to
use it
and there's the play i think yeah that's
a different person i don't give a [ __ ]
but we were supposed to we're supposed
to be some kind of business podcast
7
00:30:00.000 --> 00:35:00.000
i'm told so i mean really no
hold on i mean here's the thing so you
have your
your customers coming in you have
special things that they're attracted to
about
your tattoos but would you take that
further would you
give training would you sell training to
other tattoo
artists would you give seminars would
you have your face
on the ink and get get a cut of that
like
i don't have those kind of aspirations
do you have anything against it
well i mean tattooing is weird in that
like if there was somebody in the
industry
who was like a fantastic tattooer
who also worked with dark skin tones and
they wanted to market ink in that it's
fine that's totally fine i've always
been somebody who like
i have my eyes on a prize and the prize
is typically
not it typically does not relate back to
how much money i'm making
so you know when it comes to like right
now i'm really focused on making this
getting this graphic novel done and the
amount of work that's involved
i won't even make close to minimum wage
but it's just what i want to do
i'm gonna stop the conversation for one
second and tell you if you enjoyed this
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now let's get back to the show i mean
there's creative energy going towards
tattooing and going through his
torture your other work do you feel like
the tattooing sap some of that energy
and you're getting paid for it
i did go through like a tattooing slump
where i kind of hit a plateau and i just
i was just phoning it in like i was
doing good tattoos everyone was happy
with them but i wasn't like
progressing and inspired that changed a
few months before the pandemic started
and then i was excited again but it's
all art
the reason that i'm able to do comics
now is because of the
illustration stuff that i learned from
tattooing and so i i try to like
see it all as a learning experience but
the other piece of it
is that like tattooing is an art form
that people actually pay for
so it's like being a musician you might
not make money in your punk band but you
can write like
jingles for commercials on the side and
then you can keep being in your punk
band so with the
the graphic novel i mean you say you you
learned about the
illustration from the tattooing so you
think that the art you're going to put
it is going to have like a tattoo
feel like will this be like a tattoo
field comic the way there's like tattoo
inspired fashion and so forth
well i think that it's the it doesn't
like the comic doesn't look like a
like american traditional or anything
like that but it's just the thing of
like
it has the same template of like strong
outlines
a certain kind of shading it's not in
color so there's there's none of that
but
basically before i started tattooing i
never
was like cartooning that was the the way
that i learned you know can you tell us
some
tattoo horror stories and and like just
how you dealt with them like
like let's say like a cover-up or just
an unrealistic
tattoo like i want fireworks on my arm
yeah i mean i've had things where
i give like a few kind of examples like
you know most people
come with ideas that are not very well
fleshed out
most of the time they're willing to be
guided to have something that's like
solid
i remember having a guy come in who was
like a red haired kind of
like very pale white dude and he was
like
i want a all color tattoo like i don't i
i don't want any black outlines and the
reason that like tattoos look the way
they look is
because of the whack so there's a whole
like boring
you know i can tell you all the boring
reasons why but ultimately i had to say
no and he was just like no well i'm too
white for black ink i was just like wow
just said no you didn't try to refer
them to someone else or
well i explained it to him and explained
how like
black ink holds the color in and that
like it'll age before it's time and
you'll look like you have a
20 year old tattoo in four years all of
these things and he's like showing me
other tattoos he's had that don't have
black ink and i'm looking at them and
i'm like yeah those suck
but he's saying like no but look they
did it and whatever and wait
did you tell him that his tattoos suck
well not in those words
you know now i've i have
examples of tattoos that i fixed by
simply putting black into them
and i can say like well look at this
tattoo and then look at how this
looks when you add black to it it's
infinitely better you know i heard about
this horror story once about this kid
that
cut murphy's law into his arm with a
knife and then rubbed dirt in it
oh that sounds terrible that sounds like
an infection it doesn't sound like it's
yeah it doesn't sound like a tattoo at
all i've had people who have had like
allergic reactions
and that really sucks it's part of the
thing it's like you're injecting a
foreign substance into your body
it's not always going to work out you
know is the allergic reaction
is that um anything to do with the vegan
8
00:35:00.000 --> 00:40:00.000
elements of the
material you're using the anchors the
reactions are always to red and red
derivatives because
there's a heavy metal um cadmium that's
in red so it happens
very rarely but it does happen and
there's no way of knowing that it's
gonna happen
and most of the time it's just it just
takes longer to heal and it's fine but
you know i had a client who like her arm
like wool up crazy
and she had to go to dermatologists and
all you know steroid patches and all
this [ __ ] and then
who came back like a year later and you
know we touched it up with a different
color and it was fine so it's not like
the horror stories are usually
due to like people being [ __ ] and
just wanting things that are like
unreasonable and why is it always the
red dye that's a problem you remember
when the
in the 70s they had to ban the red m m's
because like that's right
a five-course cancer or something
probably the same dye yeah i mean
in the case of the ink it's definitely
because of cadium which is
just you know it's just a metal it's not
it's not good for you i guess
before you made it you kind of said when
you first started you had to open up
your own shop is that not true anymore
and like how did that work out well like
i think in like my fourth or fifth year
i realized that i was like the money
that i was giving to the shop
in commission was paying their rent but
they were still treating me like as a
total dick
so i realized that i could just give
myself like a 40
raise by opening my own space so i did
that and
then that was just a private studio that
expanded
over the course of a few years into like
a storefront with
various other tattooers and stuff and
then when my lease ran out my landlord
wanted to
take over the space for something else
so i just opened another private studio
because ultimately i'm not a good boss i
don't want to deal with people and their
drama and whatever
so i'd rather for tattoos though it's
more like you're a landlord right you're
renting the chair
no that's like that's how barbering
works but in uh
tattooing it's commission based so you
get
the shop gets a percentage usually if
it's an established tattoo or it'll be
30
if it's a newbie it'll be like 50 so
that's why tattoos are so expensive
usually because
half the money or a third of the money
is going to the shop gotcha whoever's
running that shop has to take on all of
the
[ __ ] yeah because tattooing really
the industry attracts
a lot of problematic people so you know
what's funny you you mentioned earlier
that you i'm paraphrasing but you said
something about not having a you know a
real job but it sounds like
running a tattoo parlor would be a real
job but then you also said something
about how you're not a good boss
so is there is there something in there
about how you feel uncomfortable being a
boss are you uncomfortable running a
business
yeah i don't want to tell people what to
do like i've got kids i'll tell them
what to do but i don't want to come
to the shop and then be like like why
didn't you guys clean up this part or
like were you guys drinking in here
after i left
i just don't want to deal with all that
[ __ ] and i'm dealing with grown
men and women i expect them to be able
to like
handle themselves you know maybe you
should open up a
vegan straight edge tattoo that would
help with the drinking but
straight edge kids they'll be playing
like foursquare in the
after hour
so do you feel like that's something
that came from punk rock where you don't
want to foss people around or do you
feel like that's something that
that feeling and how you react to that
is what drew you to punk rock is the
same thing that makes you not want to be
a boss
i'm not sure because you know like i was
never able
to be in a band either i just don't
think i like work well with others when
i look at all my
like business relationships they've all
kind of like fallen apart in
negative ways and i can recognize that
i'm the common denominator you know
like maybe i pick sociopaths to work
with or maybe i'm just hard to work with
myself i don't know
so when when when you basically started
like afropunk blew up
and it sounds like you looked into
actually
working in the film industry right you
have to work with people there
was that a big part of it not working
out for you or is there other things as
well
no i always got along with like you know
like when i shot
my second film white lies like that was
like probably a 20 person crew and for
the most part we got along
it wasn't like there was a lot of
camaraderie but the problem with the
industry
was that i'm like pushing a different
agenda than hollywood is
so if i'm in there and i'm pitching like
stories
of the underground or whatever it takes
a particular kind of
person to hear that and this was also
pre-streaming so there were only
the networks and hbo or something you
know there wasn't as many opportunities
now
like i think that people want to hear
stories from like
different backgrounds there's a big push
for like you know quote unquote own
stories
i have a friend who wrote a book called
black card
about a white passing biracial kid in
the hardcore scene
who has a imaginary black friend who
takes his black card from him
and that got optioned into it to be made
into a tv show so it's like
there's clearly we're in a different
9
00:40:00.000 --> 00:45:00.000
time than we were
at that time for me you know do you feel
like if white lies black sheep came out
now it would be looked at differently
maybe but
you know if i'm honest with myself i i
really don't like that film so
i don't think i was ready to make a
movie like that i think i just
had the opportunity to make the movie
did you feel like there were stories
left untold
in the truth of what came out in
afropunk that you tried to kind of
fictionalize a narrative that was a
hybrid of your own experiences with what
you hoped some of the people in the film
would have
of the documentary would have said how
did that come about like what was your
thinking in regards to that it was a
weird thing like i was nominated for
this
rockefeller grant and i won it so all of
a sudden i just had like tens of
thousands of dollars to make
a movie and i had like this shoddy
script that i was working on
and it was kind of like in the spirit of
like wild style
is to beat street or something like that
you know where i'm like well
i have this story and interestingly
decades later
i'm still telling that story but i'm
just more sophisticated
of a storyteller you know i just don't
think i was ready at that time i was
actually gonna tie that to
you know you made an instagram post
about a month ago about black lives
matter and your
your conflict with that and and all of
that and it feels like you're still
not that you're gonna change as a human
being and who you are
do you still feel like there's there's
stories to tell in regards to your
experience and how you can communicate
that and then
kind of the second part of that question
would be did you feel pigeon holed after
afropunk and did you resent having to be
you know represent something to so many
people that that maybe you didn't
necessarily want to represent or maybe
you did
yes okay so first i want to clarify that
you know just the way you're questioned
is asked it sounds like i might have a
problem with black lives matter and i
100 yeah did not mean that at all i
apologize if that's how that came across
yeah i just don't want the
listener to think that there was
definitely a time where i felt like
i'm the black punk go-to guy and i have
to be that and that's the only thing i'm
allowed to be
so i'm gonna i read an interview that i
did from back then that was like my next
film will definitely not be
about you know the only one or whatever
and i think for a long time i had
resentment around i didn't want to be
the guy who's still talking about the
seven inch that i put out in
high school you know i want to be known
for more than that
but i think at a certain point i
realized that like if i'm gonna tell a
story about my life
even if i'm telling a story about like
being a father i have to include
my experience as a punk rocker because
that is who i am
and with that comes all the trappings of
being a black punk
so i became more comfortable with the
fact that like
that is part of my identity and that if
and i'm happy
to talk about those experiences because
i know that other people are having
those experiences
and they need somebody who's gone
through it to maybe get their
viewpoint and on the other hand though i
mean i feel like you did you feel like
you walked out of
opportunities that like the average film
student would have killed for
yeah i mean you know when i had that
little that little production job i was
talking about
it was interesting because all my bosses
you know so i had this job i was
a production assistant i was sitting at
lunch
with all the producers who were my
bosses and they were talking about like
their short film that they're working on
that they hope
to get into toronto film festival
in the next season or whatever you know
and
i'm like i've had two features in
toronto
where who am i aspiring to here so i
realized that like
if i want to move further in this
industry at the time i felt like if i
was going to
become like a mainstream hollywood
director
i was going to either have to jump
through hoops that i wasn't
willing to do or i was going to have to
like make
projects that i wasn't into i just
didn't have a lot of confidence that i
could still maintain my voice
in that atmosphere today it feels
different you know today i feel like
if given opportunity there is mainstream
money that will
back a voice like mine yeah so you
weren't willing to make alien three to
get the fight club
yeah exactly you have to say on the
topic of
i know i keep going back to your
instagram but i love your quarantine
videos
is that something that just came about
as like a fun thing to do because you're
stir crazy
or was that something that you know you
had planned or
had how did that come about and how do
you fit that is that is that something
you consider art or is that just having
fun and goofing off with your family
that's all my girlfriend she's just a
dork she's like so fun loving and always
wants to like do
silly stuff like that so you know she's
the one who came up with like
let's get all these punk songs and like
make videos about like what it's like in
quarantine or whatever
and my daughter is at the age where she
still like wants to hang out
and she still thinks that we're fun so
we're like you know taking advantage of
that
i can't take any credit for that other
than like helping picking out songs
so it's it's not 1997 anymore you're
10
00:45:00.000 --> 00:50:00.000
planning on
publishing are you apprehensive about
that process since you've been through
this other media experience
yeah i mean i'm totally worried about
you know i already had like a
failed agent relationship i'm now
querying new agents
and i've already had notes that like
are reminiscent of the notes that i got
when i was making afropunk that were
like
basically like who would be interested
in this other than other black punks
like
you know what i still like have that
note
resonate with me because like i wish
that i could remember who
that person was so i could show them how
wrong they were you know
but i think that's part of like having a
unique voice or pushing an underground
message or
a non-mainstream message is that you're
going to have you have to find somebody
who gets it
and is also willing to take a chance do
you fear not finding them
and no because if like worst case
scenario like i can always
self-publish you know like i can still
reach i can still reach
like a lot of people and there's always
the question of like do you sign to a
major or do you stay indie like that
question
exists in publishing as much as it does
in uh
music or whatever so let's say you get
this out what happens after that what
other what other ideas you have
like what kind of legacy do you want to
leave i mean you've already left a lot
with afropunk
yeah i mean i think that i definitely
have more
stories and i have a really complicated
father and childhood and that's
i have not been able to grapple with how
to like
tell that story yet but i think that
ultimately
at least right now my focus has been
on exposing people who are on the fringe
of the underground to what the
underground is and
giving them an opportunity to embrace it
the way that we did when we were kids
as opposed to the like fake activism
and posturing that comes from the
mainstream that's posing as underground
you know what i'm saying so the book
kind of does that
and i've got some other projects that i
can't really talk about right now that
are um really focused on like grabbing
the attention
of people who want to make change but
are still
thinking that there's a way to straddle
the line between mainstream
underground or just mainstream and think
that like they can they can make change
that way
like i mean is that something that
you've grappled with all along like the
kind of the
person that comes up thinking that
they're going to be part of the
mainstream and still remain cool is that
like is there a conflict of selling out
always in your mind yeah i mean i think
that like you know we come from this
generation
where like being a sellout or a poser is
like
the worst thing you can be called and
now we're in a generation where people
aspire to sell out
and i want to like i want to flip that
you know
because i think that there is real value
in
what we had as kids and what i still i
know it still exists
and while i've never been like you have
to listen to punk rock in order to like
achieve that
i do firmly believe that like there is
no such
thing as the alt mainstream you know
what i'm saying do you feel like the
mainstream's starting to take on some of
those qualities i was having a
conversation with a couple
old punk friends of mine and they're
like you know it's funny to be in
conversations with like your aunt or
uncle
about things that you only talked about
your with your friends
on a punk level oh yeah 100 it's like
you you go on
you'll see some like some house mom on
instagram who has acab
on her like we're currently in a place
where
two months ago you couldn't have a
serious conversation about defunding the
police with anybody
other than somebody who was also very
left but
here's my thought is that the mainstream
and the underground
they work together and they need each
other the mainstream is always looking
to the underground figure out like
what's cool how to be we were talking
about intersectionality
long before that word was something that
i ever even heard of
just through like booking at abc no rio
or something right
so now that's part of the like
mainstream vernacular
and they will always take from us and we
will
always be reinventing or pushing things
further we'll always be reacting to them
and one wouldn't exist without the other
like what would punk rock be if we
didn't have something to
flip off like the bangles
i think that i think you nailed it
exactly thank you
so when you look at it do you ever have
that [ __ ] moment where like you know
you could probably make a great living
being an influencer
you know and just like curating your
social media and getting brands to pay
have you ever had a weak moment where
you're like [ __ ] it i'm just gonna do
that and just live off of corporate
money um
i think probably the closest that
anything like that was even an
opportunity
was just before i left afropunk like the
year
prior to me leaving it was like i was
blogging for toyota
i like ha you know i did an ad for some
stupid watch that like
was like you know some 300 like limited
edition afropunk watch i mean it's just
11
00:50:00.000 --> 00:55:00.000
these garbage like things that like
opportunities that
are presented and but i didn't last long
it was like
six months into like i was blogging and
then i'm getting center
censored because i can't talk about like
going to this like gay bar to see
trans people sing or you know it's like
it's just not for me it's like i can't
stomach it so
and i'm also in my 40s like i don't
think that i'm
influencer age you know in in that
social media kind of way
i think i can make a lot more difference
just like doing
bigger longer term projects that like
that will hopefully resonate
and inspire other people to do whatever
kind of
activism they want to do so to that
point if someone came
to you now a younger a younger person
and said afropunk came out when i was
13 i'd love to do another version of
that that
addresses the black experience in punk
rock now
would that be something you'd be like
sure go for it i'll help you in any way
i can or is that something that you feel
is your thing and you'd encourage them
to go do something more of their own
creation
no i mean i think that like i've always
encouraged people to tell their story
and
i think that like the idea of like
afropunk 2
you know and it's the same story is kind
of whack but
if somebody wants to make a movie or
like i've always had i've seen books
about being a black goth or
you know like i told you about my
friend's book black card i think that
there are ways to do it in an original
way
and yeah i don't have any like
proprietary kind of like
ownership over the black punk experience
you know
so it sounds like you've straddled a lot
you've reinvented yourself several times
is there just more of the same like do
you feel like if we talk to you in 10
years from now
it'll be a whole different story well i
think i'm saying the same thing that
i've
i've always said i'm just saying it in
through different mediums so yeah i'll
probably have a few more projects i
might not be tattooing i might be
doing something else but i just looked
at a zine that i wrote when i was 17
and even though the writing is terrible
i was saying the same thing that i'm
saying now
yeah you don't remember it for the one
seven inch but whatever else you do
put out you want to be remember for that
over and over and over again it's
it's not the same thing you know they're
not you're not holding on to the past
the stones still play satisfaction every
night though i mean like there's
something to be said for that don't you
think
yes but it's like speaking of stiff
gorilla biscuits
has a reunion tour every so often and
they like play
everything off a star today and everyone
loves it that's fine but like i would
love
for them to make a new album that
actually anybody cared about
you know i often think that like there's
a time and a place and an energy and
no artist wants to think that they like
expired in high school
or whatever you know but all we can do
is try right do you believe to that
point i mean
there are definitely people that believe
that you know a band has a time and a
place and
and there's there's a limit to that
creative bucket how much is in there do
you ever fear that that's true with what
you're doing i mean do you feel like
changing mediums and jumping from
project to project kind of helps
shield you from that or or is it
something that you know as a creative
person
is always kind of in the back of your
mind i definitely have had i think i
said this before like i have had moments
where i'm like i don't want to just do
these black punk stories but i also am
i'm not so calculated that i'm like oh
i've told it in film now i'm going to
tell it in comics and next i'm going to
tell it in
some other medium like i just do what is
interesting to me and then when it's not
interesting anymore i stop doing it and
i do something else
and i'm just not married to a medium
that way and
not to say i won't come back like i'm
totally interested in doing film again
but for 10 years i didn't want anything
to do with it are there any crazy out
there
ideas that you've just been like that's
not me you know as far as as things
you've considered and been like i just
can't do it
you mean like i came up with an idea and
i was like no that's i can't do that
idea
yeah like to bill's earlier point like
you know did you have a moment where you
were like i'm gonna do aliens three or
i'd love to do a sci-fi movie or i'd
love to you know do something that's
that's completely
different than anything that people
would ever i mean you already have such
a varied output so that may be a harder
question but
yeah i mean it's like i wrote a sci-fi
script like 10 years ago
and that was of interest to me i i like
that stuff
not really into like slapstick screwball
comedies or whatever
but if something inspired me to like be
into him then yeah i could totally see
myself like put all my energy
into i just as far as like art is
concerned like
i'm not really afraid of like visual
stuff and
starting from the beginning and learning
and being like hey i don't know anything
about this like can you guys help me or
whatever
i just know i kind of know where my
limitations are like i'm not going to
start a band or try to be a singer
because like nobody wants to hear that
including me yeah yo did we lose charlie
no i'm here
okay i heard him eating chips before
so who are your heroes yeah who do you
look up to that's a hard one because i
kind of come from that
like you know kill rock stars kind of
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00:55:00.000 --> 01:00:00.000
like not the band but like i'm not the
label but the idea
of like i don't know who i look up to
currently um
i mean i'm really impressed with my
friend mo he's in afropunk but he's
currently
president of the working families party
and he's like on the ground like doing
hell of [ __ ] like
he's just always been an organizer and i
really am impressed by him and
inspired i'm embarrassed to be like just
super cheesy and say like
i'm still impressed by ian makai and the
things that
you know he's accomplished what ever
happened to calling him ian mckay i
think that
i think that the narrative changed you
know i think
no if you ever call it to his face which
i have he corrects you
and makes you feel really stupid but
then he makes you feel better and he
goes come over to the porch let's take a
photo
yeah exactly exactly
have you ever talked to ian yeah he
actually invited me to the porch one
time
he had seen afropunk in probably like
2006 or something like that
and wrote me an email and at the time i
was working on a
book that i needed a lot of photography
for and he was like oh i have such a
huge archive you should come over
sometime and i was like i will be there
tomorrow
and he was like so generous with his
time like we spent i don't know like six
or seven hours
at his at the place and he was just
showing us like all these insane
i mean it's just a thing of like being
like a regular person
and i love that idea of somebody who
is just like yeah i've accomplished all
these things but i'm also just a person
and i'm okay with like like i know he
doesn't feel comfortable with people
standing in line to shake his hand
at shows and stuff like that you know
it's like are there are they afraid like
that exo werewolf
on their hands or something
i think they're trying to get a little
they're hoping to some of it will rub
off on them you know what did you write
on your arm again
murphy's law oh well well i'm sorry
yeah that day i wrote [ __ ] your vegan
power at a 108 show or
worship me like you know whatever's
going to attack
maybe that's the next thing maybe you
can just write those things that come up
to your mind on people's arms
and while they're in line yeah just hey
teenager come here
take a picture i would buy that book if
you just took a picture of all of them
in the face when they looked at it
i i would pay 20 bucks for that it's
nothing but 10 15.
i just write that up
i think you should be more active on
your social media presence and go out to
punks with bad tattoos and offer to fix
them like doesn't brian baker from minor
threat
religion all those doesn't he have a
coca-cola tattoo they all do i think
really yeah i think they all have a
coca-cola tattoo yeah i mean
what's with these beverages tattoo
yeah i have a t-shirt ever i have a
tripod a fantasy tattoo but that's only
for birth control
so wait wait yeah so like it sounds like
your customers are
a lot of punks a lot of vegans uh
african-americans looking for a better
quality tattoo you use the word normals
in the cartoons from the cartoon panels
i saw like
do you have extra anxiety with normals
it depends like when it comes to tattoos
no because they just i'm in charge they
listen to me you know i wouldn't say
anxiety i still have anger you know i'm
still there still a part of me that's
like
remembers the harassment of just being
a kid walking down i was harassed on the
street
up until the day i i moved from new york
and it's just like at that point i was
just a grown man with dreads and a beard
like what
what are they harassing me for i feel
like i
was always a target from like 13 to
30. so there's definitely a piece of me
that has like
anger and recognizes that like years and
years
of people like on the subway going like
oh my god look it is
you know whatever it's like that really
did something to my self-esteem you know
so that guy definitely does it to
everyone
as a kid it was just a normal thing like
you know i had piercings
and i would like ride the subway and i
had to like
hide my face the whole ride to school so
that i wouldn't get
like harassed and it was like i would
literally have to fight every day
if i stepped to everyone who said every
stranger who said something random
you know something mean to me so that
just can't be good for
somebody's self-esteem so as a an adult
i
still have resentment towards whether it
was like the typical 80s jock
versus the punks or just the new york
kind of like
you guys are coming to the village to
[ __ ] with us
like why don't you just stay wherever
you're from yeah i mean is that the same
guy though that's giving you the notes
that are [ __ ] on your art
possibly who knows who these people grow
up to be not people who are actually
making art so i was talking to my uh my
cousin the other day who
is just a very typical like brother from
bed stuy
and typical in like his the way that he
grew up
and his appearance and whatnot but he
does have an artistic soul and he's
really like
tried to cultivate that despite his like
13
01:00:00.000 --> 01:05:00.000
upbringing and we were talking the other
day and he was like
like yo why you always like why you
always like getting on those normals
us normals and he wasn't even really
asking like he just
he understood that like he also has a
lot to learn he's somebody who like
if he wasn't super dark skin if he
wasn't 300 pounds if he wasn't like
grew up in bed-stuy if he wasn't like
raised all around
drug dealers like all of these things if
even one of those things was different
he would have a completely different
life
is he is he still in bed stuy he is he's
part-time because he
works upstate so i just want to know if
he's still all around the drug dealers
or there's a bunch of like hipsters
moved in
he's still on the block like he he lives
on the block that there's like a lot of
bloods and stuff there
so it's still real but he you know i'm
really proud of him he really is like
trying like he he's a really good
photographer and trying to do his thing
but it's like i've watched for years how
it could be different
but he had to like start from so much
further back like he was still like
actively homophobic 10 years ago and it
was only through a series of experiences
that he realized that that's not serving
him or anyone he cares about so it's
just like that kind of stuff that
we learned a lot earlier because of you
we played the
25th anniversary of stonewall at abc no
rio
that's right bad speaking of homophobic
bill could tell you about his theatrics
i i don't remember any
homophobic theatrics you don't remember
those styrofoam bricks you made
i did make styrofoam bread you soaked
with water because it was like 110
degrees in that club that night
only like two people got the joke one of
them was me
i know it sounds like a lot of society
shows
it wasn't i feel like we're
being playful you come from a part of
the theme that is like straddling the
line of
offensive and just hoping that people
get it
and yeah but i get to tell my daughter
all the time we played the 25th
anniversary of stormwater that's right
that's right they picked us to play that
they said we got who are going to get to
play this anniversary bug outside
definitely yeah that's what i would have
thought
[Laughter]
i would say other than you know not
getting the joke people did appreciate
the wet bricks and that yes they did
that was certainly a pleasure
even the spray back when you threw it
and it hit somebody in the head and the
spray back on you was nice you know
[Laughter]
i think we could turn that around you
know basically harley from the crowmags
was there's posters of him
up on carmine's christopher street
because he used to throw bricks
at homosexual couples and it was called
the brick game
and the only thing that was funny about
it is the person who
knew about it and told us about this was
the least likely person to ever
participate or anything like that and we
would just force him to tell the story
that was completely offensive in every
way and we just thought it was funny
just to embarrass him but
i got really excited at first because i
thought you were gonna say that there
was like a wwf style poster of harley
flanagan somewhere that i could buy on
ebay
i think it's a screenshot from his new
video i thought you were saying there
were posters up on christopher street
because he was the grand marshal of the
pride parade
you know what i think that is a tattoo
idea
[Laughter]
and just be careful walking by harley
yeah then he he comes and gets both of
us