The squat is a sliver of a residence that is directly connected to all the other houses on the
block. What little patches of grass exist are overgrown, and there’s a pile of rotten black trash
bags on the porch. The stench of wet dogs ranks from inside. We walk in and immediately stomp
up a rickety flight of stairs. There is no carpeting, and the house has the sharp smell of termites
and rotted wood. I take a piss in the scariest bathroom in America -- the toilet is filled with a dark
auburn blood-piss, used condoms are scattered around its edges, and the bathtub is filled with
long-standing green water that’s growing algae.
No one is here right now except for Action Jackson and Frankie, who tells me I can leave
my shit in his closet and no one will fuck with it. He says I can squat any time and not to worry
about the ruthless dogs. Once they know my scent, they are harmless.
Frankie & Action Jackson take off to who knows where, and I end up in the only room
with a TV watching U-571 with an older punk in his mid-40’s. He’s very friendly and we discuss
the awesomeness of Harvey Keitel. He falls asleep not long after, and I lie down on top of a
moldy, wet sleeping bag. It’s 45 degrees in the room because the window is busted out, and the
drift keeps me shaking throughout jangled, confusing half-nightmares…
THE EAGLES NEST (WHOREHOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES)
I wake up displaced, uneasy -- too many new memories have organized themselves after such a
deep sleep. But I’ve yet to move or open an eye. I slowly lift a lid, and my pupil focuses on the
half-burnt & shredded upside down American flag sloppily nailed to the wall. In the middle of it
is a choker chain with padlock encircling a glossy photo of what appears to be GG Allin.
Is that where I am? Is Frankie Helvis a literal ex-band member of The Scumfucks? I get
up to investigate, but the mirage is false. It’s not GG, but someone who could easily pass for a
clone. I creep the squat. Downstairs it’s not a living room, but a garage from a 1930’s floor-plan
with the stench of carbon oxide emissions still resonated on the cement floor; torn couches are
strewn about, Pyrates of the Caribbean & Devils Rejects posters. It’s tomb-like and dirty, sludged
dog shit over the ground. The back door opens to a run-down, skinny-yet-lengthy backyard with
sideways trees, branches shooting everywhere. It’s overgrown like a jungle and the BBQ area is
pure dirt with black ash bonfire pit.
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The Harvey Keitel fan is still passed out upstairs, and there is little in that room except
for a broken old tube TV from the 60’s. It was top of the line luxury once upon a time, now it’s
dead with a skeleton face cutout taped to the screen in a room with missing floorboards.
10am, Frankie and Chaos are up early in the kitchen with an exposed, tile expunged floor.
The sink is a wooden, tetanus husk of a 1920’s bath tub propped up by rusted piping and copper.
It’s got green water in it with all silverware and dishes sunk at the bottom. They have the oven
wide open and are using it to make cheese bread. They have a stale loaf someone dumpster dived,
and are layering Kraft singles atop them.
Frankie is in a peaceful Zen and isn’t into doing his interview just yet. He says it’ll be an
intense one when the moment comes. He tells me to talk to Mike, the Keitel guy on the couch. He
was the drummer from Whorehouse of Representatives.
Whorehouse were one of the oldschool hardcore punk bands from the early to late 90’s
that Maximum Rock N Roll frequently pimped. They broke up some time ago, but stormed
Europe and North America with a dozen splits, vinyls and LPs. Gina packs a bowl and grabs my
arm, leading me to Mike. A little wake and bake session with the fellow, and he tells me his
background.
For one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet in oldschool hardcore, it just breaks your
damned heart that Mike Doodie is in the hellish limbo he faces. When the guitarist of
Whorehouse shot himself in 1998, he left the band, got married, and went to family life in LA. It
was his fairy-tale ending that lasted until mid-2006.
Barely a year ago his daughter drowned, his wife committed suicide in the wake, and
Mike went into the deepest, ugliest heroin abyss imaginable. He was out of his mind for 6 months
until he made the decision to fight back and go clean for his remaining daughter, a 12 year old
Chelsea in SoCal. He’s been drying out here for the past 2 months, laying low, just burning time
and watching movies in the room upstairs.
He’s haunted yet jovial, a laid back pothead at his core that barely drinks. He’s huge into
power metal, and goes off on Iced Earth and Iron Maiden. Amusingly, D.H. Pilegro from Dead
Kennedys is his NA sponsor: “Whorehouse I’d gotten into in Seattle. They formed in 92, I joined
in 94. I was the drummer. After about four months of rehearsing it was steady from thereon. Our
lyrics were pretty much the same shit that’s been done for 25 years. Real political, real pissed off.
But we never tried to shove anything down anyone’s throat.”
“What were some of the tours?”
Mike Doodie: “Starting off we did a six week tour with Toxic Narcotic. We did another
US tour with Brother Inferior from San Francisco. We did another six week tour with a band from
Austin called Severed Heads Of State. We went over and did a three week East Coast tour and
played New York, Philadelphia, Connecticut, a ton of places.”
“What’s the difference between Seattle and San Fran?”
“Actually it’s not all that different. It kind of reminds me of the Seattle scene, or the way
it used to be back in the 90’s. All the bands got along with each other, it was cool. It seems more
open out here. It’s definitely not like that in LA; its real cut-throat there. Here people are real cool
and open-minded, they don’t trip out. It’s how it should be.”
“Was there a lot of division in Seattle between the punks and the whole grunge
crowd?”
“Everybody was pretty much supportive. It was cool. We had some really great people
come to our shows. Eddie Vedder and Chris Novaselic, I saw them a few times.”
“Tell me some crazy stories.”
“After I left Whorehouse I went with them as a roadie when they toured with Varukers
from England. It was supposed to be six weeks, but the guitar player killed himself on tour. He
shot himself. That was in ’98.”
“Was that the end of the band?”
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“Oh yeah, totally. But we kept touring because we were with the Varukers. Afterwards I
just drove back to Seattle and stayed there.”
“So growing up in Los Angeles you saw the whole evolution of West Coast punk”…
“Oh yeah. I was in my first band in ‘79 called Gumby Riot. I was the singer… We played
with Blood Scare, Bad Actor, The Atoms, Angry Samoans. The bass player from Samoans
actually helped get us our start and out first few shows.”
“What do you think about the East Coast scene? It a whole different world then
California…
“Yeah, it’s not as friendly (laughs). I noticed you can’t really run around and be a social
butterfly. It was weird.”
“What’s the Whorehouse singer up to now?”
“Michelle is working for Max Havoc out in Minneapolis. She’s in a band called Two
Minute Tantrum.”
“What do you think are some of the best bands from San Fran?
“Born Dead, Social Unrest, Crucifix. Exit Wound, although I’m not sure if they’re still
together. They have a chick singer. But it was like Death metal, it was not punk rock at all.”
“Are you into any metal?”
“I’m more of a metalhead than a punk really. That’s why I love playing grindy stuff,
‘cause it’s somewhere in the middle. I grew up on Motorhead, Iron Maiden, and Venom. I really
like the classic Judas Priest and Iced Earth stuff. That’s why I was so surprised when they told me
a guy from Metal Maniacs is crashing on the couch. I thought they were pulling my leg. It’s like,
‘Here? The Eagles Nest?’ Come on…”
“What’s your personal message to anyone who might read this?”
“Stay off drugs (laughs).”
SUBTERRANEAN FRENZY
Chaos and I jump on the BART, which is a sort of above-ground subway that goes everywhere in
the Bay Area for over 100 miles. You can travel anywhere on a $1.50, provided you sneak
through the pay-card exit when it snaps open from the passenger ahead of you. I start explaining
The Villa Winona and we discuss squats we’ve been through, comparing notes & anecdotes…
At Panhandle Hill Ulysses is puking blood. He wipes the red splotch from the side of his
mouth and gives a loud, “AHH-WOOOO!!!” (his customary way of saying hello). There are 10
street punks hanging out, annoying yuppies walking poodles. A retired scumfuck comes by with a
baby stroller and his girlfriend. He recently bit the bullet and settled down enough to get a part-
time job and apartment. Doesn’t stop him from puking blood either…
Another sublime day in Golden Gate -- booze booze more booze, hot dogs, Johnny Cash
on the hill. Action Jackson and I prowl the early night panhandling, going in and out of record
stores with massive vinyl collections. He’s super-twacked, on one of those ‘yeah man, I know
what you mean, now dig this’ intensity trips. He goes off on juvey, previous mental
incarcerations. We keep battering down vodka, somehow making it back to The Eagles Nest
where Ulysses is jamming ‘Hotel California’ on the stereo.
The crowd is roaring. There are some girls over, from The Numbskull side of the fence.
This one half-Asian chick with a limp and a cane looks real familiar. We’ve seen each other
around somewhere, somehow, in another city we can’t finger. There are three 24 packs of
Milwaukee Beast, and it’s a shouting match for attention.
The front door swings open, the dogs freak out, and a lone character stumbles inside. He
says ‘Howdy y’all’ in a gruffly Southern, Cool Hand Luke prisoner drawl. He’s got on a beat-up,
Swiss-cheese cowboy hat; ratty, hole-filled, dirt-filth flannel and brown pants like a Georgian
farmer. He has this insane grin which makes it that much more diabolical since he literally has a
clown smile tattooed on his face like The Joker. Ulysses starts laughing and everyone runs up to
greet him.
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This is Jus-Ten Thrasher, a man shrouded in total mystery, except that he grew up in
Louisiana and is a legendary scourge of New Orleans. He vanished one year ago without a trace
on the train-hopping circuit. He is like Huck Finn in a Rob Zombie world, the kind of guy that
keeps his possessions in a polka-dot sack hanging from a stick. He has a mess of tattoos and a
stylized San Fran Scumfuck design on his arm that looks like the doodle David Berkowitz made
of God/Devil/Boy/Girl.
45 minutes later I slip upstairs to hopefully pass out and avoid getting the dreaded ‘Beer
Elf.’ Mike is comatose on the TV room couch and I curl up in the shadow camouflage… My
brain comes into foggy motion. All I hear is Mother Firefly screaming and laughing hectically on
repeat for what must have been an hour. I’m still drunk and fumbling around the room. Devils
Rejects is on the DVD menu screen, replaying itself over and over.
The Nola Clownlord is asleep next to one of the crustie girls beside me, and other bodies
surround us. I flop my way to the bathroom and check my face in the broken mirror shards and…
good, no green sharpie mustache… I turn to piss and there are six freshly used condoms floating
in the toilet, like squishy landmines on the floor. OK, 5:30am...
A lonely cigarette on the porch and I come to a blazing focus. I’m wide awake, and for
the first time since I arrived in San Fran my brain has stopped rushing forward in adrenaline
survivalism… Take a breather, find a burrito down the hill… Wherever I am, it’s indisputably
ghetto. Windows are boarded up, iron gates shielding windows, cracked and beaten roads like the
ambience of Death Wish 3…
ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES WORLD HEADQUARTERS
TUESDAY April 10th, 2007, 3:50pm. 20 miles on the BART and two bus shuttles later I’ve
reached an industrial warehouse beneath the off-ramp of a major freeway. This houses
Alternative Tentacles World Headquarters, ex-Dead Kennedy vocalist Jello Biafra’s ground-
breaking and long-running punk label, rooting June 1979.
AT is known for putting out music from a wide array of genres, as well as politically
conscious books and subversive propaganda at large. In the early years the label gained
international attention by introducing the world to artists like Dead Kennedys, Butthole Surfers,
DOA, 7 Seconds, Winston Smith, NoMeansNo, Neurosis. In recent history they’ve released
material from Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Ralph Nader; as well as records by The
Melvins, Thrall, Citizen Fish, Mojo Nixon, Leftover Crack.
Jello, for his part, refuses to use a computer and does not have an email. He is like a
mysterious giant who wanders America secretly, pulling together a massive, endless network of
freaks. He leaves no trace and is always campaigning as an underground politician through
spoken word performances at endless college campuses.
He always was a polarizing figure. He ran for mayor of San Fran in the early 80’s, was
attacked by the Gore family through the PMRC, the police raided his label and confiscated
everything in the 80’s and destroyed DK masters. He even ran for president of the Green Party
ticket with Mumia Abu Jamal as his running mate in 2000.
AT shares rent with some other magazines and eco-friendly industrial grade type
businesses. The warehouse has been renovated into a multi-business complex on par with a 50
room band rehearsal spot. Publicist George Chen answers the door, and there are only two other
employees hanging out like rats in the back archives…
“Explain to me the general label history…”
George Chen: “It started in ‘79 with the Dead Kennedys singles and continued with Jello
signing different bands that he’d met on travels and in the Bay Area. An important part of what
we do is educational art. Musically it’s all over the place, even stuff outside of punk. The cool
thing about Jello being a really deep record nerd is there’s a huge spectrum of tastes. We’re
getting close to 400 records. We’re up to 376 right now. We just had our 25th anniversary in 2004.
We’re really one of the longest standing independent labels in America.”
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“How did you arrive in the picture?”