Punk Turns 30

California became the 31st state on September 9, 1850 - the Gold Rush of 1849 hastened the admission, and people have been coming to "The Golden State" in droves ever since. They seek beauty in our rugged terrain, our oceans, deserts and vineyards, as well economic, social and educational opportunities - or so the Department of Parks would have you believe. The gold in them thar hills of Northern California, from Sacramento to the San Francisco Bay may have brought the area its first influx of new residents... and the Dust Bowl conditions during the Great Depression drove folks from the Great Plains to the West in search of greener pastures... but the celebrity wannabes have always been attracted to Southern California. The glitz and the glamour of any fancy place is almost always built on the backs of its original citizens... and in California's case, it is the Mexicans. The history of California and its Native, Spanish and Mexican beginnings is a whole area of study ...

Today is Chrissie Hynde 's birthday. If any one woman has lived out a rock n roll dream, lived to be a role model, and made the airwaves a better place, it is Chrissie. You know her as the leader of The Pretenders, but from where I stand, she is The Pretenders. While they seemed to be an overnight sensation, Chrissie Hynde, the expatriate American girl living in London, worked long and hard to achieve the success she's associated with today. As a student at Kent State University in her home state of Ohio, Chrissie was not only on campus on the day of the Kent State Massacre (May 4, 1970), but she knew one of the victims, Jeffrey Miller. It is Miller's fallen body in the famous photograph of that tragic day where the Ohio National Guard fired upon students who were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia (during the Vietnam War). Then-President Nixon had announced the invasion on television just a few nights before. As a witness to one of the most senseless inci...

For those of them who have seen my candidacy as a publicity stunt or a joke, they should keep in mind that it is no more of a joke, and no less of a joke, than anyone else they care to name. - Jello Biafra Many punk rockers and San Francisco residents will remember the autumn of 1979 - Dead Kennedys front man, Jello Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco as a prank, using the Jell-O ad campaign catchphrase, "There's always room for Jello" as his slogan. Urban legend has it that Jello wrote his campaign platform on a napkin while attending a Pere Ubu concert - fitting in, if you ask me, with the whole Theatre of the Absurd that the band took its name from (go look up Ubu Roi ). In another absurdist and theatrical move, Biafra wore campaign t-shirts from his opponent Quentin Kopp's previous campaign and even vacuumed leaves off the front lawn of another opponent, Dianne Feinstein , to mock her publicity stunt of sweeping streets in downtown San Francisco for a few h...

If you click the link that is the title of this post, you will be taken to one of my favorite daily papers - The Guardian UK. The article is from over the past weekend, and lists the 50 Greatest Arts Videos on YouTube. I am proud to say that my friend, B Girl Cynthia Ross appears in the video clip that tops the list in the pop & rock section. It is sad, however, that out of the four people who appear in that Top Video Clip, Cynthia is the sole survivor. Punk Rock's famous ill-fated first couple, Sid and Nancy lived, as everyone knows, in the Chelsea Hotel. Their next door neighbors there were Cynthia and her then-boyfriend, Stiv Bators. The Guardian has this to say about the clip: Sid and Nancy on New York cable TV, 1978 Morose, foul-mouthed and dismissive, a shirtless Sid Vicious is joined by a very vocal Nancy Spungen (with co-guests Stiv Bators and Cynthia of the B Girls) on a live New York cable TV show recorded shortly after the break-up of the Sex Pistols. When a drip...