Hope “Dancing in The Streets.”

On Fallbrook and Victory in the San Fernando Valley

Punk Rock Historian and Professional Consultant

Hudley Flipside

Life is so contrary and beginning and ending all the time. The stars seem stable, as they dance their astrological dance. The moon and sun and seasons are very dependable but not the storms or the opposite whispers of joy and enlightenment we may find. This earth will always be a contrary place sweetened with continuity and music.

Yesterday before the rain, Sara and oldest son walked over from their apartment. They are counting their steps. Later they left and we decided to join them halfway on their journey home. A longer walk than my usual mile per day.

It was easy all the way until we said goodbye and then we walked slowly onward, and we headed home, husband, youngest son, and I.

Would we get something to eat?

“No, it is past 6 PM and I don’t like eating much after then.”

That is what they get for always asking what MAMA wants.

On the way with Sara and oldest son I noticed a broken book on the ground. The pages danced below our feet for a long while.

I picked up three of the pages as a focused random moment of finding something wandering and enlightening me from the dirty street of trash. On this dark cold evening of winter.

A man was covered with such trash in the middle of the sidewalk next to the shopping mall and restaurants. He was pretending to sleep as cars raced by and we walked around him.

I sadly declared.

“He is going to get mighty wet when the rain hits?”

Husband quickly responded,

“He is most likely waiting for the shopping mall to close down. I am sure he has a safe place there.”

My feet got sore, and my back ached and howled as we headed home.

Now today I read the book pages tossed on the ground like leaves in a storm.

One thing that stood out were the lyrics for a song.

The pages are filled with words about music, slavery, finding a voice and hope. Someone was looking for their roots, history, and family.

I thought about my own family history. I think this is a push to get going with my own pages filled with words about music, slavery, finding a voice and hope. Hope from lyrics. A song inspiring us to dance to the hopeful dream of music.

As the dancing pages on a dark and dirty street.

“This is an invitation across the nation

A chance for folks to meet

There’ll be laughing, singing and music swinging

Dancing in the street.”

sweet and bitter WHEELING AND DEALING

I saw something unexpected today. Billy Idol got a star on Hollywood Blvd. and Mr. Henry Rollins was the presenter. I saw the photograph on a site. Now and then I do like to reflect on my punk rock glory days.

I think upon these two characters that influenced us by their music or words in a big way. I knew them, as many of us did, as youths with deep and high ideals that I once respected.

I met Billy after he left Generation X.

He visited Hollywood. A group of us youthful rebellious punks were talking about music. We were in the back of a liquor store waiting for some beer because we were not 21 yet. Someone was WHEELING AND DEALING with the booze scheme. Billy and I were talking about the Beatles and how much he loved them. He then cried on my shoulder stating to me that he missed his mates back home.

The beer arrived and a friend of mine whisked him away and that was the only time I met him. Over the years when I see him or hear his music, I often reflect back upon that sweet young kid who was kind of lost.

Henry was a wild youth too. He was kind of funny and thoughtful when I first met him. Yet as time went on our friendship soured. I think it was due to a subscription to Flipside Fanzine he never received because his letter fell behind my desk. Maybe the critical reviews I did of him in Black Flag were thought to be unfunny. His lack of humor made it easy to accelerate into doom.

Funny how a guy from England and a guy from DC can be standing on the grounds whereas young punks, who grew up here, used to run wild on those same streets. Then no need, or sense of fame or fortune.

Once equals as friends and fans of the punk scene, they got bigger, and we got smaller. Yet I think I am happy with my place in the world, and I hope they are too.

The sweet and bitter is what punk rock left me. As a punk rock fanatic,

That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise
~ The apartment (by Billy Wilder, 1960)

The Seminary of Praying Mantis Publishing, Funny & Real Advertisements….

The beginning of the year I made two Seminary of Praying Mantis Publishing Advertisements based on the original film In the Heat of the Night.

It is relative now more than ever and the short clips I rendered in are meant to provoke. Honesty is needed as we have to learn to stand tall against crazy conspiracies, racism and learn to let people be who they are meant to be. What a great film that tells a narrative we still need to hear.

In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 American neo-noir mystery drama film directed by Norman Jewison. It is based on John Ball’s 1965 novel of the same name and tells the story of Virgil Tibbs, a Black police detective from Philadelphia, who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a small town in Mississippi. It stars Sidney Poitier and Rod Setiger and was produced by Walter Mirisch.

I am working with the music program “Cakewalk Band lab” and the music is a whimsical rendering with Rod Setiger who I love. Punk rock feel too.

Finishing up this year and looking forward to another, more projects in the new year.

Punk Rock Historian and Professional Consultant

Hudley Flipside

The Seminary of Praying Mantis Publishing.

Dianne Chai from The Alley Cats 1980s

Image from Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Photo by Hudley Flipside

Night at the Whisky A Go Go.

First On The list…

“Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.”
— Billy Wilder

Look at Amazon in your country and most likely you have direct publishing and / or arrangements that make ordering, printing, and shipping so easy. For a global community it is pretty cool.

46 years ago, Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine first published this little annoying punk rock rag. By a bunch of guys who caused considerable trouble.

It has been an odd mission of mine to keep the light shining on its memory for those out there who want to share in the Flipside Fanzine narrative. I prefer this to the darkness of an archive or virtual nowhere land. Or even the dissection of everything all the Flipside material on the internet and other places.

Four plus six equals ten.

So, 2023 is a number that goes well with 1977. Forty-six years ago, the Los Angeles Punk scene had a creation story that countless authors have written about. Many now want to document that time through different means. Flipside Fanzine documented that original punk scene in real time. The Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Issue # 54 Ten Year Anniversary Issue did document the punk scene. 1977 to 1987.

In celebration of this The Seminary of Praying Mantis Publishing is planning to print a hardcover special edition of Flipside issue # 54.

Turning 65 next year means I am over the hill and on my way, very close, to grandmother’s house. All the social security and Medicare to figure out. As my husband says,

“The government designs it to make you fail, they want you to fail.”

Maybe so but like most things in my life it takes effort to get things done and done right. The end of 2022 I was delighted to complete the Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Creation story narrative documentary / film. Shinning the light on Larry, Tory, and Tony.

Epeisodion One, Two and Three… thanks Larry, Tory and Tony…

Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Narrative Documentary / Film

Now on to a new year… 2023

Moonlight Cocktail

What is a Telefunken radio?

Telefunken was a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) (‘General electricity company’). Telefunken. Telefunken’s current logo since 1919.

Watching a program of ‘Christmas Traditions Around the World’ got me thinking about traditions in general.

I was born to certain holiday family traditions. We put up a tree with tinsel. Dad put up pine boughs up above and parallel to the stairs with colored lights until the first of the new year.

Gifts galore opened as the Christmas music played on our family Telefunken radio. Mom cooked like a master chef and then split from the ladies to join the men in poker.

We did not go to church but after dinner the large family broke up. Kids went wild and the adults drank and played poker.

Dad had a bar built into the living room area. It was always well stocked, especially around the holidays.

So much has changed. I no longer have a large family. It is currently down to my husband, two sons and Sara. It is a freedom from traditions that I enjoy so much.

With traditions comes inclusion but also dogma. Now I pick and choose the traditions I want for my family.

There are two that have lasted the test of time.

Jean’s Beans and Sue’s Green Goddess Jell-O salad or side.

Jean’s Beans

Jean’s Beans is something that my mom brought to her family. As a youth her mother died, and her father never remarried. Yet Jean was her father’s sweetheart. They both had big families to tend to since both had lost their spouses. Jean raised my mother and my two aunts. My grandfather seemed a happy man though I only remember him as a toddler from pictures.

A bag of baby Lima beans (or bag of small white beans)

Cube of butter

Maple Syrup

Dried Mustard

A large container of Sour Cream

Set the beans to soak until they are pumped up then rinse. Cook the beans until they are soft but not mushy because they will go into the oven. In a saucepan put the butter and half of cup of Maple Syrup. Melt and then slowly whip in the sour cream and about a tablespoon of dried mustard. Remember adding more or less to taste is the key. Put in an average size casserole dish without lid.

Preheat the temperature to about 250 in your oven because this takes a long time to cook and must be fussed over like my mom always did. It has a mind of its own and can take anywhere from two to five hours to get it just right.

Sue’s Green Goddess or (Ambrosia)

Sue was the second wife of my now dead oldest brother Steve. She brought this dish to the family, and it became a hit right away like she was! She could hold her own with my family, which was not an easy thing to do.

Two 8oz containers of Cool Whip.

Two pistachio packs of instant Jell-o.

Two cans of crushed pineapple.

Mix it all up and put in a large container for the refrigerator. Let it sit overnight.

The Telefunken radio is what I miss most about my cursed indulgence of having been born to a large family. Yet now these two dishes are part of my tradition for the holidays that make me… happy.

Turned to Happiness A Modern Ghost Story: A visit from “HUMAN.”

Happy birthday Gary Joseph Lachman.

December 24

“The superconscious mind is what sees the future,” yet Lethbridge argues that it may well be our own mind, on another level of vibration, another whorl of the spiral. He even suggests that it is ‘what we are going to become when we have finished our lives on earth’ and what we already are ‘in deep sleep’ the place of true dreams.”
~ Pg. 120 Dreaming Ahead of Time Gary Lachman

Lachman is an amazing person. He not only has his history of music but also as an author of many an esoteric book. He takes all who pursue his work on a journey with many interesting characters having all the insight, facts, and history that one needs to understand.

As a youth and as a young adult I found many esoteric firsthand authors at the library and at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore, originally Bodhi Tree Book and Tea Shop. Helena Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, Max Heindel, Manly P. Hall, and Annie Besant filled my mind full of mystics and occultists.

Theosophy, Freemasonry, and my favorite the Rosicrucians are all subjects I found often secret on to myself.

Later years Lachman’s books often fill in the facts, history and lineage and biographies of the above individuals.

I must say I did not feel so alone as I often did in my younger years reading his books. I did find many faithful followers along the way. My religiosity turned, waning and waxing, under many a blissful and phantastic heartbreak.

I enjoy Lachman’s books on my shelves along with many of the others as friends and teachers.

Now I am inclined to have a good imagination as any good student of esoteric studies with a big Jungian chip on my shoulder. I can say the subject of ghosts is not an unfamiliar one.

Now being the time of A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens.

Steve Pfauter or “HUMAN” made a visit to me this year. His ghostly appearance.

(November 7, 1963, in San Francisco, California, died June 12, 2022.)

My husband was having eye surgery at the local outpatient clinic and was back for a checkup. My youngest son and I went to a local restaurant to wait for his doctor’s visit. We had some drinks and ordered some food.

A nice BBQ restaurant that had a restful area near the bar with big lazy booths.

We smiled at the bartender waiter and listened to the music. It is a very pleasant place to be. While sipping my coffee stout I looked over to see a Human walking up. He sat next to me at the booth to my left and smiled. He was dreamy like and transparently present. He then told me something as my son was looking at his phone.

“You are having lunch with your son?”

“Yes.” I spoke.

“With all that we went through you turned out alright. I am very proud of you HUD. A mother and wife. You have so much to be grateful for. You did a good job.”

With tears in my eyes, I responded without words.

He then told me he needed to go because he had a lot of friends to visit.

Steve then walked away and floated with a goofy smile up through the roof.

I told my son what happened. He is familiar with my stories, and we began to eat as my husband arrived to order some food as well.

“Man of the worldly mind!” replied the Ghost, “do you believe in me or not?”

“I do,” said Scrooge. “I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”

“It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world — oh, woe is me! — and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”
A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens.

Mr. Shit’s Theme Song.

In fields of wonder

As a youngster I often would be the wild cougar running up the tree or as I jumped over a hill. Crying at night as I thought of the loss of wild things. The big cats I loved. Having the same heart and feeling a relationship with nature and humans is a hard path to balance. I have no answers and share wonderful memories with the wild.

Riding through the Santa Monica mountains on my white mustang I saw things and heard things that I cannot name. I feel them still. Sometimes late at night I still hear that wild call from the mountains. I see it in my wild Prometheus fennel from those very same mountains.

Owls, coyotes, hawks, raccoons, opossums and ravens visit and call me to relationship, and this is real to me. I think upon cougar and think upon all of us that loved this wild creature now with ancestors sharing stories and balancing closely in fields of wonder.

Silver dollars

Punk Rock Historian and Professional Consultant

Hudley Flipside

“Mr. Sandman (yes) bring us a dream

Give him a pair of eyes with a “come-hither” gleam

Give him a lonely heart like Pagliacci

And lots of wavy hair like Liberace.”

Silver dollars are on my mind. The magic as I view them from my memory or imagination. Mom went to Las Vegas and would play the slot machines with these babies. She would bring home many buckets full to take home to her kids. She kept them in her back bedroom closet for years.

She would pull them out every now and then as we admired the coins. Large hold in my small hands.

After her death oldest brother Greg stole them. I don’t know who has them now. He died a year back, so they are with some unknown person.

I miss mom’s large bedroom with a big window that looked over the Verdugo Mountains. The San Fernando Valley was a deep chasm of hills and homes and the Woodland Hills Golf Course.

Often, she had her radio program on that played music from the 1940s and 1950s as she sewed up dresses or clothes for herself, my sister or myself. A sewing machine on a table that had everything you could imagine for creating fine clothing.

Laying out the patterns, pinning the material and cutting were all something I watched closely.

Then a song would come on and she would start to hum it. I would sometimes dance. This was one of the songs I remember, and the song holds the memory of my mom as we danced around her bedroom.

Mr. Sandman

Sandman” (or “Mister Sandman”) is a popular song written by Pat Ballard and published in 1954. It was first recorded in May of that year by Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra and later that year by the Chordettes and the Four Aces.

I love watching Perry Mason on TV before I go to bed. It is part of my routine to relax and watch a time before technology, big technology, took over. Phones, telephone booths and stylish clothing are comforting to watch. Yet what I do endure are the commercials in between.

A new one this season is Walgreens commercial. I try not to pay attention, which has a little logo saying, “It is not magic it’s Walgreens,” Here we find all the magic and wonder of the holidays and then the terrible quote. It is kind of negative propaganda as the company is an evangelical organization most likely. The war on magic and our imagination is horrid.

When I see the commercial, I quickly reflect on the song Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.

“Pure Imagination” is a song from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. It was written by British composers Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley specifically for the movie. It was sung by Gene Wilder who played the character of Willy Wonka. Bricusse has stated that the song was written over the phone in one day. The song has a spoken introduction.

“Ladies and gentlemen

Boys and girls

The chocolate room

Hold your breath

Make a wish

Count to three

Come with me and you’ll be

In a world of pure imagination

Take a look and you’ll see

Into your imagination.”

The old crone punk and the youth with green hair.

“Can’t you ever depend

On someone you call a friend

When you see their naked eyes

You don’t even ask ’em why

You don’t even ask ’em why.”

“Is a museum the same as an art gallery?”

The youngster with green hair asked?

The old crone sitting in the bar burped, drinking a pint of beer, then explained,

“The simplified difference between an art gallery and a museum is that a museum is a place of entertainment; it’s an activity to visit a museum.”

Then thoroughly engaged she added,

“However, an art gallery is a business that displays and sells goods.”

“I see,” said the youngster!

The old one with love in her heart went on,

“Beware of the term “Punk Museum.” It is an oxymoronic term. It is not an institution devoted to the procurement, care, study, and display of objects of lasting interest or value to punk rock but an exploitative suck job or place of profit. To sell a business name or ideal based on a lie, not one ounce of good intent but greed! Beware of this abomination.”

At that moment the knowing DJ turned a new song. The boy with green hair got to look at the albums cover. He came to understand there was more to punk rock than a place of profit, green hair and selling out to a sheep in wolves clothing. He must be a good punk of high discernment.

The funny DJ with a long face added,

“One can run a business and sell things. One can have a museum for things of value to enjoy. But to say you are a museum that is really masquerading as a place for profit just like an art gallery… damn something is off big time.”

The boy with green hair quickly added (with eyes crossed),

“Sounds like the oily, dishonest local salesman who originally sold Oliver the Green Acres Farm, Mr. Eustace Haney.”

The crone punk rolled her eyes, finished her beer and walked out of the pub… having paid the youngster’s beers.

(without his knowing… a surprise.)

Until Next time…