Every ritual comes forth out of the heat of inspiration! It echoes over the years and amplifies through nature and loved ones; some living and some dead! Does ritual get boring? Yes it can! Youngest son told me he had a surprise for me! I waited! He initiated an echo, a song again of memories, goals and skill!
He played the drumming sequence to Charged GBH’s Lycanthropy! He says he is still working on the base drum to the song!
It is a ritual of mine since the first time I first heard the song….about 34 years now!!
And so this little boring ritual of mine of playing the song Lycanthropy every Autumn amplifies with the full moon as a gift! To the she-wolf from her son!
We are twisted in soul because soul is by nature and of necessity in a tortuous condition…We might also be less threatened by the grotesque, horrible, and obscene , since, from the imaginal perspective, the bizarre would simple belong.
~ The Myth of Analysis, James Hillman
Hudley The Jester
I am watching an old film Noir way to much. It is Crime of Passion featuring Bararab Starbuck, Sterling Hayden and Raymond Burr. Each time I watch it I study a different part of the film from a different perspective or character. A well written essay Noir. It is basically about passion put in the wrong place or misdirected passion. Maybe it is about ambition misdirected by love. I think this film has a message about the American dream. I like this film because it does keep the sexual passion in the glance of an eye, or the move towards the bedroom. Subtle words that leave the imagination to glow.
The soundtrack does tell you, very well, what the film is all about. A few twisted souls in this film, YES…. I will most likely watch it again…there is something beautiful waiting to be discovered that I just have not found yet.
Hudley Flipside | Punk Rock Colleague • Historian • Archivist
2014 Post
“…and those of you in the balcony can just rattle your jewelry.”
~John Lennon
Cause no one needs a fanzine anymore…
Originally a 2014 post I was 56 and youngest son was 14. Now I am 64 and he is going to college at 22. The bands are still playing around the massive kaleidoscopeexposition of festivals. I watch them explode and march on from town to town, city to city and country to country.
The punk festivals are grandiose to see happening. Fun for the bands yet this little fanzine gal can’t go back to being a face in the crowd during a time of a terrible pandemic with an ‘ebb and flow’ which is rather unpredictable.
I am glad I got to see them before festivals became a phenomenon of big and bigger shows with long and longer lists of bands. Or even the weird funky boat cruises. It leaves me a bit perplexed yet I can listen to the music anytime and my “amber moments” are still in my brain as fresh and palpable moments of a once punk scene.
Mockingly and nasty, as we stood in line in front of the Fonda Theater marquee, an older man on a bike wheeled by yelling,
“Ha ha maybe forty years ago!”
Saturday Night 2014 Hollywood,California
My son and I were standing in line. In front of us was a twenty-year-old and in back a couple about my age. These punk shows bring out the underground punk community. The good and disgusting levels. I love it so much my head almost burst.
01 – race against time 0:00 02 – knife edge 2:45 03 – lycanthropy 5:00 04 – necrophilia 7:34 05 – sick boy 9:33 06 – state executioner 12:06 07 – dead on arrival 14:39 08 – generals 12:18 09 – freak 19:37 10 – wardogs 22:06 11 – city baby attacked by rats 23:37 12 – City babys revenge 26:13
Smiling Punk woman and son Shyane at 14
Last night I could hardly make it through Lycanthropy while fighting off some guy who wanted to continually throw my son up on stage. Even though son seemed to like it. He said,
“I saw Colin’s face flash by me.“
Up front the stage was hot. All were intimated by the solar flares of sun burning in the Fonda Theater. A halo hot sauna of extreme is how it was there. A full house.
The 5th Wave at the Fonda Theater pic by Hudley
The 5th Wave slashed the theater with some questionable lyrics, mixed with saxophone and trombone ska. Excellent! Their fans shining. I was very impressed by the courtesy of the young punk women this evening.
A smile was easily shared and that communal feelings of a punk rock community ran in my heart. Strangely different from my generation. I was very impressed indeed. A lot of women in groups and alone gave me hugs for having a son with me.
I hope son takes advantage of this when he gets beyond my reach, because now he has a silence about him that I respect.
The ADS were so satisfying I cried. I love them and again always superimposed images from over the years blended with the reality of now. Fast songs have matured nicely into longer ones. Remarkable! As Steve Soto was there still playing his original sound.
GBH were wild as they always are. Yet, they were a little rushed. I hear it is an intense tour. Colin’s voice was hoarse, yet it was hard to tell over the audience singing their songs. Colin made a stab at the fans in the balcony who were not moving.
Who were just sitting there as being lazy and with other critiques? I don’t know why so many young punks came up to me trying to exchange my receipt with theirs so they could sit in the balcony. It all was a bit confusing from my perspective.
Fun and eye-opening show with the usual subtle instilled words for those listening!!
We enjoy our punk rock community…so go screw Mr. Bike man over 50! This 50 something year old loves it still!!
It never was mine, really. This mature Leather Jacket is ready for something different. I moved it around over the last thirty years.
I embellished it throughout the early 1980s with the bands that inspired me. Something new is in the air. Time to be an organizer and let go of this Jacket.
The kids played in it. I grieved over it, those youthful days of punk rock glory. Now my big kids play new games. I am no longer pulled by a nostalgia of what was but live in the present.
I am trying really hard too!!
All the things I need to create a letting go party,
Flipside stickers found in a pocket. Must have been there some thirty years??
My farewell picture with a bottle of beer.
All rolled up with green bubble bag. Put in a box for mailing.
Acrylic paint and recycled cardboard for the Leather Jacket Biography Book.
Book complete for mailing in the box with the Leather Jacket.
Green praying mantis stencil hides in the dark acrylic paint.
Hudley Flipside | Punk Rock Colleague • Historian • Archivist
RIP Dix Denney
The Weirdos at Cobalt Café (rip) Canoga Park, CA. Aug. 2014
“Such knowledge is beyond my reach. Where could I go from your Spirit, or escape your presence? If I ascend to heaven or descend to the depths, you are there. Even across the sea, your hand will guide me.”
~Psalm 138:2 New International Version
My heart aches and I feel guilty. I think upon what Ross Lomas bass player for the punk band GBH said to me once,
“That is no excuse… I have seen punks on their deathbeds at shows. If you are sick, we can put you in a wheelchair and roll you backstage!!”
Ironically, this quote from Psalms is how I feel about Punk Rock. Exactly! How can this be? Is Punk Rock God to me? Yes, it is, in a sense it is to me. Where can I go from the punk rock spirit? It is true it will not let me forget it! If I make my bed in the depths, punk rock is there.
Like many others who were taken up by it, punk rock gave me a voice and spoke.
“Do it.”
If Punk Rock is dying to popular culture, this has no bearing on me. Punk Rock is an accountable community.
Punk Rock is a cultural underground musical phenomenon of holy sound. A spirit that rocks & rolls around this planet. It is a rogue wave that generates change. However, you plug into it, Punk Rock is a continuity that identifies a generation and so moves on in different ways.
I may not always be true to it; I often hide from it…but when I try to… it finds me again. I rise on the wings of dawn. Inspired and filled with that spirit of Punk Rock again.
I was enlightened in an alley, where beer, anarchy and music became my God.
To those that are vastly superior …those in bands, fans and, that strange brew called record collectors, I salute you.
AMEN!!
So, what is all this Mambo Jumbo about? One of the original Los Angeles Punk Rock bands is playing around. I have been avoiding them.
“That club is too far to drive to.”
Or
“I have to get up early the next day and take my kids to school!”
My heart aches and I feel guilty.
This is the punk rock accountability I was talking about. I have been absolutely avoiding but I can no longer look the other way!
The Weirdos are going to play a few blocks from my house.
“If I go far across the sea, your hand will still guide me.”
This is a punk rock confessional.
Now for some oysters before the big show …. enthusiasm!
Weirdos Enjoy the BIG PUNK ROCK 1984 the real deal
Flipside Radio Tape Number Nine.
This tape was released around 38 years ago. Where a process of recording, organizing, mailing, and airing tapes live turned out to be an extraordinarily successful project indeed !!… Wow!! Projects took some time back in the 1980s. All sent through our post office box. The Flipside post office was a busy place in Whittier California.
One little, tiny post office box oversaw vast number of gifts. Which consisted of records, mail, ads, and money. It was like Christmas every day. Then there was the Post Office Master. A lady that I hated at first but who turned out to leave little gifts for us in our P.O. Box each Christmas season. She thought we were weird at first with our wild ways… but later she became a part of our unofficial crew in her own dependable way. Enjoy a cameo appearance by Henry Rollins.
A punk rock musical narrative a year of cutting edge punk 1984. A very good year.
X-8, HUD and AL 1979 San Fransisco In this picture X-8 represents the original punks of Los Angeles. Who were creative, loud and in your face! 1977-79.
Pete woke up on the Chinese New Year looking out of the hotel room window while a chicken’s head was chopped off. Right across the street at a restaurant café.
Big boots and dancing…it be a trilling time for me.
This is one of my favorite images. I have posted it a few times before. It contains a lineage of Flipside Fanzine characters who worked on issues. It has an interesting foresight; from left to right are X-8, Hud and Al. Peter Landswick takes the picture. All four of us worked on Flipside together at an interesting time in the world of Punk Rock. It was before the Orange County scene exploded as well as the new generation of punk English bands. The early Los Angeles punks were much more silent now. X was going for a major label.
The Go Go’s, The Bags and Fear were changing their places and goals. The original punk scene of LA was dying, and a new one was forming.
I like the texture and graphic perspective of this image. Pete is a creative photographer. This picture taken at an alley in San Francisco when we rebelliously tagged and followed the touring underground mod scene. At the time, The Specials and Madness were unfamiliar upcoming bands. As wild as any youthful band. It is the best time of crazy characters and wild free adventures.
Punk Rock Historian & Colleague and Professional Consultant
Hudley Flipside
“And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Today is a day of going back and falling into another time of my life. It happens a lot at the age of 56. I was thinking about older age and youth. I have much more experience at being young then being older. Each day I wonder about what to do next.
With all the experience I have this is amazing to me. I can open the many doors from my past and jump in. I get pulled in like gravity too. I am closer to the stillness of my center now. As in a maṇḍala, which is basically a round image with the center within. Me.
Time seems slow and reflective. I don’t feel the need to grasp the ring from the merry-go-round. I feel like I am in Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969). Like Billy Pilgrim I am in a place where I time travel back and forth.
Though my Tralfamadorians are silent and the only time I have a view of the future is by insight or in some vague dream. My punk rock life is on the same track.
Diving into each back issue of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine brings up memories and I find that I need to share these images with others.
A affirmation of reality and fun.
The picture below is of Dee and Hilda who are on either side of a police officer in China Town at the Hong Kong Café. Lower right girl looking straight on is me.
I think it is Punk Rock humor about Los Angeles Coppers.
“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
At Starbucks the young woman behind the counter said,
“I like your shirt!”
“You like G.B.H.?”
She gave me an intense look of inwardness.
“Yes…like Minor Threat and…China White!”
“Yup!”
“No one listens to Punk anymore.”
“Only the old punk folk!”
I was referring to myself. She gave me a sheepish smile while giving me a receipt for two Grande Café Lattes.
It was the first time we were in this Starbucks. Walking the streets here in the evening is pleasant. Noticing the many closed storefront businesses along Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena made us wonder. Our conclusion was that the businesses that offered a service survived. This is where the people mingled. As colorful clusters around most coffee shops here. Foundations of parking lots, businesses and apartments went up above this! This gave me a dreamy concern. I imagined living this way.
“John, After the kids grow up and are on their way, maybe we can get an apartment and live this way?”
“It might not be so bad.”
“I wonder if they allow cats?”
It was because of a longtime friend that we were out here, a few miles from out hometown. The Laemmle Theater a couple blocks from our home closed down about three years earlier. Once down the street from us now Pasadena was the nearest one.
My punk rock heart asked me,
“Do you really want to see another film about punk rock, I mean didn’t you experience the real deal already!?”
“I don’t know? A friend told me that the film has “girl energy,” it seems like I could use some of that!”
Researching the film I was pulled to it more and more. I decided to get a ticket online and drive out to see it alone. Husband jumped aboard and said,
“We can visit the Yard House or Lucky Baldwins after the show!”
This we did later.
We Are The Bestdoes have “girl energy,” it has something more that touched me deeply too. Something, that I must say, defines the punk rock experience for me! It always has and it always will.
Since its creation and migration around the world. punk rock , has been raped-skated-and-donated!! What this film brings forth in a true way is the experience of punk rock. The film puts you in the world of three 7th graders. Three thirteen year old girls that don’t fit in! So they reach out to music, each other and to other punks.
Having guys call you ugly and being ignored by popular culture are two real initiations into the punk rock girl experience.
It is all about rebellion, ideologies, music and fun! The film is sweet, innocent and honest! Defining that having a band and friendship is more important then the guys you’re sleeping with.
I enjoy the freedom the girls have to get around on subways. The film is based in Stockholm Sweden during the 1980s.
After the film and a nice long walk I found myself perching at the Yard House with a dark beer before my gaze. The monitors were all about Hockey. I am naturally repelled by organized sports as well as the commercials. The ones before the film were awful too…Porsche to Lexus commercials. Madmen designed to get that needed uplift. Why did we pay money to watch commercials as well?
Anyway, I thought upon Bobo, Klara and Hedvig and how the punk culture was portrayed in the film compared to my real experiences. As I sipped my beer I made my usual under the breath insult about the Kings game. With wide eyes and mouth grinning,,
“Hate the Sport!!”
Adding another rebellious beat to this old folk punk heart of mine.
At this time in punk rock history of the 1980s… life was moving fast. Projects at every corner. This kept us running before the wild-fire of punk rock, which was a passion that could not be controlled.
So many individuals’ hands were in the multitude of projects that it was hard to know who to thank and whose’ hand you should slap.
It felt like being under a wave. We were overwhelmed! SO many wants, needs and desires geometrically multiplied with each day.
Flipside vinyl fanzine Vol. 2 is a motif of that era.
“Old stucco house with wood floors and Mexican Marilyn Monroe next door: Issue 48-57.”
In Whittier California and at the time we lived in and old stucco house between two apartment buildings. The one on the left I knew no one and the one on the right is where she lived. It was the late 1980s.
“She was a couple of pounds over an hourglass figure and about six kids followed her around town. Just like a mother duck and her ducklings; one right after the other.“
The story goes that each child had a different father and the truck engines in front of our house revving their engines at 2 AM, night after night, told us her story. She was sexy. She oozed it.
I was jealous of her because she had those kids of hers. At twenty something I was craving a kid. I was not as lucky as she. The wild days of my punk youth were not a good place for kids, but I still was craving a babe in my arms. I often spied on her from my living room widow as she spent time with her kids.
It seemed to me then that she was not very nice or smart. She yelled at her kids, but they were always dressed nicely and well fed. Once I heard her say to one of her kids,
“This time I will break your arm and not take you to the hospital.”
For a few years one of her youngest boys would bring me a little cake with a candle to blow out on my birthdays. I never knew how he knew. Hearing a soft knock at the door there he stood. Standing alone and holding up the cake just for me.
“We listened to her as I am sure she listened to us during those times of frustration and loneliness.“
We sat on the porch and ate the cake together. I imagined how proud I was of him. How he was my son. He was so smart, sweet, and intelligent. How did such a loud sexy mama as Mexican Marilyn Monroe have such an amazing son?
“I realize now she must have had a lot to do with her son coming over and with him bringing me the cake. What she did indirectly was one of the most comforting moments during my overwhelming wild years. She shared her son with me. I thank her now and wish her well!”
I am cleaning up and organizing all my stuff from 5 different places into a few plastic containers. Pictures, art, writing and miscellaneous important stuff.
The Punk Rock stuff goes somewhere special too.
Here is a miscellaneous punk shot from 1981… we had a multitude of images like this in the Flipside office. Along with a multitude of T-shirts, I should have saved them all.
“Do not lose heart: We were born for these times. One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or despair there by accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl. Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.”
I was born to a generational friend, A community of rebellious characters that I use to hang with more, but now mostly just observe. Once in a while I pop the fine wine and join them.
Yet, have I put in my time? I observe how they age and what they are doing. Our dark side of the performer archetype projects outward and still shakes and rock & rolls the global community.
I think we bleed to find out who we are and if what we have done changed anything.
Did our words, music and actions make a difference? Our experiences, feelings and knowing has been marginalized through the media and the superficial looks of fashion.
I believe it is “not [our] task [to fix] the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.”
“Chiron teaches us the philosophical perspective, and perspective that our wildness , which may put us outside the status quo, may be our wisdom.
~Time Lyons
What is the dark archetype in psychology?
Jung suggested that the shadow can appear in dreams or visions and may take a variety of forms. It might appear as a snake, a monster, a demon, a dragon, or some other dark, wild, or exotic figure. This archetype is often described as the darker side of the psyche, representing wildness, chaos, and the unknown.
I woke up this morning with this image bringing a smile to my face. Friendship, integrity, and surprise always adds up to the best of feelings. I am standing with Human and Tony Malone, a Hollywood Street punk galore.
Together they were part of the band Detox. A Flipside Fanzine band only because we recorded their music.
I just cannot put to words the good feelings that I have for the characters I knew in the 1980s punk scene. I am just beaming inside as I stand between two of the best!!
I love these songs, me and all the “wee beasties” dance to them baby.
“And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
As a woman who is now projecting my writings and a housewife lost in the world of perpetual beauty that always keeps that erection up, I see the war a coming. Don’t you realize that we humans can never find peace in the world outside! It is an impossibility and false assumption that all peace punks and Greenpeace people hold so dear. I laugh…
“Ha Ha!!”
Here I write on my blogging soap box to all that will hear me. On this little planet we are on, she is a warrior planet, and I dare say she pisses off all the other planets as well as our solar system for that matter.
“Ha Ha!”
The fucking war machine wages on. From one generation to the next. Whacking-off to the corporate profits of Its glorified power.
“Ha, Ha I say…Ha Ha!!”
As the tides turn, as the seasons come and go, and we are born and die; the polarity of life is in constant conflict and this motivates us all.
“Ha, Ha, Ha!”
The earth is a princess warrior, and she isn’t going to stop ever!
I hate this, I reject this…but I have learned to know it as truth…the only real peace is inside each of us.
To find peace on this planet is impossible, but only when we seek it within can we know it as the bombs blast off around us!
And Sylvia Plath reflectively knew the place as,
“In the small, cramped dark inside you.”
Yelling from the crowd, maybe 20 drunks.
“Get of the fuckin’soap- box, ha ha ha…”
This is dedicated to the young gal who cut me off on the road this morning, a slicer, … irritation is the way to hallelujah glorious peace… so get mad and enjoy the ride!!
Everything but the kitchen sink, Sister Sallie and I use to get together and make egg sandwiches, coffee and talk.
Mom used to hum in the kitchen, in the bathroom dad sang his little jazz hum. Once in the mist of hospital unconsciousness, he broke out in one of his heart-warming songs, bringing back a little security of youth. Now my youngest son complains about my humming; like a bird, cricket, cocka doodle do or yanky doodle dandy!!
This humming took me over about 3 months ago during times or moments of contentment while working. Yet, it has caused some problems in my little honey home. When my son is studying, I hear,
“Mom, you’re doing it again!”
I am guilty of this, and I try to stop, yet it is almost impossible. So, see, even though I was just as irritated by my mom’s and dad’s humming as my son is of mine, I tell him this,
“Little dude, humming means mama is happy baby. You should be happy that mama is happy!!”
In conclusion I’ve been waiting many years… I think I am finally going to go out and buy some darn Doc Martens…mine will be green!!
The song below is my Doc Martens song…. This has been a self-fashioning and self-styling statement.
Along with clearing the garden, seeing Savage Republic, making a homemade root beer float and listening to my kid drumming live: this makes the weekend shine with wonder.
The Mantis will sit in an attitude of extreme reverence and contemplation, his head turned sometimes slightly on side as if he were waiting…for the wind to come from far beyond the mountains on the other side of the desert to bring him a story of life before and beyond the moment. …~ Pg. 22. The Creative Pattern In Primitive Africa by Laurens van der Post
Hudley’s Tattoo flower 2012
Hudley’s Tattoo flower 2012
The Seminary of Praying Mantis is about nature politics and human beings. It is a voice of a little creature that survives the continuity of the seasons. It is all about life, death and rebirth.
I took on this title for my WordPress blog because I wanted to move away from my history of punk rock. I needed to expand to include all my interests. I admit the reason for creating this site was to promote a book I was working on entitled, The Seminary of Praying Mantis: A PUNKALULLABY. (The Punkalullaby title is based on stories I once wrote in Flipside Fanzine during the 1980s when publishing the fanzine.) Instead I found myself moving in other directions when writing. I still pivot and jump into the punk scene now and then, but not all the time.
I have been through some changes in the last four years. I lost my mom, dad and best friends. I also went through menopause, which was a bitch. Having this WordPress blog has saved my life. Writing is my cure and I love it.
I do not have a perfect writing style but a natural style. I am not trying to get anywhere or achieve some great success through writing. It is an “ising” experience.
I include a smörgåsbord of writing styles here. I am a punk rock writer that learns as she goes. My symbol for my style is the Praying Mantis.
The future may bring good news of publishing such as articles, books and more down to earth manifestations of my writing.
I am grateful for WordPress for giving me the opportunity to express myself; it is a great gift!! I think it is a big part of my destiny.
