Gidget Gein (born, Bradley Anne Stewart) lived his life to the fullest,and touched countless people with his art, music, and multi-layered persona. He was a dear friend, and a close collaborator, who gave his all to projects but never lost his remarkable sense of humor. I met this amazing man just shortly after he moved to Los Angeles. Our mutual friend, Lenora Claire, introduced us when I was interested in casting him in one of my films. I was immediately struck by his whole aesthetic and by his humble personality. From that moment on, I was smitten with him and we grew to become friends and created some art together.

Gidget was best known to most people out there for his contributions to the band, Marilyn Manson, and more specifically Marilyn Manson and The Spooky Kids. He performed bass and wrote music, but it was his authentic style and aura that would later become so vital to the whole Manson aesthetic. All internal band politics and hearsay aside, his creativity would peak later and in all honesty, it was in his solo work that he would craft his own voice.

Fueled by pulp novels, blaxploitation, B-movies, pop art, drag queens, pornography, religion,and racism, Gidget began painting, silk-screening, and drawing amazing art that would become an essential part of the underground UnPop Art Movement. He played in his own band, The Dali Gaggers, for quite awhile, and also recorded solo musical projects, designed his own clothing line, Gollywood, and so much more.

His acting was amazing and his quirks made him all the more endearing. The two roles he played in my films are eerie to me now, for apparent reasons. I was very proud of him for embracing the acting bug, and more than anything else for the fact that he was clean for 9 years or so. He had been so strong and no matter what, always remained a bright and powerful force. He could always make me smile. His sense of humor was sick and twisted, but also very innocent. He was such a tender and sensitive soul. Any trouble or pain just drove more negativity into his heart, and there was apparently more hurt there than anyone could imagine.

There is no forgetting Brad. There is no way to sum up his influence or magic. There is no way to let him go. Gidget Gein is art. He is rock and roll. He is a dear friend and a cultural icon.

Gollywood forever.

Love always,

Ramzi Abed
Director, Producer
and
GOLLYFRIEND

Laughing Squid reports that the Art 94124 gallery in San Francisco will be presenting the 6th Annual Altered Barbie Art Show this week. This gallery group exhibit showcases the works of a variety of artists with different takes on the Barbie concept and place in the cultural zeitgeist. The Altered Barbie site has more information and gives you the opportunity to buy the gift for that hard-to-shop-for friend who has everything i.e. an $8,000 Barbie. Bet most folks you know don’t have one of those yet. Actually, even as I type this, I feel the certainty coming on that I must know at least one person who does.

With The Sun reporting that the new Black Canary Barbie, based on the DC Comics superhero character, could be called S&M Barbie, edgy artists will need to pull out all the stops. I have faith that Art 94124’s artists will be up to the challenge. But, yes, Mattel is actually releasing a superheroine Barbie clad in motorcycle jacket-cut PVC, hotpants, fishnets, and fetish boots. I’d ask what the impact of such media on little girls is likely to be, but I saw Olivia Newton-John in Grease when I was the right age for Barbie. Grease clearly taught that the best thing was to be a nice girl like Sandra Dee, but to dress like a dangerous black-clad uber-slut. Taking my own experience as an example, obviously eleven-year-olds don’t take any weird lessons away from such media. I mean, look how I turned out.

The talented Calan Ree, whose Gingerdead & Friends comic strip I have mentioned here before, wrote about gathering paper frogs this week. According to Calan Ree, paper frogs are these partially translucent, pale, flat, dehydrated amphibians. The frogs apparently get flat from the absence of moisture and not being run over, so recent rains may have washed away the paper frogs which could normally be found in Calan Ree’s neck of the woods this year.

According to Calan Ree, paper frogs are seasonal and normally could be found this time of year. Her searches for them, perhaps due to the weather, proved fruitless. While hunting, she was, however, approached by, not one, but two creepy guys. The first one rolled up on her in a van and asked her if she wanted a ride. The second guy asked for directions to the nearest schoolyard, despite the fact that it was eight o’clock at night. After her van suitor left, she lamented that she had

“missed a golden opportunity. I should have answered, “Oh no thank you, I’m gathering frog carcasses!” It’s so rewarding to creep out the creepy. Sigh.”

Oh, in case the part where Calan Ree does a cutesie gothic horror comic was not a tip off, she, of course, wanted the paper frogs for an art project. I will admit that my research efforts to learn more about paper frogs just lead me back to GingerDead.com, but the artist’s mother used to have paper frogs in her walls too, so they must be real.

I see it as, not only a given, but maybe even a goal that things I enjoy in a fringe environment will be picked up by the larger society. The problems come when the overculture, in the process of co-opting something cool, tries to destroy the naturally existing subculture and the people most dedicated to that culture, in order to replace it all with something more easily managed and controlled. The problems come when the marketing shifts from spin to bald-faced lies. The problems come when no one appreciates art without a backstory and the market becomes used to the perfection of fake backstory. It seems like modern press is often more comfortable presenting a tidy and wholly false PR tall tale than presenting something real and true. Part of the reason for this is that modern audiences are often more comfortable reading tidy and wholly false PR tall tales. Real life tends to be more complicated and harder to get your head around.

I could like Avril Lavigne if she were presented as essentially a cute blonde actress in a larger movie. Instead, her managers insult everyone’s intelligence by getting a stylist to put Avril in a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt and having her publicist tell the world the actress is inspired by David Bowie (but neglecting to tell the girl playing the precocious punk songstress role that Bowie does not rhyme with Maui.) Just try and find music magazine press presenting anything remotely true about the teamwork creation of Avril Lavigne. I don’t know if the magazines fear lack of access to stars their audiences want to read about or if they fear legal reprisals or if it is all just some sort of gentlemen’s agreement, but certain specific pieces of truth have more trouble getting out there as overculture chews up subculture.

I’ve been debating with myself whether or not to mention what got edited out of the most recent interview Eros Zine did with yours truly. I appreciate what Eros Zine does for a variety of scenes and I adore EZ’s editor Thomas Roche who did the interview. And I very much appreciate the support (and fun times!) both have given to both me and Blue Blood over the years. I’ve decided to mention part of what was expurgated because I feel like this one small piece was important. Before I do, however, I want to make it very clear that publications such as Rolling Stone and the LA Weekly, with presumably larger legal budgets, have also cut pieces about the world of supposed altporn apparently due to legal concerns. So it is not unusual that Eros Zine’s legal department insisted on cutting a number of comments. (I promised Thomas I would be clear that it was legal and not editorial who required the cuts.) Journalists always want to know my opinion about adult video and the so-called altporn sites I’m supposed to consider competitive. But apparently what I have to say is just too dangerous to actually print.

Assuming that Eros Zine’s lawyers are essentially sensible, I just want to post for posterity the portion which was cut which contained shoutouts to people who deserve some credit. The rest can remain on the cutting room floor for now.

Some of the directors who might object to the current shameless pretension that punk art porn was just invented are Gregory Dark, David Aaron Clark, Nick Zedd, Justice Howard, Michael Ninn, Antonio Passolini, Stephen Sayadian, Richard Kern, and I’m really just scratching the surface with that list. (VCA and Vivid will be trying to get them all under exclusive contract by this time tomorrow. If they want to thank me for the suggestions, they can send checks payable to Blue Blood at 8033 Sunset Blvd #4500, West Hollywood, CA 90046. Or show me some quality product. Screeners are accepted at that address as well. My mind is open and I’m still a journalist.)

I worried about being potentially helpful to outsider corporations by giving shoutouts to people who deserve them, but I decided that I wanted to take the high road because I think it makes one a better person to give credit where it is due. Unfortunately, the legal folks worried about my commentary on my concerns about said corporations using my shoutouts as free consulting.

The biggest challenge of having sort of imperialist types come into a community is, not just to keep them from pushing out the native peoples, but also to keep the native peoples from simply becoming assimilated by the invaders. I’m certainly not immune, although I guess I’ve got more of a rebel/revolutionary mentality than many. I don’t think anyone is immune. (I just came from visiting a Native American art history museum, so please forgive the analogies.) I’m not personally what anyone would consider left wing and I definitely don’t believe cashing a check from a large corporation is intrinsically bad.

Full disclosure: Hustler owns VCA. I’ve not only worked for Hustler, but I’ve stated in public and in writing on numerous occasions that I felt they were the best of the big adult publishing houses, all of which I have done projects for. Vivid does not, to the best of my knowledge, do magazines, so I’ve never worked with them, but there are plenty of photos floating around the net featuring yours truly drinking and eating with with people who work at both Hustler and Vivid. I really like some of those people and think they are good folks.

I’m not sure precisely where one ought to draw the line, but I definitely think it should be drawn before invaders get to assume control of our opportunities, re-write history, and take away our language. There is nothing wrong with doing a lucrative gig for a large corporation. So much the better if the gig is something fun and interesting. But there really ought to be some wiggle room between accepting some money and accepting total annihilation of one’s self-actualization, culture, and ideals. I guess I’m just an optimist.