Adam Lambert gave American Idol every inch of his love tonight on American Idol. Actually, I have no idea what I mean by that, but it seemed like the appropriate thing to say for Rock Week. After a bout with swine flu, following my bacon-eating tour of southern Arizona, I have been off writing duty for the week, but here is a quick American Idol update.

American Idol front-runner and Blue Blood fave Adam Lambert kicked off the show performing a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. At first, I was not as impressed as I usually am with his performances. When the Studio 57 chick started her judge’s critique by calling Adam Lambert a “rock god”, it clicked for me what the problem was. Partly, Adam Lambert has set his own high score so high for rock numbers after doing such a rocking good job with a classic like Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild”. But it is more that I found myself, while I watched, comparing him to . . . well . . . Robert Plant, rather than the other American Idol contestants.

This points up a problematic career point for all creative people. When you first start getting good at something creative — singing, dancing, photography, writing, sewing plush dolls, putting rivets on leather jackets, whatever — you get a lot of positive feedback. Unfortunately, when people start to really feel that you are good enough to be a real professional, you start getting judged in a whole new way with a whole lotta different standard. A show like American Idol is fascinating partially because it bridges some of the road between amateur and pro, unknown and star.

So anyway, Kara “Studio 57″ DioGuardi, called Adam Lambert a “rock god” before he has won Idol, much less had a long and influential rock career. A few charting iTunes songs and capturing America’s attention for a few hot weeks may arguably make a rock star, at least for a while, but not a rock god. Puh-lease. Talk like Kara DioGuardi’s is exactly why many Adam Lambert boosters assume they do not need to vote for him any more. Then again, Kara DioGuardi also told the Lenscrafter-endorsed Danny Gokey that he might have done better performing early Aerosmith . . . when he performed “Dream On” which is off of Aerosmith’s effing debut album. How early did she want?

For Rock Week on American Idol, each of the remaining four contestants — Adam Lambert, Kris Allen, Allison Iraheta, and Danny Gokey — each performed a solo song and then a duet as part of a pair. Adam Lambert and Allison Iraheta did a really kickass performance of Foghat’s “Slow Ride”. They fed off of each other’s good energy and looked like they were having fun in a way which made it fun to watch them.

Allison Iraheta said Adam Lambert had hooked her up with his hairdresser this week and her hair looked even more fantastic than usual and her hair usually looks pretty great. In her pre-performance interview with Ryan Seacrest, they give props to Adam’s hair girl Zabria, but I can’t seem to find a Hollywood hairdresser named Zabria on the interwebs, so I might be spelling it wrong. Hair girl has great people to work on there, to be sure, but she’s crazy talented, so I’d love to know the details on who she is.

At any rate, Allison Iraheta and Adam Lambert looked fabulous performing “Slow Ride” and I liked Adam Lambert’s outfit change for “Slow Ride” better than what he was rockin’ for “Whole Lotta Love”. In particular, he was wearing some gray and black striped pants which were very entertaining (and sexy) if one happened to watch The Mighty Boosh on Adult Swim (where “The Chokes” episode is still streaming free) this week and see Dan Brown’s Bollo the gorilla helping Noel Fielding’s Vince Noir zip his super tight skinny stage pants.

Earlier this week, on his Twitter, Slash, of GNR and Velvet Revolver fame, who mentored said “Those AI kids can sing their asses off, especially Adam.” This week, Blue Blood top crush of 2006 Anderson Cooper told Jay Leno that he thinks Adam Lambert is the best singer on American Idol right now. Because most folks watching (or making book on) American Idol are so sure Adam Lambert is going to win, I think a lot of people didn’t bother to vote for Adam Lambert last week, so he ended up in the bottom three, although he escaped elimination. Hopefully, Adam Lambert will get the votes to win it all because he deserves it.

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“Whole Lotta Love” lyrics by Led Zeppelin (and possibly some blues guys they did a legal settlement with), made famous by Led Zeppelin and covered by a lot of folks:

You need coolin’, baby, I’m not foolin’
I’m gonna send ya back to schoolin’
Way down inside, a-honey, you need it
I’m gonna give you my love
I’m gonna give you my love, oh

Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love

You’ve been learnin’
And baby, I been learnin’
All them good times
Baby, baby, I’ve been discernin’-a
A-way, way down inside
A-honey, you need-a
I’m gonna give you my love, ah
I’m gonna give you my love, ah

Oh, whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
I don’t want more

You’ve got to bleed on me, yeah
Ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ha, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
ah, ah, ah, ah, ha, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
No, no, no, no, ah
Love, love, low-ow-ow-ow-ove
Oh, babe, oh

You been coolin’
And baby, I’ve been droolin’
All the good times, baby, I’ve been misusin’-a/Oh
A-way, way down inside
I’m gonna give ya my love/Ah
I’m gonna give ya every inch of my love/Ah
I’m gonna give you my love/Ah
Yes, alright, let’s go/Ah

Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love

Way down inside/ Way down inside
Way downinside, woman, you/woman
woman, you/you need it
need/Love

My, my, my, my
My, my, my, my/Ahh
Oh, shake for me, girl
I wanna be your backdoor man-a
Hey, oh, hey, oh/Ahh
Hey, oh, oooh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Hoo-ma, ma, hey
Keep a-coolin’, baby
A-keep a-coolin’, baby
A-keep a-coolin’, baby
Uh, keep a-coolin’, baby, wuh, way-hoh, oo-ohh

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“Slow Ride” lyrics by Dave Peverett, originally performed by Dave Peverett as lead singer and guitarist of Foghat and covered by a lot of folks:

Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy
Slow ride, take it easy.

I’m in the mood, the rhythm is right,
Move to the music, we can roll all night.
Oooh, oooh, slow ride – oooh, oooh …

Slow ride, take it easy – Slow ride, take it easy
Slow down, go down, got to get your lovin’ one more time
Hold me, roll me, slow ridin’ woman you’re so fine

Woo!

I’m in the mood, the rhythm is right,
Move to the music yea, we can roll all night, yea.
Oooh, oooh …

Slow ride, take it easy – Slow ride, take it easy
Slow down, go down, got to get your lovin’ one more time
Hold me, roll me, slow ridin’ woman you’re so fine

Slow ride, easy, slow ride, sleazy – Slow ride, easy, slow ride, sleazy

Slow down, go down, got to get your lovin’ one more time
Hold me, roll me, slow ridin’ woman you’re so fine

Slow ride, take it easy – slow ride, take it easy
Slow down, go down – Slow down, go down

Oh come on baby, take a slow ride with me,
Come on baby, take a slow ride.
Oh feels good, mmmm, feels so good, I like it yea,
I feel good, oh I feel alright!

You know the rhythm is right
You know the rhythm is right
We gotta rock all night
We gotta rock all night
You know the rhythm is right, yeah, we gotta rock all night,
You know the rhythm is right, we gotta rock all night.
Whoa, c’mon now
Woo, Yea, Woo, Whoa!

Elevate me mama – Elevate me mama – Elevate me mama – Elevate me mama.
Oww!
Woo!

Slow ride! Yea!

Blue Blood hottie Serena Toxicat recently mentioned that she would be showing thirty of her art pieces at the Blow Gallery in Berkely, California. If you are in that neck of the woods, you can stop by 2112 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704 for an evening of hotties like Serena Toxicat, art, and possibly some free booze. Most gallery shows have free booze. I try not to examine why too closely. Here you can examine the conversation Serena Toxicat and I just had about art.

Amelia G: What first got you into creating? Were you always creative?

Serena Toxicat: Apparently as a 5 year-old my painting looked like pointillism. My 1st grade art teacher raved about the stuff. After my dad saw how much I liked to color and paint, his best friend bought me a set of acrylics and I never looked back, except to kick my own ass to make more. I do so many things in the world of art and performance that my productivity in any one area tends to ebb and flow.

Amelia G: What are your favorite media to create in and how to you feel writing vs. visual arts compare for expressing yourself?

Serena Toxicat: I love acrylic and just developed a system whereby I draw in marker over an acrylic base. I also like making sculpture with found objects and occasionally indulge in photography. I made some mixed media pieces, with b&w images of my pointy little Isis as the central focus. Most intriguing might be my channeled oracular pieces. I close my eyes and let the spirits paint with my hands. You should feel the energy coming out of those things!

Creating is creating, and if I’m happy with a piece of art I feel the same sense of completeness I do with my writing. Usually the visual stuff goes faster. Well, compared to a book it does!

Amelia G: Who is curating the Blow show and how did you get involved? Does it have any particular theme?

Serena Toxicat: Amy O’Rourke, one of the stylists, curated the last two shows. It is very eclectic – everything from artistic nudes to hanging paper sculpture – and she is quite happy about that!

Amelia G: Is it true that the Blow gallery is actually a hair salon? If so, how does that work? Do they get the sort of clientele where the art and hairstyle work have good synergy and complement one another?

Serena Toxicat: Yes! And they do great hair. It seems to work well for them, this meeting of the aesthetic worlds. The clients appreciate it and many come to the shows and buy or just enjoy. Blow has a new opening every 10 weeks with fantastic catering. They have been combining hair and showing art for as long as I can remember. I discovered them while searching for a colorist. When I found David, who has since moved, we developed a relationship based on bright horizontal stripes (in my hair) and mullets (as material for many a delirious joke).

Amelia G: When to when can people see the show? Anything in particular, specific art piece of yours, event feature, other artists showing with you, whatever, which you think people will extra enjoy?

Serena Toxicat: It starts Sat. 4-4 and closes June 7. I’m really excited about my bright green and orange pieces. They address important issues, like depression, anxiety, eating disorders, etc., and feature multicultural female (so far) subjects dressed in gothy striped frocks.

I also hope people get off on my socially conscious and poetic propagand[iv]a video. I play a newscaster and talk about everything from Bush and Obama to animal activism and being nice to hookers. Jim Stipovich has been showing his nudes since the 70’s. I’m sure he’ll bring out his following out of the proverbial woodwork and make many new fans! I also love Shaista and Kelly’s stuff. Fun!

During country week on American Idol, I expressed mild surprise that Adam Lambert had not gone for a more Elvis country vibe when he covered a song made famous by Johnny Cash, the original man in black, called “Ring of Fire“. Maybe someone should give me a music label or a reality show to produce because during the kickoff to Motown week today, Adam Lambert performed “Tracks of My Tears” in a sharp pale cool gray suit with a dark shirt and went for a less made-up look with just dark mascara and a rockabilly hairstyle with a clearly intentional Elvis circa 1957 vibe.

The judges seemed surprised that he cleaned up so well. Judge performer Paula Abdul went so far as to call his look for the evening “classy“. Did she really not notice that there was a hot man under the guyliner there before? Elvis dyed his hair black too. Most people who can do one flamboyant look fabulously can also do another. I am a fan of eyeliner on guys and a rocker look, but everybody likes Elvis Presley and any rock guy who can do an Elvis look is going to do so some time. It’s like a rule. I was more impressed by the emotional range Adam Lambert’s performance showed.

“Tracks of My Tears” is a song about putting a happy face on and showing everyone else a good time, while you ache inside. I know it is a song which really speaks to me personally. “Tracks of My Tears” was first performed by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles in 1965. Smokey Robinson was on hand tonight to check out this season’s American Idol contestants. “Tracks of My Tears” was written by Smokey Robinson, Miracles guitarist and fellow founding member Marv Tarplin, and bass singer and fellow founding member Pete Moore. In addition to having a long and storied, wildly successful, and industry-changing career with 4,000 songs to his credit, Smokey Robinson must have an excellent pact with the devil because he is sixty-nine-years-old and he looked fantastic on American Idol tonight. Although he got to listen to young performers doing renditions of his songs for most of the night, Smokey Robinson gave Adam Lambert’s tender soulful rendition of “Tracks of My Tears” a standing ovation. Can’t really ask for better than that.

Tracks of My Tears Lyrics:

People say I’m the life of the party
‘Cause I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside I’m blue

So take a good look at my face
You know my smile looks out of place
If you look closer it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears

I need you…
Need you

Since you left me if you see me with another girl
Looking like I’m having fun
Although she may be cute, she’s just a substitute
‘Cause you’re the permanent one

So take a good look at my face
You know my smile looks out of place
If you look closer it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears

Outside I’m masquerading
Inside my hope is fading
I’m just a clown since you put me down
My smile is my make up
I wear since my break-up with you

Baby, take a good look at my face
You know my smile looks out of place
If you look closer it’s easy to trace
The tracks of my tears

The end of Spring was approaching in San Francisco and that meant that the annual Emerging Illusions Alternative Fashion Show was soon to happen. For those unaware, Emerging Illusions is meant to showcase up and coming fashion/costume designers from the Goth, punk and industrial scenes.

Again, I was honored to be asked to set up a mini studio backstage and shoot the models and designers, make-up artists and hair stylists and anyone else who wanted to pose.

The smell of make-up and hair spray filled to backstage area. Nearly every square inch of floor was covered by people, clothes and props. Activity was everywhere. Make-up being applied, hair being styled, models dressing and undressing, dancers stretching out. It was more difficult to negotiate than the dance floor when the DJ plays everybody’s favorite song.

And it was no wonder that it was packed. Each designer is limited to only five or six models and provides their own hair and make-up people. This year, saw 14 designers: Somnabulance, Wisp-her Wear, Gibbous, Severd, Eirik Aswang, Lisa Goblin, The Window Lady, Dragoness, Chelsea Aragon, saKAna Desgins, Larvae, Shawk Designs, Shadow Bound and Clotho Constrictor. Plus there were stage crew running the show, photographers & videographers and the occasional friend of someone.

As I set up my equipment, I looked over the outfits being worn by those already dressed. With fourteen designers, their designs were as diversified as you would imagine with outfits ranging from everyday wear to clubwear to costumes to things you’d probably only wear at Burning Man if you wear anything at Burning Man.

Though I really enjoy the energy backstage, my only regret in being backstage is I don’t get to see the show. This is because Emerging Illusions is not a simple fashion show. One thing that the organizer, Miqua, has done, is to add broader appeal by eschewing the catwalk. No models simply strutting up and down the stage in this fashion show. The designers are encouraged to create mini performance pieces to showcase their creations. So rather than a fashion show, you get a show that has fashion.

Luckily, after I had everything set up, I had some time to watch some of the rehearsals. And again, the range of performances varied as vastly as the style of clothes. From dolls coming to life and turning their little girl owner into one of them to handmaidens who feed their queen to sea demons to a post-apocalyptic, spy-thiller demon hunt amid snowing fallout. I was even asked to stand in for Vampirabat and Nixon Sixx during one rehearsal. Not an easy task, as I am the opposite of what comes to mind when the names of Vampirabat or Nixon Sixx even come up.

Even before the show started, I was taking pictures and shot nearly continuously for the next six hours. And with the exception of a wayward mannequin punching a hole in my backdrop and fisticuffs nearly breaking out between two groups of models over who was going to shoot next, it was a pretty fun-filled evening.

The show for 2009 is already looking to be the biggest of them all.

If you’d like more information on the show or the designers or where to purchase clothing, visit the Emerging Illusions website.

Since 1992, Blue Blood has been about encouraging people to think critically and not just go along with the herd. My hair is purple and red at the moment. But the hair color is a signifier, not the endgame. What I mean by this is that all of us who fought the battle to convince the world that someone with primary-colored hair or tattoos could be beautiful or sexy, we can all pat ourselves on the back and go home, if that was all the whole thing was about. That battle is won. But the point is that the physical appearance was supposed to be about being a maverick and living on your own terms, about marching to the beat of your own drummer. If mohawks become trendy, then having one does not necessarily signify that one is a nonconformist. You can still aesthetically enjoy very tall hair, but the most important body part in the battle against conformity is slightly lower — your brain. You need to have an evolved intellect to avoid being a bah bah sheep conformist.

I’m about to tell you all the most important lesson of a liberal arts education and it is not even going to cost you a hundred grand or whatever higher learning is priced at these days. I was less enamored of the lessons I learned in school, while I was paying off the tab, so here is the most crucial stuff for free. My parents certainly deserve most of the credit for my brain, but my education really helped ingrain some of their lessons.

In order to have an intelligent and human approach to the world, you must learn to be analytical and think critically. Some people are born more or less disposed to having these abilities, but they are definitely learned skills. The direction culture is moving, driven by technology, does not nurture skills in analysis and critical thinking. First television advertisers, and then internet marketers, found that people respond most primally to sound bites and slogans, as opposed to actual data. As a result, a lot of modern debate, especially online, sounds like the old “Tastes great!” vs “Less Filling!” argument. A person capable of analysis and thinking critically would look at that argument and realize that a discussion of Miller Lite probably entailed a beverage which did not taste good at all to most people and which would indeed be less filling because fewer people would drink much of it.

Which is a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that you need to make up your own mind. When you are presented with a debate or controversy, you need to deconstruct what is actually being discussed. What are the sides of the issue? What is each side actually trying to accomplish? Who are the people presenting the sides of this issue? What, if anything, do these people stand to gain from one or another outcome? Are the people debating a particular side anonymous?

Politicians and salesmen will frequently present their own viewpoint as the side that all people of a certain type will be on. This is to induce everyone who is that type of person to side with them. For example, “if you care about children, you have to donate to my campaign.” Or, “if you are artistic and independent, you have to buy my product.” You need to analyze what the actual issues are and what the actual qualities of a product are. If you do not, then you are doomed to sheepdom.

Once you figure out what the actual issues and values being presented really are, as best you can discern, you need to think critically about them. You might love children and think of yourself as very artistic and independent. But that does not mean you need to buy what a politician or salesman is selling. Thinking critically means deciding for yourself, being able to process new data as it becomes available for your analysis, and determining for yourself how the real issues actually fit with your personal values. Thinking critically means not just wholesale swallowing whatever the last person you talked to told you to think. It means questioning authority and thinking for yourself.

I am often asked why I permit dissenting opinions on the Blue Blood boards. How can I permit people to disagree with me, with the only rule being that they have to be capable of explaining and supporting what they say, preferably without sloganeering or name-calling? So many forums online censor what can be posted in order to make sure as many people as possible will eat the sound bite argument and site owners will not have to back up what they say. So I try to provide a venue where people from many different walks of life can come together to exchange their varied points of view.

Thinking critically combined with being analytical means being able to find the real answers which are best for you, means being your own person. Even if some of your tastes and decisions end up being common ones, coming to your conclusions via critical thinking and analysis means being a nonconformist inside your own gray matter. Where it counts the most.

I believe there is nothing more important than individual liberty. Black eyeliner and glitter lipstick might be ways of expressing your love of freedom, but they will not make you free. Only application of your unfettered brain can do that.

I have a new guru. I just watched the Katt Williams Pimp Chronicles Pt. 1 on HBO. Well, specifically on my TiVo of an earlier HBO broadcast. Anyway, I have this impediment to increasing my personal success as briskly as my work ethic should guarantee. Specifically, every time my accomplishments start coming really fast and furious, in a way which is visible to others, the haters come out. I would like to claim I am immune to haters and their low end bottom-feeder tactics, but I’m not.

I do what I do from a place of love. It sounds corny, I know. But, as I’ve said many times in the past, the initial print issues of Blue Blood were in many ways a love letter to the scene I had become a part of. The DC scene of the early 90’s was this vibrant nexus of punk, fandom, and cyber cultures. In that part of the world, we were less concerned with the genre-quibbling of bigger entertainment business cities. Goth-industrial music was identified as sort of a subset of punk there. Knowing who both Gary Gygax and Wendy O. Williams were was a plus.

The city produced both Chemlab and Fifth Column, and Fugazi and Dischord, and Henry Rollins and 21361 Publishing. Although I was born in London and have lived on three continents, in half a dozen countries, and a whole bunch of states, in many ways DC is the city which most created me as an artist and, as an extension of that, created Blue Blood. I knew all these incredible, artistic, fabulously creative people who just needed a venue to showcase their brilliance. And I was determined to give them that platform. When I first arrived in the DC scene, I had the most intense sense of having come home to where I had always truly belonged. From my heart, Blue Blood was a sort of love letter to a world which had welcomed me and made me feel whole and right at a time when my education and expectations had left me feeling adrift.

Well, it turns out that being able to decorate one leather jacket with paint and rivets and being able to tell one great fantasy of an alternate life to a fuckable chick does not equal wanting an actual platform for success or recognition of any kind. I found that quite a number of my amazing and talented compatriots wanted to be able to fantasize about how cool it would be if they started a band, wrote a novel, opened a dungeon, ran a nightclub, got a short story published, deejayed a big party, designed clothing, became an international sex symbol, etc. Although I will engage in conversations about wouldn’t it be cool if, I have a tendency to then go forth into the world to make it so. I think I’m wired that way naturally and my upbringing only hammered that into me more. I was both shocked and deeply hurt when I found that a lot of the DC scenesters I counted as friends were angry at someone giving them a chance. They wanted to be able to get credit for their brilliance without having to actually come through with, ya know, work. It had never occurred to me that there were people who did not want opportunity to come knocking.

So I ended up in this odd circumstance where I was getting kind words for my work on Blue Blood from people who were huge heroes of mine. Only parts of my primary support structure were just really kind of pissy. HBO would come to my house to do a special, but I couldn’t get some of my supposed closest friends to stop by. William Gibson would tell me I was “courageous” and John Shirley would buy me coffee and DC scenesters who had built whole events based on Gibson and Shirley’s writing would make my participation a pain for me. I didn’t know the word “hater” then, but it sure would have helped if I had.

Even today, I find I have to remind myself really strenuously to keep moving forward when the haters come out. I now plan to watch Katt Williams, my new guru, whenever I start feeling like maybe I should slow down a bit because everybody loves people who do less. So, if you are a hater, I am going to try to let you do your job (hating) and I’m going to do mine. You are now cordially invited to sit there and say my hair ain’t luxurious, when you know that it is, bitch.

Any kind of extreme hair makes a statement, but none so unambiguous as the Mohawk. A shaved head makes a statement, but you have to parse it out. A shaved head can say near anything: “I’m a javascript programmer who cuts his own hair,” “I’m a 136 lb. passive-aggressive Vegan dickhole,” “Welcome to the Brotherhood, prag,” “Hi, I’m Dave Attell, and welcome to Insomniac,” “The girls can come in, but you losers have to leave,” or “No, I’m not the Dalai Lama, I’m Hunter S. Thompson, you little screwhead.”

A Mohawk says one thing: “Fuck you.” A Mohawk is a tonsorial middle finger to the world.

A Mohawk is different from a set of whitewalls, which is frankly not so far from a mullet. Lank, greasy sk8hawks also verge into mullet territory. A Mohawk stands up, bristling and sharp, and does not flop onto your forehead giving you a comical strip of extra-dense forehead zits.

When seen in nature, the Mohawk is there to intimidate. A raised strip of fur along the spine is the universal sign for “I’m ready to kick your ass, boy.” Rhodesian ridgeback dogs have permanent Mohawks, and they were bred to take on lions. You don’t want to get caught with your hackles down when your job is fucking with bigger, badder species. Think hyenas, or wild boar.

The name comes from the Mohawk tribe of native Americans, who held a bunch of territory around what’s now upstate New York. They actually didn’t sport Mohawks any more than the Huron and Iroquois or anyone else did at the time, but “Mohawk” sounds more badass than “Algonquin”. Brits call the haircut a “Mohican”, which is cute.

(Daniel Boone was captured by Indians around 1778 and given a Mohawk as a test of his courage. They did it the old-fashioned way, by pulling the hairs out one by one. The story’s probably bullshit and the Indians were Shawnees anyway.)

Mohawks were popular with paratroopers in World War II, for obvious reasons: “We jump out of planes, and most of us will be dead when we hit the ground. Fuck you.” Paratroopers also yelled “Geronimo!” when they jumped; all this proves is that people don’t give a shit about the particulars of native American history.

Regardless, the Mohawk wouldn’t have come into its own if WWII hadn’t fucked the British economy gutless. By the mid-70s, things were bleak, dull, and awful enough that kids were wandering around with safety pins through their faces and all kinds of shit in their hair. Punks adopted the Mohawk to say, “There aren’t any jobs; just booze, drugs, noisy music and general collapse. Fuck you.”

The punks brought the Mohawk into its own, but anything that looks that cool is going to get co-opted by the generalist media culture and diluted to pisswater. Punk didn’t sell enough records, so it got watered down and re-branded as “New Wave”, and instead of razor & glue Mohawks, 80s audiences got the “fish fin”, which was basically long 70s hair brushed up the sides and glued in place. Worse yet was the wighawk, a strap-on cotton candy confection seen on tarts in Duran Duran videos and on Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

The 80s also saw the rise of the jockhawk, as sported by Mr. T and the bad-guy wrestler in that Matthew Modine movie. Jockhawks were and are undyed, accompanied by a half-inch minimum of stubble on the sides, allowing them to grow out by Prom time. The jockhawk endures, depressing all who are not fans of WWE Raw.

The 80s did, however, give us The Road Warrior, which remains the Mohawkin’est movie ever. It should not be blamed for inspiring a slew of crummy post-apocalyptic wighawk extravaganzas, or for sticking us with Mel Gibson for two decades.

The 90s were a dire time for the Mohawk, what with lank, greasy hair being all the rage and the Cult of the Mullet looming. Yes, I know, Rancid and all that. They were fun, but I saw Repo Man when it came out and unlike the Baby Boomers, I don’t cream my khakis whenever I see stuff from my youth repackaged and resold. Times just weren’t shitty enough in the 90s for a distinctive ‘hawk to emerge. It was too easy to get a job and keep your fucked-up hair during the Boom, and easy times breed weakness and complacency. Thank god that’s over…

A Mohawk seen on the street these days says, “I’m a bike messenger. Fuck you.” Or, “I’m 16 and I know everything about being punk. Fuck you.” Or, “I’m in a band that will implode after two months for better or worse. Fuck you.” A Mohawk seen in the media says, “I’m a Finnish snowboard champ and I’m totally extreme. Dude.” Or, “I’m David Fucking Beckham and you wanted to Fuck a Spice Girl and I did it, and here’s my stupid fucking haircut this week.”

The 21st Century Mohawk is still waiting to be born, says me. The time is ripe. We have a repressive, conservative, bullshit-spouting administration in office. By the most optimistic estimates, the economy will stay in the toilet for three more years. War is declared, and battle come down (in a few weeks or months, count on it). Things are going to suck so much more before they suck less. There is no better time to take those hot, thrumming WAHL clippers in hand and strip away everything but a bright, bristling strip of Fuck You.

The world is waiting.