For The Reverend Martin Luther King…
Now is the winter of our discontent. As a nation, we are no longer divided, exactly, but we’re basically under siege of the government we have kinda sorta elected. Disaster beckons from nearly every corner. In plenty of places ‚Äî too fucking many ‚Äî it’s already going on. Most of it is our own damn fault. And as a country, we are learning an utterly awful lesson: Not only is freedom not free, it’s ‚Äî in this incarnation, anyway ‚Äî positively fucking oppressive. If this is what it’s supposed to be.
Here at Philebrity, on a day like today, we can’t help but ask: Is this the kind of country that Martin Luther King died for? And more to the point, is this the kind of country that’s worth dying for today? In the thousands? Today, we must stare those questions down and give them an answer laden with dread: No. Today, it’s just not worth it. There’s so much wrong with America that it’s almost impossible to think it might ever be right again. So there’s that.
But MLK Day, we believe, was intended to be a day of reflection ‚Äî and a reflection on what motivates our better selves, at that. It’s our belief that the America Martin Luther King died for ‚Äî if we are to carry the Christ analogy on ‚Äî was a place (or at least the idea of a place) where society looks to its margins to get instructions regarding the way forward. It might be a visionary that tells us, just as it may very well be that the margins are telling us a cautionary tale. It strikes us that in second-term Bush America that the freak is an endangered species. The Internet and our times in general have catered to many niches, but they’ve also rendered us painfully alike. We’re media slaves. We all look the same, iPods in ears, cell phones clutched tightly, denim and sneakers making everyone feel the exact same kind of falsely comfortable. Where are the freaks? Where are the true margins of society and thinking? Now that the long tail is larger than the mainstream, we can no longer expect the mainstream to make the biggest noise. Because right now, it’s all noise. Freaks today have an even bigger responsibility now than we ever did: It is incumbent upon us that we coalesce, which was never our strong suit to begin with. It’s going to be hard work.
The good news is, we’ve started our research. Today, we present 50 YouTube clips of what we’re calling “Fabulous American Freaks,” presented in no particular order, other than the mind’s swinging from vine to vine. These people were dreamers, or at least led existences that were dream-like. There are beautiful geniuses here, and there are doomed fools. Both groups have taught us plenty. And in our research, we learned that this list could have easily been 500 or even 5,000 long. Each one of them took us back to something that reminded us what it means to be the underdog, the person nobody understands, the object of ridicule, who in their own sometimes small, sometimes large way personified the American ideals of freedom and individuality. And they never stopped being freaks.
We need their spirits now more than ever. Enjoy.
— Joey Sweeney
Philebrity’s 50 Fabulous American Freaks begins after the jump. Please allow a moment for videos to load; for optimal viewing, press play and pause to allow videos to preload before viewing.
1. Allen Ginsberg.
2. Charles Bukowski.
3. Beat Happening.
4. Walt Whitman.
5. Gram Parsons.
6. Camille Paglia.
7. Devendra Banhardt.
8. Edie Sedgwick
9. Marvin Gaye
10. Parker Posey
11. Stephen Malkmus
12. Yoko Ono
13. Phil Spector.
14. Hunter S. Thompson.
15. The Ramones.
16. Gilda Radner
17. David Byrne.
18. Stevie Nicks.
19. Calvin Klein
20. Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot.
21. John Waters.
22. Liz Phair.
23. Tom Waits.
24. Diamanda Galas.
25. Bob Dylan.
26. Anne Sexton.
27. Patti Smith.
28. Jim Carroll.
29. Richard Pryor.
30. Lou Reed.
31. Larry Flynt.
32. Kool Keith.
33. Ken Nordine.
34. Sun Ra.
35. The Beach Boys.
36. The Symbionese Liberation Army.
37. Mumia Abu-Jamal.
38. Evan Dando.
39. Jack Kerouac.
40. David Allan Coe.
41. Old Dirty Bastard.
42. William S. Burroughs.
43. Jean-Michel Basquiat.
44. Nina Simone.
45. Traci Lords.
46. Soy Bomb.
47. Tex Avery.
48. Harry Nilsson.
49. Douglas Rushkoff.
50. Kurt Heasley.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:22 am
I don’t know what’s worse - the anxiety of not knowing whether or not that is the forbidden Tracy Lords tape, or the fact that it ends just as the gettin’s good.
January 15th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
That was so … MySpace. The work put into the slut list must’ve warped you.
January 15th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
i say AMEN!
i think everyone has become one mass of striped shirts, leggings, and ironic facial hair. we need more freaks.
bring on the freaks. please.
January 15th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
An admirable post, but I wonder if some of the people on this list are really freaks in the true sense of the word–seems to me they’re just being artists. In other words, they have an existing category to reside in. Freaks usually don’t have that luxury.
True “varsity” freaks are regarded as such long after their deaths: Lord Timothy Dexter, Emperor Jones, Lord Cornbury, The Shakers, Emerson, Dickinson, Houdini, Hellcat Maggie, Joseph Cornell, Anton LaVey, Truman Capote, Eugene Walter, Warhol, Peter Lamborn Wilson, MacDermott & McGough, Patrick McDonald, etc.
The most glorious freaks I know make many of the people on this list seem rather conventional and bien pensant; they live in places where a hipster’s sneaker has never trod, they hate rock culture, wear outlandish clothes of their own design, have catamites, and the windows of their bizarre museum-homes never let in natural light. There are freaks aplenty, but you will never find them at Johnny Brendas.
January 15th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Ernie Kovacs
January 15th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”-MLK
January 15th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Bukowski on Philadelphia and the bar he drank at in Fairmount:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1791729205805184447&q=The+Bukowski+Tapes&hl=en
January 15th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
RIGHT ON!!! Let your freak flag fly.
And I just learned today that this holiday for the good Dr. is meant to be a day of community service for Americans. Shame on me for not knowing and not doing. Shame on all the others like me out there. Next year, I’ll do better in respect of the Dr’s message.
January 15th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
“Normal” is in the eye of the beholder, says I.
January 15th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I’m sorry, but this is ridiculous. If you want to compile a list of freaks, that’s fine, but it kind of feels like a stretch to qualify it with King Day reflections. When I think back on MLK, I think about our American struggle to overcome racial and economic prejudice. I think about school desegregation or battling Jim Crow laws. Some of the people on your list (say, Allen Ginsberg) are people who live authentically‚Äîand I think that‚Äôs a beautiful thing to recognize. But I‚Äôve got to question people like Edie Sedgwick (a richie-rich socialite darling whose life spun out of control on drugs) or the Soy Bomb guy. Mumia‚Äîis it freaky now to shoot people? Seems a little contrary to Martin Luther King‚Äôs commitment to nonviolence to me‚Ķ.