There was a time when I religiously – nay, obsessively – never missed a Dickies show.
If The Dickies were playing on, say,
a weeknight night at 11pm, and I had to be up the next morning at 4am for a
thirteen-hour shift throwing bags of bleach around a warehouse, then it was an
extremely safe bet that come said weeknight night at 11pm, I was standing in
front of the stage, having arrived as many hours early as necessary to stake
out my spot.
Moreover, it was an even safer bet
that by set’s end, I would be stalking the band – out of love, of course (at
least that’s how I innocently viewed it) – seizing any opportunity to talk to
any of the members, for any length of time (half an hour or 30 seconds,
anything was good), about how awesomely god-like they were.
It should be noted this was already in
the late 80s, a full ten years after their inception, after the death of
founding member Chuck Wagon, after original bassist Billy Club and original drummer
Karlos Kaballero split the scene, and only lead singer Leonard Graves Phillips
and guitarist Stan Lee remained from the classic lineup. Years after what many
would perceive as their golden era.
A decade is a long time for a
band. The Dickies would have been forgiven for splintering and calling it a
day, figuring they’d fought the good fight. But such was the nature of Stan and
Leonard’s tenacity in the face of long odds that, after the original lineup
melted away, they stubbornly forged ahead, developing an impressive
predilection for hiring only the best punk rhythm sections in Los Angeles.
Their live shows reflected this: tight, loud, perfectly mixed, raucously
hilarious, and always enormously fun. I saw them numerous times between 1987
and 1993. I saw them in 1995 on the Idgit Savant tour. But the
band’s lethargy was so pronounced by then – Leonard himself made fun of this
in Idgit’s liner notes – and new Dickies albums became so seriously
few and far between (a whopping 18 years have passed since All This and
Puppet Stew, their last LP, came out), that I lost track of my heroes,
getting on with my life while they, presumably, got on with theirs.
Then The Dickies took their
first-ever trip to Australia in the spring of 2015. What should have been a
very special short tour became a very infamous short tour when Leonard
physically assaulted a woman during their set in Brisbane on Friday, April 17,
after she attempted to abscond with one of the singer’s ubiquitous stage props.
All it took was one gig in that city to earn The Dickies a lifetime ban.
Mortified by his own conduct, the singer took to social media to apologize for
his “indefensible” behavior, and even called the woman in an attempt to set
things right.
This was out of character for the normally
genial frontman, although I’d seen something similar back in May of 1988 in Los
Angeles, when The Dickies played the John Anson Ford Theater with Agent Orange
and Rollins Band. On that night – a very unpleasant night that saw ugliness
throughout all three bands’ sets – a drunken punter jumped up on stage
mid-song, grabbed one of Leonard’s props, and disappeared into the morass of
slam dancing in the orchestra pit.
Leonard – daggers spitting from
his eyes – pointed at this idiot, grabbed the band’s roadie, and continued
pointing, pulling the roadie with him across the stage as the thief tried
escaping the pit. With all eyes on him, the dumb kid relented, throwing the
prop back on the stage. Phillips put it out of harm’s way behind the drum
riser. “You think I come here to get ripped off by you assholes?” He yelled
into the mic. “No fucking way!”
He was pissed. And no one blamed him. But the rage was palpable, even
though it was dulled by what was probably heroin, as a friend and I found out
talking to Leonard after the show, when he sat in a chair with sunglasses on
(at 11pm), unmoving, speaking in a monotone.
What happened in Brisbane was
another order worse than getting livid with some idiot who stole a prop at the
John Anson Ford Theater. Even so, I didn’t lose faith in this man whom I
practically worshipped for so many years. I’m willing to give everybody one
free pass in this life, willing to forgive him or her one colossal fuck-up,
even an egregious one, because we are highly imperfect beings in a highly imperfect
world, and all of us do truly stupid shit every now and again. I’ve done and
said things throughout my life that make me wince thinking about them. And
Leonard apologized – to the club, to their fans, and most importantly, to the
woman he hit. All was forgiven.
*****
Then came the
2017 Warped Tour and the dark days of Dickies fandom.
On The Dickies’
last day as part of the tour, an attendee filmed Leonard savaging a woman
off-camera who had been picketing their set: “Kiss it! Kiss it! Kiss it, ya
bitch! I have fucked farm animals that were prettier than you, you fucking hog!
Are ya ready everybody? BLOW ME! BLOW ME! BLOW ME! BLOW ME! BLOW ME! BLOW ME!
BLOW ME! How does it feel? To get shouted away, you cunt! C.U.N.T! Can you
spell? You’re a fat cunt! Fuck you! Stan, show her what we’re about!”
In light of what appeared to be
Leonard having a psychotic break onstage, people around the world did what
everyone does best here in the 21st century: they took to social
media, some supporting Leonard, some lambasting him, but always with the same
poor grammar, dramatic flourishes, and excessive exclamation points we’ve come
to expect in this dumbed-down Facebook era of irrational, emotionally-fueled kneejerk,
act-stupid-first,-ask-questions-never craziness.
Briefly, what provoked
Leonard into his storm of profanity was a woman holding a sign protesting The
Dickies’ set. The sign read: “Teen girls deserve respect, not gross jokes from
disgusting old men! Punk shouldn't be predatory!”
The woman was a
member of Safer Scenes, a project conceived by the overtly political, feminist
punk band War on Women. Their lead singer Shawna Potter created Safer Scenes to
join War on Women specifically for the 2017 Warped Tour, “to address how people can prevent harassment and
violence at shows, from big festivals to small basement shows. We brought two
expert volunteers with us to table every day for us, and they’re there to offer
concrete ways people can intervene to ensure everyone feels welcome and
included, at any show in any city, not just on the Warped Tour.”
The video is already startling
enough. However, Potter claims the Safer Scenes woman protested The Dickies’
set after Phillips “made
jokes about things like how much he loves teen girls and how he would love to
snort Viagra off your asses and fuck your daughters.” That was
startling, too. Leonard’s routines were not infrequently profane, and always in
wonderfully poor taste, but never resolutely –ist.
But we strive to be fair, which means we listen to both sides of the story. Phillips first presented
his in a June 17 Facebook post, and once more in a letter to the LA Weekly
on August 14. Instead of jokes about teen girls and Viagra on asses, the singer
said Safer Scenes took offense to Leonard ending their sets with “You’re
a great looking bunch of kids. We’d love to go down on each and every one of
you but we just don’t have the time.” He also said the woman threw the sign at
him (which is technically assault).
In
the Facebook post he says the Safer Scenes woman was calling him a “child
predator,” and admits his anger got the better of him, and he shouldn’t have
called the woman a “cunt,” as it’s “inflammatory and that many women have been
abused by this word.” In the LA Weekly article, he apologizes “to the public
for the ugly vitriol I shot back at one adult woman (and not at all
womankind).”
In
neither one does he apologize to the woman herself, or for savaging her loudly over
the PA system. This was different from Brisbane: an apology for choice of
words, but not for the act itself.
If
we want to dispassionately dissect this incident, trying to figure out who – if
anyone – blew things out of proportion, and who owes whom an apology, or who is
totally FUBAR, I can certainly offer up what amounts to one man’s opinion. Phillips
saying he’d love to go down on everyone but doesn’t have the time sounds far
more Leonard-ese than jokes about teen girls and fucking everyone’s daughters. Shawna
Potter also refers to The Dickies “doing their usual shock rock performance” in
an article she wrote, a baffling statement that leaves me truly wondering what
universe she inhabits. I suppose one can make the case that, in a technical
sense, The Dickies are, according to the broadly general definition, a “shock
rock” band: they occasionally use costumes, and have stage props.
But
there has never, ever been, in their 42-year history, anything “shocking” about
a Dickies concert. GG Allin used to shit onstage, cut himself, and punch
concertgoers. Wendy O. Williams used to bash television sets with a sledgehammer.
King Diamond had a mike handle made out of human bones, and once upon a time
performed with a human skull (it was stolen).
The
Dickies, by contrast, have a goofy-looking penis puppet (frequently with eyes
sewn on) singing the chorus to The Who’s See Me, Feel Me. The singer wears a
gorilla mask and pretends he’s picking fleas off the guitarist during a song
called You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla). A dog puppet barks into the mic
during a song called Poodle Party.
You
want unabashed silliness? The Dickies have it in spades. You want shock? You’re
in the wrong concert hall. The Marilyn Manson concert is down the street. If
you truly are the kind of person who is actually outraged by a penis singing
See Me, Feel Me, and you truly are the kind of person who is horrified by a
singer telling his audience, “Absolutely none of tonight’s proceeds are going
to go to Ethiopia… fifty percent of all the monies made tonight are going to be
invested in Twinkies for the band” – if you really can’t see that those are
intended as comedy, not shock – then I recommend you take some time off, go sit
on a mountaintop, and figure out how to not take yourself, and life, so unbearably
seriously.
Still, I can see why Shawna Potter writes, “Let’s not mistake The Dickies’ onstage
Warped Tour rant for anything but misogyny.” I’m not convinced in the slightest that Leonard Phillips
truly is truly a misogynist, but what he said was misogynistic, and I don’t feel he really understands to this day why what he said caused such a flap.
“I finally let my anger get the better of me,” he wrote on June
28, 2017. “I let her know what I thought of her ageist, nasty, Leonard-hating
behavior. I used very rude language. I understand the word ‘cunt’ is
inflammatory and that many women have been abused by this word. I should have
called her an ‘asshole.’”
Which is missing the point entirely. Calling the young woman a cunt was bad, sure enough, but it’s what Leonard said before that, that is far worse: “I have fucked farm animals that were prettier than you.” This should give everyone pause. I wonder if Leonard has given any thought to how truly demoralizing and bottomlessly frustrating it is for women to still be, after 50,000 years of homo sapiens prowling around on this planet, contextualized forever and ever as one-dimensional sex objects and little more. Applying for a job? You’re a sex object. Asking a question in your college physics class? You’re a piece of ass. Dropping your car off at the garage for an oil change? You’re tits and ass, and little else.
This isn’t PC proselytizing. Shut up and listen for a moment: I wonder if Leonard has ever taken even two minutes to think about what it’s like growing up in the U.S. as a woman. I wonder if he’s ever tried wrapping his head around what it’s like to have strangers whistling at you and saying fucked up shit any time you so much as walk down the street, or walk from your car to the grocery store. I wonder if he can comprehend in any way the toll this kind of nonsense takes over one, five, ten, twenty five years, day in and day out: bosses saying inappropriate, asinine things, strangers grabbing your ass, losers gawking at you and muttering about how they’d like to fuck you. Every day of your life. No matter how you’re dressed, no matter what you’re doing.
I
don’t have any conception of this. I’ve never had to deal
with it. And I don’t pretend to understand how stressful it is. I believe
it’s the kind of thing you can’t understand
until it’s happening to you. I know this: it’s extremely unpleasant having a
run-in with anyone who’s giving you a hard time, who’s in your face, who’s
saying stupid, inappropriate shit to you. If that only happens once in a blue
moon to me, it’s still stressful. Now imagine that happening at least once a
day, frequently two or three times, just because you’re a woman. I wonder if
Leonard has ever considered the possibility that maybe, for a majority of women
out there, this has become tiresome to the point of annoyance, and even full-on
rage.
I see something else happening here: I can’t help feeling that Leonard is getting genuinely
bitter as
he gets older. The singer has now chocked up two dreadful mid-concert incidents
in a span of two years. True, there haven’t been any since the Safe Scenes diatribe, but the notion that Leonard in 1987
would have reacted to someone calling him a predator the way Leonard in 2017 did
doesn’t compute. I can certainly imagine him singling out such a person in
1987. I can imagine him making an example of such a person. But screaming at
her? Calling her a fat cunt? Part of why I was enamored of the band all those
years ago was Leonard’s wordplay. This is a smart, articulate man, one who says
very funny things with the syntax of a learned college professor. It’s that
juxtaposition that makes his between-song banter so engaging and hilarious. “Fat
cunt” is abhorrent. It’s beneath Phillips.
I’m not even sure
Phillips would disagree with my assessment he’s gotten bitter. “Trust me,” he
told Goldmine magazine over the summer. “I’m a miserable son of a bitch in real
life. The others are much more care free.”
So I’m left with
a deep sadness about a band that for years I loved more than anything, that I went
to see every time they played, whose records and CDs I collected fanatically, indeed,
whose records had their own little shelf in my record collection. Their music
and shows inspired joy, pure and simple. Joy of music, joy of life. Ageism? Misogyny?
Meh. That’s not the prism through which I’m looking at what happened these last
few years. In the case of what happened on the Warped Tour, both sides are
guilty of at least some extremism. But Phillips is the one whose behavior was truly awful and mystifying. I just play Dawn of the Dickies and wonder, sadly, what
happened? Why has this amazing, talented man grown so bitter?
*****
On June 27 I was
in Albuquerque NM on business, and saw The Dickies were playing at The Launchpad.
At first I thought it best to skip it and keep my pleasant memories of an older,
happier time, but then I realized I had to go. Warped Tour bullshit or no
Warped Tour bullshit, The Dickies were playing. I had to see them.
I wondered as I paid
and produced my ID, would there be any protesters? Has there been any fallout
for them since the Warped Tour? Does anyone even care about this shit?
The Dickies played
a solid show and no one protested. Leonard fired off some memorable zingers,
performed simulated sex with a blow-up doll during Waterslide, and guitarist Stan
Lee, aside from some grey in his beard, looked pretty much like he always has.
Not a word anywhere about Safer Scenes or sex with underage girls. Just one of
my favorite bands blasting through songs I’ve loved for all of my adult life,
the way they always did all those years ago when I lived in Los Angeles.
On the late-night
flight back to Texas, I looked out the window into the dark, watching small
clusters of lights drifting by on the ground below. Is getting bitter as you grow
older inevitable? Is it a natural byproduct of the realization that there are
far more days behind you than ahead? How does one avoid this? I thought about
The Dickies’ song Oh Boy, a song they wrote for their own heroes, the Ramones, that
they wound up recording themselves after the Ramones passed on it. “Oh oh, my oh
my, life’s a piece of pie,” Leonard sings, making me grin. How can you be
bitter when stuff like this is out there?
 |
| Albuquerque, 6/27/19 |
