RIP Jeff 'Jef Leppard' Davis, and super love vibe healing posi-thought to Nikki...

OK so here's the deal. It's not like we were close. In fact, it'd been around ten years since I'd seen either Jeff, or Nikki- as I'd been on the East Coast, and had then only been back to San Francisco or Oakland a very few times since my return. But that's just it with those two- they've always been so cool, friendly, and genuinely good people-and maybe that's why this shit is so fucking sad to me, who's generally fairly desensitized, usually- that you didn't have to be 'close' to love em. They seemed to really love eachother, and I can't think of more than one particular time, that I personally saw one without the other. I'd run into em at shows a lot. I'd drink 40s with Jeff back in the day at things like Tony Culbert's Punk Rock in the Parking Lot parties- so on and so forth. I thought STFU was pretty awesome, too. There are just some people, that crappy shit shouldn't happen to; These two are definitely two that shoulda had some sort of forcefield around em to protect em from this kinda shit. I've been away a long time, and feel almost like an intruder at this point in everybody's lives at this point, under the circumstances. I'm an outsider, somewhat, even to the outsider scene that they and so many of my friends are a part of, so I'm stayin out of the way. Just know, that if I ever called you friend, I fucking meant it, and you are a friend. My heart sincerely goes out to Nikki and all of their close friends and family, who are hurting. I hope for Nikki a full recovery, and there ain't shit I wouldn't do for her, should she ask. The loss of Jeff is heartbreaking on so many levels. Very talented guitarist, engineer, and most importantly, one of the nicest, coolest, approachable cats I've ever met. There is genuine love in my heart for BOTH of them and Nikki's brother Tony. With that said, I'm gonna repeat- it's with heavy heart I say "so long Jef Leppard- one of the coolest motherfuckers I've ever shared a 40 of Steel Reserve with." To Nikki and Tony, and everyone in their close circles- I'm truly, deeply, sorry. For what it's worth, this halfcrazed, wandering, freak loves all of you who are reading this. Live well, friends, and as my OTHER recently departed close friend's knuckle tats read: LIVE TRUE. -Josh Hanke

Hey Ho! Let's GO!

Alright alright alright... so a lot's been happening here, with the shirts. My comrade and P.I.C. and brother and road dog, Brattly B. Raddley is gone, and people are wantin' his shirts which is cool, as every B-Rad shirt sold will go towards his kids in one way or another. Restructuring how that happens, as orders for all shirts are happening quicker than I thought they would. So I'm gonna do a tally and kick bread to his mom every 6 months, I figure. We have new prints, and 100 new acetate sheets which means 100 new images to be made available real soon. So here we go with crass commercialism! Once again, hey Lamo! Yeah you! Buy our shirts, they'll make you cool. Hipsters: Buy our shit- tell everyone you knew about our shit before everybody else, and bought our stuff before we sold out! Want us to print on V-Neck skinny shirts that're too small for ya? Fuck it! Why not? It's not US who have to wear the stupid trendy things! Order em lame as you want- we'll custom make em just for yer lame, neo-yuppie (cuz that's whatcha are, hipster: The New Yuppie) asses. Ugly girls: Buy these they'll make ya pretty. Pretty girls: You are always wantin' stuff; "Me me me... I wanta.. I wanta... I wanta..." and every sucker parent, and pussywhipped boyfriend you've ever emasculated are just SO compliant, aren't they? Well NOW you want OUR shit. Ya can't live without a Goodbye Kitty, or a Sugar Skull, or a special order pink Lowlife Highway 'Lowzdale' design shirt, can Ya? NO! Ya can't! So get on it! Cool guys: Tell the world "GFY" in an assortment of designs made especially for you! Feelin' el Tropicale? We got Tikis, shrunken heads, etc... We gotcher Search and Destroys, Iron Crosses done in old school Surfer/Hot Rodder style color palates! Classic B-Movie motifs, Live Nude Ghouls, Finks, Grindhouse/Drive-in styles, horror, 'sploitation, true Rock n Roll Hooligan wear made by true rock n roll hooligans from the streets just tryin' to make a legit buck and make it in your world, man. We got the goodz. Dog shirts, comin' soon, too. Give us a crack- we do commercial work, too. Most designs are printed to order sized sm-5XL, but some we already have in stock. Everything hand done on a six color, 2 station press. 12/8 Studios/Lowlife Highway Screenprinting (707)843-9216 ask for Josh.

Goodnight brother...

"Ok, now that I got my anger part out of the way I want to say Brad, Rest In Peace bro.... I'm glad I met you. In my late teens and early twenties Josh, Cassie, Wendy, Passion, Judy and Eric Pope and even Tony Giuliani were my partners in crime but you were the glue that brought us all together. You were there in the middle of everything, and you never knew what was gonna happen with you in the mix of things..... That was part of the excitement of being around you when you still had your head straight. I wonder if you ever knew how much fucking charisma you had......... It's funny I haven't seen you in years yet I'm more bummed out now than I've been in a long time. You lived hard and you played hard...... I want to say so much more but I'm shocked and angry right now. You leave behind a great group of friends (whom i would have never met without you) and a little girl and son who I hope inherit all of your charm and none of your vices............. BK, Shine On you Crazy Diamond...." -Robert Castaneda 4/24/12

"well said Robert it is crazy! Brad is one friend who touched every part of my life, he hung with me all through Fillmore, Haight Street, Broadway and everywhere since, (maybe cause every girl we made friends with had to sleep with him that was a prerequisite!) so many times he was the only guy with just us girls and it was never weird but always real, it was never strange that everone dated him at one time or another or that he was gone ten months of every year and that we somtimes had to bust him out of Juvie or a group home (thanks Tom) just to get him back with us how the fuckin' Christmas Store brought a whole bunch of life long friends into the circle How everyone knew if me and him went to a party together one of us was going ot get in a fight and the other was going to be fighting along side even when it was the whole damn party against us He was a lil salty cause I wrote a poem about the girls and he wasn't in it so I'm going to be writing him some shit tonight"- Cassandra Dallet 4/24/12

I wish the three of us weren't so far from one another tonight. I'm a fuckin wreck. Flashing between crying and getting so fucking pissed off. This blows. From the first day he came to Alamo to see you girls and I met him we were fuckin inseparable... he was my truest friend at a time that my head was so completely fucked. He new how nuts I was. LOL (maybe I'd a been less fucked in the head if I coulda kept away from the gagger for a minute...) Beatin our way down the I Beam stairway, fuckin up the doorman at Zeitgeist (for the grave offense of kicking me out upon hearing I was 18! LOL), terrorizing a blacked out city after the earthquake... Squatting Cass' apt after her aND deidre moved out! heh heh... Taking over and sharing vocals with Serpent ID when their singer flaked. Travelling to Santa Cruz on our 'Viking Raid'... having to disappear to Petaluma after Redd Kross on his 18th Birthday. We had a lot of good fun times. Homeless Fries! CCM! Even when dope took up most of his preoccupation, he was on the 3rd floor and I was on the 1st of 750 Offarrel. I remember when the dope thing really had me bummed out, I had said seein him was depressing (meaning, he was strung out and always on the nod and it made me sad), and word got back to him what I'd said I felt so shitty about it- even though it was fuckin true... who wants to hang with a junky if yer not one, ya know? But In the long run? None of it mattered. I woulda fought and killed and died for that boy, and he woulda me, too. Right up until today's news. .. n I have the CCM on my left middle finger that to me, says it all- even if I never got the chance to say it in the last few years until recently. Brad was and is my PIC and always will be, even if he was locked up most of the time and I was on the east coast. There's something about the friendships we ALL made back then that stand true now, and I hope yuou all feel the same about me- where it doesnt matter how long it's been you can pick right the fuck up where we were before. Because we're friends... real fucking friends, and very real motherfuckers. Love you. ps- Gotta say, Cass, I was a bit salted myself, not being mentioned. LOL Except for puking in your bathroom and falling down the stairs and you weren't even sure if that had been me! LOL Truth be told, I'm honestly surprised I remember as much as I do. You all, and especially Brad, pulled me out of my own head and allowed me to relax and be comfotable in my skin, which although I hid it well- I think- until you all, I'd always been just a little alienated and weirded out around people. Never fit in. None a yall gave a fuck and none of yasll fit in anywhere totally either, and that friendship felt like home. When i tell stories about runnin with everyone and runnin with Brad, people who weren't there think I'm exaggerating... I'm not. Aliens in a strange land that had passed us up and forgotten us before we ever even had a chance. Souls raging not as a byproduct of conditions so much as simply born to rage. Rage against, rage for, just rage. We blazed and we burned and fried and occasionally snapped. We had our own tribe. All of us more or less pretty much thrown to the wolves to fend for ourselves, be it due to designs of our own making, victims of our own various personality's nuances and quirks, or whatever, but city kids without parental guidlines or boundries; wouldnt have- COULDN'T have- respected them if we'd had em anyway. Each of us different and strange and beautifully crazy in our own ways. I can't even begin to touch on the debauchery, indulgence, violence, and pure fun we participated in together- and I'm only speaking about me and Brad- it would take eons to tell the tales of glory that we ALL have with eachother, and Brad was usually involved with ALL our stories- at least when he wasn't 'away'. Neither can I begin to express the deep, sadness, and sense of loss I am feeling with his death. The impact is profound. Robert is 100% accurate in saying that in many ways, Brad was the glue that somehow connected all of us in those wreckless wonderful daze of misery and madness. Brad had a sort of 'soul pain' he never could really touch, I think. Kind of a restless sort of madness he could never get a grip on. One I know all too well. How we dealt with it manifested itself in very different ways, though. In many ways, I almost think he wasn't an addict in the usual sense, or if he was, it was worse in that he used it to quell that unpinpointable fire that always seemed right there under the surface. But enough with the sad shit; he was a fun, funny motherfucker to be around, man there wasn't a moment we ever shared that didn't include laughter... often at someone else's expense! HAHAHAHA But not always. There is a HUGE fucking gap of emptiness in the world where that relatively small mancub once occupied. To 'Mad' Brattly B-Radly Jay Kosek, my friend, my brother, my homie, my comrade... Cheers brother. I hope your soul finds the peace in death it could not find in life. And if Valhalla's what you wanted when you left this painful, struggle in the Play-Dough meat-puppet plane we're on, than I hope you get it. But if it's as I suspect over there on the other side of this thin veil between us- I'll see you in the stars as we rip like roaring blazing cannonballs ripping through the fabric of time and space itself. I love you, man. - Me 4/25/12 1:10AM PST

The Return of The King (or) The King's only Man disarms the MDR

So I used to work in this tennis supply warehouse packing and picking, shipping and recieving, etc... in the back was a table of retarded folks, one of whom I befriended- Thomas, who wore Elvis shades, sang Hound Dog and did the Elvis swivel n everything, who they called The King, but who introduced himself to me as 'Rambo'. We became good work friends, and always talked when they'd be walking through the aisles on their way to breaks and lunch (which wasn't the same time as ours). Now there was a dude in his department that the guys in my department called WMDR (world's most dangerous retard), or just MDR for short(bus). MDR used to hate me and this kid who I worked with, and used to glower at me all the time when I'd walk by. My boy Kevin said MDR made the whole universal pantomime for 'you're dead'- you know- the whole index finger across one's own throat while leering at the intended intimidatee- when no one else was looking. My boss went to speak to one of their supervisors one day, and picked up one of MDR's wrestling mags and flipped through it while talking to their boss. MDR snatched it in one angry rubber begloved hand (he was also freaked out about germs) yelling "I'm not reading it now thaT YOU'VE touched it!!!" My theory is that someone in MDR's life had made him very angry and bitter about his retardation, and convinced him all 'normal' people were insincere when showing kindness, etc... There was a lockable cage there with shelves of FILA shoes, and Bole sunglasses, etc... this is important later... Now- Thomas/Rambo/The King had been gone awhile after his mom passed, and I always looked up from what I was doing when they'd be coming back from 1st break, in case he came back. One day I looked up from my order, and it was MDR, so I returned to what I was doing and as he passed, he muttered in a low growl "What're YOU lookin at, Tattoo?" to which I just laughed and shook my head and said "OK then, dude..." He actually cracked me up. Kevin was so scared of him, too. One day, Kevin and I were pulling a case of balls off the top shelf, about twenty feet in the air; Kevin on the forklift, operating, me twenty feet in the air, a foot on each fork. I looked down and there was Thomas! I sat down on one fork and called down to him "Hey Alright Rambo's back! How you doin Thomas?!?" He yelled up "My mom died, I was gone awhile. Took it pretty hard, yeah." I said "Fuck I'm sorry to hear that Thomas, but you're a toughie. You'll be alright! Glad you're back though, i missed ya man!" at which he smiled, and sang hound dog while shakin it Kingstyle, and walked back to the packaging table. Right then, MDR came around the corner and yelled "No one likes you Thomas, because you're a fucking RETARD!" I'd had it with him... Standing, one foot on each fork, twenty feet in the air I bellowed "THAT'S FUCKIN IT, WMDR! IT'S YOU AND ME- 4PM- THE FILA CAGE! TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVES! NO ONE FUCKS WITH THE KING! I'LL EAT YOUR GODDAMNED HEART! NO RULES, NO HOLDS BARRED! I FEAR NOT YOUR MONGO SUPER-STRENGTH! YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!!!!" The whole warehouse went nuts laughing, and the string packaging dept jumped up whistling and clapping, as I stood defiantly, fists on each hip staring down MDR. Thomas began shakin it and the most inspired rendering of Hound Dog I ever heard issued forth from the returning King as his peers clapped and egged him on. MDR was LIVID! He was a noshow at 4pm (thank the gods of space and time, because I could never back down after that challenge!), and I was given a strong "what the fuck is wrong with you???" talking to, and a written warning, but it was all very worth it, and MDR never fucked with Thomas or ever even LOOKED at me again.

Bloodbrother

Friday night. Last night's full moon still shoots bounced sunlight into the brains of those who crunch the pine needles and loose asphalt under padded feet and rubber soled tennis shoes, sneaking away after mom's asleep to the redeszvous in the safe dark of the park sitting on a table under the grey shade of the trees away from the view of predatory police cruisers. telling innocent lies and tall tales of glory over the opening of stolen alluminum can of Bud. Red glows and grows to bright orange and ebbs back to red in a coughing, giggling blue cloud containing the dream of amassing the bravery to kiss that girl who's smile, and eyes seem to glow with some sort of magic innocent lust in this place and time. Right now. Somewhere close, racoons emerge from the depths of the gutter drain like navy Seals or brigand bands under the stars in search of a loose trashcan lid. The Trickster in it's coyote suit crawls out of the dry hills lookin' for some lone cat not paying attention, but cats have their own agendas and are only partially in this world to begin with... they remain crafty and Cheshire. Comfortable cigarette dangles loosely under the buzz of the streetlamp swarming with gnats and mosquitos silent sound of Dictators and Stooges and the words of Lester Bangs banging behind my red eyes and between my buzzing ears. If Dick Clark is the world's oldest living teenager, then I'm the world's oldest living juvenile delinquent. I'll bop til I drop, like I just made it to Coney Island from the Bronx, and The Grammercy Riff's KNOW it was the Moonruners, baby! Til there ain't nothin' left. YEPPA!

The Wait

I wait... sittin' in this room. Waitin for payday. waitin for a call. Waitin on you. I wait. At times it's zen, at other times it's jail, still others- sheer fuckall madness... waitin' on my ship to come in... waitin on money... waitin on love... waitin on someone elses prescription to be filled... waitin for you to do what you need, so I can get what I need... sittin in my room listening to Fugazi play "Waiting Room"... I can't get up unless and until you get up. So stand up. Do what you gotta do, so I can do what I have to do, before I do what I gotta do, too... Stand up. Fuck you pay me. Stand up, get here. Stand up, run to me. Stand up, buy my wares. Stand up and be counted. Stand up and fight. be a stand up motherfucker, motherfucker; Take a stand. Stand for something or fall for anything. Run. Run into the unknown. Run towards completion. Run towards absolution. Run towards fate. Run into the future. Future/Now. Make it happen make it so make it right make it real make it count. But fucking DO IT NOW. MOVE. GET UP and fucking MOVE... Life's too short to wait, too long to wait... LET'S GO!

NO HOLDING BACK

Sometimes, you just never know what you've been missing until the universe just goes BAM! and picks you up and puts you on THE PATH. Do you know THE PATH? It's the one you were meant to be on... you may think you're on it, but you never truly know until she puts you on it. BUT: and here's the thing- once you've been put on it, and you'll know- trust me on this- you have to not only ride the wave and forge ahead, but ya gotta give into it and go for it with everything you have, too. Fortune favors the bold, my friends. Grab it and hold fast! Life just gave me a big one. THE big one. The end all be all of all treasures, and you can bet your eyeballs I'm seizing it with gusto and guts and total fearlessness. This one is gonna be big! YES!