Post #413488 by hodadhank on Wed, Oct 15, 2008 10:49 AM

On 2008-09-16 18:54, Benzart wrote:
Hank, you sort a snuck in here through the back door hoping no one would notice... we all want to know a bit about this "Hodad Hank"...

Oy! You asked for it Ben!

I was born a poor black child and imediatly began searching for my SPECIAL PURPOSE...

Actually, I'm either a very late Boomer or a very early X-er.

I grew up in a mid mod household built on an old racetrack outside Philly. Our furniture was BLONDE Danish. Our lamps looked like freeform creamic space birds w/ rigidly geometric shades on top to keep them from floating away. My dad was a trumpet playing scientist who used to take me along to The Shark River atthe Jersey shore to study tidal zones, my mom worked for a record shop & radio station!

Dad's cars were chromey & finny & he would be disappointed we aren't all flying by now. We drove to Disneyworld twice...

I was lucky to have two bizarre castles literally at the end of my street. Henry Mercer's Home and Tileworks. Now museums, when I was a kid they were the Wonka to my Charlie Bucket!

Another across town built entirely out of concrete by the same eccentric Arts & Crafts movement supporter. A collector of the vanishing tools of pre-industrial America, many people thought he was insane as he'd stop a man working in his yard and offer buy his tools or wooden pail to fill his own giant museum of mundane items. Pretty cool wandering around this stuff as a kid!

I watched the moonwalk and ate Space Food Sticks.

I remember falling asleep to the sounds of cocktail parties, my mom always having the newest releases for the enormous Zenith. The exotic percussions driving me to dreamland perhaps leading me to become a drummer.

We dined at the Kona Kai...

Somehow avoided Vietman, Grenada, Panama, Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Afganistan & Iraq.

Instead became an artist, and with expensive degree in hand I waved goodbye to everyone I knew and drove to the middle of the desert for ten years on a whim.

Lived and worked along an eerily intact neon Route 66... AD for alterna-weekly, illustrator, painter, columnist, vintage vinyl "countersnob", gallery curator, musician.

It seems surreal now, but it was a dry surreal...

Met Rita & her six year old Noel, the only son I will ever know. Smart and funny and full of love. I miss him so much. Noel's birth father murdered him one night during visitation, served eight years and now lives a free man with his new family in Truth or Consequences NM.

Pit of dipair/nervous breakdown, living dangerously, no more art no more music etc etc, therapy, therapy, therapy, visit to California.

Swimming with hundreds of leopard sharks in La Jolla Cove was just what the doctor ordered.

Packed & moved to Imperial Beach CA... shortly openned The Freak Factory Inc in Mission Beach.

Used to carry Boskos, Tiki News, mugs and carvings behind the counter. We carried a big selection of vintage unflocked blacklite posters too. Think I've still got some someplace. Look great over a bar. Nice and sleeeeeeazy!

Our old Rick Griffin inspired mural featuring surfing eyeballs and muscle-bound Tikis attracted Dreamworks who used our portion of the boulevard to shoot a bunch of stuff they never used in Almost Famous. Hired the dog too.

Jeez... doesn't look like I've done much with the time the Lord gave me when you see it written down.

Guess I gotta get crackin!

Please send all complaints about this boring post to Benzart! lol

[ Edited by: hodadhank 2008-10-15 21:16 ]