To all of my disgraced family: Here are two winners from two Skafish contests!

First, we have Jim Ryan from Chicago,  who is proudly wearing his “WHAT’S THIS FREAKIN’ $%&!?” Skafish T-Shirt which he won in that giveaway contest. Jim, who loves music that defiles the straight and narrow, attended his first Skafish show in the mid 1970’s, and has been a fan ever since!

In this pic, we see Jim sporting his conversation starting, (or ending, depending on how squared-pegged one is) Skafish T-Shirt in Record Breakers, a FAB independent record store located in Chicago that is selling the Skafish “What’s This? 1976-1979″ CD.

Second, we have Skafish contest winner Gabriella Hanstein from Kennesaw, Georgia, who won a personally autographed promo copy of the Skafish CD “Wha’t This? 1976-1979″ in the ”No Liberation Here Day and a Giveaway” contest of July 2010. 

Along with her husband Scotty, they recently found the Skafish IRS Records Debut LP (recorded in 1979), for just a single dollar at American Thrift in Kennesaw, Georgia. In this picture, Scotty is holding the inner sleeve to that subversive classic LP. As Scotty posted on my Skafish Facebook Fan Page, “Every other album was Christian worship music. Truly an amazing find.”  Now I just think that’s a divine act of God Almighty!

To everyone who won, send in pics of you with all of your Skafish prizes, and they will get posted here. To being an utter social outcast and compete disgrace, Skafish

There is a great story on Skafish on the Dangerous Minds blog entitled Skafish: Chicago’s First Punk Rocker.

It is a very nicely written piece from Marc Campbell, who actually saw Skafish live at CBGB’s back in the day. 

Check it out and let him (and us) know what you think!

Glinda

I love and appreciate all of you and the connection we share (and that’s no show-biz shtick) and want all of you to win. To make sure the contest is fair, a random number generator is used to select winners so everyone has an equal chance of winning!

The winners for the “No Liberation Here Day” (formerly known as Independence Day) contest are:

Steve Mendel of Illinois via Twitter,

Sarah Wilson Andrews of Illinois via Skafish Blog,

Gerard-John Boissy of Minnesota via Facebook,

Marc Versini of France via Skafish Blog,

Bambi Held of New Jersey via Facebook,

Boris Boden of Illinois via MySpace,

Dana Zwerling of Illinois via Facebook,

Bob Prescott of Indiana via Skafish Blog,

Wayne Aitken of Illinois via MySpace,

Gabriella Hanstein of Georgia via Facebook.

Since I started the Skafish Giveaway contests during the holiday season of 2009, this current contest has had the strongest response so far, and I plan on continuing to offer gifts and prizes to everyone in my disgraced family. — Jim Skafish

The 4^th of July is supposed to celebrate America’s independence as a country. Some take it as a symbol of their own personal liberty and freedom as well.

But for those of us who are alienated, ostracized, and outcasts, it’s nothing more than an obnoxious day of ear shattering fireworks and a reminder of how we don’t belong or fit in.

Beginning with my early childhood, I’ve experienced not belonging every day of my life – and it has been more painful than any bombastic adjectives I can muster. Growing up I was harassed daily, called every name in the book, and lived under the constant threat of attack from classmates, kids in the neighborhood, my family, and shockingly, even my teachers in school. 

It certainly inspired me to rebel, and I wrote protests songs, flaunted my oddness, my unusual physical appearance, my otherworldly energies, and threw it all back in everyone’s face as MY statement in return. And thankfully, it brought about tremendous new innovations in music, art and performance as I waged war on the mediocre, conformist, and hateful world that tried to throw me out of it. The way I felt was that no one’s gonna stop me unless they kill me.

One of my favorite protest songs I wrote was created in the mid 1970s and called No Liberation Here – and it reflected the social and personal degradation that many of us on the outside experience. And to this day, I cherish that song as it speaks an intensely clear message that is more relevant today than when it was first written over 30 years ago.

At that time in the mid 1970s, alienation was a freaky fringe kind of a thing and not a mainstream phenomenon at all. So there I was for the whole world to see: the freak show to be mocked, attacked, laughed at, and sometimes celebrated. And as usual, I was well ahead of the times of where society and the world were at.

When I wrote No Liberation Here, I not only reflected quite graphically my own personal experiences of hell on earth, I also foretold the future of where society was going.

Back then, no one thought that the whole world was going to end up feeling alienated, but now, everyone does. Whether it’s due to race, sexual orientation, religion, political preferences, physical appearance, social standing, harassment and violence, career, money, etc., the world at large feels quite alienated and disconnected.

In fact, mediocre artists now have to play up their own generic form of alienation and act out foolishly in public, get arrested, shoot others or get shot at, have predictable drug and alcohol problems, just to get noticed. Now, alienation is one’s obligatory calling card in pop culture.

So with all of my battle scars, it’s most fitting for me to rename Independence Day to No Liberation Here Day. To everyone who doesn’t belong, you have a home with me, C’mon right in, and let’s celebrate who we are!

And instead of meaningless phallic-orgasmic-symbolic-fireworks, I have a gift for you!

For 10 lucky winners, I am giving away a great Skafish collector’s item that has never been sold. It is a special limited edition promo CD for my most recent album, “What’s This? 1976-1979.” This is not just the retail CD simply marked promo, but a unique piece that has its own design.

I am really excited to be able to offer this gift to you which I will be happy to personally autograph, and I would love for all of you to enter to win. Whether you’ve known me from back in the day or just connected with me recently, to everyone: enter now!

To be eligible to be a contest winner, do the following:

1-Leave a comment here on www.skafishblog.com with the exact phrase No Liberation Here Day in it

2-Leave a comment with the exact phrase No Liberation Here Day in it on my Facebook pages

3-Leave a comment with the exact phrase No Liberation Here Day in it on my MySpace pages

4-On Twitter, Tweet this: @skafish No Liberation Here Day

You can enter once on each site, up to 4 total entries per person and everyone worldwide is eligible to enter and win!

The contest ends on Tuesday July 6, 2010 at Midnight Eastern Time. Then, we’ll announce the winners on Thursday July 8, 2010.

To wearing our alienation proudly and defiantly! – Jim Skafish

Sarah Andrews of Evanston Illinois, and Bob Pittenger of Warsaw Indiana are the two winners of the Other People’s Rejection Letters free giveaway book contest. Thanks to everyone who participated as it’s been a lot of fun! FYI, I’ve got another exciting Skafish giveaway contest coming up in just a few days. — Jim Skafish

I have always liked Mick Jagger both as a songwriter and a front-man. He’s my kind of performer because he takes charge and dominates the audience like an alpha-male lion tamer, just as a great entertainer must, especially in the context of the huge arena concert where so many things can go awry. As a front-person, one must always feel like he or she is playing in the Super Bowl to win and be the MVP – every single performance. This is the mindset I have always tried my best to have as a performer, and with my unbridled audacity, I fondly remember one reviewer referring to me as a “Mutant Mick Jagger” back in the day.

So when Mick Jagger was slated to be on Larry King Live recently (in part to promote the re-release of the Stones’ classic LP Exile on Main Streetalong with a companion film documentary of the time period), I was excited to see the interview. In watching Mick and Larry, I was somewhat surprised at how animated and engaging Jagger was, but most of all, quite startled by his humility. (Usually legendary rock stars like Jagger & humility are never spoken of in the same sentence.)

When Larry King asked about the enormity and longevity of the Rolling Stones’ success, Mick came right out and credited it to luck, along with being in the right place at the right time. In addition, Jagger also referenced hard work, the fans, and a certain degree of being tactical.  

Instead, Mick could have easily told Larry, “Because we’re fucking great!” or “We’re the worlds’ greatest rock n roll band,” which he certainly could have gotten away with saying. Yet he didn’t, and that showed a great deal of awareness on his part regarding the actual reality of how and why The Stones’ success and fame happened. He didn’t let his ego get in the way, which would have been easy to do because of the level of success he’s received throughout his career. Mick may have called it like it is, but are luck and being at the right place at the right time really what they appear to be?

The word “luck” suggests something incredibly fantastic that happens to us seemingly out of the blue and at random with no actual cause behind it. However, “luck” is never really what it seems to be as things really do happen in our lives for a deeper spiritual reason than what meets the human eye. Even for those who are spiritually cynical, physics does indeed prove the immutable law of the universe that for every effect, there is an initial cause. In short, there is always a reason behind everything that happens to us.

As many of you already know, I have been trained by great spiritual masters since I was a teenager, and can easily speak with the spirits of the dead. And I understood from a spiritual perspective exactly what Mick was saying, as synchronously, I had been thinking of this very subject a few days before his interview with Larry King. When Jagger refers to being lucky and being at the right place at the right time, he is actually speaking to something that is quite spiritually profound.

There is a great metaphysical/spiritual phrase that states, “When nature supports a decision, you know it’s the right one.” In practical terms, what does this phrase really mean and how does it apply to musicians and entertainers like The Rolling Stones?

Presumably, every artist who gets into the game initially has a dream and the desire to make it. Then, they work hard and try their best to hit it big. Often, there is a business push by a record label. Yet, is that enough for someone to become successful? Of course it isn’t.

Becoming successful takes way more than what the artist or anyone associated with them can do to make it happen, as many artists who work hard and have talent never hit it big. Jagger spoke to that quite eloquently when he mentioned in the interview the often sad truth that there are a lot of artists who are talented and work hard but don’t ever make it.

For those who do strike gold like The Stones, something else outside of themselves must happen in addition to their hard work, talent and business push. The energetic universal force of nature that humans cannot control must support it, like a cosmic tidal wave that carries us in a certain direction. And this force has absolute direction, precision, intention, and purpose in our journeys. It brings people, things, and occurrences into our lives with precise synchronicity and perfect timing. This is all beyond what any of us can humanly do for ourselves. Think of it like being taken on a wondrous ride in a rocket to the moon or the magical miracle of winning the lottery.

In pragmatic terms, we witness this cosmic phenomenon when things just fall into place, miracles happen and everything comes together in a way that appears to be out of the blue. Never forget that if one thinks of all of the uncountable variables that would have to occur to make it big, and then stay there as The Rolling Stones have for multiple decades, they are humanly incalculable and/or controllable.

Why did Mick Jagger meet Keith Richards? Was that random? Why did their song Satisfaction sell ten million copies in the mid 1960’s? Why do things seem to keep falling into place for The Stones? Is it all an accident? The phenomenal success of The Rolling Stones represents a situation where nature clearly supports the decision.

Again, if someone is not spiritually minded and just dismisses it all as the luck of the draw with a  little bit of business and talent thrown in for good measure, physics clearly dismisses that line of thinking by proving that everything that happens has an initial cause behind it – it is never at random. I just like to look at those provable causes from a deeper, more metaphysical and spiritual point of view.

Even as I reflect on my own artistic career, there have been times when nature supported what I was doing which was far beyond my own efforts and control (even though I was obsessive about it all, lol). The mere idea that I made it to the international stage within four years of debuting in Chicago without ever granting interviews, playing the game, or having any big money behind me speaks to this truth. The fact that I connected with Miles Copeland who signed me to an international record deal and put me in the classic film, Urgh!  A Music War (which is what I’m probably the most well known for at this point in time), are examples of nature supporting a decision which was not of my doing.

When my most recent album, What’s This? 1976-1979 was finally released on April 1, 2008, it was over thirty years later, and for decades, it seemed like it would never see the light of day. However, when it was supposed to, it was released. The phrase, “When nature supports a decision, you know it’s the right one,” applies to that record being born. And I’m so grateful to have witnessed the meaning and implications of this great spiritual statement many times.

Whether Mick Jagger understands it spiritually or just in a practical sense, he’s wise enough to know that there was something that has been happening all along which facilitated The Stones’ great success that is far beyond hard work, the fans, and being tactical. Whether any of us think of it merely as luck and being at the right place at the right time, or as something quite spiritually profound, it is the atomic force of this universe which can move mountains in a heartbeat that does it. And every so often, we see how nature does that in such a remarkably precise, magical and wondrous way with artists and entertainers like The Rolling Stones.

I always find homophobia, especially in America, to be a combination of two extremes: the laughably absurd, and the terrifyingly tragic.

Absurd, when we see homophobic athletes hugging each other tighter than they’d ever with a woman, gently patting each other’s asses all game long, and even kissing, all under the guise of being absolutely straight “real men” together at war!

Tragic, in the case of the countless men who have been murdered, harassed, etc. because of being gay, or even for just being perceived to be. Of course, the Matthew Shepard murder is one of the first to come to mind. I’m sure most of you know the case, where twenty-one-year-old Matthew was brutally murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay.

I was also quite emotionally struck by the suicide of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an eleven-year-old Massachusetts boy who killed himself because he could no longer take the bullying and taunts of his classmates for being perceived as being gay. Right before his twelfth birthday in April, 2009, he hung himself because of almost an entire year of daily harassment, where of course, the school did nothing about it. I wrote an essay about it here on my blog entitled Still, there’s no liberation here.

So in the seemingly endless struggle for gay people to have equal rights in a country that prides itself on equality but doesn’t legislate or live it out, here is the latest installment in Mom’s Apple Pie homophobia:

A dating website dedicated to gay men called mancrunch.com recently submitted an ad to be run during the Super Bowl of 2010. In it, two regular looking guys, wearing different football jerseys suddenly realize their attraction for each other as their hands gently touch in a snack bowl while watching the big game. Then, they start mock-madly hugging/kissing, while a male friend of theirs looks on with his jaw on the floor.

Well, of course, CBS television rejected the ad – as if any of us couldn’t predict that one, lol. CBS claimed that they just weren’t sure of mancrunch.com’s financial holdings. Conversely, a representative for the website says that they have more than enough cash to pay for the ad. We all know the real reason why CBS cited financial concerns. Even though they won’t cater to gays and lesbians for this ultimate testosterone muscle-flexing fest, they certainly don’t want to offend them, either. So I’m sure there was some hush-hush meeting behind closed doors where executives deduced that the only safe way to nix the ad (without experiencing the backlash of the national and international gay community) was to express financial concerns — as if a gay check wouldn’t clear the bank in the same way a straight check would, lol.

From a business point of view, both CBS and mancrunch.com are acting smart, and handling this in ways that benefit their respective interests. In the case of CBS, running that ad would mean that they would receive countless complaints, idiotic boycotts by religious housewives, and a lot of sensationalistic pseudo-media controversy. The network would take a strong financial hit as advertisers would frantically pull their dollars like scurrying cockroaches that have just been hit by roach spray when the lights are turned on.

Imagine if the ad actually ran: regular beer drinking jocks all across this country would be saying, “What the fuck, man, what is this mother fucking bull shit – two dudes, kissing!?” Perhaps, hoards of television patrons may even turn off their TV sets in disgust, pray to Jesus a while to purify themselves as if they were washing away cooties on their skin, while the good ole’ boys could run out and get drunk to find some man-validating pussy.

We’ve all seen how the religious right can create such a stir by boycotting products. With their shrill, relentless, judgmental voices, they intimidate sponsors and television networks into conforming to their uptight, hateful values. Imagine the family scene with little toddlers in front of the TV, as their parents and grandparents gasp in utter panic as two men show sexual/ romantic interest in each other. CBS shows would be boycotted all across this country as fast as one could say “In the name of Jesus,” alongside similar threats to any sponsor’s products that advertised on the network.

Mancrunch.com’s strategy is simply brilliant because it’s presumable that they knew that this ad would never get on CBS television for the super bowl. However, in submitting it, the media is already extensively covering this story. This brought a huge amount of traffic to their website, which is exactly what they wanted. Whether they paid for the ad to run during the super bowl or just reaped the cost-free benefits from the exposure they’re getting in the media, they can’t lose, as this ad certainly went viral and brought a huge boost to their client base.

Here’s the proof: First, it made a splash on the internet Then, in recent days leading up to the Super Bowl, Larry King Live covered this story where they aired the ad, along with people on both sides of the issue who debated the whole ordeal. In that show, a representative of mancrunch.com claimed that they’ve had 50 thousand new subscribers sign up in just the past week, obviously from all the attention this story has gotten.

For the Super Bowl, CBS is willing to run a Pro-Life ad featuring some down-home boy-next-door heartland college quarterback in it. Yet, if they want to run such a divisive ad (as this country is so split on abortion), so be it – but then let the mancrunch.com ad run, too. There was an article that stated that CBS worked with the organization doing the pro-life ad for months, but the Mancrunch ad did not get that same consideration.

So as we see that even in 2010, prejudice, homophobia, and the divisive, hateful qualities of traditional America are still well in toll. In my case, not only was I abused virtually every day of my 12 years in school for being perceives as being gay, called a “faggot,” attacked mercilessly by both students and shockingly, even teachers as well. The abuse didn’t stop there: When I entered the world of rock n roll, I naively thought I had found a home. How wrong I was, as rock n roll, especially punk, is a very conservative, narrow-minded art-form.

My contributions to Chicago and the world’s musical history have been virtually erased, especially by the punk community, which is just as myopic in its vision as 1970’s corporate arena rock was. When I created punk, new wave and alternative in Chicago and broke all the rules both musically and visually, there was one big problem: I could be perceived as a faggot. Besides gender bending, I presented one of the most ugly, unflattering, unattractive physical presentations in rock history – and Chicagoans, at large, weren’t having it. Whether it was me stripping down to an old, musty one-piece old-ladies bathing suit with babushka, or people seeing my actual breasts, the punk community, especially in Chicago, couldn’t deal with it.

David Witz, a writer for the Chicago Reader wrote in February 1978 about the terror of a “faggot” like me actually representing Chicago. As truth be told, I was the only Chicago artist back then to take it to the national and international stage and was the first American artist to secure a recording contract with one of the most influential record labels of all time to the birth of punk, new wave and alternative music, IRS Records. Witz begged people to boycott my performances and flee from seeing me.

It didn’t stop there: over thirty years later in the historically inaccurate Chicago punk documentary You Weren’t There, released in 2007, my musical contributions to Chicago and world culture were purposefully and completely erased. Because of the gender-phobia/perceived as gay/not being visually stereotypic issues, instead of receiving credit for what I accomplished and started musically, I was lumped in with fringe local performance artists. Websites such as the Chicago punk data base have trivialized and marginalized what I’ve done as an artist, saying I wasn’t really punk.

It’s just the same old homophobia I experienced in my high school locker room, except now, it is by the rock and punk community who bend history more than I ever did with gender. It gives me renewed meaning as to why I wrote such protest songs as No Liberation Herein the first place.

Here we see JD Dragus, a pal I went to high school with at Bishop Noll Institute. More than a school, BNI was like a abusive, tortuous, Catholic solitary confinement prison cell!

JD is sporting his Skafish T-shirt, classic derby hat and a very cool-looking guitar.

JD is a songwriter, singer, guitarist and musician who has already been signed to a major label. Now he’s ready to spread Skafish T-shirt mania! – Skafish

Mark Reynolds, a bass player and musician from Kansas City, Missouri, was kind enough to send us this pic looking quite dapper in his Skafish contest prize T-shirt and very hip ska style hat.

In addition to having had his music featured in a film, Mark has shared the stage with such groups as Black Flag and The Meat Puppets. Rock on Mark — Skafish

We’ve had people enter from all over the world in the 2009 Skafish Holiday season contest giveaway! Phil Bradley was one of our lucky contest winners from the UK. A Skafish fan for decades, Phil sent us these two images for us to enjoy.

We can appreciate the timeless, dignified, classic drawing on the front — OOOPS!!!!!! My right BOOB is exposed — Naked for the world to see! What a complete and utter disgrace I am — Don’t tell anyone…. or my mummy will be upset, have to change my diaper and spank me in church! — Skafish