They're looking for a place to exploit generation x. They don't know how to reach us. We don't watch as much TV, we're not sucking up the shit as it has been for all the past generations. There's all this money to be made so they're just throwing money at magazines. Anytime a mag a comes out, you've got an Absolut ad on the back cover and a Marlboro ad on the inside. And it's promoting the worst shit in the world.
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"I don't think any skater is
into growing up" -Lance Mountain. Lance's pal Neil Blender, aside from skating, drawing, and playing bass, can do flips whenever he wants. This feat of aerial acrobatics with partner Steve Caballero is hard to believe sometimes. |
People think they're being rebels by gettin' high and drinking and smoking and it's a rebellious act for a teenager. It is the most conservative thing a teenager could do, because it's exactly what their parents did and exactly what the corporations want them to do. Exactly what the government that wants to control them wants them to do. Because you have people wasting all their money and time on drugs, dulling your mind, you are not going to argue and you are not going to question all the bullshit that's going on around you. I don't give a FUCK what anyone says. There is nothing wrong with telling people not to do drugs, that is not conservative, that is against the norm these days. If you think it's cool or it's good or it makes you relax, then go ahead, relax into fucking oblivion.
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At this point in time, hell had no fury like the Bad Brains.
Featured here are Dr.
Know and HR. HR is one of the maniacal, musical, incendiary vocalists to ever walk the earth. He too chose to do flips on it. HR's brother Earl and bassist
Daryl Jennifer were the rhythm section that ruled the
world. | 
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These corporations have such a fucking hold on us . They're controlling everything we think and everything we wanna do. If you're a rebel and you speak up about it, everyone thinks you're a nut. And when you see someone that's supposed to be creative making everyone else believe that something bullshit is something great, because they wanna make money, or they wanna get over or they just wanna wield their power, it really bugs the shit out of me.
There is bullshit that's going on in this world and people question the wrong things. They question the small people with the minds instead of questioning the big people who are in control. They want to go to McDonald's when they're in Bumfuck, Idaho or Osaka, Japan because it's something they recognize.
If you thought Glen would let the filthy rich off easy, think again.
Do you think that anyone deserves to make a billion dollars or a million dollars year? I don't care what the fuck you do, if you're making that much money, you're doing something wrong. I don't care if you're an artist, a stockbroker, a musician, I don't care what you're doing, no one deserves a million dollars a year. If you're doing something that's that good, you take a smaller wage.
If you're a pro athlete and the owner's making that much, yes. You should take a smaller wage and force him through your union to lower ticket prices.It makes good business sense: these greedy fucks are goin to maske the people who support them broke soon, and soon their fans won't have any money left to spend on these diversionary, mind-dulling games. Maybe we should just watch it eat itself.
If a record company is paying someone else $10,000 to shoot an album cover, god knows, I'm gonna get it too as long as it's not coming out of the band's pocket. I read on an airplane some actor said "I'm embarrassed about my wages, I shouldn't make this much money -$15 million a picture." Well, why don't you and fucking Nazi Schwarzenneggar and fucking conservative butt lick Bruce Willis stop asking for that much money and demand that the studios charge $4.00 instead of $8.50.
On top of that, I say stockbrokers should be forced to work in garbage dumps picking out recyclable goods. Stockbrokers make more money when unemployment goes up- I mean digging through trash is a suiting job for those bastards.
And of course we ended up talking about the music biz.
Record companies don't like dealing with me because I don't just hand them four hundred shots to pick from. I give them one photo and say this is the one you use. That's why you don't see me doing that much. Some record label people respect me, but I don't work in the way that they work. I know how they do it. I've been doing it since I was little. I get paid when I deserve it and more often than not don't get paid when I deserve it.
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"I'm not one of these people to take a
camera to a show. I hate carrying my camera. I saw The Make-Up play
and blow my fucking head off. The next night I was there with my camera. I
have to see a band first and know that I like them before I take photos of
them." Singer Ian Svenonius is writing a piece for Glen's upcoming book. |
I know what's in the budget and if there's ten grand in the budget, there's no way I'm going to let the art director take seven and give me three. Besides, most often, I shoot what I like first and offer it to people to use later. I just expect what is fair. If the band is making no money, then i expect no money. For real . My photos speak for themselves. Art directors for the most part are a buncha fuckin' assholes -wimpy motherfuckers that don't like good photography because it makes their graphics look less important. I do not allow art directors in my photo shoots. How my pictures look is up to me and the subject -everyone else should stay the fuck away.
I kinda went off on a rant there, but I think we got some good stuff. I think it's important I say that stuff every interview.
So what's the new book, The Idealist all about?
Landscapes, pictures of old girlfriends, maybe 25% music, 5% skating. Hiroshima, a picture of a tree, a picture of me on a subway, the Vietnam memorial, a picture of a bicycle in Tokyo. It's highly concentrated on composition. If you look at my apartment, I'm a very neat person. Other than my hair and the way I dress, you don't find a pencil out of place. These photos express that -they show color. They show different parts of the world. And some are political. A lot of 'em are just beautiful images. For the sake of making my eye happy is what it is. This book is twenty years of Glen E Friedman's work.
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This was taken on a recent
trip to Japan. The caption reads "A-BOMB SURVIVORS AND THEIR FAMILIES" |
These students in London said "we wanna see the idealist because then we'll really learn about you, behind all this other stuff. " if you wanna know me you gotta look at the Fuck You Heroes photos. The Fuck You Heroes photos are me stupid, that's why they speak to people. Minor Threat, Black Flag, Public Enemy, RUN -DMC, Tony Alva, Jay Adams. If you know them, then you know me because they're what motivated me to do everything else. When you see the art photos, you'll get to know the left side of my brain. That's all the more you'll know. You'll know about my aesthetic.
I look at something and the stimulation that comes in the eyeballs and goes back in the brain -something traveling along those nerve paths tells me when something is wrong. It's not my ego, it's just my vision. I can see it . I can see it from a mile a way when something should be laid out differently or looks wack.
When it all comes down:
I might be hard to deal with, but you don't have any problems with me if you're telling the truth and you're doing the right thing. I want this shit to be covered accurately. That has been my beef my whole life. If you're trying to exploit something or use it to your own ends, then your gonna have problems with me. If you don't wanna hear my opinion, you're gonna have problems with me. You won't hear it and you won't need to if you're doing the right thing. But if you're doing something wrong, I'm gonna let you know. People come to me when they want an answer and they know they can get the right thing done. They hate dealing with me unless they have to. And the problem is, they have to sometimes.