Reckless Eyeballing: 5 Easy Pieces w/Richard Kern

Paying some attention to the man behind the camera.

“Any idiot can press a button.”

The set-up was simple: Lydia Lunch nearly naked with me, also nearly naked. In the woods. Not just for fun, but to illustrate a piece for Thrillkillers magazine. But, yeah, OK, also for fun.

The photographer in question wasn’t sure he could make it and seeing the likelihood of the shoot slipping away I was working on getting another photographer. Because I was focused on the photograph and not the altogether significant link to the person who took the photograph.

“But there’s no idiot like Richard Kern,” Lydia had said and so it is.

Since my first introduction to Kern was the night before at Lydia’s show when I saw him draw a knife across the forehead of a disruptive audience member, it seemed more than reasonable. Even more so when I found out that in old pro wrestling parlance, the knife-head thing had been a “work”.

There will always be rapists that need to go, to be in jail.

Unbeknownst to me at the time Kern and I had crossed paths years before though. Specifically, the Union Square subway station. I was walking over to 15th and 1st Avenue. I was late for class and stepped over either a handbill, or a small magazine. The Valium Addict.

I was an inveterate picker up of weirdness because as Clint Eastwood had opined in A Fistful of Dollars, “sometimes a man's life depends on a mere scrap of information,” but I passed on this. Two blocks later after having offered myself any number for reasons why I should or should not go back for it, I went back for it.

Which is how I date my first “meeting” with Kern. It was his publication, each one of which had been named after a different drug, and it changed how I was thinking about media and publishing at the time.

But from here to the so-called Cinema of Transgression, Kern was on fire. Never more so than when later in life he became a fashion photographer of some note and started putting out stuff on TASCHEN. The high market value of low life aesthetics? Possibly. But Kern’s art and his eye for art tended and trended to the servicing of some very specific obsessions and ways of looking at the world. [Total disclosure: Kern also took the cover photo for OXBOW’s Serenade in Red]

Which is why: FIVE EASY PIECES. And the nearly naked photos? He showed for those, and though Thrillkillers never saw the light of day, we were perfectly fine with Kern’s pics being the only evidence that that day existed and that they did what photos are designed to do: freeze forever the very exact moment when unexpected genius happened to all it happened to.

Photo by R. Kern

So: Kern. 5 questions. Not a single one about photo or film (sort of). Have at it.

[ONE] The first time I met you, you were wielding a knife at a show, which you subsequently dragged across someone's forehead, and having lived in New York during the bad old days, had you ever had the occasion to use a knife in real life?

RICHARD: No I never used a knife or club or anything on anyone. I was in a lot of physical fights but never instigated them. I only remember “winning” one fight but I was only around 8 years old in that one. 

[TWO] Speaking of bad old days, you always struck me as such a gentle guy, a special kind of southern gentleman...how'd you manage to survive the Lower East Side of the late '70s/early '80s? Also, do you have any memory of me showing up unannounced at your apartment, demanding to be let in, and then falling asleep on your bed for two hours while you edited photos before I disappeared back out into the New York night?

RICHARD: After being jumped or mugged a few times I developed a kind of sixth sense about possible trouble and learned how to avoid it. The basic rules were never make eye contact with tough guys, ignore angry people talking to you, don’t walk around alone at night and when you see a group of teenagers or men standing together it’s best to move to the other side of the street. 

I was a minority in my neighborhood and teenage boys there liked beating up tall hipsters who they saw as invaders.

And I vaguely remember you popping up one day but like you, a lot of my memories from back then (or even yesterday) seem to be merely dreams. 

[THREE] Did you find parenthood harder than being married? The single most difficult part about being a parent I thought was dealing with the whole school aspect. I found it a special kind of torture. 

RICHARD: I found being married harder than parenthood. It’s much easier to have unconditional love for your kid than your spouse. I get along much better with my ex now that we aren’t together.  

And yes the school thing was such a headache. And there was so much worrying. But my son has moved out now and is doing his own thing and it’s like I’m free again.

I cringe when I think about some of those past relationships today. 

[FOUR] How did you manage to avoid the evil cameraman/Terry Richardson syndrome? And... 

RICHARD: Like you said above I’m a shy southern gentleman type and never tried to force myself on anyone. I had relationships with some models over the years but they were all consensual. I married someone I met as a model.  

I have to admit I cringe when I think about some of those past relationships today. 

I was doing all my crazy stuff years before Terry when people looked at things differently. Think about the Sex Pistols. If they came out now they would be canceled in two seconds.  

This question requires a very long answer. Yeah to elaborate on that question would be like writing a thesis so I won't go into it.

[FIVE] Given where we are in time, with cats being called to account for shit that had been laughed off for years -- I'm thinking Weinstein, Cosby and other assorted rapists -- is our thinking around sexuality going to fundamentally change or will it make more occult, desires and urges that are biologically bound and almost inevitable given what happens when power and sex collide?  

RICHARD: Who knows?  There will always be rapists that need to go, to be in jail.

When you have powerful Democrats getting away with hanging out with Jeffery Epstein doing who knows what and The Gates foundation funding vaccine trials in Africa that sterilized thousands of women there and all the bullshit around the COVID scamdemic, it seems to me that a lot of what the media talks about today is to keep us from focusing on what is really happening in the world – to keep us fighting each other rather than paying attention to the ways we are manipulated by the corporations that really run the world.