Saturday, May 05, 2007

You Are Now Under the Protection of "Handsome" Dick Manitoba

Napolean Dynamite is a big favorite in the Yen household. My kids (and Kim and I) liked it so much we bought it.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when a skinny high school guy is getting roughed up by a couple of high jock/jerks. Napolean's best friend Pedro, who is running an unlikely campaign to become class President, walks up to him afterward and declares "You are now under the protection of Pedro."

Pedro is as skinny and even smaller than Napolean, and one was left to wonder how in the hell Pedro was going to protect him.

Later in the movie, the same jerks are about to hassle the kid again, out by the high school's bike racks. Suddenly a couple of menacing-looking cholos pull up in a low-rider, glare at the bullies and quietly shake their heads "no." The bullies prudently back off.

I thought of Pedro today.

Among my errands today was to spend a small fortune and fill the tank of my Chevy Blazer, which was perilously close to "E." I had Sirius satellite radio playing-- my favorite channel, Little Steven's Underground garage. The deejay, record producer Kim Fowley, was playing a song from early punk legends The Dictators-- their great, amped up punk cover of the Rivieras' surf classic "California Sun." The Dictators, who reunited a few years back, are fronted by "Handsome" Dick Manitoba, who in addition to himself having a great show on the Underground Garage, is singing for Detroit legends The MC5.

In any event, I was enjoying it so much, I left the keys in ignition and kept the door open and the stereo blasting as I gassed up. As I did this, a group of three teenaged girls approached the gas station. I didn't pay much attention to them except for the fact that they seemed a little overdressed for a Saturday morning, wearing dowdy dresses.

They walked right past me and walked up to all the other people at the gas station and handed them pamphlets. It dawned on me that they must be handing out religious pamphlets, perhaps Jehovah's Witnesses.

I wondered for a second why they hadn't tried to hand me one, and then realized-- it was the punk music blaring from my car stereo.

Rock on, Dictators! Protect me from religious zealotry!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

My guess is they saw you in your Elvis Hitler T Shirt and figured you were a lost cause......

Anonymous said...

You should have approached them...Good Chance they could have been followers of our good buddy Rev Jed Smock....Found this on YouTube: Brother Jed Talking About Boobies.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEt8JB7xCqM

Barbara Bruederlin said...

Well not only does Handsome Dick Manitoba have a hell of a great moniker, part of which he shares with the province in which I grew up, making him by default a close personal friend of mine, but he makes the world safe for good honest people to listen to punk without being harassed by the Jesus freaks. Right on, Dick!

Anonymous said...

Speaking of the MC5 ...

http://detroittango.typepad.com/mc5truetestimonial/2007/04/finding_of_fact.html

Anonymous said...

Complete MC5 link...

http://tinyurl.com/3cxcbe

Joe said...

My brother, when religious types used to show up at his doorstep, would go to the door in his tighty whitey jockey shorts and a gun belt and ask what they wanted. They never stayed to chat.

Glad to hear your system works as well, and is far simpler.

kim said...

What does that have to do with Pedro? I don't get it.

My father worked with guy that he bought a "Watchtower" subscription. Just to be a nice guy; we got those damn things for a year, and my mom was so embarrassed.

Splotchy said...

The Dictators Go Girl Crazy is one of the best freaking album covers ever.

I'm also reminnded of a great quote from Handsome in the book "Please Kill Me", about when the Dictators were on a tour supporting Kiss.

Kiss ended up getting pissed off enough at him that they called Handsome a "Fat Fonzie", which he took to be the highest compliment.

Johnny Yen said...

Elk-
I actually chatted up the singer for Elvis Hitler when I saw them at the Exit one night. Nice guy.

I miss brother Jed. He was entertaining.

Barbara-
Sirius radio is worth getting just for his show! He'd great.


Anonymous-
I'm dying to see that movie-- I hope it gets released.

Bubs-
I like your brother's system.

When I was in college, rooming with several friends one summer, we saw a couple of bible-thumpers headed our way. We quickly made signs with "666" and a pentagram and taped them to our door. It didn't work-- they still rang our doorbell.

Kim-
Just goes to show that I have the nicest father-in-law in the world. I don't know how his daughter turned out so mean.

Splotchy-
Several people have quoted that book-- I might have to get it.

My ex-wife Cynthia ended up sitting behind Kiss on an airline flight when she was younger-- they were big nobodies at the time (1988 or so), but they still were full of themselves, she said. I'm glad Dick pissed them off.

lulu said...

Johnny--I think TenS has my copy of that book. I'll lend it to you if she does.

bubbles said...

Came to comment on the post and the exchange between Kim and you cracked me up!!!

Back to my comment...

I thought that "thall shall not judge" ???? Guess I missed something in my little (very little) amount of churching.... I mean, didn't *they* have their own version of Pedro on their side???

kim said...

I'm not mean Brian. I didn't understand the reference.

Now I understand it.

Am I still mean? Sheesh.