Adrian Turner holds a can of black spray paint with one hand and uses the other to carefully pin a stencil cut from an old record sleeve against the front wall of a downtown youth hostel. A man in his mid-twenties approaches him from behind and says, “Don’t do that on this building, man.” He glares at Turner, who has already painted a dancing girl on the other side of the entrance, and adds, “I work here.”

Irritated by the interruption, Turner argues with the man to let him finish. Realizing the man will not let him continue, he walks away mumbling, “Nobody cares when you do it on the sidewalk.” He stops at the corner and paints a red American flag on the sidewalk, over which he sprays a cut-out of Saddam Hussein in black.

Turner, 24, who chooses to withhold his real name, is a Dean’s List political science major at SF State. He prefers Frank Zappa to hip-hop and tags for art, beauty and politics, not for adrenaline, territory or fame. Like many graffitists today, he has never been associated with a gang, nor is he an economically disadvantaged minority looking for a voice in a world that ignores him.

Many graffiti artists are in their mid-twenties. Many are art majors. Some are even professionals in their 30s. These outlaw Warhols spread messages that might never be portrayed otherwise by coloring our world with thought-provoking and self-expressive images and words. Many have sworn off illegal painting altogether, though they still they struggle with authority and conformity. Their work is up one day and down the next. Every day they risk freedom for the art.

“It’s something I do because I like to stimulate some kind of discourse,” says Turner, who focuses most of his artwork on politics by using images of AK-47s, the American flag, Saddam Hussein and other easy-to-recognize symbols that epitomize modern-day America.

Turner believes his pieces allow people to avoid awkward social situations by almost encouraging them “to avoid uncomfortable eye contact” by staring at artwork on the ground.

The illegal paintings also sometimes give other artists a sense of comfort. Estria Miyashiro, 36, has been a graffiti artist for over 20 years.

“Whenever I go to a city and see graffiti, I feel reassured,” he says, “I feel like there’s people like me in this place, and there’s not 100 percent control by the authorities.”

Miyashiro was caught tagging messages about the corruption of local government in the Sunset District over ten years ago. Since then, he has stuck with legal aerosol murals, where landowners request him to paint on their property.

Even today, he remains distrustful of the city –particularly its graffiti laws, which define the art as “blight” and allow the Department of Public Works to remove tagging without landlord permission.

“San Francisco will straight remove legal murals,” he says, claiming a number of his pieces were painted over. He says one, illustrating police brutality, was removed overnight before it was even completed.

Now teaching graffiti art to high school students at the East Side Arts Alliance, Miyashiro mixes “political education” in with his painting and concept lessons. Because students are likely to use what they learn to break the law, he believes they should know their rights and how to deal with aggressive police.

“I’ll tell them what cops are trained to do, how they’re trained to treat people that get arrested,” Miyashiro says. “We also give them political education as to how the system works in this country, and how it’s not set up for people of color. All my kids are people of color, so it’s very specific to our struggles in a white dominant culture.”

Despite being often portrayed by police, politicians and media as “gang bangers”, a large number of today’s graffiti artists paint for positive effects. Often times the art keeps youth out of gangs. While many of the city’s anti-graffiti policies are attempts to restrict the visual power of gangs, Miyashiro says graffiti can be a cure to gang activity, not a symptom. He believes tagging requires too much time and energy for people to do other illegal activities on the side.

“People who are doing graffiti, they’re too busy doing graffiti to be selling drugs,” he explains, “They’re gonna be climbing a roof [to paint]. They’re climbing on a train or whatever.”

A friend of Miyashiro’s, who uses the tag-name Bash, left gang life in L.A. to pursue art in Berkeley. Miyashiro claims the medium gave him a reason to look forward to the next day and his next painting, whereas the gang left him thinking everyday might be his last.

“He was like, ‘This is it for me. Whatever medium it is, I’m gonna do something creative,’ and he left the gang,” Miyashiro says, “It saved his life.”

Other graffiti artists hope their art will save people like Bash. Cameron Moberg, a member of the wide-spread Gospel Graffiti Crew, teaches aerosol art at Crossroads Youth Recreation Center in San Francisco’s SOMA district. Here, he offers free legal painting surfaces for teens interested in graffiti.

“I’d rather them do it here than get arrested and have that on their record for life,” Moberg says.

Once the kids aren’t running the risk of getting arrested, Moberg sees graffiti as a deterrent from gang affiliations. Through teaching, he has met a few kids involved with gangs in the mission. He encourages them to use their artistic skills, hoping painting will become another option. He explains to them that some members of his graffiti crew actually make their livings doing aerosol murals.

“I could totally see graffiti art being a way out for them.” he says.

Originally posted in Xpress Magazine. Creative Commons Licensed images not original photos from the article, are courtesy of Flickr users yaraaa, anthonylibrarian and orbz, respectively.

“The reputation is that I must be some kind of a sexual athlete or have huge expectations that they’re not gonna be able to meet up with,” Blank says.

While she may be a sweet little granny, Joani Blank’s not a typical retiree. Although she no longer owns the shop, Good Vibrations remains adored by sex toy lovers in the Bay Area and beyond. The shop grants patrons a sexual vivacity their lives might otherwise lack.

Without the shop, “I’d have a really terrible sex life,” says Jake Dillon, a 21 year-old, SFSU psychology major, who shops at Good Vibrations. Dillon, a transsexual, says he would never feel comfortable even entering typical, classless male-oriented sex stores. He is not alone.

“Everywhere else seems sleazy -a bunch of nasty, greasy men hanging around making snide comments. Good Vibes is such a safe space to browse, check out and buy things that are private and personal,” says Christina Guerra, 22.

By March 1977, the sexual revolution had essentially come and gone. Blank –then a 40 year-old sex counselor- decides to penetrate the world of adult stores by opening one with a feminist approach. She is appalled by the lack of clean places for women to buy sex toys –the only other option in the Bay Area are male sexuality stores and mail-order companies. And the only similar company in the country is Eve’s Garden in New York, which displays vibrators from their mail-order catalogue in a showroom hidden in a Manhattan office building.

Blank opens Good Vibrations, in a 10 by 20 feet space on Valencia Street, in the Mission district. The merchandise consists of plug-in “massagers” –often sold in department stores, along with battery-operated vibrators –typically found in sex stores. Prices are around $20 less than their modern day equivalents.

At first, the shop has only about a dozen items for sale. To fill up the rest of the store, Blank exhibits her collection of “antique” vibrators. “One of the reasons I started the shop was to have a place to put them, not in a suitcase under our bed,” she says.

For a while, the shop hardly creates a buzz. “It took people a long time to find out about it. And some people who wanted to be customers were too nervous to come in,” says Blank, who remains unfazed by slow startup sales.

As a child, Blank’s daughter, Amika Sergejev feels awkward about being the daughter of an adult store owner. Now 27, she is glad to have had such a sex-positive mother who puts happiness above financial gain. “My mom really started a business that was about helping the community not making money,” she says proudly.

When Blank starts hiring employees, she gives them a voice by letting them create their own salaries. In the late eighties, she begins spending enough time at home that employees begin calling her house “the founders office.” In 1990, Blank decides to make the company a worker co-op, where every person on staff owns an equal part of the thriving company. In 1992, she leaves altogether and sells Good Vibrations to the staff. Blank agrees to have it paid monthly over 20 years, so the company does not have to pay her all at once.

“That’s essentially my retirement, what I live on now. I’m 67 now. I’m a grandmother three times,” Blank smiles proudly. She stops rubbing Bopper, the small, black dog perched on her lap, and points to the photos on the living wall, where her family is displayed. The co-housing unit where she lives is a group of condos with a number of shared community areas. Residents maintain and manage the place and eat dinner together three nights a week. All decisions, even those involving dinner menus, are made through consensus.

Blank considers herself a socialist and runs her home life just as she ran Good Vibrations, with heavy reliance on collective decision making. She blames many problems in American society on over-attention on individuality, caused by greed.

Everyone is affected by this lust for more. “Even if you’re a poor student, the chances are that you could do without a few more tee-shirts than you have. Or fewer pairs of jeans. I mean you really could do just fine,” Blank argues.

In her post retirement days, Blank has worked with a great number of people to put out four books and three films. Of the books, one is a collection of different photographer’s pictures of vulvas, the rest are collections of other people’s first-person sexual narratives. In 2000, she released her most recent book, “Still Doing It: Men and Women Over Sixty Write About Their Sexuality.”

Of her three films, two are shoulder-up camera shots of people climaxing. She was passionate enough about making the first film, “Faces of Ecstasy,” to make a second version called, “Orgasm! Faces of Ecstasy,” in 2004.

Currently, she is groping with the idea to piece together another book of narratives about polyamorous couples – lovers that openly date outside of their primary relationships.

Some friends push her to keep with this type of work. “I personally encourage her to do a lot with sexuality, because she really has a gift for it,” says David Steinberg, a friend of Blank for over 25 years.

Other friends support Blank in focusing her post-retirement time on co-housing projects and church activities. “The fact that she does the sex thing and a lot of these community things really helps normalize sex. I think that’s so profoundly important,” says Jack Hafferkamp, who directed “Ograsm!” for Blank.

In addition to her sexuality work, Blank volunteers on the board of the Co-housing Association of the United States and is leaving at the end of this year after eight years service.

She has also donated a lot of her post-retirement time to her church. While some may find it strange for someone who has made a living selling sex toys to be an avid church go-er, Blank’s faith is based on a common set of ideals instead of a deity.

“[Unitarianism] has very strong principles around social justice and democracy, inherent worth and dignity in every person and a lot of good stuff that most everybody can agree on. But without the trinity and without the divinity of Jesus Christ,” says Blank.

The sex store proprietor can easily find acceptance with Unitarianism, which has taught a program called “About Your Sexuality” for decades. Even without her church, Blank would live by the same code, which her parents instilled in her from the beginning.

When thinking about her parents, Blank leans back and looks up as her mind is pumped full of childhood memories. “They had a lot to do with my comfort with sexual stuff because they were comfortable talking about it,” Blank says.

Perhaps because of her upbringing, Blank fully supports open discussion of sex. She feels the true key to safe sex is communication, and praises shows like Sex in the City for making it okay for Americans to discuss their bodies. “The worst sexual dysfunction we have, is our inability to talk about sex,” she says.

Creative Commons Licensed shop photo courtesy of Flickr user diluvienne.

The band’s live show includes a number of other classic Muppet and Sesame Street songs, everything from Kermit the Frog’s famous “Rainbow Connection” complete with tap-shoe solos by Karinanne Jones, the group’s drummer and washboard player, to Sesame Street’s “The Ladybug Picnic.” Genres deviate from rock and roll, to jazz, to soul, to hillbilly and more. If Jim Henson’s creatures sing it, so do the Dead Hensons.

The newer Brian Henson Muppets and Sesame Street songs, are another story though, “The modern version just doesn’t have the same feel,” says singer and spoon player Erica Johnson. Fortunately, the older shows and movies have provided a plethora of songs to choose from.

With thousands of different options, the band tries to select “the ones that are most kick ass,” says guitarist and banjo player Scarold P. Victim. Band members suggest songs they remember from childhood or particularly enjoyed from recently viewed tapes of the old shows, then they decide whether or not it rocks enough to be put on the Dead Hensons’ set list.

Like many American children, the members grew up watching both The Muppet Show, Sesame Street and The Muppet Movie. About a year and a half ago, Ryan Beebe, now 24, decided to take a step back into his childhood and start a Muppet cover band. He asked a couple of friends, and soon, the Dead Hensons were born.

The result was a smiling group of childish adults with a base drum full of stuffed animals and heads full of caffeine and liquor. The rocking songs manage to hook audiences with catchy beats and easy to remember songs. Because the children’s songs were written to be easy to learn and sing along to, even the less-remembered tunes are easy to sing along to, with lyrics as literally as simple as counting to ten.

Older men dressed in all leather, chubby computer nerds, college-aged hipsters are some of the many different types of people found dancing until their sides hurt at The Dead Hensons’ shows.

The strangely successful combination of innocent childhood memories and drunken rock and roll fun has enabled the band to book shows with some of the most unique groups in the country. Their first concert was as an opening act for Captured! By Robots, a one-man band with robots play drums, horns and other instruments. Other line-ups involved the hardcore polka band Polkacide, Power Ranger themed P Lander Z, and Schwarzenegger mockers Arnoldcore.

Even their fans can be strange, when the 8 piece band went on its first tour to L.A., audience members showed up wearing full Muppet costumes. “It’s cool that people got excited, and it was a little freakish. But it got us excited and in the mood,” says Johnson.

A tattooed vixen slides her hand up her voluptuous corseted body, fondles her large breast hidden under a shirt that reads “I fuck groupies,” and moans in a low, throaty voice, “all women are bad.” She licks her teeth, shakes her head of blonde Marilyn Monroe curls and sways her hips to the slow jungle beat. She is in control. She is hot. And it’s not body size, but self-confidence that makes her steam.

She grew up in Wisconsin, the daughter of a small town minister and an adoring mother. On the surface, it’s hard to believe Miss Eva Von Slut became the Burlesque star, and punk bitch she is today. Yet it is easy to see Von Slut’s mother planted a seed of self-confidence that grows to this day. “My mom loved us so much. I never really thought there was anything I couldn’t do,” says Von Slut, who does as she pleases no matter how many people tell her no.

As a child, Von Slut, who insists upon using her professional name after receiving many strange letters from prison inmates who have seen her in tattoo magazines, never fantasized about being a mother like many girls her age. Her daydreams about the future, revolved around fame and fortune. Never thinking of a specific career, only one thing defined her life goal, “I wanted to be adorned and worshiped,” she says.

Now 29, the pale, curvy temptress frequently feeds off the energy from her fueled up audiences. Whether stripping down to boobie tassels and a corset for her burlesque act, singing in the all-girl psychobilly band, Thee Merry Widows, or acting as a “hired gun” vocalist for one of her favorite high school bands, the Insaints, that childhood dream is coming true.

Von Slut seems to ooze self-assurance on stage and off. “When I saw her, she had this aura of confidence around her, like she didn’t really care what others thought,” says Michael Baula, who saw Von Slut perform at the Insaints cd release party.

Her pride in her body and vivacious attitude allow her to reach a level of sexiness few women even aspire to. She became attracted to burlesque by the entertainment’s complete acceptance and adoration of all women of all sizes. After seeing Dirty Martini and The World Famous Bob perform at a burlesque convention, Von Slut connected to the two plus-size blondes. “They were so sexy and into themselves,” she remembers, “there was no question [Bob] was proud of her body.”

Since taking up the profession, Von Slut has dedicated one of her favorite acts to a childhood idol, famously voluptuous Mae West. In the 1920’s stick-like figures in short loose dresses were the epitome of style, but “she went against fashion. She wore very Victorian style clothing that was more tailored to her body,” says Von Slut, who wears an outrageously large ostrich plumed hat and white fur during her homage.

She shimmies her body with pride whenever on stage, even stripping down while singing in her bands. “I think the amount of self confidence she has made her very capable,” says Nishone Weymouth, who plays guitar in Thee Merry Widows while Von Slut sings, “She knows she can do burlesque. She knows she can front a band. It takes a lot of self confidence to do that.”

Von Slut’s onstage antics in the all-girl psychobilly group includes much suggestive behavior, everything from licking a Theremin, an instrument with an antenna that emanates creepy noises as things move closer and further from it, to pulling her skirt to her waist and bending over for a spanking. Surprisingly, her behavior in Thee Merry Widows is restrained compared to what she does in The Insaints.

As a teen, Von Slut loved The Insaints so much she trained her voice after the singer, Marion Anderson. Back in the early nineties, the band was gaining much notoriety in the Bay Area, in part for an infamous “banana incident” where Anderson was arrested for “going all the way” with the phallic fruit on stage. The band broke up in 1993 though, leaving a full album of both live and studio recordings missing and unreleased.

Anderson died of an overdose in 2001. Two years later, Insaints guitarist, Daniel deLeon, got a call from a sound engineer who rediscovered the lost tracks. After deciding to release the songs and do a show, he thought back to a Thee Merry Widows demo cd he had heard where Von Slut’s voice was near identical to Anderson’s. She was hired.

She refuses to copy Anderson’s acts, believing it would be disrespectful to mimic her behavior. Yet Von Slut isn’t afraid to do things with the group girls in Thee Merry Widows would never let her get away with. “I have a little more leeway to be crazier with the Insaints,” she explains. Von Slut and a number of strippers from the Lusty Lady did a burlesque act during the show, part of it involved bananas in memory of Anderson.

Onstage, Von Slut is not the same girl as the one that works at a tattoo shop on Haight Street and goes out to drink with friends. “On stage, I’m this very sexual and crazy person, but I have a real life to lead,” she laughs before taking a sip of iced coffee at The Horseshoe café. She raises it to her ruby lips with her right hand, the word “dead” spelled on the knuckles in drippy red and black writing.

Tattoos are another major aspect of Von Slut’s life, both for providing her with a job and getting her picture and name out through tattoo magazines like “Skin and Ink,” “Tattoo,” “Hardcore Ink,” and “Skin Deep,” to name a few. Some of her most featured tattoos are the Elvis angel and devil on her chest, a friend jokingly suggested she get the piece tattooed without realizing she actually would, and a whole back piece dedicated to popular punk band The Misfits, whose songs revolve around B-rate horror movies.

It seems only natural the punk singer has rock tattoos. Music has always been an important aspect in her life. It is the main reason she ended up moving to San Francisco.

After bouncing from place to place, she lived in New Orleans for about a month, when a traumatic break up brought about a need for somewhere really different. She attended the Las Vegas Rock Around and came out to the Bay to catch some of the many after shows. “I moved here for rock and roll,” Von Slut says only partly joking. She never planned to stay for six years, but she would have a hard time leaving now.

That’s not the only time rock and roll changed her life. Always a horror film fanatic, “the first time I heard the Misfits was a definitive moment in my life,” says Von Slut, who discovered the band in her teens. She was thrilled to know there was a band out there singing about the things she was, and still is, into.

That B-rate film obsession can be easily seen in her San Francisco apartment. Walls are plastered with movie and rock memorabilia. Every surface not covered in records or clothes, shoes and other burlesque paraphernalia, has knickknacks all over it, Misfits toys included. Collecting horror movie memorabilia is her next favorite hobby outside of partying with friends. It’s even how she measures success.

“I know I’ll have made it when I have an Eva Von Slut action figure,” she says with a dreamy note in her voice and a distant look in her hazel eyes.

The six-year-old group sounds like what would happen if surf guitar king Dick Dale smoked crack, bashed up his guitar a few times and crossed over to the punk side. Sometimes their shows are more punk, other times it’s more surf. Sometimes they perform on a huge stage; other times, it’s in a venue’s lobby while someone else sets up on the real stage. No matter what, “the normal Harlot’s show is always a good time. It’s high energy and the singer makes sure that there is a good show going on,” says Josh Langben, who has seen the band play four times in the last year.

At a party in the Oakland warehouse where scifi-rockabilly band The Phenomenauts’ live and rehearse, the Harlots joke so much it’s hard to tell when they’re not lying. It’s especially confusing when seemingly true stories consist of jumping into a moving vehicle to avoid an angry crowd of rednecks on speed.

Dismal bears a fresh boot mark on his cheek from a show just an hour ago. “I get punched and kicked a lot. People think it’s fun to take shots at me,” he says in between sips of alcoholic cider, “they think I’m crazy and can take it.”

Still, the consensus seems to be that tonight’s show went pretty well. They finished a full set in 15 minutes, made a huge mess with a giant bag of popcorn and the crowd loved it.

The average Teenage Harlets song only lasts about one minute and 15 seconds, and is probably a bit shorter live. It’s fast enough that the band can record a 7 inch LP with 16 songs, the same number of tracks as most full length records. “You think you’re listening to a full 12 inches,” jokes Chris Buzzell, the group’s guitarist.

The band’s bassist recently quit on good terms. Mike Slavinsky of the Coppertones is filling in while they search for a new player.

“It’s not how long we play our songs,” begins Slavinsky.

“It’s how long you can stand them,” jokes Atom Bomb, the group’s drummer, who claims he plays as fast as possible to get back to watching the show and consuming the free food and beer. He claims free admission and delicious treats as his true motivators to be in a band.

The Harlets hate headlining because playing last stops them from hanging out after the set. They prefer performing between bands in the confined lobby of the Phoenix Theatre in Petaluma. “It’s the best place to play. I don’t understand why people don’t like playing places like that. I want the audience playing in our band instead of these jerks,” Bomb says, pointing his beer at the three other members.

Previously published in Xpress Magazine. Creative Commons Licensed image courtesy of Flickr user lantzilla.