"I grew up on porn--and I'm OK."
Joe Christ, Aug. 6 1986, The Dallas Times Herald.
Amid the unlicensed erotopaths, freelance scatologists and assorted glandular
wannabees hawking their wares in the summer of 1988, nothing in Screw
editor Mark Kramer's in-basket does more to essentialize porndom's mood that
August than Joe Christ's Communion in Room 410 promo-pak.
Kramer is not slow in arriving at the opinion that Communion's
revulsive spectacle of amphetamine-drenched, peroxide-blondined Joe Christ
lapping blood from the lacerated breasts of an overweight female retardate
seems somehow an apt expresson of the times. And the times, as seen from
within the Screw's tobacco-stale, crumb-flecked workplace, are inseparable
from the industry-wide aftershock caused by the recent death of donkey-dicked
porn legend John Holmes from AIDS-related encaphalitis--the latest rejoinder
to Screw's ethos of unbridled sexual activity as the key to a better
life.
"My childhood, really, I think of as normal", reflects Joe Christ in the
thumbnail autobiography that accompanies His PR blitz. "I once tricked a
girl into drinking a glass of piss. I don't see anything traumatic about it
other than a few trips to the state hospital as a teenager."
These remembrances of a Philadelphia cardiologist's troubled offspring are
augmented by a clip from the Dallas Times Herald, which notes:
"...Christ mentions faking a bomb scare in junior high, which pretty much put
an end to his formal education. Christ admits to being a juvenile delinquent
who ran away from his [sic] Philadelphia home "30 or 40 times", and who was
"put away" on several occasions. But he defends a lot of his [sic] troubles
by saying, "Mainly it was just dope-related things", adding, "I might
have had indiscriminate sex in the past, or I might have done every drug
there is. But I'm not afraid to admit it. And because of that, I won't have
my Chappaquiddick."
There follows a mangled tale of rootless cosmopolitanism at its most rootless
as the agitative out-patient known to authorities as Joseph W. Linhart, Jr,
is firmly invited to leave Philly, Chicago and Washington, DC. Evocatively
inscribed with crudely self-administered institutional tattoos--He wanders
America's vanishing pre-corporate landscape in search of stardom, or at the
very least, somewhere to sleep. In 1979, He materializes in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, where His father is employed by Oral Roberts University. Joe Jr.
changes His name to Joe Danger, and with the local punk band Los Reactors
collaborates in creating two zeitgeistly 7" singles, "Dead in The Suburbs"
(1981) and "Be A Zombie" (1982).
In one of His incessant follow-up calls to Screw, Joe Christ confides,
"Sometimes my father and I would appear in the same newspapers--He for
something going on at Oral Roberts University, myself for assaulting an
officer."
Inevitably, Tulsa's amphetamine-steeped phallotopia proves too impermissive
for the man who would be Christ.
In 1983, He flees to Dallas, where oil prices are high, amphetamine are
cheap, the complimentary chalupa buffets are plentiful, and there is a long,
if not noble, traditon of ersatz-Texan carpetbaggers and out-of-town
opportunists running the gamut from Jack Ruby to George Bush. Soon Joe
Linhart and his bleached, high-visibility coif are fronting the local bar
band G-Spot--less memorable for their 7" single "Idle Worship" than for a
November 22, 1983 publicity stunt that consists of disrupting downtown
Dallas' 20th anniversary Kennedy-assasination memorial service with a
drive-by prank involving JFK masks and a rented "Texas Taxi" Cadillac
convertible with a steer-horn hood ornament. Kramer takes note of how this
abundantly satirical series of gestures seems only to hightlight the shift
of Dallas' urban identity from the heartland's transshipment center for
cheaply manufactured goods to America's loading zone for cheap manufactured
ideas. And there are few ideas cheaper than those actuating
Joe Linhart's next shift of identity.
"A of people want to know why I call myself Joe Christ," He tells the
Dallas Times Herald. "As I see I, pop culture has taken the place of
religion for a lot of people. People worship pop figures like it's a
religion [sic]...."
Self-annointed as the swaggering, preening vocalist for a combo called The
Healing Faith--whose "Wonderful Life" is later heard on the Communion in
Room 410 soundtrack--"unk-macho braggart Joe Christ" is lauded in a
Dallas Observer review as "ego-bloated floatsam", "self-absorbed,
self-impressed".
This market research only serves to inflame His ambitions, and in November,
1985, Joe Christ announces His candidacy for the governorship of Texas.
"I'm really offended by people who find the need to enforce their beliefs
on me" He reveals. "That's what's great about America. People like me can
run."
Texas gubernatorial races are traditionally famous for their comedic fringe
candidates. And the "Joe Christ Is No Christ" campaign is no exception. He
electioneers in the punk clubs and scrounge lounges of Dallas on a
pro-pornography, pro-drug, pro-prostitution ticket that emphasizes harsh
restrictions on welfare recipients.
Despite this populistically minded formula--and what He estimates to be
1,000 write-in votes--Joe Christ is roundly defeated at the polls, possibly
by the very same forces of philistinism that are already plotting to elect
George Bush Jr. to Texas' highest office. It is thus that Joe Christ
renounces politics, and shortly thereafter, His penis as well.
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