Hard-Core: Life of My Own

by Harley Flanagan

  I was like, “I’ve got to rob this bank. Or join the Army. I’ve got to do something.” Joey knew I was buggin’ outta my mind. He said, “Well, the Army ain’t no place for a crazy-ass white boy like you. So before you do something stupid, why don’t you get your ass down to L.A.? You can stay with me for a minute. I’ve got a friend who’s looking for a drummer. I know you still play the drums, and I’m sure he’ll let you stay with him. You may even know him: Jerry, he used to sing for Legionnaire’s Disease.” Of course I knew about them from back in the day; they were one of the first Texas punk bands. Jerry was at that Sex Pistols show where Sid Vicious smacked that guy over the head with his bass. Jerry was crazy. He did like 15 years in prison in Texas, that’s enough to fuck anybody up! He’d gotten busted for drugs several times. They have zero tolerance there. I think five years of that was for a roach in the ashtray of his car. He was a fuck-up, but a good guy. He was very political too, very much an anarchist.

  So I got this chick that I was seeing to drive me to L.A., and stayed with Joey for a while. Within a few weeks, I moved into Jerry’s house, and started drumming with his band, Anomie. I stayed with Jerry, and eventually wound up living with this other guy who was a pot-grower! He taught me how to grow weed. But the deal was I had to live at the house, guard the house, water the plants, and take care of the plants, ’cause he wasn’t always around. He had a rehearsal studio in his house in one of the rooms. I used to jam with his band, and I even did a few gigs with them. And I was still playing in Anomie, and Jerry was taking care of me as well. I mean, I was still fucked up on drugs, but I was trying to wean myself off. Hell, I could play drums and grow pot? Sure, what the fuck!

  Also by that point, I had been talking to Parris again on and off. I took his number when we talked that time in NYC. I was like, “You should come out here. There’s a studio here, we can live here and work on material and try to do something.” So Parris came out to L.A., and we worked on new material. We had a studio, a place to sleep, food and a room with a hundred pot plants in it listening to classical music all day long—’cause plants like classical music!

  It was just Parris and me and this Mexican metalhead dude named Vinnie, the guy whose house it was. I started jamming with his band; they were kind of a rock-ish band with political overtones and a punk rock-type attitude. Which was funny, ’cause they were all dudes a lot older than me, like old hippie motherfuckers and shit; I was jamming with them since he needed a drummer. All I had to do was take care of the house and water the plants. It turned into “party central.” There was all kinds of madness going on over there.

  Around that time, I started slowly getting my shit together. It was a whole series of things that got me thinking and got me back on track, one of which was this chick that I used to go out with on and off before I split out West. She got in touch with me and told me she was pregnant and thought it was mine. Which it turned out not to be, but it did rattle me a little bit. The prospect of possibly being a father jump-started me cleaning up my act. Everything happens for a reason; sometimes we just don’t know it.

  I started running a lot, jogging every day and exercising. I was just trying to get myself over that hump, break that cycle of drugs. Up until that point, I would only go without getting fucked up for a few days, or maybe a week or two. Then I’d fuck up again. But finally, with some real motivation, I got through it. We were living in Sunland, California—it was beautiful and it was kind of in the middle of nowhere. Like I said, we were staying with the friend of mine and we had a studio. We were practicing a lot, and I had a ton of weed, so I was able to just work out, play music, smoke weed, or whatever. I was working out a lot again, playing drums in two bands, jamming, and getting back in shape. Parris was into running, so I started running with him. Within a short amount of time, I was jogging 10 to 15 miles a night. It really helped—that and playing music was what I needed. I decided to get my shit together, and had motivation, and somewhere constructive to put my energy. I really just pushed the button and went forward. And it was only really a matter of months before I was starting to get back to my old self.

  We got in touch with Dave DiCenso and he flew out. He started working on songs with us: what would become the White Devil EP and the Samsara line-up of the Cro-Mags, which was me, Rocky George, Parris, and Dave. We even had our old friend Rich Spillberg of Wargasm come out and jam with us for a while; it was a lot of fun but it didn’t pan out, so he flew back to the East Coast. We stuck around for a little while—it was a nice place, a nice house, and we had the studio.

  The girl I mentioned also told me that she had contracted HIV. I was floored; here was a girl I had been in love with and still loved. I kept it together and told her that it would be all right and that I would come back to NYC and that she would be fine. I of course went out and got tested and did every six months for years after that.

  I remember going to get that first test—I was shitting in my pants. I was with my boy Jerry and this other friend of ours, an old Vietnam vet. We pulled up, Jerry looked at me, smiled and said, “Well, I guess we gonna find out if ol’ Harley’s gonna make it or not.” We all laughed, but I was nervous as fuck. I paid the extra loot to get the immediate results back, and they came back negative—and again I thought, “Damn, I am a lucky motherfucker.” I did a little celebration dance and that was that.

  At that point I was already trying to clean up and just do music with Parris, but that was the reason I decided to come back to NYC really focused. As far as I knew at the time, that kid might be mine and even if she wasn’t, she might need me.

  So Parris, Dave, and me returned to the East Coast. We came back to New York, and wound up doing Revenge.

  Chapter Fourteen

  PART 1: DRUGS AND DEBAUCHERY TO GRACIE JIU-JITSU

  UNDERGROUND COMBAT LEAGUE, BY ANIL MELWANI

  When I first got back to NYC I was staying at this chick Aura’s apartment. She had known me and John and everybody since The Age of Quarrel days.

  At one point John found out I was staying with her, and he started calling her up talking shit on her answering machine. I was gonna flip, but she said, “No, fuck that, he’s calling me at my house—I’m doing this.” So she called him and went off, telling him how she had known us both for years and how dare he put her in the middle of this and call her house talking shit and how he should grow the fuck up and act his age and shit. She really laid into him, and I was proud of her for having the balls and the decency to do what so many other “friends” were too fucking cowardly to do. She never heard from him again.

  Aura knew that I was going through some rough times and that I was trying to get it together. I hadn’t been off hard drugs for very long, and it wasn’t easy. I was under a lot of pressure. I started jogging a lot and trying to keep my shit straight.

  I’d go for these long runs at night ’cause I couldn’t sleep. She lived down by the Twin Towers and I’d run from there to Central Park and back. On the way I’d stop by Coney Island High on St. Marks Place and see who was hanging out for a few minutes, say hi etc., and then keep running uptown to the top of the park. I’d run a few laps around the reservoir, and then turn around and head back down. On the way back down I’d stop in at Coney Island High again and there would be the same people. Everyone was pretty much in the same place, just slightly more shitfaced. And I’d hang for a few minutes and then keep running. It was kind of good to see that, as I was getting my shit together—to see all these people really not doing anything but standing around getting fucked up as they got older and did nothing with themselves. It gave me motivation to keep my shit together.

  Once I started making some money, I started helping out my ex and her daughter; then I moved in with them and started taking care of the kid. It soon became pretty obvious that she wasn’t mine. But by this time I was already attached, and then the mother started falling back into drugs, so I felt I had to help the kid.

  Me and Parris and started negotiating a deal with
an old friend, Scott Koenig, who worked for Def Jam at the time. He used to manage Biohazard. He was starting a label called King Records. It was going to be Def Jam’s “rock label.” It was a subsidiary-type deal. They gave us a cash advance on the deal and we got a rehearsal space in the Music Building on 8th Avenue between 38th and 39th.

  That neighborhood was crazy at the time, a lotta drugs. Crack was still a big problem back then, and the space was right there between Port Authority Bus Terminal and Penn Station—a hot spot for runaways, drug dealers, hustlers and all the crazy shit that goes along with it like peep shows, porn shops; that whole neighborhood was dirty. When they cleaned up 42nd Street, it all just moved down a few blocks and a little more out of sight—still in plain view, just not as much as when I was a kid.

  That’s where I lived in a 20×20 room with drums, amps, a PA, weights, and a heavy bag in it; bathroom in the hall, no shower, just the toilet and sink. I’d go on the roof in the morning and shower with four two-gallon water jugs and some soap; it was like the old days for me. I’d lift weights, hit the bag, play drums and listen to music all day and night. I mean yeah, I was going a little crazy living there. There were always people practicing and all kinds of madness—drugs, freaks, and crazy shit inside the building and outside on the street. I could write a whole book just about that building and that street.

  With the Def Jam/King money, we got the rehearsal space with recording gear, ADATs (so we could do our own demos), amps, road cases, and we started making payments on a van. We got ourselves set up so that we could gig without any outside help. We had everything we needed—this was the first time we ever had that. I had never had an amp before. When we were kids, Parris used to play his guitar through a PA column. We had nothing growing up. We borrowed everything or our manager Chris rented it and charged us for it—that’s part of why we never saw any money.

  Around this time, two people came into my life that would change it forever. One of them, my teacher, mentor, and friend—one of the few people that I look up to and respect in this world—Master Renzo Gracie. With him, I began my journey into the “Gentle Art” of Jiu-Jitsu. The other—the mother of my sons, Harley and Jonah, who by giving me them would change my life forever…

  I had been dying to learn Gracie Jiu-Jitsu ever since Sunland, when I had accidentally stumbled across UFC 1 and 2 on VHS at the local Blockbuster. They had only had two UFCs so far. I became fascinated with it. I remember watching those first two UFCs on VHS over and over for weeks. I was determined to learn Jiu-Jitsu. And now that I was back in NYC, I was trying to find a place to learn it. My interest in martial arts and fighting obviously goes back to my childhood.

  HARLEY AND RYAN GRACIE, PERSONAL COLLECTION

  Anybody who was around in the late ’70s was into Bruce Lee. There were martial arts supply stores all over Forty-Deuce that sold nunchucks, throwing stars, darts, swords and all kinds of knives and weapons, Ninja suits and Karate uniforms and Kung Fu uniforms. They had the Bruce Lee outfits—the yellow and black one from Game of Death, where he choked out Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—and Bruce Lee posters everywhere. These stores were right there on the Deuce with all the porn and horror movies, Kung Fu movies, arcades, pimps, hookers, peep shows, drug dealers, pickpockets, thieves, and whatnot. That was the Times Square I grew up with.

  And it wasn’t only up there. Of course in Chinatown there were a lot of Kung Fu movie theaters. On TV, there was Drive-in Movie and Drive-in Theater, and Black Belt Theater that used to show Shaw Brothers films like The Four Assassins, Dirty Ho, Master Killer, and Return of the Master Killer. All kinds of Bruce Lee movies, like at least two or three Kung Fu movies back-to-back on Sundays on Channel 5 or 11. Kung Fu was the shit back then. And then you had all the blaxploitation Kung Fu movies. It was just like the song, “Everybody was King Fu Fighting.” That was no bullshit!

  I used to joke that Bruce Lee musta had all kinds of illegitimate ghetto kids around the city ’cause everybody in my school used to hop around making cat noises acting like Bruce, like they knew some sort of Kung Fu. Eric Casanova had that “Bruce Lee Kung Fu Fever”—he was always doing Bruce. A lot of old B-boy break dancing moves came from cats that were into that. Some of the Spanish dudes in my neighborhood trained in different styles of Kung Fu and martial arts when I was a kid. This dude Jose, I saw him take on four dudes once—one of them pulled a knife on him. The guy tried to stab him and he caught the knife by the blade between the palms of his hands, held it, side-kicked the dude and continued fighting the other guys! He cut both his hands, but he still fucked the guys up.

  When I was a kid, I did some “Northern Eagle Claw” with this Chinese master in the city. That didn’t last at all. I just didn’t have the patience, practicing all those uncomfortable stances, not really getting to hit anybody, grapple or roll full contact; no takedowns, nothing like that. When I was staying with those crazy fucks in Canada, we’d work out, and practice kick punches, combinations, and whatnot, lift weights and of course, we got in tons of fights.

  I trained a little with black belt friends of mine who knew Karate and competed, like Bleu and Richie Stig who roadied and did security for us. They couldn’t tune guitars or fix gear, but they could drive, carry gear, sell merch, and fuck people up. We didn’t have tech tools to fix guitars or tuners and shit—we had like hickory wood axe handles and bats and shit in our road cases, just in case. We’d always work out, stretch, and practice kicks, strikes, and combinations, takedowns and some joint locks. When we got in fights, which was often back then, we got more hands-on training than most people, ’cause we were Skinheads and, or I should say ex-Skinheads or recovering Skinheads. But even when we were getting out of it, we still had one foot in it and we still got in fights all the time.

  HARLEY AND RENZO GRACIE — PERSONAL COLLECTION

  Richie recalled about me: “I remember over at C-Squat going up on the roof one morning, one of the first times we hung out and you were up there punching the brick walls with your bare hands, and your knuckles were all bloody. You were up there working out, doing push-ups, and stretching. I was like, ‘Oh shit, this motherfucker’s crazy!’”

  My interest in martial arts had always been there. But I never had any formal training or been enrolled in an academy or dojo. Until I met Renzo, most of my knowledge and experience came from street fighting. It wasn’t until 1995 that I got really serious about training at a proper Academy.

  I think at this point most people have heard of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which is now one of the most popular sports in the world. The short version of the tale goes something like this: Renzo’s grandfather Carlos Gracie, the son of Gastão Gracie, was the first to learn Jiu-Jitsu from Mitsuyo Maeda, a Japanese Judo–ka who arrived in Brazil in the early 1900s. His brothers, Oswaldo, Gastão Jr., Jorge, and Helio, also learned Jiu-Jitsu. In 1925, the brothers opened their first academy in Brazil, and that was the start of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The Gracies worked on their style of Jiu-Jitsu for years, perfecting their art, proving its effectiveness in freestyle mixed martial arts matches with no rules, no gloves, no time limits, and no weight classes. And they continue to do so to this day.

  In 1993 Rorion Gracie, son of Helio Gracie, brought the Ultimate Fighting Championship concept to America, and the rest is history.

  I was lucky to get involved with Jiu-Jitsu and MMA in its early stages in America. There was nothing like it, with its freestyle rules. When I caught UFC 1 and UFC 2 that really re-sparked my interest in martial arts and fighting arts. I fell in love with mixed martial arts. I made up my mind that if I ever had the opportunity to meet any of the Gracies, I was going to get down with them.

  So, there I was, it was ’96, I was back in NYC, living at the Music Building. I started looking in every martial arts magazine I could find: Black Belt, Kung Fu, all of them. I was trying to find an advertisement for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, or something like it. I was waiting for a school to open up in New York City
. I knew it was only a matter of time. One day I found a little ad in the back of a magazine that said “Gracie/Kukuk Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Renzo Gracie, Craig Kukuk, etc.,” and an address and number. So I went.

  I’ll never forget the first time I walked in there. It was this big loft space in the 20s. The place was empty except for wall-to-wall blue Jiu-Jitsu mats across the floor and a little desk with maybe three people. One guy was teaching a private lesson. I looked around and Renzo was standing by the desk next to the mats. He walked up to me and smiled. I didn’t know what the deal was with this fuckin’ place. Was I supposed to walk in and bow to this guy? I didn’t fuckin’ know! I didn’t even know if he was Renzo. I guess he could tell. He walked up to me with a big smile, put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Come in, my friend, you come to train.” I’m like, “Damn, this motherfucker is cool as hell!” There was no pretentious bow-down-to-my-black-belt bullshit.

  He was a real down-to-earth guy with a big smile—who could totally fuck you up if he wanted to, but with no attitude at all. I started training like two days later with his then purple belt Mito Pontual and his brown belt Vinnie Landeira, who at the time were his only assistants. He brought them over from Brazil to help. I started going like every fucking day, sometimes twice a day. I had Jiu-Jitsu fever! Besides the little bit that I learned from Vinnie and Mito in those early days, I pretty much learned almost every technique from Renzo himself.