GG Allin was a special man. A pioneer to some and an absolute aberration to others.
The seminal (pun intended) punk rocker is more famous now in death than he ever was in life. Posthumous glory is thanks in no small part to director Todd Phillips of The Hangover fame. His thesis film at NYU, a documentary entitled HATED chronicled the last chapter in Allin's life before the scat-throwing, blood-drenched emissary of the cultural gutters checked out on a major hot shot in 1993.
I had but the flimsiest knowledge of GG Allin before I walked into the Museum of Death for now defunct music and culture blog All Things That Rock.
Amongst the sacrosanct streets of Hollywood where the glitz and glimmer myths yield beneath the weight of squalor's honesty, the Museum of Death was a breath of fresh air.
That's strictly metaphorical. The actual structure smells of decomposition. Likely owing to actual Heaven's Gate track suits picked up at auction by the owners. But who's to say exactly from where the smell of rotting body emanated?
This in and of itself was worth the price of admission. A counterpoint to the cult of eternal youth in tinseltown, the Museum of Death was and is an institution devoted to delighting in premature demises.
The owner/operators, JD and Cathy, took a liking to me. Especially when I showed up on Easter in 2009. (An apropos destination on that day, no?) I was fresh out of college and doing more work imagining myself as a writer than actual being one.
JD made me an offer: for the princely sum of $50 a pop, I'd write all the press releases for Chaos Gallery, the attached art space next door. First on the docket was a show highlight the work of none other than GG Allin.
It was oddly challenging, especially because the entire press release genre is premised on polishing events into status-bearing moments one can't afford to miss. This is a hard sell with GG. Like some kind of existential quandary, I had to communicate that people should miss the exhibit. By all means, skip it. It's so sick, twisted, depraved and nausea-inducing that no one in their right mind would attend.
In the opposite-land that was Chaos Gallery, the ugly were beautiful and the put together were absolutely rotten. That was the big takeaway--each project has its own bearings. Sometimes, a measure of success is attracting all the wrong people.
The Museum of Death has since expanded to New Orleans. In 2014, they put on display the outfit GG was wearing on the night of his demise. No word as to what that smelled like.
