Stranger Flashback: The Other F Word

This is a revived version of a Line Out post (The Stranger purged them from the internet some time after they pulled the plug on their music blog in 2014).

Film/TV     Feb 10, 2012 at 2:50 pm

Two New Punk Docs Ponder Authority

Kathy Fennessy

THE OTHER F WORD

This week, I watched two new punk-rock documentaries, both available on home video, which offer an interesting study in contrasts. 

The Other F Word revolves around punk-rock fathers, while Last Fast Ride centers on a punk-rock provocateur…who also happened to be a mother. Women directed both films, which are set primarily in Southern California in the 1990s, but the similarities start to fall away at that point.

I didn't expect to enjoy Andrea Blaugrund Nevins' feature-film debut, The Other F Word, because I have no interest in bands like NOFX and Blink-182, and nor do I have a vested interested in parenthood.* 

Granted, I've always found the parent-child relationship fascinating, but too many filmmakers have a hard time illuminating the complexities. That isn't a problem for this director, who's gathered up a particularly forthcoming combination of subjects, including bass player Flea (Fear, Red Hot Chili Peppers), singer Ron Reyes (Black Flag), and singer/author Jim Lindberg (Pennywise), whose memoir, Punk Rock Dad, inspired the project.

First things first: I've always had a soft spot for Flea, and I always will. 

I've never met him, but I've read enough interviews and seen enough of his on- and off-screen work, including Penelope Spheeris's Suburbia and Bruce Weber's Let's Get Lost, to know that he has a lot of heart and a lot of charisma. Hate his slap bass-playing all you want, but it's fun to watch him play, and I've never seen anyone move quite like he does. 

His buoyancy, however, stems--or emerges--from a dark place. Like many of the fathers in The Other F Word, he had a crappy childhood, and ran away from home at 12. The character he plays in Suburbia is, essentially, himself.

So, he's gone out of his way to be the father to his piano-playing daughter he never had. It's hard for him to talk about that trajectory, and he almost breaks down a time or two, but once you meet Clara, who comes across as a poised, no nonsense 24-year-old, you can tell he means every word.

Reyes and Lindberg also seem like great dads, but they took different routes to get there. Reyes, who was known as Chavo when he appeared in Spheeris's The Decline of Western Civilization, dropped out of Black Flag when the violence at gigs--something Spheeris depicts in Suburbia--became too much to bear. Since then, he's been running a print shop in Vancouver and raising three teens with whom he enjoys a close relationship.

Lindberg, on the other hand, was an active member of Pennywise while DP Geoffrey Franklin's camera was rolling. 

The father of three, who admits he dyes his hair black to maintain the punk-rock image, had spent a significant portion of the past 20 years on the road, but after the band's last world tour, he packed it in. Though he's since formed a new outfit, he makes it clear that the annual 219-day tours are a thing of the past.

Others speaker-fathers in the film include Art Alexakis (Everclear), Lars Fredrickson (Rancid), Jack Grisham (TSOL), pro skateboarder Tony Hawk, Mark Hoppus (Blink-182), and Tim McIlrath (Rise Against). From the audio commentary with Nevins, Lindberg, and Alexakis, it's clear that the filmmaker, a mother of three, genuinely enjoys these bands.

From her film, I didn't gain a new appreciation for their music, but I do have a new appreciation for the participants as parents. That said, NOFX's Fat Mike, who isn't all that fat, might want to stop indulging his little lady's every whim lest she winds up the most insufferable punk-rock princess.

Also, Blaugrund Nevins, who released the film through Adam Yauch's environmentally-conscious Oscilloscope Laboratories, doesn't censor these gents, so "father" isn't the only "f word" in play—just the way I like it.

*Not counting my own parents, who took a vested interest in me.

Next: Last Fast Ride - The Life, Love and Death of a Punk Goddess, a film about Marian Anderson featuring Tim Armstrong and Henry Rollins. Images from Oscilloscope Laboratories: Michael, aka "Flea," and Clara Balzary, Ron and Jasmine Reyes, and Michael ("Fat Mike") and Darla Burkett.