Raymond Pettibon: Citizen Tania

According to the influential Los Angeles artist Mike Kelley, quoted in The New York Times Magazine, many of Raymond Pettibon's earliest supporters were artists. Some people liked Raymond because they considered him a guy who didn't kiss the butt of the art world. Others thought he represented punk, or blue-collar Conceptualism or D.I.Y. What interested me about him was how he constructed things--like Lautreamont, who's my favorite writer--with all these different sources juggled and combined into something particular. Raymond had that definite auteur look, which was faux-romantic, faux-Gothic, very Tennessee Williams, very foppishly funny. Best-known for his iconic album covers and zine-style ink drawings featuring surfers, old-time baseball players, gangsters, religious nuts, trains, Gumby and the character Vavoom from the old Felix the Cat cartoon, Pettibon is also the author of a series of super-low-fi home videos, made with his friends beginning in the 1980s. Starring the very artists and musicians who supported Pettibon from the start, they are available here for the first time on DVD. Red Tide Rising: Venice and Mars (2001) is a 2-disk set that deals with the life of Jim Morrison. Sir Drone: A New Film About the New Beatles (1989-90) chronicles the trials and tribulations of two nascent punk rockers in late-70s Los Angeles as they struggle to not be posers. Filmed over two days, it stars Mikes Watt and Mike Kelley. Citizen Tania: As Told to Raymond Pettibon (1989-90) deals with Patty Hearst and her Symbionese Liberation Army alias "Tania." Judgement Day Theater: The Book of Manson (1989-90) is an account of the famous Manson family. And The Whole World is Watching: Weatherman '69 (1989-90), starring Mike Watt, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, offers up sketches of historic encounters between the radical splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society, Weatherman, and pop celebrities like Jane Fonda and John Lennon.