NSFW content ahead. Brace yourselves.

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….if the viewer is open and brave enough, they are going to meet an America few folks will talk about; a grim, hostile underbelly filled with proud white trash, loud motorcycles, barflies, brawlers, booze and sex and rock ‘n’ roll. George the Painter takes all of this in, and then flings it at the viewer like blood, sweat and spinal fluid, in violent knife-edged spasms of color, light and shadow.

The term ‘acquired taste’ was coined for characters like George the Painter, but I confess that it is a taste I have acquired. In my collection I have a number of his prints, purchased from the artist himself through the old The Horse / Back Street Choppers readers’ forum, where we were both frequent flyers in the early ’00s. I look forward to displaying some of them in the Adults Only section of MMMoMMA soon. 😏

♫ I’m trailer trash / drunk off my ass / and my savings went to liquor so I’m all out of cash…. ♫ © 2021 Caroline’s Daughter. 😆

When he chooses to, GTP can get downright representational, as with the Sporty above and the moonlit chopper below. I find that painting particularly evocative.

Others evince a technical mastery of light, color and shadow that nudges the neighborhood of realism, without fully crossing the line.

….and when he’s not painting blowsy barflies, GTP is capable of more pedestrian images.

Richie Pan was a renowned artist, tattooist and bike builder from New Jersey who was killed in an auto-pedestrian crash on his way home from the annual North Carolina Smokeout. I mentioned him in my article about David Mann, but GTP knew Richie Pan, had been tattooed by him, and painted two portraits of his friend.

As with David Mann, Edward Hopper and other favorite artists, George Frizzell will insert himself into his work at times, as with this oddly-named canvas: Intergalactic Attack Formation # 1….

….and this, where he demonstrates Leaky Latowski’s low-end torque.

Finally, in this recent canvas, GTP notes that he ‘wanted to paint a loser with a busted ass bike and it ended up being a self portrait.’ He was raffling off the original canvas, and noted, ‘I’ve been off my Shovel for long enough and this raffle will send some cash in the right direction!’ I can relate! If they were still on offer, I’d buy a ticket or two myself! 😎

However, like a lot of bikers, GTP seems to delight in the age-old game called ‘shocking the squares,’ and he plays it well!

GTP’s work is sometimes hard to look at – rude and graphic and in-your-face, much like the artist himself – and not everyone can hang with it.  However, if the viewer is open and brave enough, they are going to meet an America few folks will talk about; a grim, hostile underbelly filled with proud white trash, loud motorcycles, barflies, brawlers, booze and sex and rock ‘n’ roll.  GTP takes all of this in, and then flings it at the viewer like blood, sweat and spinal fluid, in violent knife-edged spasms of color, light and shadow. 

If you can hang, study what GTP has created on canvas, and you will discover an uncompromising artist with a hard-core, anarchic sense of self, which makes him a Charles Bukowski of the painted word. 

SHOVELHEAD LOVE

Like me, George loves his shovelheads, and they feature prominently in his art. I’m always glad to see my favorite Milwaukee motor represented, but….

If you’re really brave, read a few of GTP’s columns in back issues of The Horse / Back Street Choppers — the now-defunct biker rag that gave Frizzell a resident platform for his art and off-the-wall screeds — and you’ll see that George comes by his ‘fuck the world’ brand of hardscrabble individualism honestly. He is brutally forthright about living his life his way.  Dilettantes and poseurs need not apply.

The Horse / Backstreet Choppers was a weak imitation of the OG Easyriders* magazine, which began in 1970, but The Horse did feature owner-built choppers in amongst all the pouty-lipped models, hipster-bearded and tattooed ‘old skool’ wannabes and eye-boggling graphics. The Horse / Backstreet Choppers was GTP’s home away from home for many years. They published his artwork and many of his rambling, overheated screeds. Those columns were later collected into a ‘bathroom reader‘ that is now out-of-print, and listed for stoopid money on eBay and Amazon.

In a documentary series, Richie Pan’s America, George said he wasn’t much of a writer, wasn’t much of a painter, wasn’t much of a bike builder, and yet he’s famous. 🤷🏻‍♀️

He also made a comment that speaks volumes about him, and about bikers in general. He said, ‘Being poor and destitute without a motorcycle is completely uncool, but you can be the same motherfucker and have a motorcycle between your legs — still have no place to live — and it’s cool….’

I don’t know about George, but in my career as a biker, I’ve been homeless, without a car, a job or bank account, but I’ve always had a bike, and yeah, that’s pretty feckin’ cool! 😎

George the Painter can be found offending the world in these locations (to name just a few): https://www.instagram.com/georgethepainter, https://www.instagram.com/fineartforw_hitetrash, https://georgethepainter.bigcartel.com/products, https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/george-frizzell/art/george+frizzell, https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeFrizzellJr,

And his latest endeavor, Chopper Hostel, billed as ‘a great place to hide the bodies,’ at https://chopperhostel.com/

* Easyriders (mentioned above) went under in 2019, after almost a half-century in print. Its quality had waned considerably in its final decades, even as print publications in general lost readership, so few longtime readers mourn its passing. However, an upscale clothier has acquired and is attempting to revive the title as a less ‘trashy’ and ‘more inclusive’ publication. 🙄

Easyriders was a big influence on me as a teenage wannabe in the early ’70s, and was still the biker rag of record when I began riding later in the decade. It featured art by leading lights like David Mann and Duffy Duggan, fiction by writers like Larry ‘Rabbit’ Cole, and humor by psychotics like former Mouseketeer J.J. Solari. I take great pride in the fact that my first manuscript sales — fiction and non-fiction — were to Easyriders, and I consider the late Lou Kimzey my first editor and mentor in the world of writing.

I’ve only seen one issue of the ‘new’ ER and am thus far not impressed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

WILDLY KINDA SORTA OFF-TOPIC POSTSCRIPT: and a sad story. Whilst researching this article, in a deep dive search for some of my favorite Easyriders writers, I unearthed the tragic tale of Jody Via. Jody was one of my faves from back in the day, capable of fashioning darkly compelling crime yarns from bolts of whole cloth….

….except that, per police, Via’s ‘yarns’ weren’t fiction at all. They say he was effectively recounting crimes he himself had committed during a murderous spree across Pennsylvania and Ohio in September, 1972, and selling them for publication!

First, we have Good Samaritan Harry Hoffman. Mr. Hoffman was a gas station owner who stopped to help what appeared to be a young couple stranded at roadside. Hoffman took them back to his service station, and even made a fresh pot of coffee so that they could get warmed up from the chill night air. For his troubles, he was bound, shot in the head and left for dead in the back room of his service station. Mr. Hoffman survived, and later identified his attacker in court.

Next, we have nineteen-year-old college student Jane Maguire, who fell for Via’s ‘stranded’ ruse and offered him a ride. Her body was discovered in a highway rest area. She had been raped, bound, shot in the head and left for dead, but did not survive.

Via, who had holed up in his wife’s home, was arrested, charged with and convicted of the crimes, and received a life sentence. While serving that sentence, Via began submitting poetry and short stories to Easyrider, which published several of his works. He later sold some pieces to Outlaw Biker magazine, as well.

However, in 2019, investigators working the September 1972 cold-case murder of twenty-nine-year-old salesman Morgan Peters, in Pennsylvania, were directed by two of Via’s ex-wives to look at Via’s published writings. There, in the stories Via sold the biker magazines, police found fairly detailed descriptions of each of his crimes, including the as-yet-unsolved slaying of Peters. Via, still in prison for the rape and murder of Jane Maguire, was charged with Peters’ slaying in 2019. He was seventy-five years old.

I have yet to learn what became of those charges or the defendant.

Man, that took a dark turn, didn’t it? 😮