Folks Of Interest The Curse Of Kenneth Howard

We said the same thing. Unless you like mustard on peanut butter sandwiches...

Cobwebbed memory aside I think he and Roth were pals too, but I can't even fathom that being a detractor to my admiration of Big Daddy. But I met and spent significant time with him at the Detroit Autorama. I built my own real outlook. The 2nd time I got his sig on my Fink Zippo:
He made me finish the scribe of the last 2 letters over his sig, and when done asked "You related to Von Dutch?" "Oh fuck no." Mutual smiles recalled. My side of the line.
Again same/same bruh, we agree.

 

"Whenever you pick up a dream bag, make sure it's not full of dirt."

 

This is kind of related. I look at the hotrod and custom scene like this. We are definitely trying to hang onto an era of thinking outside the box. The men who transformed the cars of Detroit to best suit them were definitely dedicated to their craft and some possibly on the other side of the spectrum aka mental illness of sorts. When I read old Hot Rod magazines it was definitely a fantasy world of your wildest dreams of building a custom or hotrod in the how to portion of the magazine. We knew absolutely nothing about Robert E. Peterson publishing or any of our favorite car customizers painters etc. I do know that a certain Peterson publishing magazine focused on certain shops and race teams and customizers from the suburbs of Los Angeles and Hollywood and as I dug deeper into history and records of speed to me that was definite disappointment. There was a guy with an Ardun conversion 260 ci flathead powered belly tank that went over 200 mph in the early days and didn’t get much credit compared to a So Cal shop/team who was in the spotlight. That too is a form of a negative approach to the hard working record setters and car builders. You didn’t have to look far and beyond to see the records. There was a definite clique if you get my drift. Reminded me of a now defunct magazine. The record was 201.015 in 1953 the first open wheeled car to go 200 and over 200 and the driver was LeRoy Holmes the club was the SCTA Hornets. Big moves for a Redlands/Devore/San Bernardino club.

 

I feel the same! Don Montgomery turned me onto the Inland Empire club and we are continuing the legacy in California, Finland and England. An original Hornet gave the ok to continue. I’ll post more on that soon.

 

Not on subject, but don't forget Wally Scott, the lakester owner, at opening day of Colton . . .

 

"clique"

 

Yes will post later for everyone to see. Records, cars, never before seen pics and all of our members of this generation Hornets.

 

I believe that separating the artist from the art, is the best way to approach all art, no matter what you are trying to get from it. To fail to do so is ridiculous, because only philistines think it necessary to reconcile their feelings about a piece of art with their feelings about the people who created it. Fuck Kenneth Howard.

Best not think too much about Henry Ford's history of being a vocal Nazi sympathizer I guess.

 

Thank you... The erosion of the language really bugs me sometimes...

 

The one thing I could never really understand with the Von Dutch “brand”
The shirts , hats , energy drinks etc basically anything they could slap his name on they did with really little recognition of who Ken Howard was.

I can understand ( not saying I agree )looking past the person to see the art. There have been many troubled artists , poets , sculptors, inventors etc over the course of history.

but why pick Von Dutch , an obscure pinstripes artist who for all intent and purpose was a horrible person as a “Brand “?

I tried watching the documentary I could not get past the 15 minute mark , to many hipster douch bags for my liking , I might need to give it a second chance IF they try and explain there motives for using that brand over anything else they could of chosen .

 

A little aside....

The TV show “ Hogan’s Hero’s “ was about Allied force members undercover in a German NAZI prison camp. All the leading German characters, Klink, Schultz, and Burkhalter were all played by Jewish actors! When they met with series producer Bing Crosby, they made it clear the only way they would play as Germans was to make them look like fools, which they did quite well! I never knew this until recently.

Now back to whatever was being talked about.....

 

Reason #164 why I don’t post here much.

 

You should, I dig your posts

 

Reason # 166 why I don’t post here often.

 

Back to building cars! See you in 5 years!

 

"Von Dutch was just a brilliant, compulsive person, but I found that to really appreciate him was to never meet him." --Robt Williams

 

Interesting point about Ford. He's was also a complicated dude. He was clearly a proud anti-Semite and had public admiration of Hitler's Third Reich pre-WWII. Once the war started, Mr. Ford realized there was more money to be made by becoming a patriotic American and making equipment to help the US in their war effort.

I do believe money changed Henry's view, albeit, only publicly. Knowing now how hard headed he was, I'd have to assume his true values and beliefs went with him to his grave.

 

Thanks for starting this thread.

Whether art trumps character or we give historical figures a bye based on cultural norms at the time, that's something for everyone to decide for themselves.

I just see a lot of people who idolize this particular individual without knowing who and what he really was.

 

this could be relevant: robert crumb is/was a very successful "underground comic" artist who, along with two brothers suffered from mental problems. both his brothers had artistic talent, but never caught the public's fancy and never "fit in" as well as robert did.

 

Artist's like Crumb, ( ZAP Comix ), Gilbert Shelton, ( fabulous furry freak brothers ) the great caricature pen and ink artist Al Hirschfeld, Alan Aldridge ( the Beatles illustrated song book ) Ralph Steadman,
( the curse of Lono, and fear and loathing in Las Vegas ) are by far and away, head shoulders above any of the creations of VD, but that is an apples versus oranges scenario at best.

As a graphic artist myself, those artists mentioned here, were artists, that I really admired when I was a teenager growing up in the 60's, and would be proud to own any works created by them as well, with out fear of them being something evil or wicked, such as was the case, with VD.

Thanks to all, that have posted on this amazing, intriguing and informative thread !

 

The good thing about Dutch is he was not much of an influence beyond the relatively small world of auto/bike custom enthusiasts..

 

Never met the guy.
But now some of the oddities or attitudes you read about him make sense.
He striped cars for guys that defeated his “hero”
Existed in a world where most folks could care less about everything he loved or hated.
A tortured angry miserable soul seems fitting.

 

Considering my family´s history reading things like " Arbeit macht frei" and VD´s last letter on here really hit home with me, that´s kinda hard to digest. Thanks for the post none the less. Being German myself I feel the need to apologize for what happened up until 1945 in the name of Germany and the urge to thank every nation that fought for our freedom. My Dad was born in ´46 and me in ´76 so we both weren´t even born when this shit hit the fan , but both of us were raised by my Grandpa Xaver who lived and fought through WW2, telling us both all the time that all people are equal, not matter where they came from or what color they may have. He also told us we´d recognize an asshole not by his looks but by his words and deeds. My grandma was arrested and put in jail for calling Hilter a " Sauhund" and burning his photo in her kitchen stove.
My grandpa managed to get her out of there just before her being sent to Dachau. He was fighting as a German soldier in Africa when he got noticed that his soon to be wife had been arrested for calling name´s at Hitler. He had several medals on his desert uniform when he arrived at the prison office in Landshut and all the office chair Nazis ( that´s how he called them) in their clean uniforms were standing still in shock and awe when Grandpa told them they could fight their fucking war themselves unless they´d release his wife within the next second. He must have made an impression because they let her go. They were luckier than most.

My grandma was bright blond with blue eyes, exactly what the Nazis would call " arian", which is bull all by itself. My Grandpa had darker hair and dark eyes, a long slim nose, and was supposed to be jewish more than once. He had to do an arian test frequently, and if the Nazis would find someone with jewish roots in his family´s heritage he would have been arrested or worse. Once he had passed the test you could go back to war to fight for those assholes.

I think lessons can be learned from that to this day.

I knew Von Dutch was a bit on the crazy side, and that´s part of the myth I guess.... but today I lost all respect for him. That letter said it all and more.
Sorry for this long winded post, and in case it´s too political or offensive, feel free to delete it. I just can´t wrap my head around how a person could come to an opinion that being a Nazi was a good thing.

 

@Ryan , you wrote this after coming to terms with yourself regarding your evolved feelings about a particular man. That's a tough thing to do, as it exposed a vulnerability you perceived in yourself. Thanks for the story and for opening your soul to everyone here. It takes courage to do that in front of a group like this.

 

Wow man, thank you so much for sharing your families' story. One of my heroes is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who preached and wrote against the Nazis and was executed in a prison camp. He was also instrumental in the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler. I digress... Thanks again for sharing.

 

I like fuzzy dice, but not clean cut cars, i like my cars beat up (not RR level beat up), but fast, something you wouldn't expect to fly by you at over a hundred miles per hour. I am sure that there were people who shared his style, but not his mindset.