I
wasn’t close friends with Lin “Spit” Newborn. Like most people I met in the Las Vegas punk scene he
was a passing acquaintance.
But he stuck out like a sore thumb among the ranks of scenesters who regularly snuck into shows at the Huntridge or smoked joints in the backyard of house parties.
I
remember being thoroughly stoked when I first saw him at some bullshit show featuring
some forgettable bands sometime in the early to mid 90’s. I’m not ashamed to admit it was a
thrill to see a black punk rocker.
Sure there were a handful of black people who attended shows even as
far back as the 80’s when I first made the scene but he was by far the punkest
black dude I’d met up to that point.
What I mean is he was aesthetically “punk as fuck!” He could’ve easily been photographed
for those ubiquitous Punk and Disorderly compilations that came out back in the
day. He was all spikes, bondage
pants, creepers, piercings, tattoos and safety pins. Mind you, this was
before that style became as above ground as it is today. He was more decked out than pretty much everyone who went to shows back then.
Not
to downplay the black punks who didn’t get all duded up with the all those trappings. I mean the guy who
introduced me to more punk bands than anyone was my good friend Ryland
Luss. And yeah, he was a black guy
too, but he rarely wore more than an Operation Ivy pin on his dirty gray shirt. It’s corny in retrospect to
find that all so appealing but for Las Vegas, Nevada in the 90’s, that was a
rarity. Living in Portland, Oregon these last few years I’ve seen my share of punq as fuck black people. I’ve even seen scary, somewhat ambiguous black guys wearing Burzam shirts, but that’s just too confusing to ponder right now. Although I guess I get their point as
well.
As
mentioned I wasn’t super tight with Spit.
I’m not overly tight with anyone really, but we bumped into each other
now and again. I was at a house
party drinking beer in the backyard a few feet from Spit when this crazy lady I
knew came up and began aggressively hitting on me. I normally would welcome those kind of advances but I knew this
lady, and knew she wasn’t stable so I wasn’t taking the bait. Spit
witnessed the whole thing go down and he busted out laughing, gave me a
big hug and proceeded to tell me what a pimp I was for fending off the babes in such a carefree manner. The crazy lady got the hint, and being somewhat embarrassed by the
attention from Spit, she slunk off, which was a good thing because I probably would have caved after a few beers if she
kept up the pressure.
Another
time at a different party/show in the same back yard, me and Spit got into a conversation about the challenges of
refraining from “breaking the seal.”
Which more or less is a challenge you issue to other drinking buddies to
see who could continue drinking the longest without taking a piss. You could say we were intellectuals.
I
saw him around and would say hi several times over the years even though I didn’t know
his name and I'm sure he probably didn’t know my name either. It was just cool knowing the one PUNK black guy in the
scene would say “sup.” at the rare Huntridge show I’d go to. I thought it strange that he later
started working doing body piercings. Back then it seemed like a hippie trip to do piercings but hey it was the 90’s when bad hippie shit flowed with the same eagerness
as industrial music, or the concept of “alternative.” In retrospect it was all considered "punk" since punk at that time, and really for along time since, had lacked any focus. In any event I didn’t see him for years unless I looked
through the window of the body piercing shop on the way to the record store located next door.
It
was quite the shock to hear that Lin “Spit” Newborn his friend Dan Shersty
were found murdered in the desert on the outskirts of town a few days after the
Fourth of July in 1998. It was a
considerably smaller punk scene in Las Vegas in the mid 90’s. Shit, even I was in a band at that point. To me the specter of Nazi Skinhead fascism,
which was a huge thing in the 80’s and early 90’s, seemed to have dissipated, at least as far as the parties and shows I went to, but the rumors were that this terrible deed was perpetrated by Nazis. Which turned out to be true. This being one of the last high profile
murders attributed to the underground Nazi Skinhead scene in America during the
90’s.
It’s
especially galling considering that just two years ago one of the main
suspects, who fled for Germany shortly after the murders, was finally
apprehended when he came back to the US with a fake passport. He would later stand trial, be accused
by his SISTER. Yes, that’s right
his blood relative. HIS
SISTER. And yet be found not guilty. Smells like bullshit to me and just
about everyone else who knew about this tragic event. And yet life goes on.
I’ve
looked more than once to find pictures of Spit and Dan. In the age of the internet I’m shocked there are not dozens, if not hundreds of pictures of this guy.
He was picture taking material by far. I have to assume there are more pictures of him out there
but all that I’ve ever been able to find is what I am providing here. Strangely the site that hosts the most
photos of both these guys is all in Chinese? I’m asking you dear reader. If you have pictures of Spit or Dan, please send them to me
so that I may add them to this blog entry so that there will be a more high
profile way to remember them. I
ask you to please go back to your old boxes of photos if you think you may have
them. Send them to me. I can digitize any old negatives or old
photos or digitize them yourself and email them to me.
With
all the recent racist bullshit that has gotten media attention in the last year
it’s important to remember and put a face on the long history of racist
terrorism that has been perpetrated on people who don’t subscribe to the
bullshit stain of white supremacy in the United States. Especially when it was within our
midst. We must never forget and
make sure the world never forgets either. I think it important that the LVHC scene own up to it's ignorant past.
I
was never the biggest fan of the fourth of July. I make no secret of my disdain for the ugly side of American
life. Although it mostly comes
from the love of the America I think I know. The America I believe in. But the 4th has never been the same for me after
all these years.
If
you have any photos or other artifacts from the lives of these two men please
contact me so that I may share them here.
I can be reached at chadarad@hotmail.com.
I will include any photos sent to me below. Much thanks to Brandon Sledge, who was in the band Life of Lies with Spit, for sharing the photos below.
A photo of Spit from his senior year yearbook. He was voted Most Scatterbrained.
A video for Tribal Body Piercing, the place where Spit worked. I found this video a few days after writing this post.
