dirty dozen (sir lonnie johnson, 1930)
Want all you women, to fall in line.
Shake your shimmy, like I shake mine.
You shake your shimmy, you shake it fast.
Can't shake it shimmy, shake it yes, yes, yes.
Ah, you dirty mistreater, you robber and you cheater.
Slip you in a dozen, your pappy and your cousin.
Your mama do the Lordy, Lord.
Yonder goes your mama,across the field.
Slippin' and slidin', like an automobile.
You called to your mama, and told her to wait.
She was slippin' and slidin', like a Cadillac Eight.
She's a runnin' mistreater, a robber and a cheater.
Slip you in a dozen, your pappy and your cousin.
Your mama do the Lordy, Lord.
I like your mama, like your sister too.
Didn't like your papa, but he wouldn't do.
I met him on the corner, the other day.
I soon found out, he was funny that way.
He's a funny mistreater, a robber and a cheater.
Slip you in a dozen, your pappy and your cousin.
Your mama do the Lordy, Lord.
God made an elephant, he made him stout.
He wasn't satisfied, till he made him a snout.
He made him a snout, as long as a rail.
He wasn't satisfied, till he made him a tail.
He made him a tail, just to fan the flies.
He wasn't satisfied, till he made him some eyes.
He made him sick, and he made him well.
You know by that, an elephant caught hell.
He's a burnin' mistreater, a robber and a cheater.
Slip you in a dozen, your pappy and your cousin,
Your mama do the Lordy, Lord.
Self-taught and working under the pseudonym of “Jim”, Karlheinz Weinberger began his artistic career taking pictures for a gay underground club, Der Kreis which published a magazine by the same title. In 1958, Weinberger met a member of a small band of teenagers and began photographing them both at his home studio as well as at the public parks and carnivals where they gathered. In post war Switzerland, these self-named “rebels” were comprised of working class boys and girls dissatisfied with the conservative and conformative culture of the day. Inventing their own code of behavior and dress they affected a powerful gang identity expressed by an affinity for like-minded American imports such as James Dean, Elvis, blue jeans and motorbikes. Later, in the mid-60s, the rebels dissipated both physically and in spirit, while others carried on their youthful resistance to the status quo, forming clubs of “rockers” and “bikers” that Weinberger followed with his camera on their outings into the Swiss countryside. Their retreat from the urban setting to a self-imposed isolation in nature embodied a more inward revolt, one of self-destructiveness and self-mutilation.
Is this only inspiration?
Stylist Christopher Campbell channels the work of Weinberger for the november 2009 issue of Black Book.
I still prefer the original....
