KU Life Section B THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1996
Mixing skinheads,ska and society
Lawrence skinheads Alley Speight, Kitty Steffens, Tom Paszkiewicz and Mike Johnson hang out in Tom's front yard for a laid-back evening of barbecue, beer and dominoes. All
James W. Grau/KANSAN
four, and most other Lawrence skinheads, consider themselves anti-racist despite the way others stereotype them.
By Adam Ward Kansan staff writer
"I don't know what it is, but every city I'm in, I always end up sitting and drinking on somebody's roof," says Lawrence skinhead Tom Paszklewicz. He's one of five skinheads sitting in white plastic lawn chairs on the roof above G Willikers restaurant, behind Kitty Steffens' second-floor Massachusetts Street apartment.
Steffens favors a punk-rock girl style haircut,
dued Courtney Love-blonde with black roots.
Paszkiewicz, a heavyset 30-year-old gas station manager, stares reflectively at the side of a building caked with white paint. His T-shirt, shorts and shaved head make him look younger.
The smell of warm urine stings the air, remnants from when Paszkiewicz and Mike Johnson, a younger skinhead, splattered jets of what must have been pure Pabst Blue Ribbon, Lawrence skinheads' beer of choice, while aiming for a dumpster in the alley below.
There's something about drinking on a roof, Paszkiewicz observes, kind of like getting above the garbage of the street.
Skinheads deal with this external hostility by listening to music and creating close relationships with each other.
Ska, a music more danceable than reggae but sharing the same rhythm guitar beat, is a temporary escape for the skinheads from their uneasy relationship with society.
"All my skinhead influences are from the ska scene," Paszkiewicz says. "That's how I got to know the skinheads in Kansas City."
An incomplete picture
"What about skinheads?" reads the second subhead of an August 16, 1990, Wall Street Journal article about the deaths of Native Americans in Lawrence.
"The term skinhead usually refers to young neo-Nazis with shaved heads or close-cropped hair, who wear jeans, suspenders and heavy black work boots and who advocate violence in the name of white supremacy," writes Ann Hagedorn. "The sheriff confirms there are such people hereabouts. But he says there are 'copycats' who dress like skinheads but don't exhibit overt racism."
Media coverage like that infuriates the skinheads. Paszkiewicz says the Lawrence skinheads were persecuted for more than a year after the Wall Street Journal article about the hit-and-run murder of 19-year-old Native-American Christopher Bread.
The Lawrence police were "interviewing" local skinheads while they were at their jobs, he explains. The skinheads saw that as harassment.
Eventually, the police charged Marvin Schaal with the crime, someone Paszkiewicz describes as "a metal-head kid with long hair."
The court dismissed the charge of vehicular homicide against Schaal, but the case was a kind of vindication for the skinheads.
Paul Paukstelis, Manhattan junior, dresses traditionally except for the nearly invisible stubble on his head.
Paukstells estimated there were 15 skinheads in Lawrence,30 in the Kansas City and Leavenworth area and 15 in Manhattan.
"I think there is more media coming out now saying skinheads are racist, showing the radical groups," Paukstelis says. "No one would care about working-class Joes like us who go to work, come home and drink beer."
Howard Hanna, Manhattan junior, is another local skinhead. He lives with Brandy Springer, his skinhead girlfriend, and Pauktelis. Hanna says,
"People would rather read about Nazis than focus on regular people. It's natural that the media focus on the negative."
Alley Speight has platinum-blonde hair buzzed except for her bangs, which ride low across her forehead. Most people have skinhead history all wrong, Speight says. Television shows like Investigative Reports on the A&E cable channel are inaccurate when they say skinheads started with mohawks and black leather jackets in the punk and white-power movements of the 1980s.
Lawrence's self-proclaimed "true" skinheads call the racist skinheads "boneheads." But Paszkiewicz says the media only show what the boneheads are doing, perpetuating the negative associations.
The media are skinheads' worst enemies, Paszkiewicz says.
What are skinheads?
Paukestelis says skinheads have pride in their fellow skinheads and pride in themselves, which is expressed through a style of dress.
Like Buddhist monks, shaving their heads to renounce the world, skinheads make a statement about their environment through their unique appearance.
Being a skinhead leads people a culture that isn't present in the Midwest, Pauktelis savs.
The only way to become a skinhead is to be
accepted as one by other skinheads, Paukstellis says.
Hanna says the original skinheads evolved in the 1960s when English working-class teen-agers came in contact with Jamaican immigrants in factories in England.
The English teen-agers admired the Jamaicans' dignity, suits and closely shaven haircuts, Paukstelis says. The English youths adopted the dress of the Jamaican immigrants, who called themselves "rudeboys."
The skinhead movement in England was one or the first multi-ethnic social movements, Hanna says.
The movement was resurrected in the early 1980s with punk rock.
Lawrence skinheads are attempting to continue this tradition, Paulksteils says.
Skinheads became associated with racism when the National Front, Britain's socialist party, began dressing members of its party like skinheads, Paukstelis says. They were trying to use the skinheads' aggressive image to intimidate people.
Local skinheads shave their heads and wear white T-shirts and jeans. But the dress code breaks down among the older generation, who no longer need to superficially associate themselves with other skinheads. Skinheads of both sexes decorate their bodies with thick-lined tattoos, many referring to music or being a skinhead.
Dealing with police
On the way to Steffens' apartment from the Replay Lounge, 946 Massachusetts St., Steffens and Paszkiewicz stop at G Willikers, 733 Massachusetts St., for soft drinks.
"Did you see the way everybody in the place turned around and looked at me when I came in?" Paszkiewicz asks Steffens. The place is a police bar, he explains.
"The Lawrence police say I'm the leader of the Aryan Nation," Paszkiewicz says.
He also claims the Lawrence police began keeping files on skinheads since he came to Lawrence in 1987.
Lawrence police deny that they keep the skinheads on the gang file, says Sgt. Susan Hadl, Lawrence police press officer.
"We are not about the business of stereotyping populations," Hadi says.
But Paszkiewicz says, "The police attitude is to treat us as a street gang or a terrorist organization."
He complains that no matter how much they cooperate with the police, the law still tries to pin everything from graffiti to the death of Christopher Bread on skinheads.
See Skinheads, page 3B
Consumer products play supporting roles in many movies
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Here's the swing—and the pitch.
You have to look closely, but Kevin Costner packs a Taylor Made Burner Bubble driver in his
Pit Sap gon bag. Tom Cruise surfs the net on an Apple PowerBook 5300 in Mission: Impossible. Pierce Brosnan's Goldeneye James Bond has traded up to a BMW Z3 Roar
Tin Cup golf
Kevin Costner
BMW Z3 Roadster. And Demolition Man's Sylvester Stallone dines at a Taco Bell.
Consumer products have never played a more prominent co-starring role in the movies, and the
marketing doesn't stop on screen. In a multi-million dollar effort to cash in on hit films, companies are laying out huge sums to become promotional partners with Hollywood blockbusters — even when their product doesn't appear in the movie.
For the manufacturers, the advantages are twofold. For minimal cost, a product can share the screen with Bruce Willis or Julia Roberts. And with the right advertising campaign, something as dull as a hamburger can enjoy a fortune of brand-name publicity. Reese's Pieces got a huge boost from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Toy Story sparked an avalanche of once-defunct Slinky Dog sales.
In the last several months, McDonald's, PepsiCo, Apple and BMW have shelled out millions to become promotional partners with Hollywood's top filmmakers. McDonald's pact with Disney
doesn't mean Big Macs will start appearing in animated musicals, but McDonald's will be Disney's primary promotional partner for 10 years.
"More and more marketers are trying to do movie promotions," said Dean Ayers, president of the Entertainment Resources and Marketing Association. "Today's films are a major force in creating icons and showing what's hip and trendy. They drive people into the stores."
For the studios and filmmakers, the placement and promotion deals are a sure-fire daily double. Products lend a movie real-world authenticity, and can help defray costly prop and wardrobe budgets. More important is the free advertising: BMW and Apple spent $15 million apiece advertising Goldeneye and Mission Impossible. Taylor Made will run Tin Cup ads in seven golf magazines — and Warner Bros. won't
spend a dime.
Just like studio executives, marketing experts struggle to pick which film will — or will not — be a hit. And even with a filmmaker's promise, a product placement can backfire.
Black & Decker paid to have a drill featured in one of the Die Hard movies, but the power tool landed on the cutting room floor. Coca-Cola successfully asked Oliver Stone to cut a Coke commercial from the ultraviolet Natural Born Killers. Orkin lent its pest-control name to Pacific Heights, but was aghast (and later sued) when the movie depicted an Orkin technician as a hopeless dolt.
Many films do not lend themselves to product placement and promotional tie-ins. Jack Daniels, for instance, would have been crazy to sign on with the alcoholic drama *Leaving Las Vegas*. The babs-and-burgers chain Hooters
"They can be both obvious and subliminal at the same time," says Michael Schau, the executive editor of the Entertainment Marketing Letter, a trade publication. "You could be seeing a lot more Chrysler than you imagine."
Such is the case with Taylor Made golf clubs.
Some people have criticized Apple for their products appearing in Mission: Impossible. Although Cruise's character spends much of the film typing on a computer keyboard, it's not always clear he's working on an Apple. The fancy BMW also didn't get much screen time in Goldeneye — Bond clearly still favors an Aston Martin.
Some product plugs are almost unnoticeable.
turned down a chance to cross-promote the even lower-rent Shougirls.
As part of the Tin Cup plot, Roy McAvoy (Costner) doesn't have
Don Johnson, who stars opposite Costner as a PGA pro, doesn't have to disguise his brand. His clubs — and golf bag — all say Taylor Made. Johnson's golf hat, thanks to another product placement deal, is from Nissan.
access to fancy sponsors and top-of-the-line equipment: he's a back-road hustler. Costner personally golfs with Taylor Made metal woods, so the film's prop department took sandpaper to such a club, gave it a wood-grain paint job, and passed it off as a steel-shafted persimmon driver.
Cast and crew members say the real benefit of product placement is free loot.
Taylor Made has given away valuable golf equipment to two dozen Warner Bros. executives, and Nike is loved throughout Hollywood for showering everyone down to the bagel boy with free shoes and sporting goods.