Respect The Shooter: Janette Beckman

Rebel Culture

“I think it was last year, I went to Viva Las Vegas, which is the biggest Rockabilly show in the world I think. It’s in Vegas, of course, and it’s like a four or five day festival and actually Jocks & Nerds sent me there, the magazine. I was so happy! I mean, they had the most amazing lineup of bands! Little Richard was playing, The Rockats, all of these people. They had everything from tattoo parlors and dance classes and burlesque and this and that. The other thing they had was this massive car show. And you know, it’s in the middle of the desert in the boiling heat. I know quite a bit about muscle cars, just randomly from various circumstances in life. So I’m wandering around this car show and everybody’s got their cars there, and these guys had these amazing cars. They’re obviously East L.A. gang bangers, and I just went up to them — they’re sitting in front of their cars right now. I asked them if I could take a picture and they were like, “Yeah, sure! No problem!” And they did this pose – they’re drinking beer and they were like, “You want to hang with us? You want to drink some beers?” They had this huge trunk full of beers, so I just ended up hanging out with them for a bit. You know, they’re scary looking dudes but of course I’m immediately attracted to that kind of visual. Their rides are amazing. You can see how low they are. They’re pretty much scraping ground. I don’t know if they have those lifts on them or not, but I thought they had the hottest cars and they were like the nicest guys and their tattoos were really amazing. So, I just ended up hanging out with them and their friends for quite a while, drinking beer. To me, they really epitomize the rebel culture, for sure. They’re still doing it, and you know, I had done that whole series way back in ’83 on an East L.A. gang, and it just reminded me of those guys, you know? It was the same thing. They were just like, super into their music and super into their cars.”