Freak Flags

Stewart Ebersole is searching for the meaning of your tattoos.

by Andrew Thompson

[ benefit ]

Jared Castaldi THE BLACK (FLAG) SHEEP: Stewart Ebersole and his friend Jared Castaldi are photographing people across the country who sport the simplistic, clean Black Flag tattoo.

If you're younger than 30, it can be difficult to conceive of punk rock as anything other than a loud way to say "fuck you" and inflate your edginess. The high school guys who start punk bands today are (gasp!) popular, they get girls, and they're revered. But to the thousands of people now in their 30s and 40s who grew up as misfits in small towns across the country, punk was a safe haven from ritualistic abuse at school and estrangement at home.

For many of the punks of yore, L.A. hardcore punk band Black Flag was the point of entry, and tattoos of Black Flag's bars have been inked in their skin ever since.

Two years ago, Stewart Ebersole set out to compile a book about the people who wear this tattoo, and to answer two questions: What do Black Flag, and the Black Flag tattoo, mean to people? Tomorrow, Ebersole, a Philly artist who's best known for his "LIBER-8 ME" art project in which he plastered wooden cutouts of clenched fists throughout the city, will hold his first of three benefit events to fund his tour to photograph people across the country with the tattoo. He plans to call the book Barred for Life.

"You have to start on the premise that people don't get into punk easily — well, they do now, but back then, when [the original Black Flag members] were in the band, you got into it on your own," says Ebersole, whose lankiness in high school didn't sit well with other students who berated and threw bottles at him. "It's almost like war stories when you talk to people about growing up and getting beat on, because you didn't fit into society."

Tomorrow night's benefit will feature Black Flag karaoke and a performance by Misfits cover band The Danzig Brick at Tritone; on Fri., Sept. 25, there'll be a bike race and scavenger hunt beginning at Bob & Barbara's, and an after-party with screen-printing stations at the Khyber; and on Sat., Sept. 26, bands Copout and Aneurism Rats will play and the film Decline of Western Civilization will screen at Exit Skate Shop in Northern Liberties. The tour's official kickoff is on Wed., Sept. 30, at Tattooed Mom's, which will feature an exhibit of Barred for Life photographer Jared Castaldi's works.

The project itself also has a DIY ethic — Ebersole has bankrolled it entirely on his own so far, and tracked down people to photograph primarily through MySpace and word of mouth. He's already amassed about 150 photos (although he doesn't know how many of them he's going to use), and he's capping the project at 400 — and that's without knowing whether it'll ever be published. The recession has curtailed publishers' taste for risk, and a first-time author putting out a book about Black Flag tattoos is a hard sell.

But Ebersole takes the project seriously enough that he's quitting his job as recreation leader at Manayunk's Hillside Recreation Center to be able to tour. "When I come back, I might be flat broke," he says. "And if I have to shelve it, then I'll have to shelve it."

(andrew.thompson@citypaper.net)

Barred For Life | First benefit Fri., Sept. 18, 10 p.m., $6, Tritone, 1508 South St., barredforlife.net