[Nocturnal Animals]

35mm to digital: On Mission Boulevard

Scene As Best Remembered

by Reviewer Rob

John Cox was a tall and burly clubgoer in the early 1990’s that briefly started a night called Club Mayhem in like early 1990 with some of his group of buddies from Mission Beach/PB. “Big John,” as he was known among his followers, was a charismatic leader of a group of guys that were often seen together in the P.B. area bars, Pacer’s world famous topless strip club and certain downtown dance venues at that time.

I think Big John (one of his crew, also a John, was much shorter) was originally from an inland community but had imbedded himself in the beach neighborhood not by surfing but by drugs. Though I wasn’t his customer as far as I could tell he was a seller of smallish quantities however if there were drugs to be had he could get them. I first knew of him through shooting club photos for Revolt In Style magazine because he and his band of blonde-haired male acolytes always wanted to be photographed while out partying, and they sometimes had girls around them which made the photos of course better. Somehow he always seemed to have special inside information about people and events, and knew ahead of time to avoid police checkpoints in an era before smartphones. Hell, maybe he actually was an undercover, I don’t know. The dude could seem kinda scary.

When I moved to Mission Beach from Leucadia in 1991 he and his crew immediately rented a two bedroom upstairs apartment across the street from my studio. They’d be up late at night partying or lifting weights by day in front by the sidewalk in the sun. I was seeing a girl who lived in a place on the boardwalk and would sometimes walk past them and their big Nazi Third Reich banner they pinned up to fill the inside of their living room window, its large black swastika in a circle of white set against the red background menacingly visible to anyone on Mission Boulevard. I never knew of him or his bros to have a “job” type job at the time. Their job appeared to be partying.

Here’s a 35mm to digital conversion photo of Big John and a couple of female friends in the early 1990’s after the Mission Beach swastika era of ’91. It was underexposed and thin in the neg but I got some of the detail out. It was on the same roll as Ms Kitten’s birthday party (previous post HERE) so it was either there that night on Fifth Avenue or perhaps later that night at another bar. I believe the woman to John’s left wearing the thong was his girlfriend who became the mother of his son. John passed away last year I was told, while living with his sister.