{"id":75211,"date":"2019-10-04T17:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-10-05T00:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=75211"},"modified":"2020-06-26T08:53:43","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T15:53:43","slug":"mad-mark-baker-villainy-and-aristocracy-from-brighton-to-bali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/mad-mark-baker-villainy-and-aristocracy-from-brighton-to-bali\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad Mark Baker interview by Steve Olson: Villainy and Aristocracy from Brighton to Bali"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Jason Reposar.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mad<\/strong> Mark Baker interview by Steve Olson with photography by Wynn Miller, Jason Reposar, Rick Battson, Jason Lunn and John Roka.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stand and deliver… Love is the drug… Walk this way!!!<\/em> From the shores of England, to the isles of Bali… ’70s Skateboard Superstar, ’90s NYC Club and Party Promoter. \u201cYou\u2019ll never be anything.\u201d Wrong!!! To prevail, is one thing… To rub it in the face of the haters, is another. The circus could be the foundation. The will is the strength. Persistence, the choice. Love, the Power… For all that life has to offer. Full Throttle, wide open… Howling at the moon…. 1. 2. 3. a-Go-Go… Go with the flow… you make your own. As Mr. Mad Mark Baker has and is living proof, you can\u2019t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you\u2019ll get what you need… Never before, never after… There\u2019s only one…. That is: Mark Baker.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Introduction by Steve Olson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo by RBPhotos<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

OLSON: Hello, hello, hello\u2026 Okay.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BAKER: Hello, one, two. Hello, one, two. Yes, it was a dog day. Check, check. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay. I just want to make sure the levels are hot. We\u2019re good. Just so you know, we\u2019re going to have a conversation and I\u2019m going to ask you questions that I obviously already know, but that\u2019s for the readers. So where were you born?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was born in Brighton, England. It\u2019s a beach town on the south coast of England. It\u2019s got a mixed reputation for aristocracy and villainy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And hooligans, punk rockers and mods\u2026 Why did they choose Brighton? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brighton is a seaside town where the aristocracy used to go and bathe in the pools and the waters of Brighton last century. Over the years, it became a destination for mods, rockers, skinheads, bootboys, thugs and villains. They used to come down on bank holidays and weekends and scrap it out on the beach. Quadrophenia<\/em> is a good example of how it was, as is Graham Greene\u2019s book, Brighton Rock<\/em>, and the racecourse bookies and gangsters. As time went on, Brighton attracted the best and worst of everyone in England. There is a lot of wealth and villainy and villainous money, including a big antiques business, which has a mixed crew, so Brighton is a wheeler-dealer town. By the time you\u2019re a young kid there, you learn every hustle in the book. You learn how to \u201cspot the fuck\u201d and you learn that you\u2019ve got to take care of yourself and, if you don\u2019t take care of yourself, you\u2019re going to get eaten. That\u2019s basically Brighton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re born and raised in Brighton, and you see this as a kid, which is influential and maybe, possibly, probably inspiring. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I had a pretty dysfunctional childhood to say the least. My father died when I was young and it was devastating for my mother. She was a young mother with two boys. Basically, my dad\u2019s business partner robbed us all blind, so we were left with nothing, and my mom did her best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She had to fend for herself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absolutely. She had to hustle. At the same time, she was devastated because she was very much in love with my father. Basically, I was on my own since I was very young. My mother had to go to work during the daytime, so going to school and coming home from school, I was pretty much unsupervised, so I learned to hustle when I was pretty young. My mom was on a first name basis with the hospital ER staff and the cops. [Laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What kind of hustles?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just hustles. I wasn\u2019t bad, but I was on the edge. I was that kid with no parental supervision that terrorized the whole neighborhood with whatever I did. I had to provide for myself and I was unsupervised, so I got into mischief. Then the circus came to town and I skipped school and went there for a job for six weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How old were you when you joined the circus?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was nine. They dressed me up as a clown or put me in a gorilla outfit and stuck me on top of a truck. They were driving me around Brighton with the music blaring and I was waving at the kids and handing out flyers. That was my first job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo courtesy Mark Baker Archives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So you learned how to do promotions and make money. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You bet! Nobody else was giving it to me so, when the circus left, I went with it. I ran away with the circus, which is such a clich\u00e9, but I actually did it. With the circus, we were traveling all over England and I had my caravan and I was with a really mixed lot. The circus is made up of incredible talent and personalities. We had the first Russian and Eastern European performers and trapeze artists and all the animals \u2013 the lions and tigers and elephants \u2013 and all the rest of it. The people that put the show together and put up the tents and did the construction were really a rough lot. They were absolutely street thug murderous people on the run that wanted to be anonymous. We were probably the biggest circus that was traveling around England. Every once in a while, we would be in the same town as the traveling fairs. We had all the ring boys, who were the circus boys, and then there were the pikey villains that were traveling with the fairs. We used to clash and people were getting killed. It was rough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did you do at the circus?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were traveling with the circus and doing PR and handing out flyers and putting up posters, but I was very drawn to the animals, so I was taking care of the lion cubs and looking after the animals. I shoveled a lot of shit. [Laughs] Sometimes I would dress up as a clown and I was in the ring during shows, which is quite funny too. I was that kid that grew up in the circus. It was always strange coming to a new town and seeing other boys my age with their families. I used to meet and make friends occasionally, but their lives were so different. I smoked, had tattoos and lived in a caravan. I knew I was different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we reflect on that, it shows that you understood the aspect of being a performer from a young age. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absolutely. It\u2019s show biz. It\u2019s putting on a show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show must go on. Then you have to pack the tents. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absolutely. The show must go on. Then you have to roll that circus into the next town and hype up that town and get them excited about the show coming to town, and I loved that. It wasn\u2019t without its scraps. I had my fights too. I didn\u2019t stay at home in my trailer when the ring boys were out fighting with the fair boys. I had to prove myself with the ring boys and these were some real tough guys. I got beat up a couple of times. After that, I fended for myself. I met my surrogate family too. I had an amazing Russian family, which was a group of trapeze artists. The mother of that family took me under her wing. My mom didn\u2019t have anything to say about it because I just browbeat her down. I was going on the road and there was nothing she could say about it. By that time, my elder brother had been put into one of the best boarding schools in England. We were the charity cases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your brother is older?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s five years older and he\u2019s a tough motherfucker too. I was a pain in the ass when I was a kid and my brother was a badass. I got smacked a couple of times and he shot me in the leg when I was young because I fucked with his stereo system. I was kind of scared of him until one day I socked him in the jaw. He was so happy that I slugged him that we kind of kissed and made up. He was like, \u201cMotherfucker, I think you broke my jaw.\u201d I was ten. [Laughs] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Laughs] Yes! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much crazy shit went down. They say your childhood affects you as go on, but I was doing crazy shit on my bicycle and traveling with the circus and I was carrying a .22 caliber air pistol when I was eight. I was locked and loaded and I did what I had to do to protect myself. I was carrying a certain amount of anger because the teachers at school were bullying me and all the parents in the neighborhood hated me and didn\u2019t want their kids hanging with me. One day I was being chased by a gang of kids and I ran through a plate glass door. I was all cut up and bleeding to death on the street and the neighbors just slammed the door instead of calling for an ambulance. I was nine years old, so you get the picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why were the teachers picking on you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, there was Mrs. Brockway. She was a monster, a bully, and she really fucked with me, and I never knew why. I wasn\u2019t a bad kid. I was just a pain in the ass kid because I wanted attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, you were a kid that didn\u2019t have complete parental guidance. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I was on my own and adults were picking on me. I was always the one getting strapped or detention. They cut my swimming pool visits and I wasn\u2019t allowed to go on outings. It was non-stop. They fucked with me really badly and it certainly made me mad at authority. I had become a bit of a handful at school and at home, so I was sent to a special school. It was a day borstal, like a juvie prison. I was in and out of special programs, and they didn\u2019t have Adderall back then. [Laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You were also a kid with a lot of energy and a fast working brain. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly. They didn\u2019t know what A.D.D. was in the late \u201960s in England. They just thought we were problem kids. They didn\u2019t know how to deal with us, so they put us in special schools, which in some cases, just bred worse troubles when you put a young bunch of complicated kids all in one spot. You could say \u2018hooligans\u2019 and then you\u2019ve got to look at the culture of football and soccer violence in England and it was absolutely expected that you would fight for your team. It was our culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who was your team?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My team was Brighton and Manchester United. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you play football as well? What other sports did you participate in?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I played football and I was doing the javelin. I was a good athlete. I was good at running and throwing. I could throw a rock from a hundred meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to scrap and do crazy shit. We had a crew of 15 or 20 of us that would go to soccer matches and walk into the opposing team\u2019s grandstand with 4,000 to 5,000 of the opposing supporters, and we would break out our colors and start whaling on people. We had quite a reputation as a terrifying crew. In the \u201960s and \u201870s, we were fucking people up. It was a rite of passage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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