Nixon performs at the 1992 San Diego Comic-Con

“I would say that 60 percent of the crowd liked him, and the rest were offended,” recalls Beat Farmers guitarist Jerry Raney about his initial meeting with Mojo Nixon at the Spring Valley Inn circa 1983. “But I liked him, and we became friends right off the bat.” (Nixon and Skid Roper had toured nationally opening for the Beat Farmers.) Their lifelong friendship grew familial, to the point where Nixon was entrusted with babysitting Jerry’s son Nathan when the opportunity arose for the boy’s mother Merilee to visit her husband in Amsterdam while on tour. “Mojo and his wife Adaire were the ones watching him when we arrived home,” says Jerry Raney. “Nate came running out to us in a little T-shirt that had ‘Mojo Nixon is My Babysitter’ written on it, with his finger in his nose! It was funny as hell, and we were sure that Mojo had planned it that way. So Mojo taught Nate how to pick his nose correctly, too!”

Nathan, then two years old, still has the shirt, and says that “Mojo drew up the shirt, and I wore it for a couple of days and just got it completely filthy. When my parents came to pick me up, I was wearing it with my finger up my nose, which I had learned from Mojo. My parents framed the shirt when I got home, and I’ve had it ever since.”

Nixon’s influence on the younger Raney extended beyond mining for mucus. “[He told me] be over the top. If you’re going to do anything, don’t be afraid to be who you are. He embraced my music and who I am for who I am, not what people expected of me, and told me to continue my musical journey and be true to myself.”

Nixon’s satirical narrative take on American culture spanned more than ten albums, and included both solo output and a collaboration with former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra. Subversive and scathing, his lyrics in songs like “Don Henley Must Die” and “Burn Down the Malls” commented on fame, capitalism, and cultural consumerism. After MTV hired Nixon to do announcement spots, the channel refused to air his music video for “Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child,” and Nixon walked away from his new gig — but not before they filmed his wedding at a go-cart racetrack in Chula Vista, with Beat Farmer Country Dick Montana officiating.

Jerry Raney recalls the MTV filming. “The ladies in the wedding party were shooting off the ‘21 Gun Water Balloon Salute’ with these huge slingshots. They had to sit on their butts and use their arms and legs to fire off the balloons into the air. Things were going great, as their launchings were going about 500 feet across the landscape. Suddenly, one of the MTV cameramen walked blindly right in front of the launchpad, and the girls inadvertently creamed him right upside the head, sending him and the wildly expensive camera flying. It was funny as hell to witness, but at least he wasn’t really injured. I don’t think the camera fared very well, though.”

Proximity to Nixon often gave rise to such moments. “About every year,” says Nathan Raney, “the Beat Farmers do a Hootenanny at the Belly Up Tavern, with guest stars and members of the Beat Farmers extended family. Mojo was a guest star a few years back, and he and I really wanted to watch the NFL playoffs, which were playing at the bar. We sat at a table and talked about life, football, music, and whatever else came up. No one approached us, and I always wondered why. But apparently Mojo, wearing his little Daisy Duke shorts, was giving fans quite an eyeful.”

Nixon appeared on CNN’s Crossfire in the early ‘90s, speaking against the warning labels that resulted from lobbying by Tipper Gore’s PMRC. His opponent was none other than the archconservative Pat Buchanan, who was unable to maintain civility in the face of Nixon’s well-worded arguments. Retiring and un-retiring several times in the 2000s, Nixon’s resume grew to include actor (playing Jerry Lee Lewis drummer James Van Eaton in Great Balls of Fire) and disc jockey — both on satellite radio, where he hosted a political show called Lying Cocksuckers, and on terrestrial stations, including local KGB FM. He left the building at age 66 on February 7, while on the Outlaw Country Cruise, due to what has been reported as a cardiac event.

(For more, see Mojo Nixon Comix & Stories)