Bob Flanagan

"For other persons with similar names see Bob Flanagan (disambiguation)."

Bob Flanagan (December 27 1952 – January 4 1996)"Terminals"] was an American writer, poet, musician, performance artist, and comic.

He was born in New York City and grew up in Glendale, California. At a young age he was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis, a condition which would influence his art and ultimately claim his life. He studied literature at California State University, Long Beach and the University of California, Irvine. He moved to Los Angeles in 1976. In 1978, he published his first book, "The Kid Is A Man." He also worked with the improv comedy group The Groundlings. [ [http://hnv.nin.net/hnv6/flanagan.html bob flanagan, 1952-1996 ] ]

He was the subject of the documentary "" (1997) a film by Kirby Dick, which films the final years of Bob's life.

Flanagan is featured in the widely banned music video for the song "Happiness in Slavery" by Nine Inch Nails. In the video, he plays a character who worships a machine. He offers a candle to an altar, before ceremonially undressing and washing. The slave (Bob) then lies down on an intelligent torture machine that molests and ultimately kills him, all with a mixture of pain and pleasure on his face.

In 1993 he also appeared in the video for the Danzig song "It's Coming Down". In the uncensored version of the video, Flanagan hammers a nail through the head of his penis before urinating on the lens of the camera recording him.

He also had a bit part in Godflesh's "Crush my Soul" video, as a suitably blasphemous, upside-down suspended Christ, hoisted on to the ceiling of a traditional-looking church by his wife Sheree Rose.

While some of his performances were notable for acts of extreme masochism (on at least one occasion he hammered a nail through his penis, while cracking jokes), he also wrote rather clever, humorous songs, many of them intended as much for children as adults.

His latest posthumous piece by Sheree Rose entitled "Bobaloon," was shown in Japan, featuring a 20 foot tall inflatable Flanagan complete with pierced penis, ball gag and straitjacket.

On January 4 1996, he died of cystic fibrosis, aged 43.

Partial bibliography

* "The Kid is the Man" (1978)
* "The Wedding of Everything" (1983)
* "Slave Sonnets" (1986)
* "Fuck Journal" (Hanuman Press, c. 1990)
* "A Taste of Honey" with David Trinidad (1990)
* "Bob Flanagan: Supermasochist" (1993) (interviews)
* "Pain Journal"(1996)

Notes and references

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* [http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/terminals/bio_bob.html Bob Flanagan] : brief biography on "Terminals", UCLA. Accessed 14 October 2006.

External links

* [http://hnv.nin.net/hnv6/flanagan.html Obituary]
* [http://www.poetryproject.com/newsletter/nl_flana.html From the Poetry Journal]
* [http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/terminals/flanagan/flanagan.html Excerpts from Flanagan's "Pain Journal"]
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0425/is_n4_v56/ai_20544724 "Why" (poem answering the question of Flanagan's lifestyle)]
* [http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?FLANAGANB Bob Flanagan] in the Video Data Bank Persondata
NAME= Flanagan, Bob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=American writer, poet, musician, performance artist, and comic
DATE OF BIRTH=December 27 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH=New York City
DATE OF DEATH=January 4 1996
PLACE OF DEATH=