Jesus Is My Homeboy Official Original

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The covers of LaChapelle’s new books, Lost + Found Part I and Good News Part II. Photograph: Taschen

One moment in a man’s life. One connection made between two men. One message heard around the world. Here, Jesus is portrayed as remarkably traditional and conspicuously white, draped in red and blue robes, echoing Leonard da Vinci's enduring mural from the 1490s, while the apostles in LaChapelle's version are of different races. Judging by their dress code, they are influenced by urban hip-hop culture.

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He responded, “This is detective so-and-so. I need to talk to you. We got an anonymous phone call that said you were involved in a robbery a few years ago.” A few years later an aspiring fashion designer was poking through a second hand shop, looking for gems, when he came across a silk screen that he was very taken with. He began to produce and sell t-shirts featuring the image on the silk screen, and was very successful. The shirts became an international phenomenon, appearing on consumers from all walks of life. One day Van Zan opened a tattered copy of People magazine he found while waiting in line at the DMV, and he saw it. He saw his shirt.A grinning celebrity held out his chest proudly and pointed with both index fingers at the words, “Jesus is My Homeboy”. Then he saw his shirt on TV. Then, on the streets. Then he knew his message was being heard, and he was overjoyed. It is, in part, a consequence of having to fine-tune his mental health constantly, and the death of his mother (who, he used to say, first taught him photography) a couple of years ago; LaChapelle is bipolar, but antidepressants do not work for him and he needs to monitor his exercise and sleep to stop himself from slipping into an episode. “You want to ride the part that feels so good because your brain is working fast and ideas come more easily. You have more energy and everything flows, and you’re seeing things from a higher perspective,” he explains. A heavy “but” follows. Eventually, she told me to give her a call after she got out of work. She worked at some hospital where the shifts were from 2 in the afternoon until 10 at night. She said, “Come on by. I’m gonna take my bath, and by the time I get outta my bath, you should be here.” I was like, “booty call,” you know?

The apostles were not the aristocracy, they were not the well-to-do, they weren’t the popular people; they were sort of the dreamers and the misfits,” LaChapelle said in a 2008 interview for The Art Newspaper TV. If Jesus were here today, he said, he would be hanging out with the street people and the marginalized: the poor, the homeless, prostitutes, drug dealers, gangsters, and so on. And more than that, these people would have been his closest and most faithful band of followers. I was freaked out. All I could see was blood forming underneath his head on the concrete. I immediately left the scene, aware that my out-of-state plates that read “VAN ZAN” were an easy tell if anyone had seen what had happened. Once everything had calmed down, I just kept thinking, ‘Jesus is my homeboy’ saved my life. I gotta do something with that.Like many of the great masters, LaChapelle has been inspired by the classic nativity scene. While the artwork of Western religious narratives often glorified the church and portrayed Jesus in a more European mien, LaChapelle reimagines that tradition in this image, set in Africa. Someone wrote a comment online when I moved to Maui, like: ‘The person who gave us Paris Hilton and destroyed our culture is now gonna go live in the jungle.’ Did I really bring culture down?!” Well, didn’t he fetishise some of the dumber aspects of it? After that near-death experience, Frater designed the now-iconic “Jesus is my Homeboy” image. The man with the upturned palms and the gentle face is a Jesus without race or creed, he said. He’s a person you can count on to stand with you, no matter the situation. Frater had the image printed onto T-shirts, which he sold in a local park. It even became the official image of the peace conferences held for gangs in the late 1980s.

He opened his mouth to plead with them, but they didn’t seem to hear his words. They only became more excited by his distress, and they circled around him and closed in like the mouth of a great, hot beast. “Kill him, homeboy! Kill him!” said the throng of faces that blurred together in Van Zan’s waning vision. Van Zan put his hands up, palms to the sky, and he said, I remembered when I was a boy, me and my brothers and a couple of my friends in Texas would go hunting with our fathers. They’d build a fire, and we’d sit around and the old men would tell stories. Around one of those campfires, my dad once told me, “Never let a man tie you up, ‘cause he can do anything to you once he ties you up. And if he got a gun on you, make him kill you before he ties you up.” I can tell you that one day in the late 1980s, I was at my mom’s house when this detective called. I thought it was a casting director, ‘cause I got calls over there like that all the time, and we were taught to answer them by saying our name really clearly. I answered the phone by saying, “Hello, this is Van Zan. Can I help you?” He was like, “Van Zan Frater?” I said, “Yeah.” By purchasing the original prints and other products, you are helpingVan Zan to keep the “Jesus Is My Homeboy” Movement alive.If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! Essay Writing Service He said, “Jesus is MY homeboy. And he’s your homeboy, and your homeboy,” and he pointed at random faces above him and he continued, “and your homeboy. Jesus is my homeboy and he is all of yours too. He is your homeboy.” When we did, my lawyer said, “Van Zan, tell them your story,” which I proceeded to do. Then my wife went off. She was like, “How dare y’all take his stuff and make it your own? He has nightmares about this.” When she finally got out of breath and couldn’t talk anymore, I said, “I wanna thank you for what you’ve done, ‘cause it doesn’t matter to me how Jesus’ name gets out. What matters is that it got out, and you guys took it to places I couldn’t. So you guys are the messengers — just like everybody who wears the T-shirt — but it saved my life.” Soon after, we signed a deal. jesusismyhomeboy worn by icon #pamelaanderson , just because your a celebrity doesn't mean you dont have good taste. I felt real bad after it happened — what I was forced to do. But after I talked to those detectives, I thought, Wow, was I put there for a purpose?