Part Four: GG Allin On Jail

Interviewer's words are in boldface; GG's words are in regular text
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Tell me a little bit about being in jail in Ann Arbor. How'd that all come about?

Oh, man, that's a long story.

I don't know. I mean, basically... it's like, the FBI and the United States Secret Service were tracking me down for... as far back as I know, it was like two years, from '87 to '89. I knew I had warrants in five different states, and at that point, I'd forgotten what most of 'em were. I just kept playing, and... more trouble, and more trouble. I mean, I didn't even give a shit about the warrants I had; I was pickin' up more on the way.

So it got to the point where everywhere I was staying, you know, my phones were tapped in two different places. They went to my record company; they went to, like, people that I lived with. The United States Secret Service, they were looking for me, and leaving notes on doors. They even arrested a kid who had the same name as I did. They went and handcuffed him.

I mean, they were just... and I wasn't really sure why. I thought maybe it was the suicide thing, and the fact that I was advertising. I knew I had warrants, and, you know, I'd been arrested so many times for what I'd done. I figured, well, you know, maybe they're just checking it out. And I was... apparently wasn't quite sure why the Secret Service was looking to track me down. But I knew they were, and I knew they were getting close, but they couldn't find me.

At that point, I was living in a car, I was living on a rooftop. I was just living from town to town. Didn't even have a permanent address, except for what was in my suitcase. My permanent address was a car. Or if we were on the road, it'd be the Toyota. Or we're sleeping on a roof in Muskegon at this club called the Ice Pick. I'd camp out up there. And just... you know, we traveled so much that it wasn't even... I mean, I figured, "they're never gonna fuckin' catch me". But I knew when they arrested that kid in Muskegon, and I knew that I was calling people, and like, you know, "what's going on? You know, the FBI was here today" and all that shit.

What I did is, I was planning on moving to San Francisco. I figured the West Coast was the place that I had less warrants. So I set up a mirage show. Figured everybody... it was at somebody's house. I said, "let me use your house for an address". Put up flyers: "GG Allin will be appearing here tonight". Everybody will go. And as everybody was going to the show, I was going out of town. There really was no show.

And I was going to Chicago. Got there, and apparently somebody had found out and tipped somebody... I don't know how that came about. But I went to the bank to get some money, and... pssssssh, that was it. Sent Linda in, and, you know, I was... within minutes, I was like, surrounded by police cars, and agents were running out with their guns pointed towards me, and I knew that was it. I said, "fuck, this is it". It was like something out of an Al Capone movie. They were running out of the bank in their fuckin' suits, and the cars were coming in, [imitates police siren]. And then, "Freeze! Freeze! Freeze, Mr. Allin! Freeze!" And, I'm like, "shit!". You know, I'm sitting there in the car, I've got all my fuckin' clothes, and Linda's fuckin' crying. And I'm just like, "shit. Kill me", you know, "shoot me". I'm just putting my hands out the window one at a time, and they took me down, questioned me about George Bush for two hours.

What were the charges?

They got me... really, the charges... the United States Secret Service was looking for me because I was writing to Hinckley. And they thought because I was writing to Hinckley, and some of the things I was saying, that I was a threat to the president.

But then after that, they said, "well, we've got you for assault, we've got you for an indecent exposure, and we've got you for attempted murder..." And that's when I was like, "phew, wait a minute here. Did I kill somebody I don't know about?" Because I was like... that attempted murder was like, "I don't know about this one".

I thought... you know, and they'd just kinda... I said, well... and then when I found out what it was, I said, "man, this bitch! It can't be anything, because I just talked to her a few weeks ago". So I went back to Michigan, and got really caught up in this thing. And the newspaper crucified me, and the prosecutor was bringing all these things into court about my performances, and the suicide. I basically was [?]. I was kinda forced to take a plea bargain, which was a felonious assault with a deadly weapon, which is a 40-year max. And then they were trying to give me six-and-a-half to ten. And it just... the whole thing is just such a fuckin' nightmare. A spider web.