John Kennedy

John Kennedy (born 1945) is an American financier and businessman, known for his association with The Residents and their record company Ralph Records, and his tenure as the first President of The Cryptic Corporation from 1976 until his departure in 1983.

Association with The Residents[]

Early life[]

John Kennedy was born in 1945 and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. He is known to have suffered severe seizures from a young age.^{^[1]}

Kennedy met Homer Flynn in elementary school, around 1950, but the two did not know each other well at the time.^{^[2]}

Delta Nu[]

Johnkennedy-portrait-1973 — Kennedy with Homer Flynn's bowling ball, photographed by Hardy Fox, 1973 (high-res scan courtesy of Mr. Riggsy's ResTube)

In 1963, Kennedy enrolled at Louisiana Tech University and befriended "Delta Nu", a small "anti-fraternity fraternity" consisting of Homer Flynn, Hardy Fox, Jay Clem, Palmer Eiland, Barry Eiland and future members of The Residents.

Kennedy left Louisiana Tech for California in 1966 to look for work, and the group splintered and went their separate ways. Kennedy was reunited with them in 1969, around the time the group began making tape recordings in their small San Mateo apartment.^{^[3]} Kennedy performed with the group on some of these early recordings.^{^[4]}

By June 1971, the group had evolved into Residents, Uninc., whose first performance at The Boarding House on October 18th 1971 was filmed by Kennedy with an early portable videotape recorder.^{^[3]}

In 1972 the group moved from "famously uncool" San Mateo to a former print-works located at 20 Sycamore Street in San Francisco's Mission District. Here, the group began working on their unfinished feature film Vileness Fats, with Kennedy acting as video editor.^{^[5]}

By the time The Residents were officially founded in February 1974, Kennedy had fully stepped back from recording with the group, but continued to act as videotape editor for Vileness Fats until early 1976. Bill Reinhardt, who visited The Residents' headquarters annually from 1973 to 1978, noted that he rarely saw John; an avid outdoorsman, he was frequently away camping or on kayaking trips.^{^[6]^[2]}

The Cryptic Corporation[]

Eskimotapes-cutler-cryptic — Kennedy (flanked by a bodyguard) retrieves the *Eskimo* master tapes from Chris Cutler in London

In the mid 1970s, Kennedy had become independently wealthy after inheriting an apartment building in Paris, which was worth a million dollars at the time, and in July of that year, he co-founded The Cryptic Corporation alongside Homer Flynn, Hardy Fox and Jay Clem^{^[7]}, and (partly due to his name) took the position of President of the new company. As President, Kennedy atttended to production and admin duties.^{^[2]}

The company was founded in part due to Kennedy's desire to protect his finances, as an unincorporated partnership would have allowed the other members of the company to leave with the money if they wished, and would have allowed the company's creditors to target the wealthiest member of the group (Kennedy) if they defaulted on their loans.^{^[8]^[2]}

HFlynJKennedy — Homer Flynn and John Kennedy photographed by paparazzi in 1979; the image was used in tabloid magazines as a photograph of The Residents unmasked.

The Cryptic Corporation took charge of operations of Ralph Records, which had previously been operated informally by the group under the guise of Residents, Uninc.. Their first action was to move operations from the Sycamore Street studio to another, much larger studio space at 444 Grove Street in Hays Valley. The Grove Street building was large, with two fronts, but Kennedy managed to purchase the building for the relatively low price of $100,000.^{^[8]}

After moving to the Grove Street studio, The Cryptic Corporation also purchased an old movie theater at 11th & Howard, which they intended to operate as an independent movie theater called The Ugly Grey Theater, showing largely science fiction, fantasy and horror films. The idea was shelved when the neighborhood residents petitioned against the idea, erroneously believing the group intended to open a gay porn theater in the space.^{^[8]}

Cryptic expanded Ralph Records beyond its initial purpose as a vanity label for The Residents, signing other artists to the label (including Schwump, Snakefinger and Little Squeegee Wonder), and producing the stereo remix of Meet The Residents in 1977. In 1978, Kennedy was photographed alongside Flynn at a Pere Ubu concert; the picture was published in the music press, inaccurately reported to be a photograph of two unmasked Residents.^{^[2]}

Following a disagreement with Cryptic in 1978 over a supposedly unauthorized Ralph reissue of the single "Satisfaction", The Residents fled to London with the tapes of the much-delayed work in progress Eskimo. Kennedy travelled to England to retrieve the masters to find that The Residents had moved on to Japan, leaving the Eskimo tapes in the care of their friend Chris Cutler. Kennedy was photographed retrieving the tapes from Cutler, flanked by a bodyguard. The Residents returned to San Francisco shortly after the retrieval of the tapes and received an apology from the Cryptics for the misunderstanding, and a new 16-track recording studio.^{^[8]}

In 1982 Kennedy co-produced the Ralph Records 10th Anniversary Radio Special featuring Penn Jillette. It would ultimately be his final noted act as President of The Cryptic Corporation.

Departure and legacy[]

By 1982, following a series of increasing financial disappointments for The Residents and Ralph Records, it had become less and less profitable to run The Cryptic Corporation. Kennedy had been willing to put money into the business for several years, but there had never been a disciplined business sense among the group - in one instance, Kennedy over-produced a large number of record sleeves in order to keep up with demands from Jay Clem (effectively the business manager) that Ralph could never run out of stock.^{^[7]} Clem would be the first member of The Cryptic Corporation to resign, in July 1982.^{^[2]}

Kennedy resigned from The Cryptic Corporation around July 1983, during The Residents' debut tour, The Mole Show, which became such a financial disaster for the group that they briefly vowed never to tour again. The Residents returned from the tour to discover that their source of money had dried up, and that Kennedy had also taken back the Grove Street studio and office space. This series of events led The Residents to scale their operations back significantly, moving to a smaller space at the start of 1983.

Kennedy's successor as President of The Cryptic Corporation was Hardy Fox, who remained in this role until his retirement in 2016. The current President (or "Captain Doc") of The Cryptic Corporation is Homer Flynn, the last remaining founder of the company, who owns a majority share alongside co-owners Cherry Red Records and MVD Audio.

In 1994, Kennedy was interviewed by Residents biographer Ian Shirley interviewed Kennedy for the book Meet The Residents: America's Most Eccentric Band!, which in 2015 was updated and expanded to become the official biography Never Known Questions: Five Decades of The Residents.

Kennedy remains on "decent" terms with Homer Flynn and The Cryptic Corporation,^{^[7]} with Flynn stating in 2018 that despite not seeing each other very often, the two had been in contact for a while after Kennedy was interviewed for Don Hardy's documentary film Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents in 2016.