E-Mail This Article to a Friend CULTURE JAM Agit-pop daddy Ron English paints the town BY CAMILLE DODERO

Ron English has painted Marilyn Monroe sporting wet lips and Mickey Mouse breasts. He’s rendered vivid portraits of child clowns gambling at a poker table, sucking on Lucky Strikes, and guzzling cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. However, the Jersey City artist is most famous not for his adulteration of childlike imagery, but for his parodic billboards — giant handpainted pieces of paper that he’s glued over existing advertisements in the middle of the day, throughout Texas, New Jersey, and New York. The wild-haired painter has been doing them for 30 years, mocking McDonald’s with a fat Ronald beside the slogan SUPERSIZE ME, offending both Christians and Muslims with the advertisement JESUS DRIVES AN SUV/MUHAMMAD PUMPS HIS GAS, and skewering Apple’s THINK DIFFERENT campaign by matching those words with a portrait of Charles Manson. And now he’s the subject of POPaganda: The Art & Crimes of Ron English, a documentary made by filmmaker (and across-the-street neighbor) Pedro Carvajal that screens at the Museum of Fine Arts this Thursday.

The Phoenix spoke to the man who’s been called "the father of agit-pop" over the phone from his Jersey City studio.

Q: What’d you think about POPaganda?

A: It was an interesting experience. I’m a shy person, so I’m a little self-conscious. I know that if you talk to Pedro, I know that he had a very difficult time getting interviews with me. He did everything he could think of. Like, we could’ve done some shots, but the problem is that when I drink, I start to cuss. I just know him too well. I told him he should get somebody else to interview me. He couldn’t interview my kids, either. I told him, "You’re too familiar to them. You’re the guy who lives across the street. They’re not going to take you seriously."

Q: In your book Popaganda, you write about being arrested in Texas for a billboard years ago. Have you been arrested for a billboard since?

A: No. I’ve been arrested for putting up stickers and other kinds of street art, but not billboards. When they did arrest me for putting up one sticker and possessing three more stickers, the sticker I put up was right beneath the Charles Manson [THINK DIFFERENT] billboard. I thought for sure with the seven arresting officers that were there, they’d just nailed me for the Manson billboard. But no, they got me for the three stickers.

Q: In Texas, the charges were dropped. What happened this time?

A: Yeah, I got a felony over it. But six months without getting any other arrests cleared my record. I have no criminal records whatsoever. Now, if we can just get though this movie.

Q: Are you more nervous about pasting up billboards now after the film?

A: Yeah, well, I just gave them all the evidence they need. I’ve been more nervous because nobody ever knew who was doing it before; people just assume the billboard company knows that it’s me and it’s being done. But the [companies] probably don’t: whoever goes and puts up the new billboard probably doesn’t report back and say, "We saw seven really weird billboards that I’m pretty sure we hadn’t put up ..." They’re going to go put up whatever billboards they’re told.

Q: What billboards are you working on now?

A: You know the recombinant bovine-growth hormone they put into cattle to make them put out more milk? I’m doing some ads for that. I have this half-human cow — like it’s a really modelesque woman with a cow’s head, and her breasts are udders. So it’s kind of creepy. I use their tagline, MILK DOES A BODY GOOD.

And I’m doing some for nicotine-enriched candy cigarettes. With all the cigarette billboards [I did], I thought it’d be funny to have some new versions.

Q: In a 2003 New York Times article, a reporter followed you and a sizable crew that included filmmakers and photographers as you put up a billboard. Does towing a big group complicate the process?

A: Not really. Usually I make them help — even the guy from the New York Times. When he came to watch, we were putting up some billboard, and I didn’t have a big enough crew. I made him stop writing and help me. He’s like, "I can’t do that. I’m a writer and I can’t cross that line." I’m like, "Well, this billboard’s going to be ruined if you don’t climb down here and help me." He did — reluctantly. [Pauses] I shouldn’t tell on him like that.

Ron English will appear for a screening of POPaganda: The Art & Crimes of Ron English on Thursday, February 3 at 8 p.m., in the Remis Auditorium at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, in Boston, with director Pedro Carvajal. Call (617) 369-3907.