The pic that planted doubts in my head about "Zombie Boy" Rick Genest

This foto of Zombie Boy doesn't resonate with me

Rick Genest has become one of Montreal's most unlikely and certainly most-recognizable celebrities. Zombie Boy, which he is also called, was living like a squeegie punk down at the Fattal buildings on St. Remi just south of the tracks (in fact I believe he still lives there when he's in town). It's a wild-west place with an illegal bar with live craptastic punk bands and all sorts of crazy punks living there, some actually from well-to-do families. So he got his body tattooed because he was depressed or had some other, um, vision of his life and was rescued from the world of squeeging windshields for pocket change to having Lady Gaga give tribute to his corpse-like inked body. Soon he had a manager and everything he was involved with would have to pass through his team. He was sent to Japan to perform in some sorta freak show where he part of a show eating gross stuff on stage, then he was a guest DJ in a Polish nightclub, even though he's no DJ. ..Suddenly he (or his corporate handlers) are tweeting links of T-shirts with his likeness and he's starring in a makeup ad where his tattoos get covered up and everybody hugs. So natch, some of his longtime punk comrades have groused that Zombie Boy has become a sell-out. It's not a term I would use as it seems that he's making a living and being validated, integrated and celebrated. But when I saw this photo of him today on twitter... dressed up like a cute loveable punk happily pretending to play guitar next to shiny young girls and a tard in red pants, well.. I had a bit of doubt about his shift from brooding desperate outsider to cutesy koala bear of the corporate world.