THE STRANGE STORY and TRAVAILS OF JOHNNY PUNISH
Charles Bivona Jr. aka, the artist known as “Johnny Punish” since the mid-1990s is a writer, musician, performer, producer, coach, businessman, syndicated columnist, podcast host, investor, and serial entrepreneur. Yep! It’s a lot of stuff! But most importantly, He is a grandfather to 7 and father to 3; married since 1985 to Empress Albertina of Sinaloa.
Born in New York City and raised on the West Coast of the USA, Charles started adult life at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (1980-81) and California State University Fullerton (1981-1984) where he studied and mastered accounting and business. Oh, and he fooled around the college pubs playing music with his mates learning the craft that he would soon take with him into his later years.
After his university years, he started his own business and has never looked back. An entrepreneur to this day, he raised a family and now is just hanging out and traveling the world as an Expat enjoying the fruits of his hard-earned successes.
Want to know the big details, then read on…
PunishMusic
Since 1995, he has been creating new music that matters. He has written over 200 songs. He says “I love to write stuff that inspires me, moves me, and makes me get up and shout. I love living the inspired life. I hope it comes through in my music”.
His background in music?
In 1973, Charles saw Elvis Presley perform live at the Hilton Hotel. He was just 9 years old. Does that count? Thereafter, he played the Nursing Home Circuit. He toured with his turntable and lip-synced Elvis songs for the fans. It was a great way to start for the 9 year-old.
In 1996, with friends Ben Madrid, Gary Richter, and Michael Henry, together they founded the underground punk rock band Twisted Nixon (1996-2002). Charles wrote songs, played guitar, and sang lead as the rocker “Johnny Punish”; a name given to him by band mate Ben Madrid.
“We had lots of fun and the band eventually evolved with new players Richard Abboud and Jason Wickstrom with guest appearances by lead guitarists Brian Jay Cline and Rex Wilson.” said Charles. “I also owned a small record label producing the 3rd Wave SKA band The Skeletones.”.
Now Charles is pushing even more artistic boundaries into the 21st century creating diverse music and enjoying the creative art of music in the new age of AI.
He is a member of ASCAP. His songs have appeared in the Paul Bright 2012 sci-fi indie movie “Goliad Uprising” (Cup of Joe, The Magnificent Afghanistan, and Gaza City). IMDB.com
His music is available on all digital platforms.
PunishJournalism
As a cyber journalist and activist, under his artist name “Johnny Punish”, Charles has penned over 700 articles on freedom, liberty, and justice around the world writing opt-eds for VT Foreign Policy. In 2022, He started an Alternative Foreign Policy Talk podcast on VT Radio.
PunishBusiness & Media
In 2004, with the technical assistance of an ex-Microsoft employee who checked out of his cubicle and into the light of relative freedom in an unfree world, Charles created and founded VT Foreign Policy; an independent Alternative Foreign Policy Media dedicated to seeking truth on the global stage featuring 100s of the most independent alternative media writers on planet earth.
VT is focused on international foreign policy, trade, and the clandestine activities of governments and their assigns. It has over 64,000 articles published with varying often controversial points of view. This is tough stuff. I retired from VT in late 2023.
In 2004, He also created HireVeterans.com, a large job board for U.S. Veterans connecting them to employers. He sold that company in late 2020 to an outstanding firm in Austin, Texas.
He has done other media including the locally famous and highly acclaimed pioneering early entry into the world of podcasting “The Bad Brad and Johnny Punish Show”. It was a music talk radio podcast show produced at the Mojo Zone Studio in Playa del Carmen Mexico (2006).
In 2024, He created Global Thinkerz, a financial freedom media that helps free thinkers create real wealth. It aims to offer outstanding leading-edge content and success strategies from world-renowned movers and shakers.
PunishEcoProjects
In 2020, Together, with his wife, they finished building and promoting their signature eco-building project, Hacienda Eco-Domes; a Bed and Breakfast seeking 100% self-sustainability using dirt and plastic bags along with solar power, recycled water, and other eco-techniques that make cents.
See all the creation videos here on YouTube Hacienda Eco-Domes
PunishOrigins
Charles is an ethnically cleansed Palestinian-American whose maternal family was evicted from their home in Haifa, Palestine in 1948 by Irgun; a Euro-Zionist Settler Terrorist Group. His mother Marcelle Jeanette Tawil and her family became part of the over 900,000 Palestinians who became refugees in Al-Nakba (The Catastrophe).
The family fled to Beirut, Lebanon for 13 years eventually emigrating to the USA in 1961 via a Brasilian passport obtained by his Palestinian Brasilian-born grandmother Helen Abboud Tawil when, in the very early 1900s, the family was shipped to be guest workers in the mining industry in Sao Paolo, Brazil. During these times, his grandmother was born in Brasil. They went back to Palestine when she was about 9 years old.
His father is Italian-American from New York City. His paternal great-grandparents emigrated to the USA from Naples Italy and Marineo in Sicily during the 1890s. Charles was born in the Bronx, New York in 1963.
He spent his early adulthood chasing green checks and the “American Dream”. Feeling misled and empty, in the mid-90s, Charles checked out of the material world and into the realm of reason, enlightenment, and humanity. He has never looked back,
In the so-called third world, he chose to work with underprivileged communities where he lived donating time to kids’ sports and other community activities that added value to the overall community.
Married for over 40 years with grown children and grandkids, Charles is no longer at war with the world but a family man who lives in peace on a dirt road with chickens. Through his music, writings, and community activities, he continues the good fight for global justice, human dignity, and respect. He continues to aim for leaving a better world for his fellow man. “It’s the least I can do given all the wonderful gifts I have received over the years from many mentors that went before me”. he says. “I now aim to punish the world and share my 60-plus years of knowledge and success know-how with like-minded ambitious younger people. It’s time to pay it all forward”.
So if you’re a fan of the common man; a passionate person and an activist, get back on my Johnny Punish bandwagon and stand with Charles. Just remember to jump when it’s looking like he is diving off the cliff again! LOL!
