Me Write Stupid

old punks web zine
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Punk And New Wave Commentary, Part III

On Line To See XTC

On Friday I left the safety of Punker Hill to see remaining XTC members Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding at the over-priced, poorly run Virgin Music Megastore in Hollywood. I stopped at the House Of Blues to buy a Residents ticket, so you can all hate me 'cause I'm beautiful.

It's nice to get autographs and make the same gushing, practiced speech of praise they've heard 100 times and will hear again once you've skipped off to stare at your signed album and wonder if it's now valuable. It's also nice to uncontrollably blurt out something so completely stupid you'll hate yourself for weeks and think they'll remember you forever as that loser. The REAL action is on the line itself, where fellow obsessives meet and assure each other they're not alone, the band is great, one day the rest of the world will know it too, and right now all is good in the world.

I went for the line. You only get a minute in front of XTC but the line lasts for hours. XTC fans are my kind of people - sweet, intelligent, friendly, optimistic - the kind of folks who want to like you and be liked in return. The kind of people who hug and mean it. The kind who were quaintly eccentric new wavers or would have been eccentric new wavers if they were teens in 1979. That's why I was so inflamed by how shabbily Virgin ran the event.

I spied more than a few green Chalkhill t-shirts, signifying members of the on-line XTC death cult suspected of buying mulitple copies of Apple Venus in order to inflate the CD's chart position and trick the unsuspecting public into thinking XTC must be great, because look where it is on the charts. Some met in person for the first time, having only corresponded through generic fonts on a glowing monitor. I think people prefer the anonymity of being faceless and voiceless, but not XTC fans. They like to hug.

In my part of the line someone flew down from Utah (he had a free ticket, but still). Others drove from Tucson. A nice journalist lady came from Mexico to cover the event. XTC never tour and they never venture to Boise, so if you want to see XTC you have to either be geographically gifted or hit the road.

For the purposes of this article I barked out some inflammatory statements and asked non-fan-club questions like, "OK, what XTC songs do you hate?" It's like asking a mother which of her children she wished she'd never had. I found someone who actually enjoyed "Leisure". She didn't like Bowie's version of "Across The Universe", the worst cover of all time, so she wasn't completely batty. I announced my beliefs that Andy Partridge gives great interviews but must be an unrelenting pain to work with, that I thought Colin was both Dave Davies and 1/2 of a co-dependent couple, and that Andy is a terrible judge of his own material. I got some winces of "please don't make me ponder this" but in general not much of an argument. This was good because I was wondering if they'd form their own little Manson Family if Andy said he'd be its leader.

I asked if anyone knew why Andy's voice was electronically augmented near the end of "The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead". Blank stares. People! It's exactly 4:05 into the song, at the end of "Hanging there he looked a lot like you and an awful lot like me". Then I asked if anyone noticed an annoying, off-rhythm little tin sound in the background of "The Disappointed". Open mouthed stares. It's there all right, the constant banging of a cymbal that switches periodically from left to right speaker. It's like being tapped on the forehead with a coat hanger.

Andy and Colin were behind a counter and they graciously posed for pictures and signed anything put in front of them. My stupid advice to them was to make the next record a return to the pure new wave aesthetics of Drums And Wires and Black Sea. I said the fans and critics would go nuts. I wonder how high I scored on the Idiot Meter. I took my signed book and ran out before they could point me out to others.

Punk Parents

I received an e-mail from someone who said he was surprised he agreed with a lot of what I write about, even though at 37 I’m close to his mom’s age! One day I’m a kid myself and then BAMMO! I’m dad’s old high school chess club rival. Why, if I still had all my hair I’d……

Because I’m of another generation (the tail end of the Baby Boomers), my e-mail buddy thought (by law) we’d have little in common. How is a generation defined? Usually by decades or unifying events like WWII and Woodstock, but in reality a generation is defined by anyone you think will rat on you because they’re either: 1) older, and therefore an authority figure who wants to punish you, or 2) younger, and eager to snitch on you out of spite. I love punk music as much as any sixteen year old, but being into anti-social music (I physically can't say the word Alternative) since 1974 my approach to it will of course be different than some Hey Dude Punk fresh out of Junior High.

There’s no special skill involved in turning old. All it takes is time. I was once your age and one day you’ll be mine. I’m 107 in punk dog years. Age doesn’t make you an adult - it’s responsibilities you can’t get out of or hard knocks that beat childhood beliefs (usually naïvely optimistic ones) out of you. Many adults are still kids, mens having a harder time growing out of adolescence.

Young people think us old people are, well, old, also tired, bitter, beaten down and envious of youth. Us old people, rightfully so, think young people haven’t been screwed over by life long enough to have strong opinions on everything. They live at home, collect an allowance and don’t know the difference between old school, new school, and pre-school.

Can punks be parents? Of course they can, stupid. All it takes is a well placed orgasm. It’s an old cliché that you become your parents, but in a way you do. John Waters, the film director famous for his depraved nonconformity, said it best in his book Shock Value, “No matter how hard you rebel against your parents, you always end up being exactly like them. There can be millions of surface differences on how you live your life, but underneath it all, you will always share their basic beliefs. You can become a drug addict, a necrophiliac, or president of the United States, but if your parents taught you it was slothful not to make your bed, you’d end up making it faithfully every day or neurotically sleeping in a bunch of rags just to prove how wrong they really were.” If your parents are abusive alcoholics you should be unlike them as much as possible (it’s amazing, though, how many children of alcoholics become alcoholics themselves, and how many abused kids grow up to abuse their own children).

If you think punk parents by definition allow their kids to run wild, either you’re a child yourself or a defective adult who shouldn’t have kids. Any parent who lets their twelve year old get drunk and stay out till 2AM should be reported to the authorities. They should do time in jail and enjoy the really close company of others. If you won’t make the effort to raise your children into self-sufficient, contributing adults, society owes you a big middle finger and nothing less.

For better or worse punk has been since its inception the #1 admiration society for degenerate losers. On one level you have to admire Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and The NY Dolls for injecting lowlife charm into rock and roll, but when you read about how Iggy’s heroin habit once left him for dead in the gutter, if you have even a shred of decency you have to say it’s not right and vow not to let it happen to someone you know, especially your child. Drugs and sexual misadventure literally defined the old punk scene, but at least you could say these people had a talent, even if it was both brought out and strangled by their addictions.

The new generation of dead punk legends (Darby Crash, Sid Vicious and GG Allin) are zeros revered for their stupidity and lack of talent. To their fans these three are freaks to laugh at and point to as proof life stinks. If that’s punk to you, get it over with. Open up the fat mouth on your ugly face, insert the gun barrel and pull the trigger.

What is a real punk parent? One who doesn’t pull the same bulls—t on their kids that was done to them. Punk exists to point out and dissect the sad, sick lessons of life. You’re supposed to learn from them and become the better for it. Punk parents teach their kids not to be a sucker to advertising, government, school, religion and other types of authority. It doesn’t mean being an anarchist and plotting the end of all controls. It just means not being someone’s fool.

Punks should have real jobs and own whatever they want. Screw MRR - punk isn’t about idiot marxism, it’s being a good and functional citizen with zero tolerance for crap when you see it. Live in North Korea if you’re a communist. You don’t have to be a capitalist to live in America - you can believe whatever you want. But this or any other country is like a boat: either grab an oar and pull or jump the hell out. Don’t sit there and bitch about how perfect everything would be if we were all forced to live in caves and churn our own butter.

Punk Parents should teach their kids to be more than living turd stains on society’s diaper. Punks should provide a positive inspiration. Is the unwashed mohawked numbnut puking in the gutter a punk? I guess by definition the answer is yes, but if punk is more than a childhood rebellion for middle class white kids it better start developing a long term plan that allows for responsibility and practicality in a galaxy where behavior like vomiting in public is considered bad form.

How To Make A Really Cool Zine And Have Other People Do Most Of The Work!

Writing a zine is too much freaking work, with all the records you have to buy, zines and books you have to read and write about, begging for interviews that often never happen, layout, printing costs - oi such hassles! Don't forget it takes every second of your leisure time to put it all together.

But, like a punk Tom Sawyer, you can have others paint your fence (I mean make your zine) for you! How? Motivate friends, local hipsters and anyone else you can find to create and print their own 1-3 page zine. All you have to do is put them together, slap on a cover and back page, and, Bammo!! you have a hefty zine that screams diversity of opinion and scene unity. Dude!!

Zines of any credible thickness take a lot of work, but just about anyone can create a two-sided xerox mini-zine. As The Editor you'll have to advertise the idea and motivate the troops, but once the first issue comes out the ball should start rolling on its own. Here's a flyer I made a while back when I moved to a new city:

HEY YOU! -- YES, YOU !!

DO YOU:
* Dress Funny, Listen To Strange Music, And Need To Share With The Rest Of The World?
*Write Short Stories That Amuse and Delight?
*Aspire To Be A Famous Film/Art/Music/Theater Critic?
*Compose Sonnets About Your Cat?
*Study Comic Books Like They Were Lost Books Of The Bible?
*Speak Vulcan As A Second Language?
*Draw Comix Detailing The Dark Underbelly Of The Human Condition?
* Have Nothing Better To Do?

Then Contribute To The
MORTVILLE FANZINE REVIEW
Create and Print Your Own 1-6 Page
Fanzine Or Newsletter. It Will Be Combined With
Other Zines And Distributed Throughout Mortville
E-mail Emerson at XXX@OOO For Details And Guidelines

I put these up at record stores, coffee houses and wherever else I found a bulletin board. I received a few responses but not enough to make it work. Maybe I didn't get the word out, or maybe the interest wasn't there. It didn't help that I was new in town. I also imagine it would be easier to get people involved at the high school or college level. 9 to 5 Joes and Janes tend to have little creative energy left after a long day of what George Jetson once described as "pushing the button five times".

Some other pieces of advice: have a strong editorial policy. Don't let the local child molester do a few pages on his sexuality. It's trouble you don't need (ask Jello Biafra). Keep the contributors motivated. People are naturally lazy and need a friendly kick in the ass every once in a while. Order the contents by date of submission - that's a way to motivate people and avoid charges of politics. Get someone to contribute cool artwork for the cover and back pages. Cut and Paste works great for ransom notes, but... And most importantly, don't be an ass to your contributors. Without them you're nothing.

Good luck, PUNK !!!!!!

An E-Mail From A Nice Old Lady Named Denise

“Came across this site and had to laugh. I'm an old LA punk from '79 to '84 and I remember what it was really like. Where was the glamour? Getting harassed for being a "punk rock" was the order of the day. The police stopping us and writing up a "card" just because we were freaks. I came out of the suburbs just like 98% of the rest of the punks. We were the middle class. I used to go out with Greg
Hetson and he lived in Brentwood with his dad who was a lawyer.

As far as I can tell, the sense of humor left punk in about 1983. Prior to that, everything was a big joke. Were we all that angry? Not really. I mean, sure life sucked, but doesn't it always when you're 17? What was cool and fun was going to shows and parties, hanging out at Oki Dogs, thrift-shopping with your
friends, talking s--t about everyone in every band that you weren't friends with, having pointless feuds and then making up with everyone again. We were angry about many things: being afraid of being beaten up if we were caught out in public alone, getting turned away at Disneyland, the high price of shows (what a
rip-off!!-$5.00 to see Social Distortion, the Circle Jerks, TSOL and a bunch of other crappy bands!), not being able to get enough money to buy beer, the goddamned Salvation Army raising their prices on Pendletons, not being able to find just the right color of green hair dye anywhere but at that crappy
Poseur's, etc...

Okay, so there were good parts: Punk rock picnics where 100 or more of us would descend on a lovely suburban park and proceed to scare the bejesus out of all of the "normal" people by playing softball and eating Kentucky Fried Chicken, driving countless miles to get to a rumored backyard party only to find that it was the Vandals playing and they totally kicked ass, having CH3 play at your high school at lunch, watching Darby Crash make a total ass out of himself by drooling over Adam and the Ants...

Yes, nostalgia is wonderful. So is 2002. I still go to shows (of all types) and still live for the music. Am I still a punk? Of course...it always was about loving what you loved and not caring about what anybody else thought...punk didn't start out as just a fashion trend, we were really inspired by the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Damned, etc...In LA, we all thought that we were poseurs because we weren't
English and from 1977. We worshiped those Brit bands. We copied everything from them. Somewhere along the line all of the SoCal influences came in and it all became something else. We had to realize that we weren't poor, didn't live in England or have to deal with out of control un-employment and a rigid class
system. Somehow, it all came together here in our plastic paradise and now it seems that our little scene is being cited as an influence by the up and coming punkers.

All I can say to the young whipper-snappers is enjoy it while you can. I hope that 20 years down the line you can look back and feel proud that you contributed to a vital music scene. Don't worry too much about fashion and looking cool. Concentrate on making good music and the rest will follow.

Sorry that this has been such a long and boring monologue, but I'm old and senile and forgot to take my metamucil, so I'm a little cranky...”

Punk Is Stupid, Metal Is Dumb

I've never liked heavy metal. Punks of my generation have a special place in their hearts for KISS, but not me. I'm HARD… to the CORE!!!!!! I grew up listening to Jethro Tull, The Rolling Stones, The Who, ELP, Traffic, Bowie, Lou Reed, The Band, The Kinks, The Grateful Dead and The Velvet Underground. I couldn't stand disco for all the obvious reasons, and everything about the losers into Led Zepplin screamed dirtball. Jay and Silent Bob are classic dirtballs. The era portrayed on That 70s Show reflects when I was in high school, and every ugly fashion and slice of idiocy you see is what I had to deal with. Yes, my hair was parted down the middle and feathered back, but all the other kids were doing it! I wasn't ahead of my time but I caught on eventually.

I assume most people think punk and metal are variations on the same themes of aggressive ignorance and anti-social behavior. From a distance that might be true, and there's not much you can do about it because, let's face it, both punk and metal take great pride in aggression and cretinism. Still, punk has a lot going for it compared to metal.

No one has ever been able to tell me what metal is about or what it's supposed to be saying. Someone once told me metal was about "rocking out", and this was after thinking about it for a while. I've heard metal explained as something kids can relate to - that it's a release of some kind, but metal lyrics seemingly fall into two categories - Evil and Meaningless.

Punk lyrics run the gamut from highly intelligent to shockingly stupid, but at least there's a choice and a healthy degree of debate and introspection. Some of punk’s problems come from its demands to think things over and over until you freak out. A paranoid punk will talk your ear off about Big Brother, barcodes, the CIA, the Illuminati and microwave technology. A paranoid metalhead will just say "they won't let me smoke pot". You can't make this stuff up folks, it's true! In a debate between punks and metalheads the punks would blather on to points beyond logic and reason while the metalheads struggle with the concept of language, get frustrated, scream "fugg you" and then make some kind of air-guitar gesture while stomping away. Or they'll try to make the three-finger sign-of-the-trident hand gesture like Ozzy does, get it wrong, and by mistake make the sign language gestures for "I love you".

It's sad an entire musical genre exists which can only be explained by saying it rocks. It's good metalheads are easy to spot so they can either be easily avoided or dazzled by a big word or two and a shiny cigarette lighter. On one hand, you have a genre that thinks too much, and on the other one that thinks too little, if at all. Is music required to involve thought? No, but it shouldn't promote mind decay either. I'm happy to be a part of movement that has a proud history of politics, art and ideology. Metalheads, the ones that bother to read metal mags, think it's impressive there's an iffy theory that metal is derived from classical music. As if Beavis and Butthead care about Bach. Oi....

Epitaph Must Think I'm Stupid, But What Am I?

I don't have a copy of it here, but I found a print ad for Epitaph Records that reads "See All The Videos MTV Is Afraid To Play". I normally shrug off something this dumb, after spitting and moaning for a while, but this is so dumb I can't let this one go. I don’t even know where to start, so let's just pick a number, any number...

Does anyone believe that if MTV aired more videos by Epitaph bands the world would turn punk? That boy bands and T&A jailbait babes would disappear from the charts? People are sheep and they like the lowest common denominator crap that's hot and trendy. Would you want it that Epitaph bands become the standard for millions of know-nothing consumers? Do you really want punk music to become top 40,or even more top 40 than it is now? (These are what science calls “rhetorical questions”).

The punk mindset is based largely on ego and belligerence. Look at me, everybody, I know what's wrong with the world. I have all the answers. Do exactly as I say and for a change you'll start thinking for yourself. Paranoia and conspiracy also have huge ego components, which lead me to my next problem with the Epitaph ad:

Is MTV part of a global conspiracy to keep punk down? Because, if it ever got out the military-industrial-corporate complex would collapse under its own weight? Do the powers that be see punk as dangerous knowledge? A threat to profits? General Motors doesn’t care about your mohawk and cut & paste vegan zine. The only real threat punks present, besides littering and vandalism, is the fear society will have to support them in jail, rehab or welfare. Punks wouldn't know what to do with power if it was handed to them on a platter. Punk is grand complacency masquerading behind a mask of whining activism. Donating a couch to Goodwill does ten times more to better the world than your spoken word project on what's wrong with hate. Yeah, I know. You're flexing your head. If you want to make a difference, volunteer at a soup kitchen instead of plotting the overthrow of capitalism. One involves actual work, so choose wisely.

I could dissect this all night. I can't stand the silly reverse psychology involved in such a slogan. I shudder to think a kid will read this and think he's doing something verboten by watching Epitaph videos. Fight the power by catching the latest call to arms from All and NOFX. Maybe the sell-outs at Epitaph wrote this as a joke. Maybe they know what buttons to push with twelve year olds.

It's 10 PM at Viacom, parent company of MTV. A punk zine planted by an anarchist finds its way into the solid oak reading rack in stall 1A of Viacom's executive washroom, where Chairman Sumner Redstone has just finished the Wall Street Journal halfway into his battle with food poisoning from an undercooked lobster dinner. He grasps for something else to read and sees the Epitaph ad taunting him, personally, as a coward for not running U.S. Bombs video marathons on his subsidiary network. This will not do. From that moment on, or at least right after he finishes g he vows MTV will be all Epitaph all the time. ‘Cause the kids are united, and they'll never be divided. Oh yeah!

Punk Is For Kids, Silly Rabbit

Trix are for kids. Tricks are for whores. Punx are kids. Is punk designed with fifteen years olds in mind? Probably. Does it have meaning to life after oh, let's say, 25? Fifteen is the average age of the punk community. The eyes know the numbers don’t lie and it's been that way since about 1980 when hardcore came into its own. Every kid old enough to grasp the concept of irony thinks they’re old school. What is it about punk that appeals to teenagers and turns off the post-college crowd? There are a few possible factors. Will punk always be for kids? The answer is a big Yes and a tiny little No.

"Punk For Life!” That's the threat from goofballs with a constant need to announce their devotion to a form of music. A palm-sized tattoo on the forehead would be more effective. I mean, aren't you hard to the core? Punk is the only genre that makes this claim. You never hear "Bach 'Til I Die" or "F--k Art, Let's Jazz". Why declare lifelong devotion unless so many before you have dropped out like rats from a sinking ship? Geezer punks don't ponder the meaning of punk; they just listen to the bands they like. hen you go to school and live at home it's easy to dress like a cartoon and act threatening. That changes when you enter the working world and realize dress and attitude can be major factors in landing a job paying more than minimum wage. Unless you have good vocational training in fields filled with other scumbags. Old punks don’t buy punk clothes and wonder how it will look with something else they own. Old punks also don't see the world as either punk or non-punk.

Punk is a youth movement because it serves purposes directly related to teen culture - rebellion, self-identity and cultural perspective. Rebellion is easy enough - to establish an identity separate from your parents you do things against their wishes to prove you're an individual who chooses your own path. Many punks do it for this reason alone. They have the look and attitude but care little about anything else. They drop out for good once they graduate and then look back at their punk years as a phase, which it was. They could have just as easily chosen heavy metal or rasta pothead as their means of whining they aren't babies anymore.

Self-identity and cultural perspective are two sides of the same coin. By being aware of influences telling you what to think, what to do and what to buy, you can better filter these influences and be better equipped to deal with friends, parents, work, authority and culture. In punk you have many lifestyles, from straight edge to drunk punk to political punk. SXE sees the peer pressure that leads many a youth into bad habits like smoking and drinking, and it preaches self-reliance with the same fervor as television evangelists. Drunk punks are self-haters who act out their aggressions and fears through drink and drugs, all the while holding up losers like Darby Crash, Sid Vicious and GG Allin as nihilistic role models. Political punk advocates involvement in political and social causes. It says punk is a means to bring about fairness and justice in a world filled with unfairness and injustice. Sadly punk politics is overrun with socialist and anarchist dogma that would be simply hypocritical if it weren’t so nihilistic and hateful.

Creating your own identity, learning to be an adult on your own terms, and having an informed cultural perspective are all monumental goals punk addresses, but the problem is punk's limited ability and authority to guide people toward a happy, productive adulthood. The biggest scenesters are often the biggest posers. Their fashion requirements and scene hierarchy are no better than jocks, preppies and Gnome Crapsky losers.

Punk's demands of belief and action grow old fast once you realize that underneath the good and liberating messages of punk lies a dictatorship of ideas. Straight Edge works wonders until you figure out your own levels of social and personal responsibility. After that it's just annoying, sweaty bald guys screaming at you about how you must live your life. There's no such thing as SXE when you're in your 30s. You either drink, don't drink or are a member of AA.

The older I get and the more I study punk music and culture, the less punk I become, because I see it as little more than a random series of bands and attitudes. To me, punk is a few enjoyable styles of music and counter-culture ideas. All of its meaning, activism and "bigger pictures" are artificially imposed on it by people with agendas. Punk is in itself neither activist nor passive (nor made out of cheese). Punk can be a whole lot more, but face it, at the end of the day it's only music. If you let music dictate your life you need professional help.

If you like punk rock ----- listen to it! If you set it up as the answer to all the world's problems you have a ton of disappointment coming your way. Is punk for kids? It doesn't have to be, but they seem to be the squeaky wheels of the scene so they get most of the oil.

Trainspotting, Heroin Chic, Calvin Klein & What's "Real"

I finally watched Trainspotting. It was well made and acted but I don't think hip, fashion-conscious glorifications of heroin addiction are cool and real. Real is a term that's always pissed me off when applied to entertainment. Every depiction of junkies, whores and losers is defended by saying it’s REAL.

What does that mean?! Everything is real, I guess. Everything is somebody’s truth and another’s lie. Not smoking crack is real too. Not beating your wife is real. Is it that the lowest acts of human behavior are somehow more important because society is against them? Is a heroin dealer a hero because he operates outside the law? The fuggknuckles on Jerry Springer aren't real either - they're the lowlifes of whatever subculture or kink they claim to represent. Food poisoning is real too, but I'm not going to pay $8 to see someone vomit because of it.

I can't think of a bigger ass than fashion designer Calvin Klein. For years his ad campaigns have belligerently used scumbaggery to sell jeans and perfume. He didn't invent the Lolita Factor, which says men go nuts for underage sexpots, but he went further with ads straight out of 70's kiddie porn. Now it's heroin chic - the depiction of young, attractive, emaciated, strung-out junkies who’ll do anything for a fix. Anything. This plays to a male sexual fantasy that exists just above rape.

With Heroin Chic you have kids who'll let you do anything to them for a few bucks. Beat them, piss on them, anything, and they deserve it too because they're junkies! The fantasy is hateful sex acts with strangers. Calvin Klein promotes this sickness because he knows it's controversial. There's no such thing as bad press, as long as they spell his name right. I don’t find this to be acts between consenting adults. It’s child abuse.

If you shoot heroin, hey, your life sucks, what can I tell you. If you die from a overdose, good for you and see you in heck. Most people manage to resist all-consuming drug habits. Some don't and sometimes they die. Don't expect my pity. It's on reserve for sick children, homeless families and the forgotten elderly. A rock star's fix is way too pure and he kicks? Now that's funny! A Wall Street broker gets put away for buying a pound of blow? Doh!!

Not all self-destructive behavior is a cry for help and a sign society’s failed them. Many people are just weak and they deserve the consequences of their own free will. In Trainspotting it’s implied smokers and drinkers give hypocritical advice when it comes to heroin. Heroin=cigarette? Sure! The guys at NAMBLA defend child molestation as a beautiful, natural act between an eight year old boy and a 55 year old man. Or they say it’s their sexual orientation. Oh god is that nuts.

This brings me back to Calvin Klein. Some of his ads play directly to the NAMBLA constituency, and they’ve probably provided them a sense of vindication. People defend Klein as a businessman and an artist. He's just a sick screwhead who laughs all the way to the bank while he helps cheapen life beyond recognition. I’m no prude. I like the kind of porn that makes sailors puke. Still, I have a healthy sense of where the lines are.

Trainspotting posits Iggy Pop as the patron saint of junkies, and "Lust For Life" is the soundtrack's reoccurring theme. Heroin left Iggy for dead in the gutter, and none of his heroin buddies gave two rats asses. Bowie picked him up, cleaned him off and got him back on track. Sigmund Freud had a theory that a desire to die exists alongside the will to live. Heroin use fits into this theory, but there's no beauty, poetry or art attached to self-destruction, only acts of self-loathing and dramatic displays of false self-importance. If you want to kill yourself do it quickly, quietly, and alone. Don't act it out over a long period of time and drag others down with you.

The Hate Ring Of Stupidity

The other day I tripped over a web-ring that made me shudder. Shudder because it was childish and a waste of creative energy. The Hate Ring, according to The Hate Ring, is "A loop of web pages centering on the theme of hating/despising/generally wishing death upon a certain person/group/thing". The concept is so idiotic (it puts the "duh" in "dumb") I don't even know where to start.

Hip culture defines itself more by who is excluded than by who is allowed to join. The point being those deemed cool get the extra satisfaction of rejecting anyone not as cool as they are. The members of the Hate Ring try to prove how cool they are by hating popular musicians and trends. That’s as difficult as falling off a log, and it only proves how silly you are.

The Hate Ring is not exclusively punk related, but it might as well be. Punk defines itself by what it's against, a big thanks for that to the Sex Pistols. The Clash saw single-minded aggression as having little positive impact beyond waking people up, so in addition they tried to be about something. Punk over the decades has dealt with positive issues, but its image is too tightly wrapped around anti-social dress, language and action - what most people lump together as hateful behavior.

It's frighteningly easy to complain about how everything sucks. It's hard to get off your ass and accomplish something. Hating the existence of The Spice Girls doesn't prove anything. If you don't like The Spice Girls, Marilyn Manson or Hanson, don't listen to them! Who gives a crap if you don't like Star Trek or Barney? They weren't meant for you in the first place. Grow up, Dexter.

Here's some page names on The Hate Ring: Smash The Pumpkins, Rap Is Crap, Anti-Spice, Green Day Sucks, Hanson Sux!!, The Manatee Hunters (a joke to piss off environmentalists), and oddly enough a personal vendetta page against a "stupid liar bitch" named Jodi.

It's one thing to say something stinks, but it's another to spend hours creating a web page against anything you shouldn't think about twice. Like I said before, who cares what you hate? Get a life, or at least fake some maturity whilst in public.

Label That Punky Music, White Boy!

I label everything: black, white, Latino, Jewish, short, tall, screwhead, friendly, good, bad, arty and farty. Categories are the building blocks of learning. As a child you learn what you sit on is called a “chair”. As you grow and learn you realize there’s all kinds of chairs, like benches, stools and couches. There’s all kinds of music too but you wouldn’t know it if you follow the laws of the punk police who say it’s BAD to label music. Bands don’t want to be labeled in hopes of attracting the widest possible audience. PC punks are against categorizing because imposing definitions and labels is phobic, patriarchal and a criminal use of language to control and suppress the masses. It also destroys the ozone layer.

That’s all very sweet, but if you feel this way please hop off your soapbox and look around. Why is calling a band ‘77, rockabilly, ska, mod, emo-core, hardcore, speed metal or anything else an insult? If you play ska music you’re in a ska band. The Stray Cats were rockabilly. Ta Dah!! When you say it’s just music or it’s just punk you’re pushing ignorance, the kind that says equality in society can only come about if all labels are eliminated. Then life would be one flat, neutral, sexless, humorless playing field. This was tried in communist countries and it failed miserably.

I understand when a band doesn’t like being compared to others. Who wants to be seen as the next best thing to a cover band? On the other hand, most bands will admit to their influences. When I read record reviews I damn better get comparisons to other bands and a full description of what they sound like. I’m not plopping down $13 unless there’s some chance I might like it. If a reviewer can’t label, compare and categorize I assume they know diddly squat about the music they’re reviewing. It’s easy to say it’s all just punk if you don’t know the difference between The Stooges, the Dead Boys, Husker Du and the Ramones.

Punk is the only form of music that shuns descriptive labels. Why is that?

Here’s my favorite PC story. I once worked for a non-profit environmental group in Washington, DC. We played softball against Greenpeace one summer day and I had to play third base. I have a problem seeing motion, so I stood in front of the baseline as not to be distracted by runners on base. The Greenpeace women went ballistic with hate. Why? Because by standing close in I was being sexist. I pointed out that I was standing there for both men and women. A Greenpeace guy came over and confided, “That’s OK for the guys, but not for the women”. Lunatics like these give a bad name to the left and bring upon themselves all the abuse they get.

Title: Legs McNeil and Wayne Kramer Speak!

Subtitle: Woof !! Arf !!

Keep your good eye open because these two fossils from ye olden days of punk are touring America’s bookstores: Legs in support of the paperback release of his book, Please Kill Me, and Wayne Kramer to push his latest album (Citizen Wayne) and in general reinvent himself as Pete Seeger. I saw them in Washington, DC, and even though it’s hard to get past Leg’s adoration of heroin culture and Wayne’s hyperinflation of the importance of both the MC5 and the White Panther Party, it was time well spent because they were there in the beginning and represent roots of punk culture so foreign to today as to be almost(and probably) irrelevant.

Is‘60s and mid‘70s punk relevant today? Yes and No. Yes if you believe that to be punk requires full knowledge of the history and roots of the music, and No if you feel being it requires nothing more than a general interest. Your average punk of fifteen thinks Operation Ivy is old skool, and that’s OK by me. I fell into hardcore around 1981 - and only because new wave was dying. To me, old punk is Fear, The DKs, X, Minor Threat, Ramones and Husker Du. The MC5? The NY Dolls? That’s urban hippie music from the Neolithic era. I appreciate old bands because I’m a two-bit punk historian with a memory like a steel spaghetti strainer, but I don’t kid myself that these bands are of any interest to some kid into NOFX or Pennywaise. None. And it doesn’t have to be. As long as The Kids don’t act like punk started in 1993 I say they’re not missing out if they never hear one note from before their time.

Back to the book signing – the night opened with Wayne Kramer singing two songs from his latest album, which I liked even though they were no different than most political protest songs. Then Legs and Wayne read a chapter from Please Kill Me and answered questions from the crowd of thirty people, hipsters all. The whole shindig lasted less than an hour. They read chapter three of the book, which deals with the MC5 and their White Panther Party. Read out loud the passages are actually pretty funny, but I groaned each time people cheered gratuitous references to sex, drugs and violence - your typical lowest common denominator crap. During the Q&A I asked Legs if he thought the mid ‘70s punk scene was defined by junk culture, sexual misadventure and heroin use. His reply, “What’s wrong with heroin?”

Legs McNeil co-founded the ‘70s NY magazine Punk (recently reprinted in an oversize paperback edition) and claims to have coined the term Punk to describe the music he enjoyed from bands like The Stooges and The Dictators. It already existed in punk circles, but Legs was the first to use it as a brand name. Punk was crudely layed out and often more sarcastic than informative, but that’s what they thought punk was all about. I’m surprised Please Kill Me came out as a paperback. It’s being made into a movie [2007 update: it never happened] and Legs is also working on a book on the history of NY porn [2007 update: it wasn’t very good]. Legs looks like a WASP version of Richard Belzer and has aged pretty well for someone with his resume. don’t know much about Wayne Kramer except what I read in Please Kill Me and a few zine articles. He strikes me as a man dependent on a past that didn’t happen the way he claims. He said he never liked hippies, but the MC5 were suburban hippies with guns. The MC5 played a fair share of psychedelic music too. I wish him luck but I can’t take anything he says too seriously.

(8/07 update: I’m 46 now. I’m so out of it now I might as well hang up my spiked dog collar)

Out of Step, With the Punk World
(sung to the Minor Threat song)

I’m old, elderly, on in years, one foot in the grave. I’m 38, which is 102 in punk years. I was punk before it was punk to be punk. Only real punks were punk before it was punk to be punk. There are advantages to being a paid member of punk's AARP. Also a few disadvantages. The advantages come from not feeling the need to take part in punk’s sloganeering, politics and Riverdale High social hierarchies. The disadvantages are usually the hangover of a bad cocktails of nostalgia for better, more youthful days. We oldsters tend to be a lot more tired and lazy. I’ll never forget one all-ages show where the crowd was equally under and over age. The kids ran around like Jolt Cola junkies while the old folks stood around curling their beers and darting stares that comically mixed contempt with envy. weighing the ups and downs there’s more potential for fun in punk when you’re young, but also more crap and nonsense. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that anymore.

Old folks tend not to be impressed with how passionate someone is about their opinions, and we especially don’t appreciate being told how to think or what to do. As much as kids don’t like being lectured by authority figures, I’d never allow myself to be brow-beaten by a walking zit. I’m glad everyone has an opinion, just like I’m glad everyone has an asshole. I just don’t need to see it and I definitely don’t want to whiff the contents within.

There’s something going on about boycotting Radical Records because they’re not as DIY as some would like. Radical seems to be taking it in stride because they put out a comp titled “Boycott Radical Records”. That anyone would boycott a record distributor as part of an ongoing struggle is too funny. Radical Records isn’t Hitler. Don’t buy from them if you don’t want to. Letters to fanzines are filled with righteous indignation over petty, esoteric issues like what defines punk and who’s a sellout. At one point I took these things a little seriously, but eventually I figured out it’s an endless, ongoing process that leads nowhere. As you grow older you realize the drama of life comes from life itself, not a record or a magazine. If you base your life on punk rock, that's just silly, you big silly.

I spent time looking at goth sites and marveled at how these people are so obsessed with how the media portray them. Goths go ballistic about perceptions of goth as if they’re about to be rounded up and burned at the stake. I couldn’t care less about the popular perception of what I’m into, and I don’t know a fellow geez who feels differently. It's funny what some people find important. It's just music. Calm down.

So, what's the moral here? In punk's great Circle Of Life 97% of you will come around to seeing it as I do. The others will be either be stuck as adult adolescents or be dirty, smelly hippies in leather jackets looking for trouble and usually finding it. To which I say, good for you, now leave me alone.

A Funny Yet True Story Minute

On July 4th, when we as a nation celebrated a drunks' right to ignite explosives in cramped public places, I was waiting to turn left at an intersection when a car passing straight on my right rammed into a car from the other direction turning left. Somehow they hit straight on and it sounded like two cinder blocks colliding. One car limped away from the scene, its front end smashed, and an instant later, like 47 clowns tumbling out of a tiny circus car, at least four rap gangsta types piled out of the other, totally wrecked car looking to kick some ass! But since there was no ass to kick all they could do was prowl the intersection like a rap group working a concert stage. One dude even grabbed his crotch, just like on the boob tube! I guess you had to be there, but yikes was that funny.

Disco still sucks.

There it was in the L.A. Times, a headline that mocked me like a pimple on the end of my nose, "Disco’s Comeback More Than Nostalgia". Must we go through this again? Disco is the sexual soundtrack for the easily aroused. It’s the mating call of the shallow and self-obsessed. Only two groups of people fondly remember the days of disco: kids not around in the ‘70s who think it’s kooky and retro-nutty, and fat, old bald guys who haven’t seen any sex action since Donna Summer left her cake out in the rain. I’m not saying people shouldn’t have fun, but disco was always a cartoon of cheap trends and exaggerated sexuality. It was bleached bimbos acting dumb and uncoordinated slobs trying to be sexy by exposing their chest hairs and shaking their groove tushies.

I grew up near Brooklyn, New York where Saturday Night Fever was filmed. I knew someone who went to the real club featured in it. I knew him from years before so I saw how he’d changed. He became a character straight out of Hollywood. I kept my mouth shut, but boy did he look stupid. All he cared about was his hair and getting to the club on time.

Gloria Gaynor put it best when she pointed out that disco was dance music for white people who couldn’t handle funk’s more complicated rhythms. In our own sad way white people have always tried to express sexuality through dance. The low point was probably the mid ‘70s when stoners sloshed around to Led Zepplin at rock clubs. That the tempos were awkward and changed constantly didn’t help what was to begin with a lost cause.

Then disco came along, and the repetitive, easy to dance to beats combined with shameless sex-hunting to establish a national craze of hornyness and laughable fashions. AIDS and drugs played their part in disco’s eventual decline, along with the natural ebb and flow of all cultural trends. As the Baby Boomers who comprised disco’s original constituency grew older, rounder and hopefully a little wiser, they burned their white three-piece suits and prayed to forget they once went by names like Disco Dan and Dancing Queen.

Trends run in cycles, and what was once a comfortable twenty-year cycle from one extreme to the other has been replaced by a media and buying public with the attention span of infants. ‘60s nostalgia lasted a few years to be replaced by ‘70s nostalgia, then supplanted by ‘80s nostalgia, each with their own claims of freshness and lines of expensive stuff to own. I have no idea why last month’s trend is this month’s retro-trend. Do you? Lazy designers and lifestyle experts rummage through history’s cultural dumpster and present yesterday’s mistakes as today’s hot personal statements. Disco is nothing more than an extension of that lack of originality.

In the L.A. Times article, Simon Reynolds, author of Generation Ecstacy: Into The World of Techno and Rave Culture, is quoted as saying "And then in the 80s, especially in Britain, a lot of former punk bands discovered Philly and Curtis Mayfield." I e-mailed him and asked for a list of such bands. He gave me the Jam and some other groups I’ve never heard of. Hey, look, the Clash recorded "Train In Vain" and "Rock The Casbah". PIL was a death disco band. This doesn’t make it "a lot of former punk bands" but I don’t blame him for a bit of exaggeration. His point is both wrong and right. I just hate to think anyone thinks punk evolved into disco because that’s where the new ideas and inspirations were coming from. Punk and disco are two ends of the musical spectrum. They only mix as a joke or somebody’s horrible genetic experiment.

The article points out that disco never went away and has been influential in modern music. Rock bands may use disco in their songs, but then the songs aren’t rock anymore. Techno is disco for pissed off, bi-curious white guys. Industrial, rave, jungle, etc. – it’s all disco. It’s the beat that defines disco, not the attitude. Disco established itself as a lifestyle, one non-disco people spat with disgust. That U2 recorded a disco-influenced album isn’t a statement on disco’s increased stature but on U2’s lack of ideas. Punk isn’t rocket science but at its best it represents an aesthetic of independent thought and action. Disco was always about "Look at me I’m so sexy Baby Baby love me all night I’m hot I’m cool love me tonight doop doop".

It’s not my place to dictate how people should have fun. Just don’t tell me disco isn’t what it’s always been – the dumbest entertainment on the planet. Do The Hustle! Doop doo doop doo doo doo doo doop doo!

The Queers Go To Market

The marketing for the latest Queers CD, Punk Rock Confidential, is a thing of genius. I don't know if their new label, Hopeless Records, just cares more than Lookout did, or if Joe King hired a smart public relations agency, but MAN are the Queers everywhere right now. You know the world's gone mad when the Queers get a review in "Jane", the glossy magazine for educated women 18-34 who acquire new wardrobes and boyfriends every six months. A magazine with covers that tease "'I've Never Kissed A Guy' And Other Lies He's Telling You" and "'Nice Biceps' Men React To Our Catcalls".

Here's the review, nestled between ones for Alanis, Jewel, Ice Cube and Vanilla Ice: "This punk-rock institution (16 years!) can sound downright pretty, like on the sweet love song "The Sun Always Shines Around You". They also provide cleansing bursts or irrational aggression ("Rancid Motherfugger"), and their lyrics are hilarious: ‘I guess I'm not a punk/'Cause I stopped getting drunk/And puking all over my shoes’. Note: Their name might seem offensive, but in the old days bands identified with marginalized groups by naming themselves after them. “

The last line isn’t true, but what the hey. Joe took the name Queers just to piss people off. Punk band names have nothing to do with compassion. Wow! Where did that come from? Has punk become so mainstream that daily newspapers and lifestyle magazines cover the Queers because they're new, hip and just dangerous enough to interest kids without threatening their parents? The Bad Brains' "Pay To Cum" was used in a movie, a Ramones song was in a Bud ad, and "Hey Ho Let's Go" was sampled for inspiration during the baseball season. Punk’s been around long enough for it to become a perennial youth culture rebellion stance for kids who on their own would be as punk as a spray can of cheese.

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