Sunday, June 10, 2007

Punk insanity

Getting rid of the old feelings of the old ways of thinking.

It seems to me that when I order "the biggest coffee you guys have" I should get the biggest coffee Dunkin Donuts has to offer, not the mere "large". I also don't think it's too much to ask TGI Friday's for a "Brisket Sandwich, no fries sub sm house salad sub caesar no caesar drssng sub bl chz drssng". Or maybe it is. All I'm saying is that when my demands are simple, I expect them to be complied with to the letter.

I was never a rebellious kid. I had a stint in high school where I would walk down the middle of the street late at night, or say obnoxious things in public, or make memories involving gasoline, old shoes, a lighter, and two pitchforks, but I never did anything truly delinquent. My first cigarette was almost 2 years after it was legal for me to purchase them, my first sip of alcohol without parental supervision was of half a wine cooler the last week of my freshmen year in college, and my first time getting officially inebriated was months after it was totally legal for me to do so. I've never been in a fight or had to be treated for the clap, and my experimentation with drugs is on an "indefinite hiatus". The kind NSYNC has going, not the one LBC claimed.

My first book of the summer is Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. I bought it so I could get in touch with my musical roots, get a sense of history so I could appreciate where the guitar riffs and lunatic antics I love so much came from. The problem with this book is, it's not so much a "history" book, as it is a collection of interviews with members of the bands and record execs and groupies who were there. I don't know who these people are! That's why I got a history book! Although I suppose there's no better way to get to know a genre than to jump right into the deep end, so the first time I listen to an Iggy and the Stooges album, I can have fond recollections of their descriptions of how Ron Asheton had to tie a rope leash around Iggy's waist the first time he went on a 3-day acid trip.

The problem with the whole punk movement, I'm coming to realize, is that the people who invented the lifestyle were truly insane. Really, completely batty. Wearing strange clothes wasn't a fashion statement, it was the result of being on speed all the time. Vandalism and general mayhem weren't hobbies, they were inspired, random acts of lunacy. Anyone who claims they're "punk" is a liar and a poser. A true punk is a music-obsessed junkie on a self-destructive binge. If you want to be an individual, get a philosophy and develop your own fashion sense. Don't imitate meth-heads and the criminally insane. That sort of thing can never turn out well.

That said, I aim to be more inspired, more spontaneous, and a general nuisance to my Circadian rhythm this summer. Who's with me?

Nico,
Cathers

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