I came to punk late. It took a while for me to
realize how much I loved certain bands, but also for me to reconcile with
punk's negative aspects. I mean, sometimes they are really obnoxious.
I'm not really into that. One of the irritating things
I remember from Our Band Could Be Your Life was one band - I don't
remember which - that bragged about playing halls and people asking for
something a bit more dance-able, you know, for the dance they were being paid to
play. Mind you, that was an alternative band, not punk, but there was this
attitude of looking down on these stupid ordinary people who don't get us that
could have been very punk. I just remember thinking that they could have still
played their music mixed in with other stuff. Maybe the audience would have
liked them, given a chance.
Let me throw out some random things that I have read
over the years, and I'll see if I can make it all fit together.
One was about the origin of the name.
"Punk" is an archaic term for prostitute that got used more recently
to describe the person who got used for sex in prison. It's a position where
you are low and unsupported and therefore abused. To accept that title is to
take being low and embrace it.
Another comes from Mad World, and their
interview with Marco Pirroni. I have quoted this before, but it bears
repeating:
"I was completely done with punk by the end of
'77. It became an excuse to be stupid. It lost style; it lost subversiveness;
it got really conformist. I thought the early punk thing was that old Oscar
Wilde thing: 'We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the
stars.' Well, the second generation was basically just 'We're all in the
gutter.' They never moved on. A lot of them still haven't."
Finally, I had started to learn some things about
the DIY (Do It Yourself) aspects of punk culture, like gardening, but a lot of
it clicked in while reading Billy Idol's memoir, Dancing With Myself.
They were trying to be independent from mainstream culture. That could be done
on a principled anti-establishment basis, but it was often practical due to a
lack of funds. So growing your own food is a way of eating, and scavenging and
thrift shops and the safety pin repairs are a means of survival as well as a
protest. Punk fashion's form did indeed follow a function, and sometimes the
function was to repel, but that wasn't the only function.
So here we are.
Growing your own food, storing it, regular
preparations for the (non) zombie apocalypse - those are probably all good
things to do. The economy has been dangerously tilted toward the upper level
for a while, and that's getting worse.
Being able to accept a lowly status and then embrace
it as your way of rising above it - that won't hurt you. Be ready to be
subversive and to create and make a scene when needed. But also keep your eyes
on the stars.
Being punk is being anti-establishment. There are
always reasons for that, and it looks like there will be better reasons on the
way. But it's not enough just to be against. There are politicians that define
themselves by their opposition, and they tend not to improve anything. I want
to make things better. For everyone if possible, but for one person at a time
if that's the best I can do.
I need to be fighting for something, not just
against.
I may not be completely punk rock. I am fully me.
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