"Punk Rawk"

     I remember growing up in Los Angeles and running and gunning with the tough kids. Being punkrock and breaking all the rules. It seems like a blur of cross-tops and Lucky Lager, pounded in the parking lot of the Olympic Auditorium. Cops and riot dogs, tri-hawks and boots, it was a glorious time.


     If you were little, like I was at the time, you could get up with the band and skank around a bit before 'doing a stager'. I once stole the L.A. Raiders hat right off the head of Bob Forrest at a Thelonious Monster gig, and gleefully sailed back into the safety of the awaiting crowd; gobbled up by the bodies of punks, with the plaintive cries from Bob for the return of his hat, ringing in my ears. We did a lot worse things than hat stealing back in those days. Things I'm no longer proud of, and won't go into detail about here. But we did them. Every fucking day that we were alive. And we'd wake up and do them all over again. It wasn't even a question; our mission was to be 'punkrock' and we didn't call in sick or not show up, ever.


     I don't necessarily advocate the bad behavior of youth, but I would take it over the apathetic impotence of today's kids that I am witness to. If I had a hammer, I'd smash every fucken Xbox from here to eternity and tell these fucken brats to get outside before I made their ass look like a Japanese flag. 


     We were bad. I get that. But we had fucken style, and I don't mean some retro uniform of dork glasses and skinny jeans replete with $60 girl's shoes style, I mean real style. I didn't wear shit that wasn't bought in a thrift store, except my 'winos' that I bought at Zody's.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq0C3OUaTow


     We intentionally, dressed like vagrants, drank like sailors, and treated objects like women. We were fucken cool, and you were bummed when we showed up at your party. We fought and lost, a good portion of the time. But we weren't fucken pussies and we didn't get scared. I remember some shows, (Discharge, Exploited, Subhumans, etc.) that were mind-bogglingly huge. A massive ocean of punks and the aggression was palpable. Sometimes you were amazed you made it out, and the next weekend you dove right back in.


     My point is, I'm worried. It used to be that you could count on the crazy antics of youth. They pushed the boundaries of polite society and forced everyone to take a look. They said,
   "Fuck you and your ways, we'll never be like you!" 


     Sure, we mellowed a bit with age, if you made it that far. But I like to think that we retained a little bit of the fire we drew on so heavily in our younger days. I'm looking for the fire in today's kids, and all I'm seeing is slack-jawed underachievers, with faces, stained in a blue glow from whatever personal electronic device they happen to be staring into at the time. We didn't post on Fakebook, we posted up in the pit, and kicked someone's teeth in.


     I don't want my kids to be robots, and I sure as hell don't want to see the fire die out in America's youth. So if you have a kid, and you love this country, tell 'em to go out and break some fucken rules.