-- "No future"
-- "Excuse me?"
-- "Though you were a Punk.......you should have understood that Fuck the bullocks"
-- "Yeah, it's a quarter of a line from a retired Sex Pistols song... so?"
-- "Not bad.....any how ENjoy "
-- "Uh, sure."
Unnnngh.
Above that last paragraph is a 'conversation' had between me and some random icq retard. A retard living in New Orleans. Not some upstartish Brit kid with a sneer, who could almost be excused for using such lame language as to actually type 'Fuck the bollocks', no no, some Frenchie in New Orleans named Jean-Marc, who felt it necessary to prove his surely outstanding punkness to some random slob like myself.
And just for the record, the Sex Pistols were barely punk when they were together. Yeah okay, hooray for their fuck-shit-up attitude... wonderful, hip hip hooray even... but that'll really only take you so far. So many people have just burned out thinking that route can take them somewhere when really the only place it leads is straight to the gutter.
Now. There's a difference between abandoning something and keeping it in the back of your mind. There's always a time and a place where having been through that kind of attitude is going to give you an advantage.
And it's a shame that there's so many better markers to read along lifes journey and so many people seem to forget how to put together proper grammar.
You're not going to catch Jello Biafra spouting his nonsense without proper spelling and punctuation, you realize that, right?
You're not catching Greg Graffin pumping out a collection of thoughts and conveniently forgetting to place periods and giving us the inhuman trauma of the run-on sentence.
Fuck, even Fat Mike capitalizes letters properly.
You know the difference between a punk who's sucessful and one who isn't? One who's got things under control and one who isn't?
It's smarts. One kind or another. It's people smarts or charisma smarts or business smarts... and don't you 'punx' tell me business smarts are evil, if they were that evil you wouldn't be wielding your Op Ivy patches and cd jewel cases against me to block out my words on every other day. Jello runs, or ran Alternative Tentacles. Brett Gurewitz and Bad Religion started Epitaph some 15 or 20 years ago. Fat Mike's got his fingers in more pies than ol' hungry grampa.
Punks have to be ever evolving right along with everything else. They have to modify thoughts, ideas, devotions and passions.
And think. There needs to be something to begin with to modify, right?
We can all play the bandlist game. It's a hundred years old and tiresome. Seems like that's what this French wanker was in for. It was like he congratulated me on knowing a Sex Pistols song. There's a lot of their songs that I don't know, because I don't think they were very talented musicians, which sometimes I can ignore if there's a message, but their 'message' has never really appealed to me that much either. Song with messages like 'no future' in particular... kind of really pessimistic, don't you think? If it wasn't catchy I'd have never known it at all, since I normally prefer something a bit more optomistic, if you can believe that.
But yeah, bandlisting. Fuck, I'll *make up* some punk-sounding names for you if you want to play that bullshit with me.
Ever hear of the Killer Retards? No?!
What about Straight From Hell? Oh come on now!
Homegrown Heroes... saw them on tour, man.
Broken Bridges? Oh, but they thrash, dude!!
Who the fuck cares?! Seriously now, who the fuck gives a shit?
Are you laying true to progress and change, or are you more concerned about how your new hair dye's going to turn out this time?
And I just don't know where bad grammar, terrible spelling and ridiculous language (other than the mocking of rap lingo) comes into the punk picture. I mean, save that crap for hip hop, I say. Leave it for 'the Rascalz' and 'Ghostface Killa' and whoever the fuck else. Leave them the senseless violence and delusions of self importance too.
The world won't stop without you. Me either, for that matter, but I at least realize that, Snoop.
Just... please: consider all options and take time out to have a thought or two. If you're going to fake punk then the least you can do is fake some thought while you're at it. And it doesn't even have to be your own thought all the time. Like, (and this is just a for-instance, because anarchy sounds kind of fun/interesting/experimental to me too) here's something from an old DK song, Where Do Ya Draw the Line? Actually, I'll make the whole song into my closing.
Don't just think Punk is this lifeless thing on the floor that you can stretch out and cover yourself in. It's alive and yeah, you can get inside... but that means Punk eating you alive. It's hungry, mmhmn, it's absolutely ravenous.
And don't go randoming me with nonsense. I was in the middle of finding some nifty junk on Ebay.
Where Do Ya Draw the Line?
"Seems like the more I think I know
The more I find I don't.
Every answer opens ip so many questions.
Anarchy sounds good to me
Then someone asks, "Who'd fix the sewers?"
"Would the rednecks just play king
Of the neighbourhood?"
How many liberators
Really want to be dictators?
Every theory has it's holes
When real life steps in.
So how do we feed
And make room for
All the people crowded on our earth
And transfer all that wealth
From the rich to those who need it?
Where do ya draw the line
Where do ya draw the line
I'm not telling you,
I'm asking you.
Ever notice hard line radicals
Can go on star trips too
Where no one's pure and right
Except themselves?
"I'm cleansed of the system"
('Cept when my amp needs electric power)
Or - "The Party Line says No,
Feminists can't wear fishnets."
You want to help stop war?
Well we reject your application.
You crack too many jokes
And you eat meat.
What better way to turn people off
Than to twist ideas for change
Into one more church
That forgets we're all human beings?
Where do ya draw the line?
In Toronto someone blew up
A cruise missle warhead plant
10 slightly hurt, 4 million dollars damage.
Why not destroy private property
When it's used against you and me
Is that violence
- or self defence?
You tell me."
Back.