Subject: Re: I Wanna Be Sedated...
JLSnoop@aol.com
Date: Mon Apr 16 2001 - 02:57:50 GMT
The Ramones, punk, and what it stands for, has always been an integral
part of my hastily assembled collage of a childhood. When I was fifteen I
bleached my hair, and almost gave my dad a heart attack. A month later I dyed
it blue and almost made him stick his head in an oven. I hung out at Astor
place, I put patches and pins on my sweatshirt, and I felt like I was
protected by an invisible ring of rebellion on the subway. I was doing
exactly what my dad hated.
But punk should be more than that. Punk was a movement. It should be
about making a difference, and doing what you want, and not worrying about
what anyone thinks. If a punk culture had really existed, I shouldn't have
had to dye my hair to be accepted in CBGBs. I should have simply been able to
arrive saying, "this world is a pain in the ass, and I'm not going to play by
its rules." Because this is the basis of all punk.
But punk is dead in more ways than one. With Joey Ramone going out, I
guess it's official. But the second that someone was shunned for not having
high enough hair, or enough saftey pins, punk died. Because punk was founded
by and for the outsider, the pariah, the Holden Caufield. But it had gotten
to the point where punk was only a style, and these people were getting
rejected. I let my hair grow and cut the dyed parts out.
So now what? Are the kids of the world really that subversive? Have they
all been numbed by the happy fluff programming of MTV? I doubt they are any
less numbed than children were back when they were watching big haired metal
bands, right before punk exploded. Music, and culture, in my opinion, is made
up of long boring "Stepford Children" periods, broken by bursts of energy.
Punk was one of these bursts. Now it's gone, and we'll all have to wait for
the next one to come along. Of course, in the meantime, we can read Catcher.
Jake
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