# 363

If I think about what is the essence of MRR for me I have to say it’s a 16 year old punker interviewing Kathleen Hanna or reading about Complicité Candied on the first when they made it to the first place in one of the ex coordinators’ top ten of decade zerozero list. I live one country away from the Czech Republic and have never heard of this band. Still it states that if you do something what is really good you will be recognized.
It’s a lie to say we are all equal in punk cause for sure if you are in a crust band your chances are higher to be recognized if you are hailing from Scandinavia or Japan. If your scene is on fire you will be in spotlight too and for sure bands will get more attention who are from western countries, have better economy, more established roots in punk history etc. This is just obvious, for nothing else they can get more money even for shitty jobs, so they can have better equipments with what they could sound better or at least have a specific sound. They can tour more thus be a tighter band and it matters if you can say “fuck it, rock and roll, whatever” and be just cool.

While bands from poorer or disadvantaged countries have to prove themselves and many times these turn into struggle that sounds awful. This is the sad truth but luckily here is this magazine with amazing people behind it. I’m not behind this magazine as much as I’m sad to be in the position of the forgotten from birth but I also mostly keep my focus on bands that has born with those advantages I have listed above. So why should I blame anyone if I could be stoned too? But I also have this idea that there are things what are just that good that they are irresistible no matter where they come from.

I really believe in songs and people and whatever else their cultural outputs are in a similar way as it was in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey where there was some higher power in people’s work that united everybody and brought utopia for the whole world. I truly believe in this that one day it will happen or if not we should strive to try to get it out from ourselves even if we die at one point of the process. This way all the beaten and forgotten and misfortune will find their way to rise up.

The reason why I love this zine is because it gives opportunity to people to be able to present their lives to the world. I think even I’m a good example for that cause, believe me, most of the people who see me wouldn’t even think that I’m being published in an international magazine and been read by others from all around the world. While I’m no different from you.

And I love that the people running this magazine are people who step out from this spotlight every day. They hide behind shitty jobs and don’t rush themselves to grow up. I just heard that people think I’m wasting my time with hanging with younger folks who mostly act like junkies and with setting up shows and why I don’t wanna grow up. Well the truth is even I get depressed sometimes of thinking I will at one point realize I was wasting my time with avoiding real life and now it’s too late and all I will have is to pine over my so called hey days spent with being a teen in my twenties and thirties.

But couple days ago while leaving my bathroom I looked into the mirror and found my reflection smiling back at me. I saw a man with a smile of a kid who still loves things that are meant nothing for the rest of the world and I want to keep that smile on that specific face. And it is just so fucking sad that people in punk are thinking I’m a deadbeat because I’m still a punk. What else should I be? I still love to do punk things, be among punx and to keep my punk attitude. It doesn’t mean I couldn’t order a fucking meal at a restaurant properly or deal with adult shit. Not growing up doesn’t mean I have to stay dumb or a useless child. Being punk and living a diy life means you are providing and doing an extra, smarter job to avoid selling out your soul without a safety net under your ass. Thus maybe we don’t ride jet skis as hobby but we spend that extra money which we never earn on not giving up our conscience. On that smile that shins back to you from the mirror.

Maybe I wear the cloths I do cause I like them. Not because these are the only ones I could afford or because I don’t care about the holes and rips and torns. I just like it this way. I love my denim jacket and I love that my friend made me a Dead Moon and D-Clone patch. My pin with the back cover of the salad days 7” and my tote bag with the cover of in a car 7” which was a gift from an amazing person. This is still a fanzine run by our common and mutual love for something that is still a threat otherwise there wouldn’t be people always everyday dying to prove it’s dead or we should grow up. Fuck the haters.

***

Skateboarding

Spring had been lost, here’s the summer. Mix tapes in my brain and denim jackets are covered with pins. Bars could go fuck themselves with their stupid law of smoking is forbidden inside and you can fall asleep at island cause you won’t freeze to death. Drunk hike through hills in the morning and trying to walk on water cause it’s a river and it will take me home quicker while I only need to stand still. Moving ground. Don’t tell me jesus was better than any of us. Fuck the hippies, always anyway. Punks have two official sports but one is just for transportation. I would love to ride a bike but I’m afraid of dying too much and I have pretty bad reflexes so city biking is out for me.

Skating for fun. For me skateboarding is the only punk sport and I swear this is not a fat wreck advertisement from the ‘90s.The two things (punk and skating) are so similar for me the simple joy and basic situation of being that annoying weird outcast, that person who still hasn’t cared too much of not being awkward. Mark Gonzales says in one interview with him that sometimes people look on the fact that he still does skate as if they were asking him “are you still playing with yoyo?” They don’t know. They have no idea how is it just to cruise around and sometimes reach higher than you can and try to Ollie up a curb and actually succeed with it and feel unstoppable. How much pleasure could that be. Just to be in the streets to always do something.

Skating is like you are constantly on tour with your favorite band. That band is you, yourself. You roll through life, the air is bursting into your face and you smile like a dog. You make noise, you move, you are in the street, you are part of everything and everything is an opportunity that you can use to have fun or express yourself which is basically fucking shit up that your stupid city built to cover the stupid reality and make tourists’ life a bit less boring. Still it’s up to you to decide what to do with what. And like with punk it’s just part of everyday enjoyment. It never gets old or you don’t go bored doing it. It’s beautiful like the poetry of the body and movements and speed and danger. The constant risk of falling.
It’s full with breaking boundaries and inventions, this thing was not built so people could flip down 12 stairs but somehow people didn’t give a fuck again about what they are supposed or not supposed to do and since then it’s just the magic that’s happening. And while people are almost killing themselves to deliver their stunts even folks rotting in parking lots skating around boom boxes on acid are sharing the joy of this amazing piece of wood and iron and rubber wheels.

***

punk as college

I have a business school degree. Won’t tell in which field cause it’s kinda embarrassing. I don’t wanna get fired from here but it’s almost that bad as if I were an intern for Vice. But sure the school taught me how to think like a manager. Business brain and shit. It helped me a lot. Being in bands since 16 with older guys (some were/are 10 years older than me) always meant I was the kid. In many cases I would have been the little guy patterned by my older brothers. But in reality while the other guys had their works, colleges and other shits I mostly just had free time. So I was mostly responsible to handle all the work with band stuffs. I was doing the mail orders, I was negotiating with printers, screeners, was sending out records to zines, booked shows, tours, manufactured records, while I was publishing and distributing my own zine and with the help of the college I could always realize how I could do things in a more logical, easier and better way. I’m operating things successfully without contracts just based on mutual trust, I have achieved all my dreams in my hobby which is punk. No wait, punk is my life, my love, punk love and thanks to education I could use some professionalism in doing my diy the best.

I don’t know any grammar, have speech impediment and a neurotic as much as I order pizza through internet cause I hate to phone. Still I write, I speak, I run shit and eat pizza every day. Punk is the best thing that has ever happened to me and sure it’s a hard job as well to convince people in the real world the things you have done under the ground are useful in their world as well, but just at a job interview for a multinational company many of the questions I got was about how I work in teams. Well for 10 plus years I do nothing else daily but try to be successful with other people in the things we do. Without a safety net. I have learnt from how a magazine is been published through how shirts are screened to how cut a tape into length at home and many other things too. Managing skills and shit.

What do you think people who run this magazine couldn’t be useful in a business environment? Punk is fucking nothing but problem solving and hardcore management. With the weirdest people who are sometimes the least motivated, very flakey and still we are here and everything is mostly alright. And if every idiot could do the work what punks are doing the world would be a better place.

This does not mean I wasn’t lucky. I was a bit but I had to work a lot before I could be lucky. It’s like maybe luck could lead you into circumstances you always wished to be in but when you have arrived then you’ll have to prove yourself if you don’t wanna fall out of luck. Also, never think that this hard work is just something that must be done. It’s fun when you are spending your nights and days and thoughts on your own shit cause this is what you are. Don’t be afraid to do things in the best possible way but keep in mind diy is the best possible way. Basically this all is just avoiding failing and believe me if you care you will succeed.