#377

This method will make it hard to keep up with what is discussed within these upcoming lines of thoughts transformed into words, but history will treat it right.
So, two months ago in MRR Ratcharge raised an interesting question. Why is the punk punk? Why do we say that he is a punk; why does it need you to be fully committed to listening to non-musical pop music?

            I’m the least qualified person to go into the history of words and phrases. But the fact is not the simple reasoning of saying that punks came before them and that punk music made a perfect match. Punk is the origo of the music and its accompanying cultural world, thus it carries a significant impact on our whole life. Everything was leading into the way of creating this sound and aesthetics; and sometimes it seems as if culture fights with all its power to go back into this fundamental epicentrum of everything. But to swim against the currents is not always easy.

            But punk music is played by punks for punks. It’s not like progressive rock, that is played by assholes and listened by dads in leather vests and ponytail hair. Punk is like girls; this is why girls are punks. There were girls before girl bands, and it’s such a huge thing for some: that the better half of humanity is capable of making noise, and out of shock everyone calls these bands “girl-bands” and their members “girls.”

            These are just words. But words have power. I’m pretty sure I could quote some hip hop artists here, but I only prefer rap songs about body parts. Whatever. Too much knowledge might break up my rhyme.

            So I came to this revelation a few months ago. I was at this radio show as a guest being interviewed by some drunken friend of mine. After work, a three hour train ride, reading through a Balzac novel, a punk show, a drummer’s broken finger, riding bikes after I don’t know how many years, meeting my girlfriend’s grandma, drinking too much in too short a time and smoking weed, I found myself in a small booth in front of a microphone where I was talking too much.

            But I got to a point where I realized people want too much from punk. They think it’s important. That it will do something. Even the lamest mainstream asshole will say it’s such a punk attitude or approach to do things when one gets his or her head out of his or her asshole and acts like a normal fucking person.
Acting normal; just to shake yourself and say I’m done with following this bullshit. Punk seems to have a mission to do something. To break rules and destroy or rebuild the establishment. But punk is mostly about not being a fucking asshole. People know this and this is why they try to force extra tasks on us ones that are impossible to get done and with our forced out failure they believe it’s proven that we are dead. This is why they are disappointed when you are a punk and you seemingly fit into the establishment because you used your brain for a second and figured out its rules. If they see that you can eat with forks and knives while not shitting yourself they will think this is not fair. How come you can be normal but not a self-forced norm? Then they will say you are not punk and punk is dead because they can’t bear to realize there is life even beyond throwing your stool at the crowd, or shooting heroin with your girlfriend in Mad Max extras clothes. Simply not thinking your job is the most important part of your day since it’s only 1/3 of 24 hours. Punk bears a cross in the sense that we are cultural Jesuses, but the job is too hard, that’s why we oppose religion.

            It’s true that you will never hear people say that, “you are not a trip hop fan and trip hop is dead”—it’s still alive right? - Why would they? No one gives a fuck if you like Massive Attack or not. For Americans: Massive Attack is a British band with a political message and people listen to their music when they don’t have taste in anything and when they are really really stoned. Trip hop fans have no duty to serve. What would that be? They are lucky, it’s just a genre of music they are free to listen to, or abandon when bored and rather switch to U2. No one will blame them, question them, and tell them what they believe in is dead or a lie for loser teenagers. Not even the bands have to worry about anything. No one cares if their flame goes out because, like, who gives a shit? Was there ever a flame anyway?

            Would this be the point? Are we cultural messiahs cursed to be forever questioned, hunted, disgraced and crucified? Well maybe.

            But there is another explanation as to why a fan of punk music and radically normal ideas (for example not being a capital fucking asshole) is a punk. If you are a punk it’s not the punk that matters. What matters id that you are a punk. When you listen to any other music you are a fan of that genre you are a part of a bigger picture of a crowed, you are the part of a fan base you are not a single lonesome entity wondering in this cosmical chaos.

            Have you ever been to a punk show? You are a punk thus you spend every third day of your life in a basement. We are constantly among people where everyone is free to express themselves yet still we are lonely. Punk is not a mass. Our dance is pogo, moshing, whatever in which we are fighting each other. We want to destroy our surroundings while having fun. When we are happy we want to push away other people, not hug them and be together with them. Even when no one dances, our metacommunication says we feel hostile among people. Among each other.

            People who say we all just wanna do our parents also say that we are defined by our desires. The absolute of punk is unity. With desiring it we say we are alone and want it different. One never reaches one’s desire, that’s the point of it is named desire - this is the fuel for us to do things. Or something but at the end we don’t make love with our parents and probably there won’t be some Bill and Ted moment where the whole world gathers together in peace under a Discharge solo.

We starve for being together that’s why we say all these things to be heard and embraced thanks to our brightness, that’s why we tour to go out and meet, experience, that’s why we book bands to host them to invite them to make them entertain us, that’s why we are constantly communicating writing fanzines, singing songs, drawing pictures of skinheads sucking off each other, but communication in punk is never a discussion of two these are just parallel monologues howled by the lone wolves of this cruel world. This is what punks are.

            We are the ones that indicate the frustration of this world. When people say you are not a punk they want you to stand up and say: Yes this is unbearable and I will put this safety pin through my nose to protest against it. They want us to do this because they know we are lonely and we have nothing to lose.

            They can’t tell their bosses they don’t give a shit about their jobs because they have a family to feed, they can’t trash their apartment because there is a gathering on the upcoming weekend with their neighbors. While we without families, neighbors and any belongings are free to do anything. For them we are modern day Franciscans wondering in the world with nothing else but the desire to form a brotherhood with other pure people.

            That’s why we could be called as a punk that’s why we are punks, that’s why they see a meaning in this commitment. While I’m not always so sure if there is any.

Ps.: Gosh I fucking miss talking about music.