eighteen... balding

Supposing there is an afterlife, I bet death looks like a fantastic happening in retrospect.

Should we all ask ourselves: Was childhood really that good? I am sure is a answer to the question, but is there a point in knowing, and more so, do we actually want to know it.

Nothing ever ends well. Everything has to end poorly in some regard or at least it wouldn’t end. Even if it just ends because it ends (like college) it still ends in a way you can’t control.

The great drawback of memory is that it is limited. We have to actually somehow mark the moments in our mind or we don’t keep it. If nothing about a person strikes you as odd, charming, funny, or attractive, the odds are you won’t remember them. We are lucky to remember anything at all. From passwords to old lovers first words, it’s a mass of unorginization (see I have to make up a word).

Things end, but rarely do things every start, they just seem to happen. With the exception of jobs and school, relationships and time periods never seem to arrive with a bang; they just coalesce to a point where all of a sudden your life is different. You look around six months later and the people in your life have changed, the loves in your life are different, and you can’t really point out how or when it all came together. That is life as it is living. We are given endpoints, but rarely lessons.

I remember back in 9th grade, there was a library dedicated solely to the science classrooms. In the library, which was nothing more than a classroom with bookshelves and carpeting. The great feature of this room was the computer room had a wall that separated it from the other part of the library, and best of all, the wall had two doors which locked from within. This was the greatest place in all of the school to goof off. Not only could people disappear for hours on end without teachers getting in, there was a phone in the room that didn’t as of yet need a code to get an outside line. We abused this thing. This was my favorite place my freshman year, by senior year, the wall was down and the no one came to the room anymore.

Anyway, this was in the days of the infancy of the net. Every student had their own file in which they could store files. I lead the entire school in MB usage, with over 150 MB dedicated to 15-second QuickTime clips from Star Wars and Beavis and Butthead, and the trailer to Braveheart. All of those were cherished items. My two favorite clips were a wav of Herbie Hancock playing Watermelon Man in which he narrates over the music in the middle and the first mp3 I ever had, Todd Rundgren’s Bang on the drum all day.

I have always been a collector by nature. I have probably 150 DVD’s. I finally got money during the period when the technology was becoming the new standard. This was during my college years, and I would visit DVD.ign.com more often than any other site on the net. Fueled by my film school growth, I was trying to get everything I could to make a collection that was esoteric and historic about the art form. I wanted to be known as the guy with the best and smartest collection.

I have the same thing with CD’s. Of any given top 100 albums list, I likely have close to half. I used to buy CD’s all the time. In my senior year, I probably made 8500 dollars. Which when you don’t have to pay for a car, is basically a line of credit no 18 year old should have. My CD collection went from 30 to 200. I probably spent 1000 on cigars alone, and was likely one of 10 kids in the country to bring a humidor to college.

I spent almost anything I could on media and toys. When I graduated college, I ran out of money and I stopped buying stuff. I was too poor. And when I had money, I spent it on other stuff. Like clothes and good meals.

The lone exception were TV shows. Aside from the occasional movie I bought, the only things I would rush to the store for were boxed sets of TV. I knew this marked the end of something, as I was no longer interested in learning or expanding my collection. I stopped going to movies all the time, I had reached a level I was content with. My tank, and my shelves, was full.

Truth is I am disappointed in myself. My 19-year-old self would hate who I am today. I am in a different place than I would have imagined I would be. It’s like I changed as a person. But that 19 year old doesn’t know what it’s like to become disaffected with a dream, to have the passion taken away not from a loss of personal desire, but because of outside forces that turn you away. I really miss the old passion I have, not because I lost it, but because it’s not the driving force.

The thing is though, that I am happy now. It’s like being in love, if you really shut down your thoughts, and ask yourself if you love that person, you just know. Same with happiness. You can question everything, and if you still do not want to leave, then you have your answer. Or at least it is being content.

And I know in 5 years, I will look back on today as if it was a golden age.

I suppose, that is growing up. You don’t care as much about now as you did about the past.

(continued...)

Telephone bills, automo-bills

Instead of one small group, I am going to rant on women for a bit here.

To preface, I love women. Not in the sleazy:

I love all women, man. I’d love, everyone that I had a chance to get with, if you know what I mean. (wink, wink. Nudge, nudge) I’ll say no more.

No, but there are a great number of women in my life that I cherish. From friends to family, they, in a set number of circumstances can be everything men you like can be and more.

If only for their predisposed inability not to care about anything. Anything remotely abnormal, and they weep.

From a scrape on your knee, to a rough week, to a kid down a well in Nova Scotia, they care about it.

But the problem is that they take this as a permanent “get out of jail free” card.

My co-contributor mentioned this in one of his vent sessions saying:

When a gal does something good, it reflects on all women. When she does something bad, we don’t talk about it at all.

Really, lets get more to it:

Can women ever be called on being wrong? Can we as a society call them on this?

Even when the creator of “Desperate Housewives” says: “It’s a SATIRE people” women take it as a rubber stamp that they can’t make mistakes.

So, a woman gives her husband the cold shoulder for 20 years?

She gets half.

So, a klutz of a woman burns down a house?

She’s so endearing and just like us.

So, a woman kills her 5 kids and blames it on a black man?

She was depressed.

So, Eileen Wormous (see the movie Monster) kills tons of her John’s.

She fought back against the men and killed a lot of them. (let me note two things: 1. I hate spousal, domestic, and any form where a man or stronger partner beats the other. It’s about as despicable as it gets. 2. There is fighting back, there is the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. These are acts of power. Killing sprees are awful. No matter who, and no one should be liked. I know that’s not really the point of the movie, but a lot of the aftermath of movie called Eileen a strong person, in a almost condoning fashion, which note is not the filmmakers, but the audience that is to blame)

I am blaming women here, but more so, the blame getter is Destiny’s Child:

I’ll start with an old review I did:

http://www.epinions.com/musc-review-B46-1E60A2D-390B41C4-prod5

Destiny’s Child rose to fame and survived because they were like their music, they were pretty, hollow enough not to be taken too seriously. While they take themselves seriously as artists, and there are a bunch of fans of their music who dangerously take their word as verity on life, most of the success of the band can be traced to their disposability. Kudos to Matthew Roland, who learned from the mistakes of The Supremes, and making everyone except for the star (Beyoncé or Diana Ross) expendable.

The songs are ones that people can go out and hear at a club and dance to. The production is pop polish, taking a simple, old formula and giving it a new Pro –Tools enhanced sound.

2 subthoughts here:

1. Thank you NASA. The technology is astounding.
2. In any given DC song, here is a list of noticeable trends. Better yet, lets make a drinking game.

One-3 second drink.
A. When you hear more than one Beyoncé vocal track.
B. When Beyoncé harmonizes over the melody for more than 5 seconds.
C. When they use the phrase “My Man.”
D. They needlessly reference pop culture (Sex and the City, Survivor)
E. The Phrase on my own is touched upon.
F. They use their actual names in the song
G. You can recognize where they stole melody from.
H. They call on men to provide.

Two-3 Second Drinks:
A. When a phrase is repeated outside of the chorus more than twice.
B. Anytime they mention something with Faith.
C. When ever the third member sings.
D. They ask each other questions in the song.
E. Any time they invoke street credibility
F. They mention the lacking sexual qualities of men

Finish your drink:
A. Anyone of them expresses sorrow about their actions.
B. You hear a song by them not about dating or relationships.
C. They mention the other person cheating or being suspicious
D. They mention looking at other men (double if in the same song with C.)
E. Kelly or Michelle gets a part longer than Beyoncé


Rob the liquor store:
A. If they ever admit it was their fault.
B. The song doesn’t have Beyoncé take a long solo around the ¾ mark of the song.
C. They sing about a member kicked out the group by Beyoncé’s father (or mention them in public)
D. They actually make a positive song about being in love or dating.

It’s sickening isn’t it.

And not just in the double entendre thing with the drinking game (you’ll be on the floor by the halfway point of the album) its that their isn’t a single positive or nice thing in any of the songs.

Of course we of men let some of these things slide because they are hot (and we’re to blame on that one, but last I checked, you women aren’t buying any albums in mass made by unattractive women).

It goes back to the whole thing I wrote about in the post about changing the criteria and that we are the ones to blame. We are the ones letting this happen, and more so, it’s the bigger fundamental problem of shifting the criticism.

Do I hate DC because they are females. No. I hate them because they are actively lowering the good aspects of women. It’s not that they are removing the notion of responsibility from the female gender, but they are not putting in it’s place. It’s like being get paid to do less at work.

I am not complaining about losing anything as much as I am ruing the fact that there is no trade. It’s a lose-lose for one side, and a win-win for the other, but the problem is that the other side is doing nothing with the growth.

They are having the cake, eating it too, with another man, let me add, and then sending us the bill.

For the women I love, I’d put up with it. Just not with everyone else.

Why? Because when you love someone you inherently have to know (not believe) that person will become better, and you will be the one to help. And vice versa.

I’ll quote two texts here:

1. With great power, comes great responsibility. (Spiderman)
You don’t have to pull equal weight, you just have to do some. This is a freedom, one that men have albeit had for far too long, but the grace period is over, and it’s time to practice what you preach.

2. The problem is that you didn’t earn this. You stood on the shoulders of genius and instead of wondering if you should, you wondered if you could. (Jurassic Park)
Gloria Steinum, Susan B. Anthony, and your mothers are the genius. I’ll leave it at that while you try to emulate the pop stars of today.

So while B and crew keep fighting the fight to make themselves just as tough.

The women men marry are supposed to make them better fathers.

And the men are supposed to turn them into mothers.

It’s about time we re-established this deal. Where the bond is one of selflessness, not of competition and spite.

(continued...)

Link

Fix You

I cannot really remember my commencements. And that's fine. That was G One. This is from a series I created, One Year Later...

(continued...)

Link

The Giving Tree

I guess it's pretty egotistical to believe that I've got it all figured out now, but I think I've at least made sense of my situation enough to cope with it better than I did the first time around. I joked with Dave a while back, "Thank God I was cursed with this horrid physique, because if I looked normal, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed with all the sex I'd be having." His response echoed the logical, "...you wouldn't be who you are..." I can accept where I am in the world, but it's the future that is terrifying

(continued...)

The Road of Excess...

Leads to the palace of wisdom [william blake].

i like roller coasters and the funny pictures they take while you're on 'em...i like anything and anybody really old fashioned cause thats sorta how i am...im a real nice guy...really i swear...unless i hate you, then i'm evil as fuck and you should get outa town...people don't believe me when i say im kinda shy... Vegas baby.

(continued...)

Untitled post for the video untitled

In a side note with the overrunning of the spaglinsh in this country, is in coincidence that the b and v on the keyboard are right next to each other?

Ok, back to the video reviews:

Lets start with the canon to add to this running installment:

More music videos.

Greatest Videos of all Time:

Video #2

A-Ha – Take on Me. In most lists this is in the top ten or top five. But really, I can think of a few videos that may be better in the history of the medium. I have a few which may be # 1, but that’s a whole post.

Why is this a great video, and among the best of all time?

Well, its probably the most complete fantasy romance of all time.

I mean, she gets the guy through unreal odds. I mean, he’s a cartoon, and he becomes real because of her.

In terms of likelihood’s of romance, that’s the last on the list before you get into desperate ugly people.

But you know that. It’s the cartoon and real life video that was shatteringly original when it came out that made the band a one hit wonder.

But it’s the drama of the media within the video of the real versus the hopeful which not only makes the whole thing endlessly watchable, but so endearing.

The drama is simple but oh so familiar and quaint. And 9 times out of 10, that equals success.

For this video, in the way that it is done, it equals romantic gold. I mean this video pack the punch of Say Anything or Pretty Woman in a 4 minute punch.

Why does it succeed? Because it has the trait of all great art, it makes you believe.

Grade: 100/100

A+

Song: Untitled
Artist: Simple Plan

Until the internet access is at its full point where I can link these videos, this is one of those posts where viewer has to have seen something before they read about my opinion. Other than the fact that there is a lost communiqué between me the writer and the reader, it is a big deal because you have to see this video. Unless you watch MTV hits as much as I do, you will not be able to see this video as easily as you should.

This is a bad group’s attempt at a great, serious video. They take on the topic of drunk driving and teen mistakes.

This equates to: A terrible video about life and death in simple terms, done in a wildly overdone fashion.

It’s so overly overwrought in its missive statements that I am struggling to come up with a synonym for shitty, 80’s feeling concept video.

There is a point in the video where the innocent girl is involved in the (because it’s close to prom point about responsibility) drunk driving accident, and instead of showing the crash, they show the effect on the family

The members of the fam are tossed in a brutal manner as if they were in the actual accident. This happens, not coincidentally to the moment in the song where a totally 80’s guitar wail comes in. The level of cheesiness of this power chord? Think the opening theme of Baywatch.

The whole thing would be touching if not for the fact that it was totally hilarious in the execution.

This video feels like it was one of those goofy, let’s make a point, 80’s videos about bad things.

Just watch it.

Grade 3/100
Dave’s entertainment value: 90/100

(continued...)

Whose to blame? YOU ARE!!!!

Bringing down the house:

The world is getting worse. The actual percentage is something like %1 a month or so, but this is on the global scale.

In America (i.e. the only media market that matters!) it’s a lot more pronounced. Here it seems like it gets worse by %2 percent every week. Due to the rise of China, the changing of the guard in Europe, Iraq, and Africa, this balances out with the rest of the world. (Don’t forget Canada, which is trying, and succeeding, to make the world better %1 every fortnight)

Do you wonder why? Well this running feature will help you figure it out!

How?

By placing the blame on the racial groups ruining everything.

And now for another new running installment


We will spotlight the weeks, days, or months greatest offenders and illustrate how far they are taking a bad trend and how they are besmirching the history of their (sometimes proud) race.

To start, we’ll have not just one, but three inductees:

Person(s): The Ying Yang Twins
Offense: The “whisper song”
Comments:
Chris Rock put it best: there are black people, and there are niggers. He was hysterical in saying it, but it was in his delivery from where the humor came from. I mean, America has been dying to hear that there is a marked difference of perception of class and culture within the African-American community.
White people have white trash. They are the basest, simplistic, and uncultured lower class and the last remnants of everything that is despicable about white people. Say what you will of the commercialism of the upper classes and their ruinous path to wealth, but it does not come from a hatred of others.
The sad thing about the PC era is that those of the more privileged distinction are prohibited from casting their doubts on the others. While there is a terrible tendency of the higher class to dismiss the lower and their culture, there can be some good to come of it, both in corrective changes demanded and rebellious movements that are reactionary.
I remember having an argument with a worker about a social change, a crime committed and whatnot. While I argued that, the person of the crime was inherently wrong, and a change was needed, they tried to argue that I, as an affluent white person, would never be in their situation. They were right, in the fact that I never could know the world from which they came. What they didn’t admit, or even allow into the argument, is that I may be right. So protective of the world of the wrongdoer were they that they let go of the fact that maybe it is their (the bad-deeder) fault.

The Ying Yang twins are not just a pox on music with their minimalist (as though they are not even trying to be musical approach) but in their revelry in their miserable-ness. They focus solely on sex, money, and wealth as status. I am sure they would rather deem themselves niggas instead of black or African-American. They are the opposite of what King and X were talking about. Instead of trying to assimilate to the ideas of Dr. King and unity, they are about glorifying the ghetto and the criminality inherent.

Truth is, I hate writing that above paragraph. I really don’t like simplifying my distaste for lowbrow music by calling a spade a spade. I know it is a judgmental, and inherently racist statement. But I am not being racist to black or African- American people, but simply to that other group Chris Rock talked about. While it is another topic if whether I can say the same about the white versus the black clientele of Jerry Springer, the overall question is not that am I politically incorrect for saying so, but I ask you, I am wrong?

What is really making the world worse little by little is the whole persona these two have whenever they are on TV. The one with the platinum teefs will make a loud "eaaahhhhh" sound that sounds, in all seriousness, somewhere between a duck quack and a dying cat's last meow.

For making the black vernacular even more unintelligble to the point of senselessness (and the whole mess above) Ying Yangs on the list.

Person: Fran Drescher
Offense: Living with Fran

Comments:

It’s time the Baby boom generation stopped viewing themselves as Sexual objects. As most of them are over 45, (miss Fran was born in 57) it’s no longer funny or cute.

Ohh, she’s dating a guy 20 years her Junior. How quaint!

And utterly unrealistic. Look, Fran may still be attractive, but lets not be curt, she is a grown woman, and an (albeit plastic) anomaly. It’s about time the women and men of this sad generation to grow up. You cannot hang on to your twenties any more. You all may be pent up sexually and think that you still feel young, but you have kids now, and truth be told, you are not doing a great job raising them.

No more of this desperate housewife shit. You are a mother and that’s your priority. Even if you are not a matriarch, you can’t act like a young hooligan again. You already did and you did it for years. You even had a decade (the 70’s) dedicated to your Me-ness to prolong your immaturity.

White women over 35: It’s over. Just accept it.

Person: JoJo
Offense: her speaking parts and public persona.

Comments:

JoJo, aside from being a cock-teasing underage pop performer who sings about heartbreak and lost loves in middle school (which anyone over 17 knows is idiotic (though I still love you Amy R)), is everything wrong with white culture now.

She, like most white rapper’s, tries to sound like she is black.

She is not familiar with the inner city struggle. She is not akin to the life which begat hip hop.

She just likes to sound like the black girls she grew up with, which is to say the girls she saw on TV while she was in the waiting room for kids say the darndest things.

Wiggers are the lowest form of humanity. Not in an impulse thought that the ghetto is a bad thing (which is not true unless you are the Ying Yang twins or so on) but because it is a person co-opting another culture’s pain and struggling as their own.

JoJo is a fake creation for the white teen masses and proves everything wrong about white (in this case Jewish run media) commerce. People using a new person to reach new mass audiences.

I could blame the marketers, but in this case, the girl herself so believes she is multicultural it’s her that is the problem.

(continued...)

Dave's punk op-ed-us, part 1

Of the few saving graces of LA, many of them come from the churches of Rock and Roll that remain here. We have the old relics of The Whiskey (straight and the a Go-go), The Rainbow Room and the Roxy, which stand as cathedrals of a bygone era, aging edifices of excess and eardrum shattering delirium. The Capital records building, while now a testament to the system which seems to corrupt rock, still stands iconic of everything Hollywood in both it’s gaudy design and familiarity.

Right now, LA has two outlets which both double as testimonial beacons of the saving grace and power of rock and roll and temples of faith, two outlets which serve as rallying cries to the community of rock and roll.

The first of the two is a literal outlet. Amoeba records LA, one of three Cali stores, is a massive store, a performance theater, and a library of the history of rock and roll music. Of the few remaining stores in the world where the vinyl collection rivals the CD selection, Amoeba is the record store you could only hope for. It has a selection wider than a best buy and the credibility of a college town shop. The workers know their stuff. You can both find what you want and be introduced to new material almost effortlessly. It is intimidating the first few times you go there, simply for the fact that it would take a day to fully explore everything about the store to your full desires. It’s a lot like love at first sight. You know immediately that it is perfect, and that you are able to keep discovering pockets of perfection every time you come back.

The other is Indie 103.1. This is the best radio station in America. It is the only radio station to feature members of Black Flag, Black Zombie, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Jane’s Addiction, and the Sex Pistols, as well as a member of the cast of That 70’s show and to have each one of them host their own show. It’s not only in execution where Indie succeeds, it is in conception, so much so that the broadcast is more akin to a group performing than a collection of DJ’s spinning. 103.1 is probably the only station to ever play love will tear us apart by Joy Division and then to follow it with Bye, Bye Baby by the Bay City Rollers. More amazing than the almagation is the fact that it works in the context that is an act of a larger entity, where the creed dictates the play list. It’s not that those two songs are simply more interesting juxtaposed, but there is a little bit more weight to both songs, certainly not because they compliment each other, but because the station, in it’s dictum that respects the music creates an appreciative environment where you are not only presented a song to listen to, but urged to consider the merits of every song played on the station.

At its essence, radio is simply the long-winded ramblings of a persona representative of the culture of the musical genre. If the radio was a party, you would simply walk between bunches of people exclaiming the self-anointed profundity of their world. This is best seen in the words of modern hip hop and classic rock stations, in which both personas of the radio refuse to acknowledge an outside world in an attempt to convince you of the supremacy of their despotic mantra. In this scenario, not only would Indie be the only person you like, but the one at the party who makes you believe in a greater good.

But of course there is a drawback to this all. Like any church, temple, or mosque, there are those members who attend who tend to miss the message and take everything at face value. Call them hipsters, wanna be thugs, fake cowboys, born again Christians, Creationists or whatever, these people are the ones who taint the experience for those who truly get the faith. For every Dewey Finn, there is a mass of alienated hanger-on followers who would rather look the part than act it. The best way to judge this is to attempt to upsume the actual motives of the follower. If they quote the values, they are real. If they attack others or defend themselves, they are fake.

And so, coming out of Amoeba the other day, I was stuck behind a gaggle of 14-17 year old wannabes who had come to see the Hot Hot Heat who were there for a show and signing. The most notable was a boy who from the waist down, had a jeans clad body that not only could be mistaken for that of a girl of his same age, but intended to be. It was not that he was a causality of unfair gender genetics, but rather it was implicit that his fashion agenda was one of androgyny.

One could argue the main idea/gimmick of the New York Dolls (the flashpoint band at the creation of punk music) was one of transgender mash. It was an idea of crossing the boundaries to make a point. This teenage boy, who was armed with metal clothespins for stitching, is part of this new generation (not era, mind you) of punk (Avril, Simple Plan, Ashlee) that claims to be part of the tradition, but could not possibly misinterpret the mantra any further. The idea of the New York Dolls was to challenge the boundaries, not to blur them.

(continued...)

Dave's Punk Op-ed-us, part 2

Punk was not an evolution inasmuch as was a redefinition. Punk is still blues based rock and roll, it is just inherently simplified. The idea of the New York Dolls as women was to satirize the gluttony of the genre model. And this gives a lot more credit to the band then they likely intended. The players were terrible musicians and their music was even worse. But it was a scene, and it attracted those sick of the clubs and radio.

Where punk went from there was pull a Thoreau on the music. The Dolls was essentially a gimmick, but there mode of commentary was a statement that the males of the genre had become over impressed with their own self image and not with the music. A visceral gimmick, an aural statement to simplify.

The first era of punk was one where each major great release of bands that were faster was a new argument of the new anti-rock vs. old rock establishment dialect (think the Ramones vs. Kansas; Beat on the Brat vs. Dust in the wind). The bands were going against the old, and their revolution centralized in CBGB’s and the NY underground. The revolution came in the way of dress, the actions against everyone not in the fold, and with a middle finger to everyone with wealth.

This era was a war and the enemies were clear: Arena Rock (think Kiss) and Disco. While disco died, arena rock mutated to the norm, with every band, not just superacts like the Stones but artists like Jackson Browne, now playing to mass audiences in stadiums when they went on tour. Without those enemies established in the birth of punk around, the point of being punk became almost ridiculous. By the time the Sex Pistols reached the West Coast, they were all but done as a band. Their spirit of the Pistols, which lead them to sing God Save the Queen on the River Thames, overran the band and consumed the whole.

Hidden inside each revolution are the seeds of its destruction. – Frank Herbert

The spite that fueled the birth of punk had run its course as a rallying point and flamed out. Add to the fact many of the fans had grown older, the punk scene dissipated, and everything cherished as holy by rock critics was taking the same course. The original musicians had moved on to different music. Now I wanna sniff some glue was a bygone thought, and the band expanded their music-taking the musical definition of the genre they helped create- to songs like Bonzo goes to bitburg, which clocks in a nearly 4 minutes, nearly 3 times as long as Judy is A Punk.

By the time the pistols reached Frisco or the people outside of New York and the industry knew what CBGB’s was, (somewhere between 1977-1979) the music and scene that was the real definition of what punk was when it started was over, and it would never be replicated. To be fair, lets put the date at somewhere during 1978. Two (of many) reasons: Star Wars had come out the year before and siphoned probably half to three quarters of the disaffected teens who would be drawn into punk, and with Saturday Night Fever coming out in the same year, the hipster wannabes switched out their clothespins and hate for coke and rhinestones. Hell one more, the Ramones sold out and did the theme song for Rock and Roll High School. Even if that movie came out in 1979, and I do not fault the band for being in the movie or really accuse them of selling out (#1 reason, Roger Corman’s involvement), I do not think the 1975 Ramones would have been in the movie.

But at this point, Punk split into two sects, and two wildly different definitions, the musical and the cultural. The spirit of the culture was one of blind faith and devotion to a cause many of those who championed Punk weren’t there at the beginning. To be punk was to be like those people in CBGB’s circa 1975. Say a four year old was to cut their own hair, style it, and dye it to what they wanted, only to mess up and cut more hair trying to make it look salvageable, making it even worse. Where the hair is at, right before the mother comes in and shaves their hair, is about what the motif of punk hair became after the split.

The fact that there were people arguing about what was real punk vs. poser punk in both people and music probably signaled the end of the real meaning. As soon as fundamentalism can be applied to a movement, you are in dangerous territory. When critics and pundits are discussing it, (like myself) it’s probably not a good thing. When the fans are discussing it, it’s a bad thing. East Coast vs. West Coast rap, Speed vs. Death metal, punk vs. neo punk. Take your pick, in each, the music suffers as the artists are forced to adhere to new cults, and the ever evolving definition moves away from the original message. In a nutshell, this was punk as a non-musical adjective.

While the scene and people of punk mutated into a hyper realistic mesh of the meaning of original punk, the spirit of what was punk music didn’t change too much. Because the formation of punk was one of counterculture music, the point of punk was to not sound like the crap on the radio. Punk music was originally supposed to be fast, raw, and loud. By the time round two came along, real punk music didn’t have to be anything in particular other than the fact it couldn’t sound like the masses, and it couldn’t be faked.

This second, new, era launched with London Calling. L.C. was originally called, and fittingly so, the New Testament. It was dead on for a title. This was what punk really was, and the rules are set within. To call an album The New Testament is too esoteric for any band, save the Clash. The called it London Calling, from their first song off the radio. In the grand tradition of pop music, the Americans create a new form; the British co-opt it and make it great. Punk in America was a near farce, and inching closer to ridiculous every time a kid chose punk over Goth because it pissed their parents off. Punk’s epicenter moved from New York to London. What stayed in America would eventually become the music of bands from The Cure and Duran Duran (both British, I know, and like the whole of this post there are huge gaps in the history and jumps in logic, but when Punk and Disco in America meshed in the early 80’s, those bands were the offspring, and glam metal was the aborted fetus that went on to live).

London, where the original fuck the establishment still lived due to the class system, allowed the Punk world to grow sonically. Punk there became what punk was in NY in the mid 70’s. Call it a Thatcher effect on the lower classed, but punk there still had a point.

But thank god the British music scene is progressive. Everything that happened in the 80’s in terms of progression in punk was due to the Brits. After The Clash and the Specials made Ska cool, and gave music nerds a chance to feel cool as well. But for every progression made, every evolution to occur, no matter how awkward or genius, it was never the same. Punk as music, as an art form, as a revolution was dead. And in all revisionist looks, it was London Calling that did it. How can one top the definitive statement. The old way was done, all that was left were offshoots, and most of the off shoots came from London Calling.

The Old punk was dead. What was good that was left was a style of music that didn’t adhere, and a bunch of posers claiming title to a throne long gone.

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Dave's punk op-ed-us, part 3

Of this second era, there was no band better than The Replacements. They had all of the cock and balls of Led Zeppelin, the raw power of Iggy, and the depth of the Clash. While they ever reached any of the aforementioned in any category, their mash of the three (as well as others) was there drawing point. They were a tremendous band that could never be described as anything but punk by the fact that their entire model of music conduction was of de-evolutionary nature. The Mats furthered the songwriting genre for others after them, but to get to that point, they themselves had to refresh the genre. Their greatest album is usually cited as Let It Be. Even it’s titular replication of the Beatles lends to the effect of the musical changes on the album. There are songs of statutory attraction, adolescent pains, tonsil surgery, erectile issues, and (of all things!) a Kiss cover next to a song like Unsatisfied, which if the band had been more famous, would be as big of hit as Every Breath you Take; this music could only be punk.

Put the music of The Mats next to most of the canon of what is great rock and roll, and it fits in with the whole better than the subsections. It is a stretch to say that musically the band is similar to Led Zeppelin, but in thematics and construction, the bands are alike because of the way they simply were there for the music. The music was one of pain, but like Zeppelin, the bad still had a belief in the faith of rock and roll. For a video off Tim, all they had were speakers in a living room. No Band, no performance, just the image of what music is about to the fans.

The band never made it big because they were either A: too good for American listeners, B: were facing off against Madonna, Jacko, and (once again) Duran Duran. They could likely be too real for the go-go 80’s and not hard enough for the cultish groups. They stand with Sonic Youth as the great bands of the 80’s no one but critics and music elitists cared about.

But in all of the cyclical trends of music, the new generation of punk has come to view this satire in punk as punk itself.

From The Replacements Let it Be, there is the song Androgynous, which is all about a man and woman in love who like to wear the others clothing. It’s sounds like a love songs, but it is one more about blurred identity, people who judge themselves on their perception of other peoples ideas on fashion. They don’t cross dress because they like it per se, they simply like being anti everyone else. Naturally the song is cynical.

So to now, back to the kid with the girls pants on. This move to this androgenic era is akin to outward secularism to a straightforward faith. Mormonism to Old Testament. In mere terms of paradigm (pronounced pa-RA-dig-im) shifts, that is what this new punk feels like. Instead of the raw power (fire and brimstone) of 70’s punk, we now have the feel good family consumable punk (I mean smiling happy, functional loving Mormons).

One was a didactic text that was written by believers of a new thought. It was forged in contrast to everything else in the world going on and carried with it a “get in line or get away” dictum to it. The followers were pure, diligent, and angry. They fought for to maintain the word of the preaching, logic de damned. The latter incarnation was a rethinking that fit the moral spectrum of the creators. The faith was deep, but it was far more flexible and lent to far more to a dictum of “just as long as you are in good intention.” It wasn’t meant for to be fought by the warrior and on the battlefield, but to be taught by the patriarch and for the household.

You weren’t supposed to let your kids listen to punk. Now the new generation’s punk can fit into a child’s rebellious stage, and can be allowed by the parents. What once was a dirty, derogatory word is now an accepted and common term for rebelliousness.

If it wasn’t dead already, the 2000’s have put the nail in the coffin.

But that’s a ridiculous notion altogether. Punk is, and has been dead for years. And as much I have been writing the last thousand or so words about it, punk was a one time thing in rock and roll that spawned not just a real movement of 4 or so years, but gave birth to the underground.

1975 stands as the dividing point of rock and roll. It wasn’t that it was reborn, it was that rock and roll grew up, and divided into not just two sects, but thousands each with their own rules, followers, and mantras.

Punk was an offshoot forged by a challenge to the old guard. To the creator’s great dismay, it did not topple the old way. The old way got more powerful, more acceptable. The followers of the old way got richer, got older, and stopped caring like they used to, and managed to let the magic of new creation that got them hooked on music in the first place pass them by.

Those people (our parents) still listen to the same artists old work, and buy the new, boring, rehashed works of their old heroes. The music of this era dominates the radio airwaves, still playing the same 200 songs as they did 30 years ago.

Indie 103.1 is there for everyone else, the minority screaming at the mass for their ignorance and incompetence. For anyone who knew about the rest of the world. With the exception of kitch spins and the Furious Frank at 5, (a daily Frank Sinatra spin), the music they play is from every offshoot of the music world after CBGB’s.

It is the radio testament that the 1975 offshoot and collapse shortly after was not in vain, but that in it’s creation did more for the world in it’s short time than the old way had done it 5 fold the time span.

That, is punk.

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Jeez! Writing a blog is hard work!

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