Testify, brother Les!

The faux Punk mentality really irks me, to put it mildly. I remember seeing the DKs, Black Flag, and the Ramones live in a small, seedy club in Hartford, and loved every minutes of it.

Kids today are only exploring punk as it’s marketed to them, unfortunately, hence the Avril Lavigne-as-Punk motif. As as lifestyle unto itself, that’s lost on them.

I am fortunate I live and work in NYC, though, as I still see the living punk scene as it exists.

What, no comment about the movie? Come on…

I am remembering us discussing whether Avril is punk though. *laugh* Not. Quite.

So what, if I go back and buy a skull and crossbones jacket I’m not cool? Does it matter that I went through the whole punk phase ("look at me! I look weird and different and rebellious and all!") back in my youth, which was just about the same time as yours? *grinning*

(and yes, I am kidding about the jacket, a duh.)

Hmmm. Perhaps I should make the author attribute stand out a bit more. This was one of Eric’s posts. I never did the punk scene. In fact I scared the hell out of my mother the first time I brought Hairboy over to meet her as he was definitely still doing the punk thing at the time.

I’m not much of a punk myself. I just hang out with a lot of punks. Sort of a punk-wannabe I suppose.

But how did you like the movie???

It wasn’t bad. John Cusack in a movie tends to make me interested in it since almost everything he has been in I liked. However it was kind of pushed as being really intense with an unguessable ending, but I did not find it to be all that taxing to my average powers of reason and observation.

Arguably I did not guess the very end of the movie, but I also feel that there were not sufficient clues that would have led me to that conclusion. Sadly I can’t say any more and not blow the ending for people who are still going to see it. Was it worth the price of admission? Sure. Maybe a second viewing would even show me what I missed the first time, but X2, Matrix Reloaded, and T3 are coming.

I will wait to see it again when it comes out on DVD.

Ahh, I see it was Eric. heh. I’ll pay attention more, as I do remember you saying there was guest-blogging going on.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll let my friend, Jeff, be a guest blogger…

If there’s anything that ticks me the most, its that Avril/Good Charlotte/Sum 41/ whatever MTV generated “punks” listen to nowadays. Especially when they are 13.

this is to all you posers out there who dont know shit.............FUCK YOU TRENDY..................
JASON ORSIE

Well, punk is a mentality. You look back to punk’s protagonists back in the day - and it was a visceral movement. Bands were scrappy because they couldn’t play. Records were scrappy because no one had put one out before. Their hair was messy because, well, they were kids and wanted to rebel. It was all being done for the first time. So what do you do with all the knowledge you gain from doing all this? Do you keep on doing it at 22?
You obviously progress. Which is what punk has had to do. It progressed into other forms, like hardcore, like post-hardcore. New more intelligent styles where, shock horror, musicians could play their intruments - they could sing! But the core values of free-thinking, of independence, of altruism, remain. That is punk. Not a style of music, or the clothes you wear. Underground dance music is punk if it utilises those values.

Stumbled on this site randomly and just thought I’d add my twopence worth. Ta-ra.

hahahahaha
Lets strap a sex pistols shirt on me, spike my hair, give some boots and call me a punk rocker.
hahahaha

I’ve had long hair and a beard since high school, and it was a weird experience for me to come to Vienna in ‘82 when punk was in full swing, with mohawks, dog collars, chains and the works.  No one paid any attention to the punks, but everyone was staring at me, the old hippie, because I was the unusual one…

The commercialization of the counterculture is nothing new.  The only counterculture that cannot be commercialized is not hairstyle or clothes or music but thoughts.