Punk Nostalgia

This post is going to be a bit of a bouillabaisse of memories - mostly really my brother's, but he was nice enough to share a bit with me back then.  He and I have been enjoying - of all things ... - "good times" memories of that least of all "aww"-inspiring things, the hardcore punk scene of the early 80s.  And yet, if not "aww" - there are some very good feelings with these memories.  (For me, the surprise and excitement of cool stuff shared with my bro.  For him, a youth not spent wearing alligator shirts and worshiping Reagan.)

Kind of loving my brother's memories.  I won't go back to edit the post about being at White Cross shows, but here is the vid that woke me from the malaise of my illnes:



It'd be impossible for me to go back to that time and place, even as sick as I was on Tuesday, and not feel some resurgence of the energy they held.

The POV of the video camera (I still can't get over someone having such a rare and expensive thing at one of these shows!) is pretty much exactly where I would have been.

Mojourner has more to say about those days here and here.  He also appears in the Mini Mag I linked before, but I ain't sayin' which dude with attitude he was.  Though he does match one of the guys in this vid!  Maybe he collected all his archival fame in one night (apart from that White Cross album cover he was on - I'll tell you this time, he was the guy in the striped shirt).



There was an immense amount of anger at that time, but what people may not understand is that it was not a scene of menace and cruelty.  The anger was a shared thing, binding kids deprived of privilege (and those of us who had a little bit, but hardly lived in Reagan-era Greed-is-Good-ness or Dynasty wealth), expressed in voices raised as loud as those who were socio-politically very very small could be.  But within the scene, there was a lot of laughter, much loyalty and trust.

I showed up at these things wearing what I hoped was ironic and cool - a pink CIA t-shirt given to me by a relative who at that time, oddly enough, was an expert on the Russkies and (though no more on the Blake Carrington level than my brother and I) had a lot more interest in Reagan - and a hippie-ish white flowered prairie skirt, with little black cotton Mary Janes.  Amidst the Marks-A-Lot'ed jean vests and black tees, nobody was mistaking me for one of them - pink and white!? (though, for the record, yeah, it was pretty intentional; apparently my nonconformity among nonconformists began earlier than I've ever really thought about) - but they were nice to me.  The guys there would have protected me from any harm - if it had actually been likely, in the not-so-wilds of our downtown of that era, danger were really likely.  But the circle of punks, spilling out of the bar and up the block to that 7-Eleven, was big enough to contain, and cohesive enough not to break.  Nobody broke inside - nobody wanted to - and in that group it was safe.

I probably learned a lot which still serves me today.  I frequent a very different scene when I get out socially, but the effect is in its way similar.  Outcast and underprivileged people might seem scary on their margins, from the mainstream, but the marginalized keep an eye out for those they claim, and those they welcome.

Sure, the force of a brother who didn't exactly invite violence and violation to his person - nor his sister's - had its power.  But the fact was, the larger dynamic within that angry and alienated world wasn't one of anger nor alienation actually aimed inward.  The anger was never with those sharing it, and so the dynamic was of the adopted-erzats-gang-family variety popularized in everything from The Outsiders to Penelope Spheeris' "Suburbia" (itself a veritable goldmine of who-was-whom and pop-cultural trivia of a remarkable variety).  So that anger, that terrifying rebellion and defiance, was not the attractant - it was the repellant.  Stay away, preppies, stay away, established authority, stay away if this scares you.

But, if you come in, you'll be in for some laughs, the shows, the friends, the people.