2001-10-29 - 5:26 p.m.
If anyone ever declares a jihad against pretentious L.A. indie-rock kids, I�m in. Oh hell, I�ll just declare it myself. I won�t even have to cook up a batch of anthrax spores--all I have to do is tell them, "I saw the very last Minutemen show in L.A. before D. Boon was killed," and all the little baby scenesters will just dry up and blow away.
There. Jihad over. Who wants ice cream?
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Went to a Rocket from the Crypt show up north this weekend. The band kicked ass, as usual--it was one of the best shows I�ve seen them play this year, in fact--but man oh man, all those sweaters and skinny glasses and undersized T-shirts in the audience! What the fuck do they think this is, a Weezer show? It�s a sad commentary when some 37-year-old cripple off to one side of the stage is rocking harder than the able-bodied (if skinny and underfed) 20-year-olds in front who refuse to display any enthusiasm because it might look uncool in front of their friends but who�ll go on and on afterward about how great the show was. If you think so, then show it.
These kids today with their ennui, I tell you.
I consider myself very fortunate to have come of age in L.A. at a time when the music scene was still interesting. I was a bit too young to go out yet when punk and new wave were at their peak, but there were still plenty of great bands and great clubs around when I hit adolescence a few years later. I got to see Black Flag in some dank and smelly basement in Hollywood during Henry Rollins� emaciated-heroin-addict phase before he started lifting weights and reading Nietzsche. I once collided with an electrical panel at an Oingo Boingo show and knocked out all the lights on one side of the stage. I came home from another show with the whole right side of my wheelchair drenched in blood after some dude tried to slam me and wound up slicing his leg open on my brake lever instead. And if you look really closely you can still see the scar on my forehead from when one of the strings on Mike Watt�s bass snapped and slashed me across the face. (I kept the string as a souvenir for a while, then mounted and framed it and gave it to a friend as a Christmas present.) Over time I grew less prone to throwing myself in harm�s way, but I never stopped thrashing around when I liked the band and I liked the vibe. I still do.
Above all, I wasn�t made to feel like a freak for doing so. I can honestly say I�ve never fallen victim to the "people in wheelchairs can�t dance" bullshit that infects the minds of so many disabled people--and I have punk rock to thank for that. No one at the shows I went to gave a second thought about it--if anything, the fact that I liked to dance made me cool.
But then, eventually, the scenesters moved in and it became all about cliques and fashion accessories and eating habits and the correct definition of capital-P Punk, and the fun quickly stopped. Until I started breathing the relatively attitude-free air of San Diego, that is.
Annoying indie-rock kiddies belong in the same category as the lesbians who�ve been filling up Badsnake�s guestbook with arguments about why she�s not one of them--the category of people who have to categorize everything. They don�t carry the same ideological baggage as the latter (except for the political punks, who painstakingly deconstruct song lyrics for the slightest hints of racism and/or sexism and who call themselves "anarchists" while at the same time possessing the most rigidly authoritarian personalities on the planet), but they all share the same inability to rest until they�ve slapped labels on themselves and everyone else that define who and what they are. They�ve put so much emotional energy into safeguarding their precious Identities that they�ve got none left over for living.
I have zero patience with it anymore. It took me way too long to peel off that label stuck to my forehead during my formative years--"special child," "handicapped child," whatever the fuck it said--and some of the glue still hasn�t rubbed off yet. Getting involved with the disability-rights movement made me proud of the label for a while, but once everything became an issue of Crip this or Crip that, I realized I was just playing the same juvenile game from the opposite end of the field.
So. Your lesbianity feels threatened because other daughters of Sappho have dick boxes and like to role-play? My dancing offends Your Royal Punkness? Here�s some advice: Unclench your sphincters, stop giving a damn what your oppressors think and go out and enjoy your life. If you can�t, then do us all a favor and stay out of the way of those who can.
Hell, one of the reasons I like RFTC so much is that they once brought a stripper onstage during a show. In Berkeley. And nearly got crucified for it. Now that�s Punk.
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