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Punks and Growing Up
So I have friends who're into punk. And not even just the music, since the genre is more about the philosophy than it is about the music. It's been described to me as "1% talent, 99% emotion".
Punk to me is like this futile waste of energy by people who're angry, with or without a reason and just have to expend that somehow, someway. The jamming on stage, the lack of musicality in my ears (no matter that I like the beat and harsh sounds) and most of all, the moshing - I've only ever moshed once, at a Finger 11 concert, and there were so many people, it didn't matter, but I question the reasons why a few people would choose to shove each other around.
The last couple of punk shows I went into, I felt like I was watching a bunch of children in a sandbox. The moshpit was that small, and there were that few people.
While I don't find violence as a whole all that distasteful, it's got to have a reason and a resolution. I can be confrontational when I want to be, and sometimes I do want to pick arguments, at least to clear the air and straighten things out, but in general, if put into a physically violent situation, I would probably have to go for the offender's jugular.
Last night, I watched SLC Punk. Overall, it was a somewhat amusing, decent coming-of-age movie, and the documentary bits served a little to help me understand this peculiar subculture. I've decided I like it for the purpose it serves, but Geezzuz, does it ever remind me of my younger days, being an angsty piece of shit trying to buck the system, or assert my position outside of it - mostly because I was outside of it in the first place.
It totally reminded me of my Post-Modern Novel class: I have such a love-hate relationship with post-modernism for the endless string of questions it brings, and almost complete lack of a singular answer. When there's a system, it just gets displaced in favour of another system because it's flawed, which then becomes displaced because it's flawed, and it never ends. But we have to pick anyway, it's a time when we have to decide for ourselves: what do we want? How do we want to view life? How do we compromise ourselves, and is there any solution which makes us happy? Or is it a complete world of flux with no end in sight, therefore a hopeless fight?
If I hadn't been watching with a couple of guys in the same room, I probably would have cried at the ending, because it was powerful, and I just hate it when things like that happen to people like it did to Bob. It brought back memories, not like, bad ones, nor were they good, but necessary ones. It's a realization that there never is a truly free state of being: if you're out of the system you have problems; if you're in the system you have problems.
It's all a matter of time. Eventually, the energy has to be used for something. Rebellion makes people, but taken too far, it's ineffectual, and dissipates. And what a shame when all that energy dissipates into nothing.
And how beautiful when it's used towards a dream of the future, no matter how selfish, how much of a change. So we move on.
Punk to me is like this futile waste of energy by people who're angry, with or without a reason and just have to expend that somehow, someway. The jamming on stage, the lack of musicality in my ears (no matter that I like the beat and harsh sounds) and most of all, the moshing - I've only ever moshed once, at a Finger 11 concert, and there were so many people, it didn't matter, but I question the reasons why a few people would choose to shove each other around.
The last couple of punk shows I went into, I felt like I was watching a bunch of children in a sandbox. The moshpit was that small, and there were that few people.
While I don't find violence as a whole all that distasteful, it's got to have a reason and a resolution. I can be confrontational when I want to be, and sometimes I do want to pick arguments, at least to clear the air and straighten things out, but in general, if put into a physically violent situation, I would probably have to go for the offender's jugular.
Last night, I watched SLC Punk. Overall, it was a somewhat amusing, decent coming-of-age movie, and the documentary bits served a little to help me understand this peculiar subculture. I've decided I like it for the purpose it serves, but Geezzuz, does it ever remind me of my younger days, being an angsty piece of shit trying to buck the system, or assert my position outside of it - mostly because I was outside of it in the first place.
It totally reminded me of my Post-Modern Novel class: I have such a love-hate relationship with post-modernism for the endless string of questions it brings, and almost complete lack of a singular answer. When there's a system, it just gets displaced in favour of another system because it's flawed, which then becomes displaced because it's flawed, and it never ends. But we have to pick anyway, it's a time when we have to decide for ourselves: what do we want? How do we want to view life? How do we compromise ourselves, and is there any solution which makes us happy? Or is it a complete world of flux with no end in sight, therefore a hopeless fight?
If I hadn't been watching with a couple of guys in the same room, I probably would have cried at the ending, because it was powerful, and I just hate it when things like that happen to people like it did to Bob. It brought back memories, not like, bad ones, nor were they good, but necessary ones. It's a realization that there never is a truly free state of being: if you're out of the system you have problems; if you're in the system you have problems.
It's all a matter of time. Eventually, the energy has to be used for something. Rebellion makes people, but taken too far, it's ineffectual, and dissipates. And what a shame when all that energy dissipates into nothing.
And how beautiful when it's used towards a dream of the future, no matter how selfish, how much of a change. So we move on.