To quote Jello Biafra, "Punk means thinking for yourself!"
Also, tangentially, when I was in high school, Green Day played in my living room for FREE. [I did it as a favor for a friend-- I'm not that into their music personally.] If you look at their old albums (before they made it big), it said "We will play anywhere" next to their phone number. And they totally would. They also played at a local high school. There might just be a parallel there between their strategy of relentless gigging and the Community Acupuncture ethos. ;-)
Green Day, while very successful, were often derided by other punks in the East Bay scene for attracting too many jocks to their shows (ironically, putting respectability politics ahead of core punk values!). But hey, becoming successful and enduring while catching hell from the mainstream and the other punks? Not bad work for a bunch of teenagers.
Thinking back to my time in Berkeley, punks built so much infrastructure for the culture to exist. 924 Gilman, collectively run to put on shows that people could afford. Food Not Bombs to feed people 5 days a week for free. Publications from one-off zines to career driving magazines. So many record labels. Building institutions is messy, especially when so many of the constituents are literally living in the gutter.
The main lesson I got from punk wasn't rebellion (though there's still so much worth rebelling against, even in middle age). It was that if you want something to exist you can just make it happen. Get your friends together. Start the band. Put on the show. Write the words. Do the thing first, learn how to do it by doing it, and don't worry about talent because everything else sucks anyway.
I'm baffled by the commenter's reference to "self-defeating undercurrents." If I think about what us defeating the profession it sure as hell isn't referring to ourselves as punks or roaches. What has and is defeating us is, of course, that we sacrificed ourselves in pursuit of respectability. Or, in other words, what you keep saying!
Thank you. Before I forget, A. Cohen? Do they have a studio? Their art is so striking! This essay took me back to Randy Shilts book AND THE BAND PLAYED ON. I read it at my reception desk at a multinational corp engineering office in the early 90s, when I was a Temp. I had been a sociology major and spent a semester at an Urban Program in the early 80s in SF. But Shilts book 10 years later is what educated me about AIDS. And today the internet search on Shilts yields that his writing was controversial too amongst his cohort. Your posts are phenomenal and educational. Thanks for linking Tessie McMillan Cottom’s work. Powerful writing on unknowable investment yields. Many AMEN’s from this corner!
And the Band Played On was the first thing my supervisor asked me to read when I started working at the AIDS nonprofit (which, if you're in PDX, it was Cascade AIDS Project back when they were tiny -- smaller than WCA is now. It was an amazing education to work there).
To quote Jello Biafra, "Punk means thinking for yourself!"
Also, tangentially, when I was in high school, Green Day played in my living room for FREE. [I did it as a favor for a friend-- I'm not that into their music personally.] If you look at their old albums (before they made it big), it said "We will play anywhere" next to their phone number. And they totally would. They also played at a local high school. There might just be a parallel there between their strategy of relentless gigging and the Community Acupuncture ethos. ;-)
RELENTLESS GIGGING! Also I love that story!
Green Day, while very successful, were often derided by other punks in the East Bay scene for attracting too many jocks to their shows (ironically, putting respectability politics ahead of core punk values!). But hey, becoming successful and enduring while catching hell from the mainstream and the other punks? Not bad work for a bunch of teenagers.
Thinking back to my time in Berkeley, punks built so much infrastructure for the culture to exist. 924 Gilman, collectively run to put on shows that people could afford. Food Not Bombs to feed people 5 days a week for free. Publications from one-off zines to career driving magazines. So many record labels. Building institutions is messy, especially when so many of the constituents are literally living in the gutter.
The main lesson I got from punk wasn't rebellion (though there's still so much worth rebelling against, even in middle age). It was that if you want something to exist you can just make it happen. Get your friends together. Start the band. Put on the show. Write the words. Do the thing first, learn how to do it by doing it, and don't worry about talent because everything else sucks anyway.
🤘🤘🤘
I'm baffled by the commenter's reference to "self-defeating undercurrents." If I think about what us defeating the profession it sure as hell isn't referring to ourselves as punks or roaches. What has and is defeating us is, of course, that we sacrificed ourselves in pursuit of respectability. Or, in other words, what you keep saying!
Thank you. Before I forget, A. Cohen? Do they have a studio? Their art is so striking! This essay took me back to Randy Shilts book AND THE BAND PLAYED ON. I read it at my reception desk at a multinational corp engineering office in the early 90s, when I was a Temp. I had been a sociology major and spent a semester at an Urban Program in the early 80s in SF. But Shilts book 10 years later is what educated me about AIDS. And today the internet search on Shilts yields that his writing was controversial too amongst his cohort. Your posts are phenomenal and educational. Thanks for linking Tessie McMillan Cottom’s work. Powerful writing on unknowable investment yields. Many AMEN’s from this corner!
Thank you! Here's A. Cohen's artist statement: https://workingclassacu.substack.com/p/specific-fearless-positive?utm_source=publication-search
And the Band Played On was the first thing my supervisor asked me to read when I started working at the AIDS nonprofit (which, if you're in PDX, it was Cascade AIDS Project back when they were tiny -- smaller than WCA is now. It was an amazing education to work there).