To Punk Rock

Dear Punk Rock,

You have been a savior to many adolescents who often carry a love (or at least a fondness) for you into adulthood. Your rebelliousness, high energy, and openness is gleaned from rock, but you take it to another level. The energy is higher and borders on that childlike chaos we all enjoy as kids bouncing around in our bedrooms with our friends. The rebelliousness crosses even the bounds of rock. You don’t try to hide those things we’re not supposed to talk about in metaphor- you scream them outright. You let teenagers who feel dispossessed, hopeless, outcast, goofy, and unloved know they’re not alone. They’re not the only ones; and it’s okay to be angry, to be different, to let it all out. And unlike most top 40 rock music, you tell kids it’s okay to be smart and/or dumb. You talk about politics, about how your parents piss you off, about how messed up the world seems. In short, you talk about things more meaningful than sex and drugs, but you also know how to have fun. You can talk about sex, drugs, and just being goofy too. 

Those things being said, as a thirty something, an age dreaded by punks and hippies alike as the age of the establishment, I have realized something about punk rock I would never have expressed or even realized in my adolescence. Punk rock, you are full of shit my friend. In doing so much good for the frustrated teenagers of the world- all the things I mentioned previously- you also lie to them. You fuck with their heads and emotions.  You beckon kids in with the energy and freedom, and then you try to force punk fascism on them.  You’re as ruthless and elitist as any clique in high school or political party you rail against.  What am I talking about?

To be accepted into the ranks of the punk cool you have to dress a certain way.  You have to talk the right way.  You have to drop the right band names, the more obscure the better.  You have to be friends with the right people.  You have to deny anything deemed uncool by the punk righteous or be shunned and mocked.  At least Star Trek Trekkies realize they’re a little goofy.  Most of them are kind and welcoming.  Punks often take their idiosyncracies seriously and have egos to match Led Zeppelin, although they consider that band uncool.   I grew up in a rural area with no true punks, so I never felt the full effects of punk elitism.  Yet, in my thirtysomething wisdom I now see it for what it is.    

When I was wearing out a cassette copy of the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bullocks,I was wearing out Aerosmith’s Get Your Wings and Toys in the Attic.  I loved both bands, and if anyone told me I could not truly appreciate or like The Sex Pistols unless I absolutely hated bands like Aerosmith, I would have titled my head, scrunched my eyebrows, and made the confused dog sound.  Why not?  I admit Minor Threat was great.  Sonic Youth was/is amazing, but I was also listening to Guns and Roses, Jane’s Addiction, and The Cult because I liked something about all of those bands.   I saw Sid and Nancy and thought the Sex Pistols’ punk posturing was just as fake and dumb as the rock posturing by Axl Rose in his ”glam sucks” leather pants with his hair teased.  But the music of both bands moved me as a teenager, and that’s what mattered.  I didn’t give a shit about the rules of punk rock.  I didn’t realize music came with rules.  

I graduated high school in 1991, the year punk broke as Sonic Youth says.  Nirvana became the most respected band in the country a few months after I got my diploma.  Kurt Cobain wrote in his journals that while he was in Olympia, Washington trying to garner the respect of the Northwest trendsetters, he constantly felt fake.  He writes that he always had to pretend to be smarter and cooler in order to fit in with the punk crowd.  Kurt definitely liked punk music, but he also liked the Beatles.  His first concert was Sammy Hagar.  One of the next concerts he saw was Judas Priest.  He wanted to be on a major label and have a big drum and guitar sound.  If any of this got out, he would have been laughed at and instantly uncool according to the punk fascists.  He wrote one of the greatest albums of all time, but was worried about what the punk elite (people who never did anything half as creative) thought of him.  He had to lie to the press and his friends to keep his punk cred. 

I wonder how many kids in cities or suburbs where there are punk gurus (the equivalent of the quarterback in the high school jock clique) are deathly afraid they’ll say the wrong thing or wear the wrong jeans or t-shirt.  Where will they fit in if the rebellious, open, and liberal punks will not have them anymore?  Punk rock, you hypocritical poser asshole.  You fake.  You claim you represent the rebellious youth, freedom from the tyranny of cookie-cutter America, and pure energy; but you sucker kids into an oppressive, immature dystopia.  That’s why you’ve been taken over by corporate record companies.  That’s why you’ve become what you hate.  You forgot that the music is what matters, not your homemade t-shirts and thrift-shop jackets.  Now look at you- you’re emo.

Sincerely,

W. Knut   

Jesus Camp

Dear Right Wing “Evangelists,”

Please stop.  Please stop making intelligent, true Christians look bad.  In that brief, somewhat self-righteous statement, I’m suggesting several things, and I’ll try to address those things in a moment.  Let me first explain what prompts this letter.  My wife and I watched a documentary called Jesus Camp last night.  It is an even-handed documentary, no pro or con commentary on what the filmmakers are showing you, except the background music, which of course suggests mood.  They do show a radio broadcaster who questions the fundamentalists’ mixing of politics and religion, but the vast majority of the footage is of a summer camp run by a “Evangelical” woman (I’m not sure the filmmakers adequately define the term Evangelical.  I’ve always understood it to mean a Christian who tells others about Jesus, but they give it a whole new fanatical connotation).  The filmmakers mainly follow two kids between seven and ten years old as they attend the camp, and a little after they leave the camp.  The documentary made me realize several things about the “Evangelical” movement in America, and these things are basically summed up in my introductory statement.

My statement suggests 1) you, Right Wing ”Evangelicals,” are not intelligent 2) you are not “true” Christians and 3) you make “intelligent, true Christians” look bad.  The first two points run together somewhat.  Anyone who claims they love American democracy, yet passionately believes the separation of church and state should end and a state of Christian fascism should be established with “Evangelicals” controlling all presidential, judicial, and congressional powers is a moron.  What happens when a religious faction besides yourselves gains control?  Why do Islamic countries have so much trouble establishing viable economies and happiness for their people?  No separation of church and state.  One thing I noticed in this documentary is that there is a lot of talk about God’s will, but I never heard anyone quote any scripture and analyze what it means in today’s world.  Jesus said stay out of politics.  Easy.  If you can’t read it and understand it for yourself without some lunatic telling you what he or she thinks it means, you are simply not intelligent.  And this leads me to the second part of my statement.

Being a Christian means you try to live your life according to the example and teaching of Jesus Christ.  We only know what He said from people who spent time with Him, heard Him talk, and thought to write it down twenty to thirty years later (Paul) and from people who wrote about His life at least fifty years after His death (Luke and others).  I’m not suggesting that what Jesus said is easy.  It’s not, because it goes against much of what we call society.  He was the ultimate pariah, the ultimate outcast.  In Jesus Camp, the “Evangelicals” have the kids speak in tongues and flop around.  They scare the kids into tears with talk of Satan, sin, the flesh, and death.  I don’t remember reading that Jesus did or promoted any of these things.  They talk about being “warriors” for Jesus and not being afraid to die for Jesus.  I’m positive Jesus was anti-violence, and I don’t remember Him suggesting anyone should have to die “for” Him.  Didn’t he take care of that for us?  The “Evangelicals” in the documentary have the kids pray for righteous Supreme Court judges.  They smash cups labeled “government” and pray for righteous government.  They bring out a life-sized cardboard cut-out of G.W. Bush and have the kids pray over it in Jesus’ name.  I remember Jesus saying something like, “Let the little children come to me,” but I don’t remember him whispering in their ears, “Hey, overthrow Caesar. I want control of the government.”  Jesus didn’t want anything to do with politics, organized religion, or any material things on this Earth.  From what I understand, he said those things were not important at all.  Basically, you- the “Evangelicals”- have begun your own religion to suit your own desires and purposes. I think that would basically be considered idolatry (you know, the first commandment of what not to do).   

The third thing my statement suggests- you make intelligent, true Christians look bad- is obvious.  At least I think it is.  You, Right Wing Evangelicals, have done for Christianity what terrorists have done for Islam.  Of course in America, you can believe and practice whatever you want as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others (a right you want to take away from anyone who disagrees with you).  But when someone asks me what religion I practice and I have to say, “Christian, but I’m not one of those Right Wing lunatics,” you are infringing on my rights.  I shouldn’t have to explain myself because of your insanity and ignorance. So, stop it.  Keep your ridiculous bullshit in your own circles, and for God’s sake don’t let people film you and call yourselves Christians.  The least you could do would be to come up with a new name for your craziness.  Write your own ”Holy book” and mythology like the Mormons.  Stay out of politics.  Please, just stop it. 

Sincerely,

WK