Punks

I went to see a German movie called Head On, about a marriage of convenience, sorta, between two Turkish immigrants in Germany. It’s pretty good. My favorite scene is when the old punk and his young bride jump around their kitchen shouting "Punk is not dead!"

I don’t like punk music, but I’m sympathetic to the punk worldview. Young punks can be annoying, but some of my favorite people are old punks.

My favorite record of the moment is the new Morning 40 Federation CD. It incorporates tracks from a couple of their previous self-distributed CDs, repackaged by a label from Los Angeles.

They’re a New Orleans sorta-punk band, at least in spirit. Except with a baritone sax and sometimes a trombone or tuba. Their name references the practice of drinking a 40-ounce can of malt liquor in the morning. Their songs are mostly about being drunk and wasted. Or about being poorly groomed:

We been drinking, and we been stinking
That’s what we’re hearing from the girls around town
They ain’t lyin, but they ain’t mindin
Those same girls are always coming round

They say scrub them, scrub them dirty toes
And then you wash them, wash them filthy clothes
And then you blow that, blow that runny nose
And then god knows you might get clean

S tells me at the bari player/singer really is that stinky, though he is also a nice guy and a talented glass blower. But more on that in a minute.

I’ve seen them live four or five times in the past few years. They’re fun, but I can only take them in relatively short doses. They are a load, chaotic drunken spectacle, with head banging and sometimes slam dancing and leaps through the air and girls who get on stage and take off their clothes. Exhilarating at their best, but sometimes too much for me. (I’m old. I was born old.)

They used to be pretty bad, sloppy musicians, but now they’ve gotten good. They’re tight.. Their lyrics are funny. But it doesn’t matter if they’re tight or sloppy, the audience sings along "Sorry mom, but I’m drunk, a drunk…."

Live, it’s easy to miss the music for the spectacle. I like the record. (I’m old.)

There’s an irony in then being great poets of the fuck up. They’re not the ones passed out on my sidewalk. How much of a fuck-up can you be if you’re practicing and writing good songs and putting out records and touring all the time? And blowing glass while you’re at it, and playing on side projects? It reminds me of the quote about the Ramones being run like an army.

And ironic, too, that I enjoy them so much when I don’t want to drink anymore, and I’m not that excited about seeing them live.

Well, alcohol just doesn’t work that well for me but I appreciate the value and even the need to alter one’s consciousness with chemicals or whatever, to temporarily be free of one’s normal brain chemistry. That stuff is all dangerous, of course, can wreck your life. Risky. But sometimes the risk is necessary. I’m better off without it right now, but that doesn’t mean forever.

Oh, I’m so hyperconscious right now of my mortality, the speed of time passing, my aging, my temporariness and insignificance.