I don’t know why I keep Yahoo as my home page. Old habits die hard, I guess; I’ve had it for my homepage for at least 10 years now and have never happened upon a page that screamed, “Hey! Let me be your homepage from now on!”
Every now and then shit shows up on Yahoo’s front page that makes me want to gouge my eyes out. A few weeks ago, there was a link to an article about Kate Gosselin’s daring new hairdo. Seriously. The real news here is that I live in a country where Kate Gosselin’s hair is something worthy of reporting on. I would encourage such reporting if it was part of a secret govenrment program a la Videodrome, in which anyone clicking on links to stories about about Kate Gosselin’s hair would be immediately sterilized and driven insane.
Yesterday, I opened Firefox to be greeted with this tidbit: Wannabes killed punk, says writer.
Punk is dead. Actually, it died a long time ago once the Sex Pistols imploded and The Clash’s Joe Strummer had the temerity to kick Mick Jones out of the band and then release the career-kiling record “Cut the Crap.”
No, scratch that. Punk died when the first Hot Topic store opened in 1988.
For fuck’s sake. Here it is, 2009, and people are still doing on autopsy on punk rock? Christ, are people still talking about Dylan going electric at the Newport Folk Festival?
If you wanna get all punker-than-thou, one could wonder what in the Wide World of Sports is a Yahoo blogger doing lamenting over the death of punk; I mean, isn’t Yahoo to blogging what Hot Topic is to punk?
Anyhow, blaming Hot Topic for the demise of punk is just flat-out ludicrous. Being a subculture, it was only a matter of time before punk would get appropriated into the mainstream (cf. folk music, Delta blues, reggae, hip hop). It’s embarrassing that punks have to be so goddamned whiny about it… especially when the fans of the genre basically held down punk by its arms and legs and let it get ass-raped by The Man.
I’ve always loved punk, but I was never much into “the scene”, because it was filled with… punks. Going to a punk show was an exercise in a) trying to avoid the goons who go to shows just looking to start fights, fuck up the headlining act’s set, and break limbs in the mosh pit (and then bitch about venue operators “not supporting the scene” when violent thugs get banned from shows); and b) listening to people whine because they had to pay 6 bucks to get in.
If your town was lucky enough to have a punk scene at all, promoters and venue owners had to balance out keeping shows affordable on behalf of the beloved scene, and providing security to protect bands and audience members from the squads of punks who show up intent on Breaking Shit. Any economic plan that has to take such things into consideration ultimately ends with, “Fuck this shit; it’s not worth it.”
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