More by: sock

 I was taking off for work last week and heading across Southern Ave I see a skateboarder rolling towards me; he has a gigantic Mohawk and nerdy glasses and I wave as I pass him by. Running around downtown last Sunday, I cross paths with a couple other runners, they are behind me a bit and I smile but keep running. The several individuals I have crushes on share smiles with me, but nothing else is said.

 If you do not choose to act, how can you complain? When I started putting whole foods into my body last year, I began an incredible transformation, shedding my anxieties, boosting my energy times a thousand, and developing incredible peace of mind. This has made me take action many times more than I used to, because a self confidence and security exists that never did. But being shy and two awesome shows this weekend, one at the new record store in Mt. Pleasant on Friday and one on Saturday at Palmer Hall! I used to rent out Palmer Hall ($530 total;$330 plus $200 deposit) and almost always not only make the money back, but have extra to pay the (all local) bands.

 People were all about the locals, and it was great. I can remember a show with The Meehs, Look Ma No Ham, Duckbomb, Dear Ndugu, and maybe the Fallen Idols I think, where every band got $50 or more! Now days I pay out of my pocket for traveling bands, and have done so the last few shows in Muskegon. And we had a message board going on then, but posting flyers on poles and passing them out at schools was what went on. I think a lot of the attendance came from local high schools and sometimes middle schools, as the age was  young at these shows and I was one of the oldest people there. When I was in high school, I got As and Bs my freshman year, Bs and Cs sophomore, (enter punk) Cs and Ds junior, and Ds and Fs, barely passing due to my grades and a hefty book fine, in my senior year. I can remember sitting in science class, the class after lunch, drawing pictures of myself singing in a punk band. I had gone to Ska Mania, a Christian ska show at a church in 1998, but my first local punk show was at Java the Hutt in 1999-2000. I remember my friend Jeff telling me how I wouldn’t be accepted wearing my Nike shirt there! But this new taste of local bands and moshing! was a dream come true, and I was mega into it! A local pop punk band, The Big Wheels, were awesome, and one show I grabbed the mic to sing along, and I screamed, but they only sang and the mic was yanked from me, and that was my epiphany. I was upset, and was determined to start a punk band for people that couldn’t and DIDN’T WANT TO sing! Lunchtime was a hike to the local speedway for 2 hotdogs or a Butterfinger and a 2 liter of Mountain Dew. I had $1.60 to spend, so sometimes I would have extra change saved and splurge for the hotdogs and mountain dew ($2) otherwise it would be Mountain Dew and the Butterfinger ($1.60). Waltzing into science class, almost always late, everyone would stare at my spiked hair and trenchcoat with the guy puking on MTV on the back, and sometimes call me out “You would watch MTV if there were punk bands on it!” to which I would quietly reply “No true punk bands will ever be on MTV!” Or “So, do you believe in total chaos?” Me; “It’s just a band.” I’d shuffle to my seat, hide my Mt. Dew in my backpack (food and drink weren’t allowed) and bend down to gulp through the straw when the teacher wasn’t looking (I drank through a straw because the dentist upon looking at my sugar coated teeth, told me I had to stop drinking Mt. Dew so I though it wouldn’t touch my teeth if I used a straw.) Soon I would feel sick, and like I was going to puke, so I’d mutter to the teacher I had to go to the bathroom, and then I would barely make it there, feeling like I was going to puke all over everything, but would heave over the toilet and it would go away. This was a near daily occurrence, no lie. I even went to the doctor for it. Ha ha what bullshit, doctors are a joke. He never asked me what I was eating (though one did when I was really little and he told me to stop eating hot dogs and mac and cheese, and my migraines proceeded to stop) but from his textbook led mind, he came up with a “stomach flu” I had or something. After my bathroom trip, where I often would take the opportunity to wack off, I would come back and draw pictures of crazy, wild punk shows with my imagined band. Soon, enough in my senior year 2000-2001 we started up a nasty punk band, practicing in my bedroom in the basement. We’d rush home from school and play before my dad got home in an hour. We had pooled our money and a bought a shitty CB drum set with pie tin cymbals. The cymbals got dented within minutes, and were truly SHITE! But the kick drum and toms I still have to this day. This new glorious thing of screaming your lungs out to buzzing guitars and fast hard drums, was too much to believe it was true. But it was and is true, and the total bliss I felt then with something so crazily new was just absolute release. Getting more comfortable and used to playing punk over the years, it is not a surprise anymore, but it is every single bit as much of a release as it was then, maybe more so as it is NEEDED now. But I quickly found the addiction of this harsh noise, and our band took on the name “Duckbomb” (my brother blurted it out as we were sitting in the basement, and it was too funny to pass up.)

And began piecing together real songs and playing our first show in my senior year. My brother played guitar and he soon got tired of punk, which made me really sad, because he taught me how to play bass, he wrote the first Duckbomb songs, and we shared new punk music. So I was really bummed when I could see his interest fading. It would be a common theme for Duckbomb for the first 6 members or so, seeing their interest fade, and me myself loving it so much and wanting it to work! It wouldn’t be till I found my brother’s friend and excellent guitarist Monkey Michael, and he had a friend, this new kid with a weird last name with a P that liked Aus Rotten and played bass (who the hell was Aus Rotten?) and in the same week my friend Jim was blabbing about a punk band needing a drummer that a forever close friend whom I hadn’t met yet, would get my number from Jim and give me a call about trying it out. He would remain in the band forever and we’d swap out guitarists and bassists until Zach and Casey joined a few years ago and are still in it today. I have hung around out of sense of obligation and fear of being called sellout. Ha ha fuck that. I’m hooked on punk, and I get the same thrill from singing (most of. Ha ha!) the same lyrics that made me pee my pants from excitement as they did then.

Not to rant about myself or my band, but I started thinking about all these things and how punk was big then and there were gobs of kids at shows, but things go in cycles like that, and now there is very few showgoers in Muskegon. It will whip around and get big again, but it’s very special to me when it’s not big or popular, because you meet the people who are driven by this music and maybe by the sense of community created. I never liked stages or large shows, where I feel like I am surrounded by a crowd of strangers. The intimate close encounters are great, because I can look into a band’s eyes and see them on fire and see the veins popping in the singer’s throat! I like to reminisce sometimes but even this what I’ve written is my limit, maybe beyond, because it puts you in a dream world of the past. And there is no past, and there is no tomorrow. There is only right now. Nothing else matters and living in it, is counterproductive. This is true for me at least, and maybe others will relate. But worry, anxiety, stress have no place in this world. There is plenty that can cause negative emotions, but why let it. Deal and  take action. Don’t think. Shut off your brain and live in the moment, and then the next if there is one, and so on. But don’t think about the next, just right now. Hardcorepunk is right now, as soon as I slip my headphones on. Make it what you want, make your life what you want, and don’t be like me and sift through old letters for a half hour! Ha ha big mistake Sunday night!

Now now now now now now now now now now.