Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing

by Abram Shalom Himelstein

  Weird to be playing songs about destroying suburban America and then come upstairs and eat good vegan cookies fresh out of the oven.

  Nightmare about getting busted shoplifting. I got my one phone call and I had to call home. Hannah had to accept the collect call, then put Mom on the phone. I had to explain that I was in jail, for shoplifting. There were pigeons flying around and I had to keep ducking, and people yelling in the background.

  “No, Mom, I wasn’t shoplifting, it was sabotage. Cutting profit margins and undermining classstereotypes. Don’t you see, Mom? Can’t you see?”

  Pigeon shit and that smell, and the yelling echoing like in a million empty high-school shower rooms.

  “I just need bail, I can pay you back, it’s just sabotage.”

  Happy to wake up.

  First show. Super nervous onstage. When we started playing everything was cool. Before “Tension,” I talked about the song being about the way that rock stars take up too much space. When I came out of the pay-attention-to-what-you-say-soyou-don’t-fuck-up trance I found that I was staring at Aaron Pavapolous, Pretty Boy. For a second I was feeling guilty, but then he was so intently combing his hair that I don't think that he heard me. It was really fun being onstage. Eron said that he liked it, and I felt like Mean Joe Green had just thrown me the towel. His niceness, genuineness, never ceases to amaze me.

  Last night I had a dream where I stormed into a high school where a congressman was speaking to a government class and I pulled a gun on him and made him explain why he had voted for all of this legislation that clearly made it harder for people to survive. I made him tell all of these kids why he wanted take away funding from education programs and pass a law that allowed 14 year-olds to be tried as adults and go to prison for life for selling drugs.

  And today I got letters from two prisoners about bills going to the senate to make it harder for prisoners to file appeals and sue for abuse, torture or injury by guards.

  Rock was really good today. Don’t know what we’ll do come September. New drummer? Close up shop? Worries for another day.

  Jordana’s new lyrics:

  Something gets lost

  In the translation

  We act upon impulses

  Described in our text books

  Written by scholars

  And sealed with a kiss

  My mouth hurts your mouth hurts me

  Your body and my eyes

  Speak different languages

  I lick my lips, you hold my tongue

  You sealed my lips with a kiss

  My mouth hurts your mouth hurts me

  The prettiness of things that she writes, music and words. The first time she plays a song.

  Oy yoy yoy. So now it’s Marchenko, Colburn, and the Luminaries for the Food Not Bombs benefit.And it’s all my other friends in bands that are vaguely to explicitly pissed that I didn’t ask them to play with Marchenko. But at least all the equipment and space and flyers and people to work the show are done. So I can sleep easier now, knowing that my only worries are the people who are pissed about not getting to play. But they’ll have to come, because most can’t even say it to my face, because it’s a benefit, because Eron goes to every one of their shows and puts out all of their records.

  Sept 23, 1992

  Dear Maureen,

  Hey rocker. What’s happenin in O-hi-O? How’s the roommate sitch?

  Things are at the usual level of hectic here. New job, thanks to UMD’s job search system. I work at this after-school program on Fourteenth Street, just a four block commute. I coordinate tutors and get parental permission slips and ask the principal for access to different rooms in the building. The idea is that children from the neighborhood, which is classified as “low income,” stay after school for classes in art and music and two times a week have tutoring. My job is to find tutors for these kids. Most of the tutors come from the colleges, Howard and Georgetown being the most frequent contributors.

  It’s really nice to work with kids for a change. It’s pathetically Catcher-in-the-Rye-esque, but children are so much easier to think only good things about. Especially when I live in the purgatory of punk rock. Actual kids instead of adults showing their solidarity with youth by acting like any sign of sophistication is “selling out…”

  The scene is like this: tutors show up about 5 o’clock. They go look for the tutee, who usually is there and psyched. (I don’t know why, but for me to paint this picture I need to say that all of the students are Black or Latino.) Tutors come from two main groups, college students (mostly black, but some white and Latino) and private sector do-gooders volunteering on their way home from work (almost all white). Most of the college kids (though not all) seem to see (interact with?) the kids as kids, which makes the program seem cool and good for the kids-an adult who dependably comes and hangs out and reinforces the idea that learning is important…

  But a lot of the private sector do-gooders seem to see the kids a part of some statistic about our society and do things like have the kids repeat “I will not drop out of school,” five times at the beginning and end of each session. Which is all about some fucked-up biases which ain’t cool for the kids to interact with…

  Whatever, at least they give a shit, even on some fucked-up level, about stuff that’s going on in the city. The suburbs usually are just a way of putting the city out of sight, out of mind, and out of taxbase, even as they continue to use city services and depend financially on income earned in the city.

  Hmmm. I guess I needed to say some stuff. It’s strange to be on the other side of the school desk. Mr. Rosenberg…

  (unfinished and unsent) -ed.

  Sitting around the Nest after the meeting shooting the shit and cleaning. Aaron Pavapolis came in to see if we had any issues of Cometbus. Weird watching the politicos. Everyone very aware of his presence. He was just coming in for a zine, which happens all day long, but everyone was hanging on his every movement, trying to seem like they weren’t paying any attention to him. We were all paying attention, some admiring, some waiting for ammunition for gossip and mockery.

  I showed him Cometbus and rang him up, and he said “Thanks. Things going well here?” I was totally flustered and self-conscious, couldn’t decide if I should be curt and just say “yep,” or if I should tell him random details about living there and running the store. Afraid if I said too much it would look like I gave a shit about him because he’s famous. (Always forgetting that acting normally, if the person weren’t famous, equals acting friendly.) I guess my discomfort was obvious, he stopped talking abruptly and took off. Or maybe that’s just how he is. Hard to tell in this scene when people are acting like jerks because they are jerks, and when they just don’t know how to act, cuz they were all social outcasts in high school.

  It’s weird being part of a community built around ideas like rejecting fame, and yet most of the people involved are famous on some level. No one wants to be a jerk, but after a while I guess you can’t tell whose being sincere. Plus if you play with a band, you end up knowing so many people in such minor ways, but I guess it seems like a responsibility to act friendly so you don’t seem like an aloof famous person. But then no one knows if you’re being sincere.

  Drummer issue is settled. Hope Tomothy and I can live and rock together.

  September 28, 1992

  Elliot,

  I have no idea how to begin this letter. I feel bad for writing to you about all of these things that are on my mind, I feel like I should call you. But I needed to write and rewrite these thoughts so I could make them as clear as possible. I am writing to you about breaking up. I know that we aren’t really going out, and haven’t been for some time, but I still feel like I need to break up with you.

  I don’t know how you dated someone last year. Not in the “how could you?” way, but in the way that I know that I was the closest person to your heart, and it’s bizarre and fracturing to be physical with someone other than the person that you are closest to. />
  It’s strange to ask for space when we’re a thousand miles apart, but right now you live in the deepest recesses of my brain. I smile when I hear jokes that would make you laugh, hold conversations with you in my head. Sometimes I wish that you could see the images in my head, that you lived with a phone by your head so I could tell the story of the latest ridiculous thing that I heard in class.

  You know all this. I think that because we never broke up, parts of my head and heart think that we are still dating. When I meet people who I might want to date, I think about how you would think about them, which makes the idea of dating someone else seem crazy. I need more distance. I need to stop writing you all my thoughts and start telling them to people near me. I need to stop waiting to tell you all my stories. I need us to break up, for reals.

  As I finish this letter I feel numb. I wait for the weight of this letter to come around a thousand different corners, bumping casually, politely into me. It just happened, as I was writing. My mother called and asked about Thanksgiving plans, if you were coming home at the same time.

  It’s ugly that there are three other drafts of this letter. I feel like a conspirator against life, plotting this death. Shifting words around, making paragraphs to make the ideas segue “naturally” into one another.

  That brings me to the end. I love you. I know that we will be friends after some time. Right now, though, I need and love you as more than a friend, and since you can’t be that, I need to learn to live without the crutch of our friendship.

  I hope that I haven’t caught you too off-guard. If you need to talk, you can call.

  I love you.

  Maureen

  I wish I was living at my parents’ house. Or a hotel or something. Somewhere clean and quiet. Watch tv and cry or have a fit or something. Something.

  No more conversations. “That record label is getting distributed by Caroline, and you know they’re owned by Geffen.” “Is that made with sodium lactylate?”

  “Bullshit about bullshit and that band and my food bullshit.” Shut the fuck up.

  Every friend of Christa’s reminds me of what Maureen said about being physical with someone other than the person you feel closest to. Also how Maureen was my safety net, because I think everyone here is talking about me behind my back. Makes sense, since they all talk about everyone else behind their backs. It was nice to have one person who I know Christa hasn’t told about how “manipulative” our relationship was.

  It’s a sure bet you’re depressed when the only thing that you want is for time to pass quickly. I want to call Maureen, but also want to give her the space she needs, so that we can be friends again. The sooner the not-friends part starts, the sooner it will end, the thinking goes.

  It’s anti-beauty, that time assuages all pain. That eventually this won’t hurt. That at some point in the future I’ll walk down the street, see a couple, and not think of her.

  But at least it’s something to look forward to.

  Favorite band ever. The whole show I’m thinking Maureen, money, door, Maureen, equipment, no kids passing out in the bathrooms, security deposit. And only Jordana and T. K. helped sweep.

  Marchenko plays pretty much every song that I would put in the movie soundtrack of my life, but I have to make sure people don’t stage dive and there’s enough change at the door. But we made $435.

  Bands playing downstairs. Need to read. Need to sleep. Need to not be groggy at work tomorrow. Helpless feeling - not being able to control the noise in your own house. Punk is punk, but I want a house. Punk sucks.

  If I had to live here, have this lifestyle, put up with everything, and my days were mostly taken up by something like helping people find the best organic colon cleanser, I’d be gone. At least my new job doesn’t suck.

  Already catching shit from Tomothy about trying to dress up for work. “Dude, how can you participate in a system where you have to wear a uniform?”

  Tomothy, destroying the hegemony with his torn jeans at Atomic Records in Georgetown. There he goes, fucking up The Man-that’s not a Time Warner product-it’s a record by a small-time capitalist who only wants to be big-time.

  Hollow. It’s all hollow. Hollow. Hello, I’m Hollow. Hello Hollow. Hollow. How low.

  Everything else was stolen, so we took a look,

  I am just the newest in a long line of crooks.

  I’m a good student, I learn my lessons well:

  If I can use it, then it must be mine to sell.

  “The newest in new” the freshest fruit in the basket.

  But the ladder that we’re climbing

  Is fashioned from caskets.

  You’re so cold, “The newest in new”

  To be so cold is what history taught you

  Taught me too.

  Maybe. Maybe too preachy.

  Tense practice. Ready to kill someone. Tomothy is becoming a prime candidate. But we all play really hard and after it’s over I feel like I’ve sweated out some of my frustrations. Still feel like shit. Being in a rock band with people is not as good as being in love with them.

  Want to call Maureen.

  Showdown at the VFW Corral

  Like a high school battle of the bands, it seemed, or prom maybe:

  Our side, the Politicos, was out for Antilaw, but the Mt. Pleasant Fashion Posse had shown up in full force to cheer for turncoat faves Intergalactic Chaos Conspiracy. In the past, there had been a tacit agreement due to a shared common enemy, but when Ill at Ease cut a deal with Warner/4AD, the in fighting began. Tomothy fired the first salvo for our side, hanging up a poster of a big UPC bar code, with the words “Ill at Ease” where the numbers should be, in our clubhouse.

  As the inevitable confrontation loomed, I looked around me and thought how small the whole thing was. Most outsiders wouldn’t be able to tell us apart. The same wallet chains, retro clothes from the same decade. Just a difference in opinions about music’s role in politics. That moment of clarity should have told me that it would be me who would have to represent for our side. And small though it may be, no punk goes against his clique. When my challenger came my way, I was not going to back down.

  “I’m Mac, from Ill at Ease.”

  “Hi” I gave him a tough look.

  “You got a problem with my band?”

  I waited, weapons ready.

  “I heard about the poster. Real cool.”

  “We thought so.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. And we made it ourselves, we didn’t even have to pay child laborers in Thailand 12 cents an hour.”

  “So that’s the way it is?”

  “Yep. We’re not going to carry your record.”

  Sexy and violent, huh?

  Whatever… When you sell over 100,000 records, you’re “established.” Ripe for the making fun of. Punk has always been about calling bullshit, so if you want to hang around punks, get used to being called on your bullshit. Just because you used to put out your own records doesn’t mean you can do whatever the hell you want now.

  God, our roles get dull. Can’t believe other people aren’t tired of playing them too.

  All the politicos were here getting ready for the rally. Wish they had more of a sense of humor. Feel like a flake for not going to all of the meetings. I think what they’re doing is important, but lately I just feel overwhelmed with boredom by all of this. I don’t want to be disruptive, or counterproductive or whatever, so I guess I should steer clear. I don’t want to be apathetic, but I’m dying from boredom.

  Like they’re doctors standing over the patient of American society, which is cool, but it’s not like if somebody makes a joke or takes a break to drink a beer that the patient will die on the table. It’s already dead. Why let it kill us all the time?

  Except for Matt and T.K. who, by reading Emma Goldman and Hakim Bey, have realized that the patient must experience joy and humor. Once you’ve decided that joy and humor are part of the revolution and that you need to live the revolution, then e
ven having fun is so important that you can’t screw it up.

  “Damn it, don’t get analytical, we’re in the moment. This is our fun time.”

  Tina’s such a flake. Ignore me after we lived in the same house for six months. “We’re in high school again.” Wonder what article of clothing wasn’t punk enough. Fuck this. Fuck this.

  Despite everything else, me and Tomothy are good in a band together.

  It seems like the guys in Colburn don’t have much in common, but they are united by rock, or at least the desire to be on stage together. Like those married couples who don’t talk, but then act all loveydovey when company is over. Making love to the audience each, not really into each other.

  It’s strange that I think of Colburn as a big band, out of our league, but there were only about 40 people to see them in New York. Still, it’s weird to come to a town where you don’t live and have 40 people you don’t know want to come see you play and buy your records.

  There was a dude with a kippah at the show.

  We’ve survived our first mini-tour. I think we still like each other.

  Kids from Tri-State Transmitter took us to a cool diner. Seem like fashion punks, but walk the walk. Tomothy got to network. Me and Jordana got onion rings. He told them they’d be better off playing at the Nest than El Pollo, hope I don’t have to set up the show. Seems like Tomo probably will, if he doesn’t flake out.

  A cool thing about Tomothy is that even though he gets pissed everytime he reads the paper, and is always outraged at the system, when I tell him that I’m moving out of the Nest, he says, “Cool. Where are you moving to?” Maybe all his anger is suppressed, but we get along.

  Keeping minutes are The Man, but we still want to record this stuff (for us and other groups to learn what to do and not to do…) We enter exhibit R in the ongoing struggle: Hornets Nest Collective Book number 2.