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PUNK_STATION
September 22, 2016
At the last SF Zine Fest, I picked
up a copy of V. Vale's "Terminal For "Terminal", maybe read
Punk", a draft of some material "Eternal": I think the idea is
arguing the thesis that punk was "punk until the end".
and is fundamentally about a kind
of rebellion that will always be With a joke about how punk
necessary. is a terminal condition.
V. Vale's grasp of what punk was about
in the early days is much better than
most: His take is that punk was always And given that utopia is
essentially about dark humor deployed impossible, he concludes that
against the status quo. the status quo will always
deserve this kind of attack.
Compare that to:
o punk was a celebration of
stupidity (ala "The Ramones").
o punk was a populist,
left-wing movement
(ala "The Clash").
The kind of punks I knew back in the 70s
were better matches for V. Vale's vision:
they were very bright characters with
weird senses of humor; very glib, funny...
but not anyone you'd nominate as
saviors of western civilization.
Punk was an embrace of crudity, but the
scene was filled with some very intelligent
people being intentionally crude.
You could find left-wing sentiments, but
you had to look: the dominant mode was But the fine points
nihilistic jokes. of punk history aside...
WORLDWIDE_SPONTANEOUS
The second part of V. Vale's thesis is that
the dark humor of the early punks was not That alone seems a like an
just a passing fad, but something essential, unusual point: much more common
something that's always needed. is to sneer at punk rebellion
as an adolescent phase.
The "status quo" will always be damaged and
flawed, and so there will always be a need
sneers against normality, an opposition
(though maybe just a spiritual opposition?)
to the dominant culture.
So it's all about an embrace of eternal
rebellion, at least a psychic, internal
dissent if not any kind of out-right war.
I can see a number of problems with this:
The "status quo" doesn't have to achieve perfection
in order to be something worth preserving. Playing
dark comedian may just be opting out of a society
that's better worked with from "within the system".
And compulsive contrarian's are really
annoying people: no one likes them much
(trust me on this one). Going off in the corner and
singing Groucho Marx songs may
The post-Internet world is drowning in make you feel better about
free-floating snark and "trolling". yourself, but that's about it.
If you don't really believe in something,
if you can't actually claim to know
anything, then why are you bothering
people? What use is there in adding your
voice to the cacophony?
Dark humor is most appropriate and
effective against things that try to Or perhaps the
deny the darkness, like the post-40s post-60s hippie dream;
suburban dream.
Or the later day Dale
It's when a culture cops a pose of Carnegies of the 70s
being all sunshine and light, that's psycho-babble;
when it really invites attempts at
shining some darkness on it. Or the 90s-era "Wired"
magazine computer biz
The question I ask is how do you pornography;
use "dark humor" against the really
rotten elements of the contemporary Or the infamous tech
world? triumphalism of
TED-talks;
Think about the people who are
supporting the Trump phenomena: When you start to
these are people who are absolutely count them all up,
wallowing in darkness because they maybe there's a
have it confused with strength, and wide field for dark
they think it'll provide them with humor to play...
safety-- or at least annoy the
people they hate.
On being a trickster:
With people who are sleepwalking, playing tricks on
them might help wake them up. When people are
already awake, when they're walking toward a cliff
despite knowing that it's there, playing tricks on
them becomes redundant: they're already their own
biggest fool.
The idea that some trickster "messing-with-their-heads"
is going to do achieve something is very condescending,
it's predicated on a presumption that the people you're
messing with aren't already self-aware... if they are
self-aware, if they're already self-conscious then your
"messing-with-their-heads" is just going to seem inane.
We're at a point where everyone feels like they've
seen everything, everyone has heard it all, everyone
is beyond being shocked or disturbed by someone
intent on shocking and distrubing.
Two car drivers up in Berkeley this Saturday
afternoon: an old dude pulled up to the light
next to a younger guy; and the old guy-- who
has clearly been "freaking the straights" for
a half-century now-- yelled at the younger one
"Hey, give my straight-jacket back! I want my
straight-jacket!" The other guy just looked
at him blankly.
Ha ha, so witty, eh? I bet he really had
that young guy wondering... "boy is that old
dude crazy, or is he just so weird he's going
around acting like he's crazy?"
Except that one might reasonably wonder
what the difference is supposed to be.
And how does it mess with someone's head
to act crazy? There's no shortage of
crazies around, acting crazy... certainly
not in the San Francisco area.
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