By the time I came
along, my parents had already honed their child-rearing skills from practicing
on my older siblings; I’m sure any shock value I brought into the home had already
been played-out. To them, punk was just a phase I was going through. My mom
told me that my oldest brother had a hippy-Jesus moment. I remember finding his
brown leather fringe vest with Jesus patches in the basement; it looked like
something that would pair well with moccasin boots. My parent’s leanings were
more socially conservative; after all, my father was a former Air Force master sergeant.
It was ok to be into punk but leaving the house looking like one was an
invitation for a good whacking with his belt; my hand-drawn band shirts and
ripped jeans initially stayed in the closet. When Jimmy spent the night we’d
spike our hair with Knox gelatin, one time we tried adding food coloring only
to learn that it stains your skin. Writing band names on the backs of used army
jackets from second-hand stores and making homemade band t-shirts was our
version of arts and crafts. Sneaking our homemade fashions to school was
another challenge. The trick was to run from the school bus to the bathroom for
a quick wardrobe change and do it again after the last bell hoping not to miss
the bus.
Aside from getting bullied
and a couple of fistfights, the remainder of seventh-grade was gradually
getting more involved in music and making like-minded friends. There was a
small clique of us punk and new wavers that started hanging out in what was
called the commons; wooden benches surrounded by pale yellow brick walls. One
of my closet friends C.R. Smith (RIP) got into skateboarding and punk, plus I
met Al Curatolo, Rob Wallach (Wally), Stephanie
Sheer, Frankie Martinez, Dylan Smith (RIP), Jeff Shesol, Diane Tomayo and a
couple of others who identified themselves with this new style of music and
attitude. Wally had connections with
some of the older punks from the high school across the street who would help
steer our aesthetics; Chris Clayton and Tommy Caldwell (Splodge) were the main
culprits. We learned about places where bands played like
the Mercury Cafe, The Packing House, The German House, and The Dustbowl from
these guys; we looked up to them even though they would make fun of our
homemade shirts. At the time, I’m certain they thought we were poseurs.
Jimmy’s father thought his family needed to
pursue the American Dream on the edge of Aurora near the abandoned missile silos
and the National Guard airbase. The landscape is how I imagined Kansas to look;
flat and barren. At least in the winter we would occasionally cross country ski
and when it wasn’t snowing we’d skate down blocks of unfinished houses, it
looked like a manufactured ghost town. One snowy Saturday afternoon, we hid
behind one of the contractor’s billboards and lit a small fire to keep warm
only to accidently catch it on fire. We would spend the eighth grade and the rest
of our school years apart; the commute to his new school would be an hour away.
In one of the rare times of doing something punk
related, without Jimmy, I somehow managed to convince my parents to stop by Wax
Trax Records on the way to go visit my aunt who lived in the Lincoln Street
Projects. I saved up my allowance and lunch money, and if I knew I could make
money donating blood, I would have done that too. The record store is a Denver
institution smack in the heart of the Capitol Hill. The Mercury Cafe was conveniently
around the corner. Howard’s, the self proclaimed “world’s worst liquor store” was
on the same block. The brown décor of Jim Dandy Fried Chicken tied the neighborhood’s
ambiance together.
Wax Trax was certainly not my parent’s brand of music shopping; their first impression was an assault to the senses from the posters, fliers, and music. They were caught off guard. After letting it all sink in, and feeling overwhelmed with excitement of finally stepping into punk rock paradise, I raced to the counter and asked where the hardcore section was. I was no longer in the shitty mall chain record shops with their pathetic selection; Wax Trax was indeed the promise land. I picked up Black Flag’s Everything Went Black along with their TV Party ep in which my dad said the people on the cover looked like drug addicts and drunks, I told him the cover mocked people who were addicted to watching TV, which was true. In retrospect, I’ve always had a suspicion that punks from my generation found comfort in 70’s television shows, there is a optimistic sense of nostalgia that is lived out in the likes of the Brandy Bunch and other family dramas and sitcoms, maybe it was glimmer of hope to the grim reality of high divorce rates and dysfunctional homes. Even the destitute Walker family living in the projects of Chicago in Good Times was an intact nuclear household. In addition to buying records; I asked if they carried the fanzine Flipside from the Rodney on the Roq compilations. It was sold-out, but one of the workers, Geoff Paxton told me about a new zine from the bay area called Maxiumrockandroll (MRR) and handed me an issue. It instantly became my hardcore punk bible; the pages were jammed with interviews, scene reports from around the country/world, and thought-provoking articles on social issues. What more could a budding young teen anarchist ask for. I would buy it every month for years to come, well into college. It was my first exposure to punk culture from a global perspective, it went beyond the southern California centered Flipside.
Special thanks to Ana Medina and Monica Zarazua for editing
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