I found a souvenir
In things I collected
The effect it had on me
Turned out distressing…Does it really do the trick when you're reunited
Does it make you stop and think
Things weren't meant to click?—Sick Of It All, "Souvenir"
That maxim about your heroes disappointing you if you live long enough (paraphrase) proves truer for me by the year.
The betrayal, or however you might characterize it, that stings most of all is the musical genre of my youth, which shaped my worldview and defined my aesthetic.
I don’t feel like I’ve changed all that much; the cultural and political landscape, though — and I think no one would argue this point when you have Dick Cheney and his nepo-daughter hag endorsing Kamala Harris, which she proudly acknowledged and felt “honored” by — has immensely.
The first moment I realized something had gone wrong in Eden was in 2004. “Fat Mike” Burkett of NOFX had begun a mass-organizing campaign to try to get John Kerry elected. He even released a compilation for the occasion.
Now, the founding '80s punks of yesterday were in no way fans of Ronald Reagan — in fact, bashing him was an organizing principle of the scene — but they would never have engaged in electoral politicking to get some guy like John Kerry elected. Even the suggestion would have probably resulted in an a**-kicking riot; punk rock was a parallel subculture that existed outside of mainstream society and politics — even if it dipped heavily into political themes.Related: WATCH: John Kerry at WEF Literally Calls for End of First Amendment Speech Rights
The real revelation I got, though, came in the fall of 2016, just before the election, while attending a Casualties show in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The lead singer dropped an inflated Trump head into the audience. I watched from a balcony while the kids in the pit gleefully kicked it around, and it occurred to me that all of the things they would surely say they hated — pointless wars, destroyed civil liberties, a corrupt and decadent ruling class that preys on its people — was embodied to a tee by one candidate in the race, and his name wasn’t Donald Trump.
That was it for me.
Then COVID hit, and the whole scene suddenly, if predictably, glommed onto The Narrative.
Related: Has-been Rockstar Gene Simmons: 'Shut Up, Be Respectful, Get Vaxxed'
(For the record, I have never liked Gene Simmons and he is in no way a punk rocker, but this is emblematic of how everyone in the music industry was speaking and behaving.)
The Offspring, as just one example of a legion of them, fired its drummer for refusing the vax.
Via NBC News, August 2021 (emphasis added):
Pete Parada, the drummer for the Offspring, has found out the hard way that some businesses — and even bands — are drawing a hard line on requiring vaccinations to come back to work… he’s been ousted from the group because he won’t agree to get the Covid vaccine.
Beyond being replaced on an upcoming tour, Parada says he’s been told not to show up at the studio, either, even though he claims to have a legitimate medical reason for not getting the vaccine.
Nothing screams “punk rock” like demanding your drummer show his papers proving he received an experimental drug from a corrupt pharmaceutical company just so you can conform to the Current Thing™ and everybody can genuflect at your moral supremacy.
You wouldn’t want to rock the boat and buck convention!
C’est la vie.
