Why Is Dolly Parton Everywhere?

Today is a bank holiday and I am packing to go on redneck family vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. There will probably be way too many people, but this year is new, we normally go to Branson.

I thought this would be a wonderful time to talk about how much I love Dolly Parton.

You can see her influence on Courtney Love and the Kinder-whore style in general bleach blond hair, big red lips, I love a lot of people who would be generally uncharacteristic of me, being a punk.Mostly people like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper that I have an odd nostalgia attached to despite not growing up in their time of fame.

Punks aren't only allowed to like punk, I like tons of weird stuff I shouldn't like.My family mostly being good ol' southerners, I have heard a lot of country in the car while traveling. The men singing about their dogs and their trucks and their guns and their women, all of their voices sound the same. But I don't mind the women as much, sure they're just as repetitive talking about men cheating. But Dolly Parton is a regular donor to charities, and when the forest fires tore through Gatlinburg, she donated her money to other people who were affected as she wasn't. She also employs her relatives at her Dollywood park.

what an upstanding citizen.

Really, if you look at any woman in recent music history, she's probably been influenced by Dolly Parton, no matter who she is. Because Dolly is just that cool.

Scruff Rock (Saturday E Mix-Tape)

My dad is partially native american, so I don't think I have been around any amount of facial hair for an extended period of time, but when I was, it was when my dad forgot to shave his face that week with the electric razor we buzzed my hair off with. That is the only excess of scruff I have experienced, except for scruff rock. I've seen a lot of that in my day.
1.) Where The Hell Is Bill - Camper Van Beethoven (where IS Bill? he went to go see the Circle Jerks.)
2.) Dreaded Glaucoma Test - Weird Paul Petroskey  (My dad also got one of these when he was 17, and didn't have anyone drive him, so he drove home unable to open his eyes to the 6PM sun)
3.) Litter Box - Meat Puppets
4.) White House Girls - Ed Hall ("We can rub our peepee's on the suitcase handle/and when the president goes to pick it up/ he'll get our peepee on his CLEAN HANDS!")
5.) Born To Love Volcanoes - The Dead Milkmen (<3 volcanoes and PBS)

How To Be Punk (the totally not a poser guide)

You want to be a punk? You want to horrify mom and pop? Are you too comfortable at home with your friends and family, do you love all things loud, do you suck at art and can't go to art school? Are you a vile singer and dancer? If you answered yes to any of these questions: You are a perfect candidate to be a punk.

Phase 1: Stop Being a Preppy

First things first, if you're not a teenage boy, just stop reading here. Punk is only for young boys, if you're over 20 --- you're a yuppie, even if you have three dollars to your name, unless you're Ian MacKaye, in that case, you will always be honorarily too young to drink, so honorarily punk. Forget the 80's punks, they all turned into grandpa preppies, who cares if they still listen to the music, who cares if they're Henry Rollins, they dared to get old, and getting old is NOT PUNK. 

Secondly, throw away everything you own, pictures of your grandma aren't punk, your baby blanket is not punk, if your mom would find any value in it, it's not punk. Throw away everything sentimental, you have to eat sleep and breathe punk, there is no room for mom and pop in your new lifestyle. 

Third: ditch your old friends. You can't possibly be seen with preppies, you can't even be seen with other social outcasts, no nerds, no goths, no nothing. get new friends, friends who will look angsty with you while you sit in front of your local upscale shopping mall, or at the skate park. Maybe they'll even look mean with you at shows, as long as they stay away from the mosh pit, they can't mess up their hair. The list of social groups you can be friends with is as follows: punks.

Phase 2: The Look

Only posers become cultured in the music before they start looking the part, to like the music and to go to the shows you have to look like one of them. Conform to them so you can all be nonconformists!

Your hair: You aren't allowed to have your hair below your chin, it's a rule. And if it's not dyed you might as well not even be punk. Cut it yourself with kitchen scissors or else you're a poser, or dog clippers like Ian MacKaye if you want it short. But not skinhead short, because it's NOT just a phony division by the underground press, even if they're not hammerskins or fascist, even if they just really like ska, you don't talk to skinheads, only posers like skinheads.

Your clothes: Exclusively shop at Urban Outfitters, the posers say it's for yuppies, what do they know? They shop at thrift stores and have to see meth head mothers and their too skinny alien babies. You buy that 30$ Sex Pistols t shirt. You can only wear skinny jeans. And you need a really cool vest or jacket, and you'll see people talking about making their own, but that's for poor people, you should just buy your own on etsy with daddy's cash.

Your room: Be really dirty, like clinical depression dirty.

Phase 3: The Music

Just listen to Rodney On The Roq or whatever, not like Rodney Bingenheimer ruined literally everyone's life. The list of bands you're allowed to listen to be are as follows, if you don't listen to these bands and these bands only, you're a poser:
The Ramones
The Clash
The Sex Pistols

Ignore everything made after 1980, those guys are posers.

Phase 3: Attitude

Just be a total jerk to everyone, even your friends. 

I've Only Seen The Ocean Three Times (Saturday Mix-Tape)

Living 600 miles away from any ocean, and that coast being the worst for surfing, the closest I can get is the edgy teenage boys who used to skate at the pavilion at the park, which I guess is sidewalk surfing. Or that store at the South County Mall that sells "gone surfing" signs and salt lamps. But since it's getting unbearably warm, like heat stroke warm, I can dream of coastal weather moderation.

1.) Sitting By a Window - The Pebbles
2.) Hang Ten In East Berlin - D.I. ( skate punk musically, but hang ten)
3.) Surfin' Cow - The Dead Milkmen ( his baby looks like Patti Smith! )
4.) Police Truck - Dead Kennedys ( politics and East Bay Ray, heck yes )
5.) Don't Cry - Los Olvidados ( a little more skate punk, but it's my specialty because again I live in the midwest.)

Why Does Every Radio Station In Seattle Play Uncle Kracker Twice A Day?

I went to Seattle last Christmas to see my aunt who lives a couple hours away. I learned a couple things while on this trip:
Seattle has no black people (and this makes me very uncomfortable)
Safeway's parking lot is a notable political protest place, to the point of them having to put up a sign stating it is not allowed.
Everyone in Washington listens to Uncle Kracker
Big cities, even the artsy ones, punk is still dead, and art is still dying.
But most importantly I learned I never want to leave my city.

We were there for 3 days, 8 hours of which was spent traveling. Getting up at 4AM to catch the flight, being in the plane for 3 three hours, spending the day in Seattle during a very loud Seahawks game, driving another hour to Bellingham in a rental car with heated seats, sleeping in a hotel, eating hotel breakfasts, seeing way too many dogs than would be good for my heart.

During all of this time, I saw less vaguely alternative people than I see at home. Maybe they sleep until noon?

That trip I had some sort of flu and threw up every meal my chef uncle made for me, which sucked.

I also learned that Seattle does have a broad array of art museums and old punk clubs I would love to go see, but couldn't, as my grandpa didn't care, I'd love to go back with just my dad and I, and for more than three days, as that is much too much stress to be there for two full days.

He Who I Really Shouldn't Mention in the Name of Political Neutrality (Saturday E-Mixtape)

I wasn't alive in the 80's,  I wasn't alive in the time you could buy blank cassette tapes so you could make a cassette mix- tape for your eighth-grade crush, sending her songs that make you seem emotional and deep, but not too new wave. Well, "too new wave" was not a term to be uttered in the 80's, but I digress. I also was not alive in HIS era, though I live in a generation with its own problem, the rebellion in music is yet to come on a large scale. Trickle down, welfare queens, an acting career, all of these things turn into one man, and that man has had much criticism, especially in punk music. I will be careful with my wording, as my 50 something-year-old right wing uncle see's these posts on Facebook, (love you, David.)

1.) Great Equalizer - JFA I will say nothing about this one.
2.) Youth Against Fascism - Sonic Youth This song was released during Clinton's first term and is probably about Bush sr, but boy does it make me think of HIM. (well yeah the president sucks/cause' he's a war pig fuck)
3.) Right Wing Pigeons - The Dead Milkmen HIS line in this song is fitting for #45 also, and in the same nature of political neutrality, I will not elaborate further. (the man in the white house/he just don't care/he starves little kids and/he dyes his hair)
4.) Hinkley Had A Vision - The Crucifux   Yeah I have nothing I want to say about this one either.
5.) We've Got A Bigger Problem Now - The Dead Kennedys Basically Califonia Uber Alles, but jazz for a minute, and about HIM and not Jerry Brown.

Go Home

Hey Martha from West County, go back to the 'burbs! I am not a "locals only" person, like 80's surf punks thought out of town goons were stealing their waves? That's another rant, though. (I'm talkin' about you Aggression!) But when you come into my city and sneer at me for being different, go back to the suburban sprawl. If you come out here for a cardinals game and then cough for your husband to look at me while I try to get a new blanket at Target, go home.

If the way I look, if the patches on my jacket horrify you, if my way of existing inconveniences you so much, go back to where every street looks the same. If you voted for the orange menace and crowded out Cherokee street to the point of people from within the city not being able to have any fun whatsoever, going to Cherokee street simply because there aren't any mexicans in your beautiful rich township, go home. Do you even know what you're celebrating?

I love to prove the old white people wrong by being the nicest person possible, I kill them with kindness, by smiling at their babies or getting way too excited about dogs or picking up the things they drop so they don't have to strain their little old backs. My hair being blue has turned children from fussy to fascinated, because before their parents teach them to be judgy assholes, they feel nothing but innocent interest in people who look different. If the way I cut my hair makes you so angry you guide your children away from me, go home.

Yuppies and grandmothers are the worst when it comes to being absolutely intolerant of everyone who doesn't look exactly like them.
But it's worst when they preach equality and coexistance then turn around and treat me like a criminal by the way I cut my hair. Consistency is a virtue.

And lastly i'll speak on a group of people that will probably witch hunt me. Fellow punks. Living in middle america, there aren't many, and if there are, i dont know them, (shoot me an email stl punks @ bornannoyingmag@gmail.com because im lonely) but the ones in the county, who buy their anarchy gear at their local upscale shopping mall and infinitely queer bash and talk bad about other races or people who "break the rules" of punk. I'm sorry, guy at skate park, that I can't be exactly like you.

Go back to where you feel safe, the 'burbs.

The Inevitable Girl Punk Playlist (Saturday E Mix-Tape)

Unlike all the other girl punk playlists, this one will not include Bikini Kill/Hole/The Runaways, because they are not the only women in punk to ever exist, and nobody else gets any recognition. Punk was always a guy's sport, and before the 90's, women were either incredibly praised or incredibly despised. If you were pretty you were set, you don't even have to be a good musician. That's how it still is though. Just be a good face to a brand and you don't even have to know how to sing. Besides the point, women in punk!

1.) Axeman - Heavens To Betsy ( Woo Hoo! High school problems! )
2.) My Spit - Calamity Jane ( THEY'RE SO ANGRY! )
3.) My Friend Goo - Sonic Youth ( While they're not an all female band, and while I do prefer Thurston Moore's voice, I think she was the ultimate "girl in the band" in fact I think that's what she named her book. )
4.) And I Live In A Town Where The Boys Amputate Their Hearts - Bratmobile ( Fall Out Boy song titles who? )
5.) Oh Yeah! - Babes In Toyland 

Small Children and the Drunk Injuns

Skate punk is such a lost ancient art. I don't even skate, I can't even go through doors without hitting my shoulder on the frame, and I live in the midwest, which isn't exactly the epitome of good skate culture. That doesn't stop blond teenage boys with just slightly too long hair from pretending they surf despite being 600+ miles away from the nearest shore.

In 1986 in my dad's best friend's parent's basement, the best friend who later became my half brother's step dad, he thumbs through mountains of cassette tapes.

"THRASHER SKATE ROCK VOL 1. SKATE OR DIE"

My father searched for it for years upon years, failing to find it on Napster or whatever. We found it again recently, on the dreaded.... YouTube. Luckily they can still curse and half of the songs are still about heroin because not EVERYTHING has to be appropriate for 3-year-olds. Seriously just control your kid. You wouldn't let your small child loose in a casino, why let them loose on the internet.


This turned from an article about skate punk to an article about how much I hate small children, get used to it.

Either way, it's really cool. There's a band who wears masks, all the best bands wear masks. Listen to it, I'll even link it for you.

Thrasher Skate Rock vol. 1