Punk Attitude- the documentary and my own blather about it

Last night I watched a documentary called Punk Attitude, created by Don Letts. I got it from the Ypsi library, which keeps getting better and better movies, audio books and music.
I knew there'd be a lot of the same clips I've seen in other documentaries, but it was still wonderful to see and hear.
I was so drawn to this music as a little kid. When I'd see punk rock teenagers, I was completely smitten and in awe, while my family commented about what freaks these people were. My older brother and sister were so into hard rock, big hair rock bands, etc. I remember trying to describe what kind of music I wanted to hear to my brother when I was 9. I wanted it to be "really, really fast and cool". I heard the Ramones and said, "That's IT! That's the kind of music I want!!" But I was only 9, and had no access to this music. It wasn't played on the radio.
I used to play the Beatles, "Come Together" at the 75 speed on the record player because I loved how cool it sounded sped up.
It wasn't until I was 13 and 14 that I started to find it on my own and also have my own money (via house cleaning and baby sitting) to buy it on my own. Sometimes I'd buy sappy New Wave stuff, and other times more whiney stuff like The Smiths and The Cure. That fit the bill when I was in 8th and 9th grade, but as my teenage angst grew, so did my need for faster paced, more aggressive music. I was completely fed up with women, especially other teenage girls. I had no patience for all the physical and emotional effort that went into fitting in, looking lovely All The Time (for other people), and playing dumb and batting my eyes.
I think I must have had far too much testosterone in my system. :) I envied boys for their strength, their muscles. I wanted to shave my head and tell everyone to fuck off. I was "accused" of being a "dyke", yet nothing could've been farther from the truth. I envied those aggressive boys for being socially allowed to show their anger, but I also had huge crushes on a few of them.

So I slowly started to pick up on other bands. Bands that were no longer together. Bands that formed in the late 70s and early 80s. I was at the tail end of the 80s and just discovering these gems. I fell in love with Black Flag, The Ramones, The Clash, Bad Religion, The Dead Kennedys, GBH, The Circle Jerks and so on. You found out about another band by reading the liner notes of the one you just bought. Just as you find out about other writers by reading the blurbs on the back cover, to see who they're compared to.
So it was with music. Slowly buying another tape every weekend. Going to school with a bunch of rednecks, angry black kids and prom queens. At the time, there wasn't much of a national punk music scene. Every city seemed to have their own cluster of garage bands. And so started the weekend trips to Detroit to see assorted bands play for a couple bucks. Too young to drink, too excited to need to drink. It was heaven to me. And all the lovely boys! What better way to get near to them without having to have sex (!) then to get into the Pit with them, sweating, pushing, shoving and being swayed by the mass. It's like being a fish in a really tight school.
Screaming along with the band on the stage. It definitely filled a need in me. Made me feel strong and gave me an outlet for all my pissiness.
After I got out of high school and moved out, I wasn't so angry anymore. My tastes morphed into vintage ska, reggae and a few oi bands although I preferred the more light hearted ska and reggae. I fell in love with trying to replicate 1960s Mod fashions and skinhead girl look (and not the ignorant racist class of skins~ugh). The whole Unity thing. Shaving my head was liberating. My boyfriend at the time cried when I came home with a shaved head, and since we were on the outs already, I was quite pleased. "I am not your girl anymore. I am my own."
I feel like that's when I came into my own. No longer insecure. No longer worrying about what other people thought. I felt tough in a non-threatening way. A tough that gave me confidence to be me.
This documentary I watched followed the time line of punk over the years. It was mostly about the attitude of punk. Its not so much about being tough or aggressive, it's about being fed up with the asleep- at- the- wheel culture. Hippies of the 60s were punk in that sense. Granted, the music of that time doesn't do a thing for me, I definitely respect where it came from.
Interestingly enough, in the time line of All Things Punk, the documentary talks about the time from say 1983 to 1992 as being a dry time as far as music went on a national level. That was the exact time I was scraping from the barrel to find any music, clothes, literature that would fulfill my unmet needs.
You had to rely on either music from bands past, or immerse yourself in your own city's hardcore niche.
Then out of nowhere, the whole Grunge thing emerged. It was so obvious that the big labels had sense enough to cash in on this aggressive, pissed off music and market the shit out of it. (Inadvertently driving one well-meaning musician to kill himself) People who were punks and skins at the time hated the whole Grunge thing, while mainstream kids ate it up. Like, what? Grab your flannel? Plaid flannel is in?What the fuck are you talking about? Vivian Westwood was touting plaids in the mid 70s. (I knew because I had done my research!Part of being punk is also about being Pure. Ha!) Where have you been? The same kids who had beat up punk rock kids were now trying to dress and act the same way. But it was so wrong. They got it so wrong, and so late. Aggressive frat boys in plaid flannel shirts were completely out of sync with the purity of punk. Like anything else, they bought what they were told and proudly proclaimed they were "Grunge". We wanted nothing to do with that.
I think that was about the time I gravitated to the ska scene. Ska and Mod was clean. Being a grubby punk was over. Being grubby was what the Labels sold to kids. To quote that line: Be Hype, Buy the Anti-Hype.
Funny. We're all a bunch of puppets to some degree. But at 18 and 19, all of this was very important for self-identity purposes.
And now they sell punk rock clothes at the mall. That's so bizarre to me. What is punk rock about that? The Mall is The Man. Whatever happened to scrounging through rack after rack of stinky clothes at Salvation Army, looking for old man clothes that you could alter for the look you wanted?
Argh, nothing worse than an aging punk rock girl, no? "Back in my day..."
I tell you though, it made for a hard transition when I had my first child. Talk about identity crisis! Should a mother have tattoos? A shaved head? I felt guilty for listening to anything harsher or faster than a melodic reggae beat while pregnant. And then, who do I hang out with now? I can't go to any shows in Detroit anymore! Mothers don't do that. Besides, I'd feel really uncomfortable as my big, lactating breasts leaked onto my t-shirt. And so on.

How silly.

I do find it interesting though that a lot of midwives have a punk rock past, and before us of course, were the hippy midwives with the same values (just different music and clothes!). Being a home birth midwife is something you have to be passionate about, when only 1% of American babies are born at home. It's being anti-establishment in another way. And I am so happy that I finally discovered (with much gratitude to my own children and the gift of birthing them) that women (whom I had so little respect for as an angry teenager), are full of strength and wisdom. They're just so much more subtler about it. Women are steathily strong. They're amazing.
And so it continues.

Volvo station wagon. Driving kids around. Catching babies. It's all in the attitude and values.

There's my personal history of punk.