Curious, Punk? Bring out your DEADboys:
okay, define punk.
jon stewart is a punk
ralph nader is a punk [and was stunning on Letterman last night, scared Dave]
bjork is a punk
xena is a punk rocker
buffy had punk thrust upon her
THIS IS NOT A TEST
no one said punks have to be poor or dirty
or that they can't be
they just have to stand up
if not stand out
there is no courage without fear
the young know not what to fear
charlie parker was a punk
larry flynt was a punk
jay leno was once a punk
david letter man is apunk
paul is wacky on the junk
abbie hoffman was a punk
i have merely run apunkamok
Sheena is a punk rocker,
Sheena is a punk rocker,
Sheena Easton, punk rocker.
She's a punk punk, a punk rocker,
Punk punk, a punk rocker,
Punk punk, a punk rocker.
remember: the power lies with the consumer
the choice is yours
to hold stock is to hold the right to say something
to hold property is the right to do something
to hold hope is the right to possibility
to hold up is the rite of probability
Jackie is a punk
Judy is a runt
They both went down to Berlin, joined the Ice Capades
And oh, I don't know why
Oh, I don't know why
Perhaps they'll die, oh yeah
My point is that holding stock in a company you're not only railing against but using as fodder to take votes away from a candidate with a legitimate chance to actually make positive changes in society is not being a punk. It's not ignorant. It's being foolish and dangerous and gaming the system.
Did you mean "punk music"?
Nader's justification of his stock portfolio is quite beautiful.
i don't dispute you, alex
but i don't think you have to be a saint to be a punk
i think he knows a lot and we know a lot because he did something he took on himself and instigated
punks don't have to kill their daddy or mommy literally
i was all set to vote kerry as i was to vote clinton when we had a perot to distract the stupid
but where i am i really doubt my presidential vote will be counted
as it gets closer, i'll see
just like i will on how cheap tix to NYC will get
now perot was a rich punk
punks don't demand respect
but YOU define punk
i think most of Public Enemy, bunch o punks
lorelei gilmore, punk
charo, punky
guinness, punky brewster
pot, roll it yourself
Punk is standing on your own two feet when you know the Man will step on you, and you know you have no recourse.
Jon Stewart is Punk because the CEO masters could not only take his job away at any second for opening his mouth and saying the Wrong Things, but kill his career. As a relatively young comedian/entertainer that takes Punk Balls.
Nader is not Punk because no matter what happens, he has a cushy retirement package to fall back on. So whatever he does, regardless of the consequences (to the rest of us), he's set. He's on Easy Street. That ain't Punk.
For me punk is a Safe European Home.
I went to the place where every white face is an invitation to robbery.
Oh, and Public Enemy is most definitely Punk. And Flava Flav is a totally insane cornflake.
i think he earned himself a retirement as he didn't do any of his work for monetary goal.
i don't think anyone should be judged on any one thing for good or bad or it devalues their efforts.
i don't have to agree with everything someone says or does to respect their work
now, newt, that was someone's moral fiber full of termites and it polluted however good a teacher he was or whatever.
i question woody allen but i still like his work.
i wish i knew less about some people.
some people i like as people despite their [insert flaw here].
sadly, jacko is extremely disturbing but he still wrote some great songs.
ray charles was a punk
robert downey, jr., all punked up
the gong show was all punked out
"Punk rockers in the UK
They won't notice anyway
They're all too busy fighting
For a good place under the lighting
The new groups are not concerned
With what there is to be learned
They got Burton suits, ha! You think it's funny,
Turning rebellion into money?"
/Strummer
wtf? punk comes from.... well, go revisit the spr.org post.
punk is all disney now.
to you
how can you expect anyone to fight forever?
isn't it something to have fought at all?
to stand up once instead of never
instead of waiting for the call?
or the fall
julia child, punk
morimoto, punk
blogger was punk
punk =
1) that dry whitish matter inside the stalks of some plants, such as reeds, anciently used for illumiunation when candles not available
2)anyone a detective or cop in noir films/hard-boiled detective stories looks down their nose(s) at
3) a youthful inamoratus of a male homosexaul
4) generic term: reaction to prevalence of rock music and its shibboleths and icons
5) hence, a piquant form of under-doggism
/otherise I am a treasury of ignorance on the subject
make my day
punk
--clint, big punk
Monkeyfilter: a treasury of ignorance
Alex Reynolds, check your email.
Punk is Dead
That is All
/buzzkill
?
Punk would be posting Goatse here. Am I right?
/Joan Rivers
Ross Perot is defitely not punk. He's one of the frickin' masters.
Buffy is not punk, she's goth.
Punk is not just rebellion, it's offensive. Punks create something ugly for the specific purpose of creating something ugly. It offends someone's sensibilities. Punks didn't wear mohawks and ratty clothes becuse it looked good. They did it because it looked bad.
Oh, and the Ramones were all broke when they died? How about Iggy Pop? How's he doing moneywise? Ralph Nader is a middle aged man who still fights for the principles he had as a young man, and that's why all you middling premptively aged, practically minded pussies hate his every fiber.
Ross Perot is more punk than a lot of people, cos he's not beholden to much anyone and he doesn't care what many people think of him. A lot of old people are very punk rock, come to think.
And Knickerbocker is right - punk isn't just rebellion against something - it's rebellion against everything. It is constant disatisfaction and it can be beautiful.
addendum: one of them is still alive. I can't remember which.
buffy is not a goth
the only goth cheerleader around today is on wigu's sister
uck, mister, i thot the monkey represents sharing
saying what is not punk is not saying what IS punk
fucking punk
i lived by knickerbocker, you ain't no kickerbocker
and you ain't no punk
except the kind used to light a fire
Oh, and the Ramones were all broke when they died?
They were punk when they died? Give me a break. Nader is fighting to inflate his ego on the collective dime, anyway.
maybe what you call rebellion i call activating change
maybe what you call offensive
is what i call a conscious choice to provoke a response
i never said anything about rebellion
but you say you want a revolution?
well, you
no
...a trip to the moon
on goth summer wings
it woz jest one o'
them Things...
if you think ALL the ramones are dead or that the RAMONES are dead
punk is dead to you
get off the body, necrophiliacs
punk isn't young or old
punk is not a definition
punk is an evolving philosophy
as any functional philosophy
of individuals activating change to the greater whole by choosing to exist as an exception to the norm
any norm
because change takes place, because a goal is achieved does not devalue the initial effort
it's not about just the struggle
but it is if you covet the struggle
you
fucking punkass
wanna be
once upon a time
wonder when
motherfucking foodeaters
read love & rockets
punk rejects you first
punk throws the bottle
punk you
now homunculus IS a punk
(take over, i gotta go
the kids haven't tried nuthin yet and are fresh out of ideas)
Punk was a musical style prevalent in the mid to late 1970s, characterized by discordant atonality, overt lack of technical musicianship, and aggressive, provocatory lyrics.
It's also dated slang for a young male, typically white, typically poor, potentially criminal, that exhibits (mostly verbal, invariably ineffective) aggressivity toward authority figures. My understanding is that is it also slang for an incarcerated male who engages in submissive homosexual behavior, ostensibly for protection from other inmates.
/overly literal
Oops. The "a href=" didn't seem to take. What I meant to post was "I think it's dead now." all pretty and linkified to http://www.hottopic.com/. Apologies.
Ralph Nader earned his ego.
Beethoven was punk. In his 50s in the 1820s. They wouldn't even listen to that music (or think those thoughts, except for a few brave/crazy souls) for about 60 years, it upset so much that was a musical given at the time. Better to go with easier music like Brahms or Wagner. (!) And then it took Stravinsky saying he liked it for the tune to get some legs.
That's punk. ;-)
why are we posting like this
i feel like I walked into some
bad slam poetry
or something
fuck this
ps i think joan rivers is punk
No doubt, you will
feel better, mfpb221,
if you only make the lines grow longer.
However that's to be done.
Instead of shorter.
She is -- well, never
mind wot she is. Or thinks she is.
We think we aren't.
Or we don't.
if william shatner was a monkey
i think he would post like this
because he's such a punk
he's so punk he
has no shift key
he only has CAPS LOCK
I like jazz and nice shirts.
I like to think that Buddy Holly was the first true punk (rock) musician.
Punk is quaint and nostalgic.
If (and only if) the Sex Pistols are punk, then Justin Timberlake is Punk. Or, well, maybe just a punk ass bitch. Sorry, can I say that on Monkeyfilter?
On reconsideration, This would have been a better link for the above. Truth is stranger than fiction.
I'm not surprised by the Justin-Timberlake-as-Johnny-Rotten thing. I mean, the Pistols were as much about fashion and brattiness as they were about making statements about art or politics.
(I tried to make this point on another of our recent punk threads, but was smacked down. I hold it's true. I hold that the Justin Timberlake thing proves my point.)
(forgive me ethylene)
punk is not caring what punk is
punk does not apologize
and either does art
and there is no shame in comedy
Jesus Christ. Buncha goddamn bullshit. Punk is Joan Rivers? Punk is Ross Perot?
Time to strike back against the devaluation of the term. And it's cowards like you folks who have brought it there.
If punk is everything, it cannot be anything. Way to go, folks, you're the folks who have killed punk.
What do you want first? Etymology? Punks as rent boys and dopers? Punks as sailors pegged on long voyages?
Or the proto-punk of the Velvet Underground?
For me, punk started with the Stooges, with their rejection, with their nihilism, with their ugly collapse. For others, it started with the Ramones, who did the same thing: rejected, uglified and resisted. For the UK, punk did begin with the Sex Pistols. Who, despite some revisionist bullshit, weren't just a McLaren dinner ticket, dressed up to sell safety pins to kids.
So, these are the early punks. What do they have in common? A rebellion against big, bloated music. A rebellion against hippy love and harmony. A rebellion against ambition. An embrace of boredom and ennui.
So when Ethylene says that saying what punk is not is not saying what punk is, they're wrong. Punk has always defined itself not in small part by its relationship to others, to its rejection of "not punk."
Then there's what punk became. It became nihilism and distraction, became anger and violence. Why? Because thinking, feeling people don't like raw anger and violence. They don't like filth and disease. And ultimate rejection required the adoption of those signifiers to distance itself from everything acceptable. In that, punk died with G.G. Allin.
But strands still came out. The Clash used the old rebellion of '50s rock to inform a conscious worldview. That punk is the subversive, the sabotuer, the culture jammer. And when that is dilluted too far, you have people saying that Perot and Nader are punk (instead of punks).
That punk gives us DIY, self-empowerment, rejection of authority through action not boredom. That punk gives us Dischord and MacKaye, and puts us down in a tube station at midnight.
And there's the ugly side, the totalizing rage of punk, which leads to hardcore and National Front skinheads as punks. That leads us to reactionaries and GOPunks, and clashes with other punks about what punk is. That's the racist side of punk, the rejection of thinking, feeling society's proscription against offense in cultural context. Belsen was a gas, indeed. But with no irony.
There's the punk that took the form and forgot the function, the punk that remembered harmonies but not harm. Punks that take tatoos and skating, and whatever their parents will let them, and sing about failed relationships and personal drama. Those are your Blink-182s, your Hot Topics and faux-hawks. And they've got a tie to the McLaren Sex shop.
It's all punk, one way or another, but then that's because the word has been taken by commercialism and distorted beyond all meaning. And that's what happens when you say that Jon Stewart is punk. Much as I love him, he doesn't want to destroy passers-by. He's a dissenter, not a punk. But it's time to stop using punk to just mean dissenter or outsider, to stop using it in the overbroad way of rock and roll.
What is punk? It's not everything that isn't punk.
ah, at last
thank you for my sudden sense of relief in not having wasted my time
Ethylene - but to me, punk is just another musical/anti-political fashion that appeals to some and not to others. There are some folks here, based on the comments, for whom punk is a semi-religious experience, and that's cool, but this isn't a site devoted to punk. If you presented a a rational arguement for why I should get into punk at this point, I might consider your apologia, but you haven't given me anything that would make want to listen to it again. But what I take your message to mean is that if I'm not with you, I'm against you. That's not a persuasive position. IF you wasted your time, it's because you must have expected everyone to agree with you, which isn't likely in a community with the range that this one has.
and js, you're much more eloquent than ethylene, but couldn't we say that hippie is whatever is not hippie, or that beatnik is whatever is not beatnik?, or if you have to ask what jazz is you'll never understand it? Or ska, or reggae... (Just to name a few semi-religions from the last 50 years or so.) All of them have rejected "not us", and I can't see how punk's rejection of that is any more persuasive.
Just let me say that I opened my house up for several years to a changing bunch of punks/anarchists who had been on the streets, many of them having been tossed out by their parents when they were teenagers, so I'm not entirely unaware of the forces that make up punk. And, you know what, they've all gone on to something different - and none of the "different" was based on my theories of how life should be. But the fact that they've embraced change makes me happy.
Yah, please don't reconstruct us. The brits were fighting a class war; we wer fighting a cultural war. Give us all a break. We just knew something was wrong. We were trying to oppose it, not correct it.
But what I take your message to mean is that if I'm not with you, I'm against you. That's not a persuasive position
and strange coincidence, not my message or position
in fact i haven't stated either
i just wanted to start a dialog
and i think i did
Ethylene: This is what I was talking about.
"punk rejects you first
punk throws the bottle
punk you"
And, yes you did start a dialogue, but there's not been much development in it. So, where do we go from here?
Let me start:
"punk rejects you first"
Well, fine, but if all punk does is reject stuff, how does that change anything? What does punk espouse that'll make a difference? The cant of anarchy certainly isn't going to appeal to a nationwide audience. I think that punk made some changes to the attitudes of a part of a generation, but also that most of them have moved on.
"punk throws the bottle"
Well, as a denizen of the 1970s. the only bottle I can think that one would throw is a Molotov cocktail. Is that what you mean?
"punk you"
Doesn't get me anymore excited than does "fuck you."
So, anyway, I'm not trying to drive you off. I'm just trying to understand what you want to say from the perspective of a not-punk person. Help me out here, without the sound bites.
those are all slogans or quotes
i don't get where you are coming from except if the only way you know how to exchange or express ideas is by taking some adverse reactionary position
but to me, punk is just another musical/anti-political fashion that appeals to some and not to others
then what do you want?
if you want a point by point reason/inspiration/analysis on what i've posted so far, fund me to the a fucking thesis
people throw bottles at shows or any interactive activity (rocky horror, anyone?)
and i'm not trying to excite you
i said something to see what people would say and some people got to say what they wanted to say.
some people made jokes, some people learned something or thot about something
so?
jeez, if my posting anything offends you so much, because you can't decide what side i'm on
ask or a resume or ask me to leave
i don't get where you are coming from except if the only way you know how to exchange or express ideas is by taking some adverse reactionary position
Heh. I guess she's more punk than you, ethylene.
and i guess to you any asshole is a punk, vice versa
fucking punkass
wanna be
...
punk rejects you first
punk throws the bottle
punk you
I guess to you any asshole is a punk, vice versa
-OR-
buffy had punk thrust upon her
I guess to you valley girls are punk.
-OR-
if you think ALL the ramones are dead or that the RAMONES are dead
punk is dead to you
I guess to you punk is just another musical/anti-political fashion, just like path said.
-OR-
i just wanted to start a dialog
and i think i did
I guess to you a punk is someone who is wishy washy with their opinions, until someone specifically asks, and they back up and pretend that they can't be bothered with actually having one.
I have to agree with you on this last one. That sounds like a punk to me, too.
"those are all slogans or quotes" I assume that is directed at what you wrote, since none of mine was either a slogan or a quote.
Look, I'm really not trying to back you into a corner, but if you don't seem want to want to talk about punk from a personal basis.
"and i guess to you any asshole is a punk, vice versa" No, few of the punks I've known have been other than asshole wannabes. If you got beyond the facade, they were kinda sweet, with a nice edge.
"people throw bottles at shows or any interactive activity" Bottle throwing at Rocky Horror must be a recent development since it didn't happen when I had any connection with the fad about 20 years ago. And why is bottle throwing meaningful? I really can't guess what the significance is, but maybe you could tell me.
"jeez, if my posting anything offends you so much, because you can't decide what side i'm on
ask or a resume or ask me to leave" I never said your posting offended me. I just asked for information. It's called a dialogue - people talk to each other, exchange information and opinions without assuming that the other person has some evil agenda.
You seem really energetic and perky, but, so far I haven't found a way to have a discussion with you. Give me some clues.
Path: No, the difference between punks and hippies or beatniks is that punk had a sine qua non of rejection. Which is why it's hard to make a positive movement out of pure punk, and why bands like the Clash modified it into a mobalizing force instead of a destructive force. They took the punk subculture and expanded it, making DIY and activism part of the umbrella.
Hippies had their peace and love, and were essentially an affirmative movement. Beatniks had a challenging stream to them, but they were more about American Modernism than generalized rebellion (though both subcultures did challenge a lot of the assumptions of the dominant hegemony).
And what's jazz? Improvised music based off of a 2/4 swing tradition. I would say "jazz" is similar in usage to "punk," where the tradition became so disparate that it's hard to have people know exactly what you mean without modifiers ("free jazz," "big band," etc.)
And as to your criticism that it's a religion and takes conversion, that's maybe because you haven't given it a lot of thought. It has its zealots, but more than anything it's another 20th century art movement, and can be discussed as such.
js: your comment about punk being an art movement gives me something to mull over. Thanks.
ethylene isn't writing in conventional theme-and-development, all-men-are-mortal-Socrates-is-a-man-therefore, compare-and-contrast style, she's being a provocateuse and trying to start a little flame in our hearts, and I for one like it despite the confusion and I say keep on punkin', ethylene!
Where have all the boot boys gone?
Sheena Easton, punk rocker.She's a punk punk, a punk rocker, Punk punk, a punk rocker, Punk punk, a punk rocker.