I don't know what it was that drew me to the punk scene. I went to my first show in 1985 and saw Black Flag play. This was right before they broke up, so they were not in their heyday by any means. However, it was the crowd that peaked my interest. I saw around me the biggest collection of strange looking people I had ever seen in one place. When you see a social misfit in the standard setting of the public high school or the local mall, you're seeing them in the environment that helped to create their misfit status. When you see them at a show, they're in the environment they created for themselves, where they are comfortable among their peers. This is what intrigued me. To see people that I had seen here and there acting as normal as the so-called "regular" people I encountered every day was fascinating. I think that is what first drew me back to the shows. I wasn't looking to be an outcast or a misfit. I was actually looking to fit in. However, this is where I found a place to fit in that accepted me. It didn't depend on how much money your parents made or what brand of jeans you wore. It was about showing up and taking part in the scene. The more I went to shows, the more people I met. It didn't matter if the shows one week were in Hollywood and the next in Orange County. I would still see some of the same people at both shows. As people, we're tribal by nature, so it was natural to see groups of people at the shows, but these groups weren't trying to make others feel like outcasts, they were just engaging in a ritual of friendship built around a common culture, music. Some of these people were very talented artists who felt as though the mainstream world wouldn't allow them to create what they truly wanted to. Some of them were musicians who wanted to play something simple, from the heart. A lot of us were just bored kids looking for something to do with our time that allowed us to escape from the suburban hells we spent the rest of our days in.
Violence was a fact of life in this scene. When you bring together a large group of teens, some of whom come from very fucked up families, you're going to run the risk of someone or something setting one of them off. However, the difference between scene violence and mainstream America violence was that scene violence rarely, if ever, spilled over into the mainstream and it never got continued outside of the show. I was intensely afraid of the pit the first few shows I went to. It was the place where all the action took place. The place where your expertise in dancing and fighting was put on display. Back then, unlike now, if you fell, people would kick you until you made it back to your feet. There was an incentive to get up quickly, if you even fell at all. I know this sounds bad, but it was the way of our world. Again, it goes back to misfit kids from fucked up lives who got to snap and release their anger toward the bullshit system we live in for a couple of hours. Few people in the scene back then came from nice, well-adjusted families. With everyone coming from the same types of situations, no one there was averse to mixing it up. Being the inquisitive person that I am, I slowly made my way up closer to the pit so that I could observe how things went, what to look out for, and who to stay away from. I observed that a lot of the guys in there moved in a way that looked as though they were skipping along with their heads down and their arms flailing. I then noticed that their arms moved in unison with their bodies so that they kept their balance even when being hit from multiple angles. I wanted to learn how to do this. I figured that the best way to do so would be to jump into the pit and just go for it. This wasn't something I could do at home and explain away to my parents. They didn't even know that I was going to shows. They thought I was just spending a lot of time with my friends at their houses. So, I took a deep breath and jumped in. I began to "skip" in the direction the pit seemed to be moving and flailed my arms like the others around me seemed to be doing. Almost immediately, I was hit by a much larger guy and knocked into the crowd at the side of the pit. The guys I ran into immediately shoved me as hard as they could back into the melee. I was then body checked back into the crowd, who shoved me back into the pit. This went on for a little while until I was able to learn the technique of staying in the mix. I was then able to have a lot of fun just running around and feeling tough. That is, until I flailed my arms around and hit the wrong guy in the face. I don't remember hitting him that hard, but it was hard enough to enrage him and cause him to grab me, spin me around, and punch me in the face pretty damn hard. I would have dropped, except he was holding me up by my shirt and went to hit me again. Now, I was 12 when this happened and he was probably in his late teens or early twenties. Thankfully, my friend's brother, who brought us here, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from me. I stood there, wiping blood from my face with my hands and then wiping my hands on my pants while he tried to talk the guy down from beating the shit out of me. I didn't make things any better when I lost my temper, ran up to the guy, and hit him as hard as I could (which wasn't very hard). He looked surprised, then amused at my anger. Something must have gotten through to him, though, because he left me alone after that and wandered back into the crowd. My friend's brother laughed at me and then took me to the bathroom to wash off my face. Luckily, nothing was busted open on the outside. The inside of me cheek got pretty cut up, but I was able to explain that away to my parents when the time came. I was proud of myself. I had taken a shot from a grown-ass man and walked away from it intact. I would proceed to take this new-found pride into the pit with me many, many times over the next few years.
To be continued...
Violence was a fact of life in this scene. When you bring together a large group of teens, some of whom come from very fucked up families, you're going to run the risk of someone or something setting one of them off. However, the difference between scene violence and mainstream America violence was that scene violence rarely, if ever, spilled over into the mainstream and it never got continued outside of the show. I was intensely afraid of the pit the first few shows I went to. It was the place where all the action took place. The place where your expertise in dancing and fighting was put on display. Back then, unlike now, if you fell, people would kick you until you made it back to your feet. There was an incentive to get up quickly, if you even fell at all. I know this sounds bad, but it was the way of our world. Again, it goes back to misfit kids from fucked up lives who got to snap and release their anger toward the bullshit system we live in for a couple of hours. Few people in the scene back then came from nice, well-adjusted families. With everyone coming from the same types of situations, no one there was averse to mixing it up. Being the inquisitive person that I am, I slowly made my way up closer to the pit so that I could observe how things went, what to look out for, and who to stay away from. I observed that a lot of the guys in there moved in a way that looked as though they were skipping along with their heads down and their arms flailing. I then noticed that their arms moved in unison with their bodies so that they kept their balance even when being hit from multiple angles. I wanted to learn how to do this. I figured that the best way to do so would be to jump into the pit and just go for it. This wasn't something I could do at home and explain away to my parents. They didn't even know that I was going to shows. They thought I was just spending a lot of time with my friends at their houses. So, I took a deep breath and jumped in. I began to "skip" in the direction the pit seemed to be moving and flailed my arms like the others around me seemed to be doing. Almost immediately, I was hit by a much larger guy and knocked into the crowd at the side of the pit. The guys I ran into immediately shoved me as hard as they could back into the melee. I was then body checked back into the crowd, who shoved me back into the pit. This went on for a little while until I was able to learn the technique of staying in the mix. I was then able to have a lot of fun just running around and feeling tough. That is, until I flailed my arms around and hit the wrong guy in the face. I don't remember hitting him that hard, but it was hard enough to enrage him and cause him to grab me, spin me around, and punch me in the face pretty damn hard. I would have dropped, except he was holding me up by my shirt and went to hit me again. Now, I was 12 when this happened and he was probably in his late teens or early twenties. Thankfully, my friend's brother, who brought us here, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from me. I stood there, wiping blood from my face with my hands and then wiping my hands on my pants while he tried to talk the guy down from beating the shit out of me. I didn't make things any better when I lost my temper, ran up to the guy, and hit him as hard as I could (which wasn't very hard). He looked surprised, then amused at my anger. Something must have gotten through to him, though, because he left me alone after that and wandered back into the crowd. My friend's brother laughed at me and then took me to the bathroom to wash off my face. Luckily, nothing was busted open on the outside. The inside of me cheek got pretty cut up, but I was able to explain that away to my parents when the time came. I was proud of myself. I had taken a shot from a grown-ass man and walked away from it intact. I would proceed to take this new-found pride into the pit with me many, many times over the next few years.
To be continued...
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