New Dark Ages

by Warren Kinsella

  Narrow ties, bottles to throw

  Welcome to the fashion show

  Lots of fights, whaddya know?

  Welcome to the fashion show

  It was an ironic song, I guess, because it had this pop-punky feel to it, with Sam doing a little reggae riff thing while I spit the words out, sounding as ­sarcastic and as caustic as I possibly could. But the words, ­written by Luke and me, reflected our growing disenchantment with what was happening to our beloved punk scene. The straight edge bastards, in particular, had made shows a lot more violent and more dangerous than ever before.

  And were we getting a little cynical about the whole punk thing? Yes, you could say that. To Luke and me — not so much to Sam and Eddie — punk was, in fact, perilously close to getting swallowed up by the corpor­ate rock ’n’ roll machine monster. This was a problem, ’cause we had gotten into punk rock to destroy the corporate rock ’n’ roll machine monster, you know?

  We wanted to see Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles and Rod Stewart beheaded in the public square. We wanted the Strolling Bones and Dead Zeppelin to be exiled to an old folks’ home. And we liked the fact that punk rock had started out as this private little club for freaks and geeks, you know?

  For punk purists — and X and me, in particular, were the resident punk purists — popularity was a curse. It was an indication you were doing something wrong, in fact. But, more and more, punk combos that nobody had ever heard of were getting signed to major labels for tons of dough. Hollywood stars were spiking their hair and wearing safety pins on their designer clothes. And the kinds of jocks who used to beat us up at PAHS and PHS were coming to our shows and pretending they loved punk rock. And us.

  It was enough to make you puke.

  Admittedly, being as, um, reliant on diet pills as I was, my perspective could have been a bit off. If I wasn’t wired, I was cranky. And, at that moment, I wasn’t wired. Ipso facto, I was cranky.

  I looked around. I sniffed. I itched. In no time at all, I was also fucking bored. After sorting through our merch, and checking and rechecking our equipment, I had absolutely nothing to do. So I sat down on the stage, beside X’s and Mike’s jackets. And then I saw a bit of white in the pocket of X’s Schott Perfecto, the one he’d taken off because it was too fucking hot at Les Foufounes Électriques.

  I looked around. No one was there. Just me. So I reached into X’s pocket and plucked out the sheet of paper, which turned out to be two pieces of paper.

  They contained his distinctive script: half printing, half writing, double-spaced. At the top, he had written: IS THERE A FUTURE PUNK CAN CHANGE?

  I read on:

  Yes. Yes yes yes!

  YIn my case — in the case of my friends and in the case of punks everywhere — punk is not merely music. It is a way of thinking, one that urged us to take action (like Joe Strummer does) and not just give up on the future (like Sid Vicious did). By demonstrating that anger is energy and that we have the power to do just about anything ourselves, punk is like a cosmic collision that creates a noisy, colorful, alternative universe crammed with new bands, new politics, new art, new poetry, new ways of being oneself. It’s stupid to regard punk as just a genre of rock ’n’ roll, or some peculiar new approach to fashion.

  It has always been more than that. How so?

  Okay, listen: Imagine that you’re sixteen again (just like the Buzzcocks’ song), and you’re getting beaten up by jocks at school because you look a little different, or you talk different, or you’re gay, or you wear funny clothes, or you aren’t very athletic. Or you’re being hassled by your teachers because you’re not like the other kids and you’ve got a bit of a rebellious streak. Or you’re being pushed around by some kids because you don’t want to try drugs or because you like to read books.

  Or imagine that your dad left you all a long time ago or that someone at home is pushing you around when they get drunk, or — in the night, when they think no one is looking — someone who is supposed to love you is running their hands all over you. And that you are only sixteen years old.

  Or imagine that, like a lot of sixteen-year-olds, you have yet to develop the capacity to be unaffected, or uncaring, about television footage of thousands of children literally starving to death. Or that you still pay attention, and you still cry, when you hear about someone who is weak and alone being hurt by someone who is rich and powerful. Or that you have a rage — a wordless, black rage — building up inside of you about all of this and none of this, and that you cannot imagine that life could ever have any meaning, anywhere, anytime. Or imagine that you cannot conceive that God can exist in a world that is so fucking cruel and bleak and evil.

  Just listen and just imagine living through any of that. Because, for a lot of sixteen year olds, they don’t have to bother imagining a life like that. It’s their life already. That’s why punk was invented, and why it will never die.

  Punk takes a young person’s anger and makes them do something, and feel something, and be someone. It makes a kid feel that he or she actually can shape the future — and, sometimes, it helps them to actually do it. It makes those unlivable parts livable again. It gives hope. It sings.

  Close your eyes and slip into that dark, crowded, sweaty, noisy little nightclub and listen to the punk sound, the three-chord sound of fury’s hour. And, as you stand against the wall at the back — or as you dance the bad stuff away, right down in the front — know that this is the sound that punk makes, now and tomorrow and forever:

  YES.

  I blinked I reread it. I marveled. X has defined punk rock. I paused and thought to myself: How do I get back to that world?

  YES.

  I could hear the Nasties coming back toward the stage, so I quickly folded up X’s essay and tucked it back in his jacket pocket. I nodded to the guys, who were chattering about the new song. I didn’t tell them what I’d read, naturally.

  But X’s words pinballed through my head all night, even after the Hot Nasties had played to a wild, ­sellout crowd. I couldn’t stop thinking about what he had ­written.

  And these questions, too: Why don’t I feel that way anymore? In fact, why don’t I feel anything at all?

  CHAPTER 18

  They were all in the boardroom at the Turner campaign headquarters in Portland. Present were Earl Turner, a bored Danny O’Heran, one of the press secretaries — Daisy Something or Stacey Something, Danny could never be bothered to remember who was who — and a serious-looking reporter from the New York Times. Turner had been trying to charm the reporter, but she refused to be charmed. She did not like Earl Turner, and it showed. She’d come to Portland to destroy Turner’s campaign, having told her colleagues back in New York that she was the Nazi hunter, and Earl Turner was the Nazi.

  The reporter frowned. “So, Mr. Turner, you do not dispute that you personally approved your anti-Semitic and racist campaign ads?”

  Turner beamed at her beatifically. “You shouldn’t call them anti-Semitic or racist,” he said. “But you should call me Earl.” He flashed a radiant smile.

  The reporter pressed on: “Mr. Turner, your ads have been characterized as anti-Semitic by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and racist by the NAACP. There is no dispute that your ads are—”

  Interrupting her, Turner pointed at the full cup of coffee that had earlier been offered to the reporter. “Would you like my girls to refresh that for you? I think it’s getting cold,” he said, smiling.

  The reporter was irritated. “No, thank you,” she said. “It’s fine. I’d like you to answer my question, please, Mr. Turner. The Times is publishing a major profile on you and your campaign, whether you ­participate or not.”

  Earl Turner shrugged. “Well, as I told you, I don’t ­really understand why the big old New York Times would be interested in us, way up in the little state of Maine,” he paused and grinned. “I mean, your ­readers aren’t going to vote for me, and my voters don’t read your newspaper, so I don’t really understand the ­
attraction, Miss …”

  The reporter clicked her ballpoint pen repeatedly. She was pissed. “Ms.,” she snarled. “Ms. Goldberg. M.-S. And, as I explained to you at the outset, your campaign has propelled you to the front of the Republican pack because of, not despite, your obvious racism and anti-Semitism and misogyny. That is why I am here.”

  Turner eased back in his chair and linked his big hands behind his big head. “Well, sure,” he said. “And we are delighted that you are here, aren’t we, Danny?”

  Danny nodded, mute.

  Turner continued. “But I have to say, Mizz Goldberg …” He emphasized to deliberately annoy the ­reporter. It was working.

  “We aren’t racist or any other ‘ist’ at all. We are just regular, normal white folks, and we are proud Americans. Black folks have black pride, and homosexuals have homo-pride, so why can’t we have white pride out here in the countryside?”

  Looking triumphant, the reporter was now scribbling furiously in her official New York Times notepad. “White pride,” she snapped. “Isn’t that a phrase first popularized by the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups? Aren’t you just appropriating their lexicon to get their support?”

  Turner was completely unfazed. “I don’t know anything about the Klan or any of those groups,” he said. “But if they want to vote for me, I’ll take their vote. I need every vote I can get.”

  The reporter kept up her note-taking, apparently convinced that she was still the Nazi hunter, and the Nazi was now in her sights. “So you won’t denounce the Klan or the neo-Nazis, Mr. Turner?” she asked. “You’ll take their support?”

  Earl Turner waved his hands like he was conducting an invisible symphony. “Oh, I think there has been way too much denouncing in this country already,” he said cheerfully. “Way too much denouncing and demeaning and defaming … of the people who built this country into the greatest country in the world.”

  “You mean white people, don’t you?”

  Turner, Danny could see, was still conducting the invisible symphony. He also could see that the reporter was unaware that she was being played like a fiddle. “Well, of course,” he said. “When the pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, the Indians were living in caves and cannibalizing each other and shooting bows and arrows. It was our European Christian ancestors who created modern America.”

  And here, he smiled, looking straight at Ms. Goldberg of the New York Times. “Well, my ancestors, anyway,” he said, his eyes like ice. “Perhaps there weren’t any Goldbergs on those pilgrim ships.”

  She looked completely shocked. “Mr. Turner! Are you actually saying Jewish Americans and Native Americans didn’t help to build America …?” Her voice trailed off. She looked like she might cry.

  Turner continued, as if instructing a misguided pupil. “Mizz Goldberg, I’m not putting anyone down,” he drawled. “I’m just saying everyone knows who built America. It was God, and it was us.”

  “By us, you mean white Christian people,” she protested, sounding defeated. She looked like she was going to be sick.

  Turner came back to life. “That’s right! Now you’ve got it.” He beamed.

  “And you don’t see that as the purest expression of bigotry?” she asked, quieter, now.

  Earl Turner smiled broadly. “Well, up here in Maine, we don’t think it’s bigoted to tell the truth. It’s just telling the truth.”

  The reporter looked stunned. She was speechless. “I don’t know …”

  Earl Turner’s smile disappeared. He leaned in close, so that she could feel his minty breath on her face. “Mizz Goldberg, there are two Americas,” he said, almost hissing. “You live in one down there in New York City, which has the highest rates of crime and poverty and drug addiction in the nation. You’ve got race riots and drug deals out in the open on the street, and you’ve got corrupt politicians and minority lobbyists demanding payoffs. You’ve got garbage on every street. You’ve got perversity and destruction. That’s what you’ve got, in your America. And you’ve been running things for a while.”

  He paused, then looked back at her. “But up here, in the other America, we don’t have any of those things. So we think it’s fair that we get to run things for a while, you know? We think we’d do a better job than, say, the Goldbergs have done.”

  The reporter was slumped forward a bit, now. She didn’t say anything.

  Turner, meanwhile, leaned back, smiling again. He pointed at the reporter’s coffee cup.

  “Danny, could you get Mizz Goldberg a fresh cup?” he said. “I think she takes it black.”

  He paused. He grinned.

  “I’ll bet she likes it black.”

  CHAPTER 19

  We were in the lobby of the McGill University residence, the morning after the gig — a successful one because no one in attendance had been murdered, at least as far as those of us in the Hot Nasties and the Punk Rock ­Virgins knew.

  Present were all of the Virgins, Sam Shiller of the Hot Nasties, Bembe Smith, and X. And me.

  Also present, perched on the arm of a ratty old couch, was Danny Lett, a writer with the Charlatan, the student paper at Carleton University in Ottawa. Lett had convinced Bembe Smith to let him interview us by suggesting he hoped to peddle the resulting profile to the Canadian Press. Bembe agreed.

  It was morning. All of us were exhausted from being up too late. We were pretty enthusiastic, however, about the first real media interview of the Nasties-Virgins tour. So we were all sprawled out around Lett, trying to appear and sound blasé.

  Lett was friendly and enthusiastic. “Thanks for agreeing to the interview, guys!” he said. “You were great last night. And I’ve loved your stuff for quite a while …”

  I immediately started doing my best to emulate John Lennon’s comedic approach to band interviews. “You wouldn’t love us when we’ve been worshipping Satan and dropping acid,” I said. “We’re not very lovable then.”

  Sam, laughing, joined in. “Or when we have been wrestling midgets in a Jell-O tank. Also, not so lovable.”

  “Got it,” Lett said, laughing. “Satan and midgets, band not lovable. So, it’s a cliché, but I have to ask: Where did the Hot Nasties’ name come from?”

  “A pornographic movie,” Sam said. “Seriously.”

  Danny Lett kept writing in a big notepad. “And the Punk Rock Virgins’ name?”

  “Irony,” Patti said, and she and Sister Betty laughed.

  “Got it,” Lett said. “Okay, then, how is the tour going?” He paused and got a bit serious. “You guys all had a rough year last year. Is this tour your first … since all that stuff happened?”

  Danny Lett was referring to the murders of Jimmy Cleary and Marky Upton — and the attempted murders of Danny Hate, Sister Betty, Sam Shiller, and X. Everybody’s jocular mood vanished.

  I offered up the answer we’d all agreed to in advance and which had been suggested by X: “We don’t really talk about that stuff so much,” I said. “But we just want to say we miss our friends a lot.”

  Danny Lett sounded genuinely remorseful. “Yeah, I’m really sorry about what happened to all of you. I can’t imagine what you went through,” he said, then speedily changed the subject. “What’s it like for the Nasties being signed to Stiff Records?”

  “It’s fucking awesome,” Sam said. “They’re great. They don’t tell us what to do, and they’ve paid us millions for our first full-length album …”

  Everyone laughed. “It’s a double concept album, about the meaning of life,” I said. “We’re calling it We Are Shit from Hell.”

  Danny Lett was clearly enjoying himself. “Nice title,” he said. “Subtle. Seriously, though, no complaints?”

  “Nada. All good.”

  “What about some of your fans — I’ve seen what they’ve written in punk fanzines — who say signing to Stiff was a bit of a sellout?” Lett asked. “Not as much as the Clash signing to CBS, but a bit … unpunk, just the same?”

  I shrugged. “It’s a fair criticism,
actually. Should a punk band sign to a corporate label? Other bands have to decide what they should do, but we felt pretty comfortable signing to Stiff …”

  “Stiff isn’t CBS,” Sam said. “They were the ones who discovered Costello, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, Devo …”

  “Lene Lovich,” Sister Betty added.

  “The Damned’s first single,” Leah said.

  “Agreed,” Danny Lett said, nodding. “They aren’t a traditional corporate record label. So, who writes most of the band’s songs?”

  “All of us,” Sam said. “Luke or me will write a tune, Kurt will write the words. Or the reverse. And Eddie participates in writing all the songs, too.”

  “Where are Luke and Eddie, by the way?”

  “They’re upstairs, out cold,” Leah said, giggling.

  “The Satan worship thing,” I joked. “We were up late making sacrifices to Lucifer.”

  “Gotcha,” Lett said, scribbling away. “Now, what about what’s going on in the U.S. these days? Us Canadians always have politics that is more progressive than what you have down there. But some of the stuff I’ve seen … wow. It’s pretty out there.”

  I immediately thought about Earl Turner and Danny. “Yeah, it’s fucking awful,” I said. “We’ve got actual fascism happening back home.”

  “That Earl Turner guy?” Lett asked.

  Sam frowned. “Yeah, him. The Klansman from our home state of Maine. And you can quote me on that: he’s a fucking Klansman.”

  “A sexist, racist, anti-Semitic pig,” Patti said.

  “What about the theory that punk rock flourishes when right-wing politicians are in power?” Lett asked. “That punk needs something to oppose?”

  “That’s like saying everyone who has a cold should use heroin, because it’s an analgesic,” I said. The others looked at me.

  Danny Lett looked surprised. “It is?”

  I glanced at X, who was looking unimpressed. “Yeah, it is,” I said, then loudly sniffed, deliberately, to piss him off. “Anyway, we are hopeful that Earl Turner isn’t going to win, and that the U.S. will go back soon to something resembling sanity.”