Allow me to preface this by saying I am not a “proper” punk — contrariwise I am perhaps the most proper of punks. I don’t know anything about a “movement,” I don’t wear the punk “uniform” or neccessarily follow proper punk politics (I am a Republican for chrissakes) but does it strike anyone else as a little odd that there is a magazine called “Punk Planet”? My understanding, such as it is, of punk is that it was a rebellion against pretty much everything. Commercialization, abandonment, isolation…you name it punk was against it. I betcha they even eyed major record labels oddly, kind of like the old Haight-Ashbury crowd when the major labels came a callin’. So doesn’t it seem odd there’d be a magazine, with advertisements presumably, dedicated to being punk? I dunno, the whole thing just seems wrong. I would think punks would want to be independent…do your own thing and just enjoy the crowds and the music. I guess I’d be wrong.
Same goes for bikers. For a group of people who supposedly are all about individual rights and freedoms it seems pretty bizarre to me that they all dress exactly alike. I can understand it sort of in the old days, all someone could afford perhaps were jeans and a battered t-shirt…maybe a leather jacket to keep the wind out but now there are designer biker clothes…big bucks. Not to mention the Harley-mania. It seems to be a thing that bikers have to stop at every Harley shop they pass and buy a t-shirt. It’s cool in a way, it shows where you’ve been, but it seems a little like old folks in their motor homes having campground stickers plastered all over the back — and nobody thinks they’re cool.
Ah well, that’s just me, the all-purpose individualist. And by the way, if you’re ever at a Civil War event…I’ll be the one in blue…looking just like everyone else.