Punk is Dead

I first met George in the grimiest club on the west coast, during my only overdose. Word on the street was that his band was set and ready to turn the whole world upside down. As a whole we, that is the people that made up the newly dubbed "punk" scene, were sitting on the cusp of having to hate ourselves. See our whole idea was to fight, with art and activism (but mainly art), against what we didn't believe in, both socially and politically. Socially the main issue was the elitist and discriminatory pseudo-caste system economics and traditional values re-enforced. We, again the "punks" , were right on the edge of enforcing this ourselves. We were dangerously at risk of losing sight of the goal and soul of our movement and instead becoming the waste of potential our parents called us, and having our hair and clothing become a fashion statement instead of a social one. This was something I couldn't stand for, and if George and his band were half the savior they were cracked up to be, this was a man and a band I needed to represent.

1984 was of course Orwell's fabled year of oppression and at this point it didn't seem too far off. Maybe we were wrong but oppression seemed to be knocking, so we wore our leather jackets and jeans to show how uncaring we were, and shaved our heads into mo-hawks, and distorted the guitars, and sometimes, to really prove a point, we didn't clean the bathrooms. This bathroom filth was readily apparent as I brought my face down to sink level.

Now none of this is to say I considered myself a punk, I didn't. I considered myself a producer, but the trick to making money off the punks was to assume the role of one. Maybe I didn't have all the punk beliefs but I needed to have their trust. No I wasn't a punk, but in the fogged mirror of memory it is hard to see where my act ended and actual self deceit, and perhaps even outside conversions began.

At sink level my nostril searched against the splattered porcelain for the neat line of powder I had laid out. One aspect in which I truly was a punk was the drugs. Punks may have loved drugs, but I lived drugs.

One nostril plugged, a sucked hard. Moving my head down the line I felt that wonderful burn in the back of my sinus, and as I finished my line the buzz kicked in. Euphoria was now the name of the game and I was one top of the world.

I bumped the swinging door open with my hip as one hand rubbed under my recently used nostril and the other hand slid a little bag of powder into my pocket. My eyes searched the moshing crowd for a familiar face, for a friend, but not anyone in particular. Quickly though, I remembered the task at hand: getting a client and also saving punk.

I sat down at the table George had agreed to meet me at. The music was loud and angry, the singer really just screaming, the drummer completely out of touch with any sort of time, the kind of stuff the crowd loved and of course the crowd was going apeshit. I tapped my finger on the table, I checked my collar was straight. I didn't dawn the leather simply because even punk business, was business.

I didn't have a wonderful sense of time during the wait but it felt like over fifteen minutes had passed. Not wanting to risk losing my high for the meeting, when nobody was looking I railed another line. I blinked hard as it was hitting me, and on the other side of the blink was George.

"Hello hello." I held out my hand for him to shake.

"What did you think of the set?" He asked sitting down, setting his drink on my table.

"It was amazing!" This was a complete lie. I hadn't noticed the set. I was under the impression that they had not yet played. Could I let him know about the misunderstanding? No. Did it really matter to me? No. "I'm going to cut to the chase, there is no one on the market like you and I want to get you on our label."

"No."

I laughed at what I thought was a joke, further confusing me he laughed too. When the laughter died down I went on with my proposal, "Our offer is simple, we want an album and a US tour then we can talk renewal. You will retain full creative control."

"No."

I started to laugh but he wasn't smiling. "You're serious?"

"Yeah I'm not interested."

"Well we are making a generous offer, we are even letting you keep the controversial name."

"What is controversial about George and the Horse Fuckers?"

"Mainly the 'and the Horse Fuckers' part."

"Is it that?"

"Yeah it is that."

He paused. "Ok I can almost see where you are coming from. Nonetheless I don't want any deal, or anything from you. I also don't want to have wasted your time. A friend of mine gave me a tip that you like to party?" he made a universally understood gesture indicating he meant cocaine, tapping his nostril slightly.

"I do love cocaine, yes."

George pulled out his own bag and poured two large piles of a slightly darker powder on the table. As he thinned them out into lines he explained, "There's just a little heroin in this. Gives it a kick I think."

I didn't care. I snorted it anyway. That is when the overdose began. My memories fade in and out, but the ending is clear.

I ended up behind the club. George was getting head from a prostitute, and I was bragging to the pimp about how much cocaine (and little bit of heroin) I was on.

"So you are cool then?" the pimp asked me.

"Yeah. Yeah I am cool."

"Not one of these punk assholes?"

"No that ain't me."

"You ever smoke rock?"

"Rock?"

And that is when I smoked crack while someone I had just met received oral sex from his prostitute ten feet away.

My heart started racing. I was freaking out. It was too much, I fell to the ground and lost consciousness.

I came to in an ambulance rushing me to the hospital. I looked at George who was standing over me and said the simple truth that was facing us all that night, "Punk is Dead."