When I was a strapping young lad in junior high, I used to love to listen to punk rock. I loved it for its simplicity, its aggressiveness, and its anti-establishmentarian views. Now that I have grown, both physically and intellectually, I look back on the music that shaped my youth and I’m disappointed in its stupidity.

Not only is the music itself simple enough for a three year old to play, but the actions it inspires in the listener; violence, hate, anger, are just plain stupid.

I was at a punk show in my home town at the Half Moon Bay Community Center about a month ago, and the kids at this show were acting, well…stupid. During one band’s set they began with the usual moshpit, which I have no qualms with, I love moshing and dancing as much as the next guy, but amidst this particular pit one kid thought it would be funny to toss the body of a previously dead bird onto the dance floor. As the kids kicked and stomped on the lifeless body I immediately became disgusted with these “punk kids”. Eventually a young local girl picked up the bird and properly disposed of it, and I walked over to shake her hand and congratulate her for being respectful and thoughtful.

Soon after this incident, the kids then began dragging a table from the side of the room into the moshpit. I struggled to push the table back to the side, just to notice another kid was swinging a skateboard through the pit. When the kid stepped to the side, I politely asked him to put the board down warning he might seriously hurt someone. The kid scoffed at me and turned to his friend to encourage him to grab a chair and swing it around the pit. Soon all the kids began to single me out of the crowd, trying their hardest to pick a fight with me.

These incidents continued throughout the night until eventually the adults in charge stopped the show and told everyone to go home. These events are great evidence that the ideals of punk have been squandered by stupidity. I remember a time when the punk scene was centered in unity against a common evil, the government and the police, nowadays the kids in the scene act no different than the authorities they claim to reject. In a world where our government is more aggressive than ever, it’s extremely sad to see the people who supposedly reject this government are acting in the same aggressive state of mind.