Your Scene Has No Iconography, Man

"The problem is your scene has no iconography, man." I wink at the kid behind the counter at the record shop where I happen to buy my comic books every Wednesday.

Back up now two, three minutes ago. Said kid is ringing up my pull list as I notice in my pre-stoned, post work miasma a button on his leather jacket. It looks like the old Crass logo. I inquire if it is in fact so. The kid looks, well politely baffled as those charged in the register jockey sector of economy do when asked an awkward question. He tells me in fact that no, this is not the logo to Crass but rather the symbol to a hardcore punk bad hailing straight out of Sweden.

"Oh." I stand corrected and with a laugh add, "To be honest I never got that about the Swedes."

The kid looks up sullen between punching up Scott Snyder's Batman origin reboot and #1 of the Secret Avengers and grunts a huh.

"I mean what do the Swedish have to be pissed and rebel against? A 100% literacy rate and universal healthcare? Shiiiiit."

Which is when said kid gets snide about my Black Flag shirt still sweaty from the gym where I wrestle with my impending mortality while daydreaming about tattooed soccer moms. Something about Rollins being an old cynical sell-out and that the 80s are over with all our TV parties tonight long gone.

So that's when I can only point at the Swedish hardcore band who appropriated the Crass Cross and with the smug pride of an aging scenester who's earned his opinion by many a pit induced black eye state that you gotta respect the source and doubly so if you're appropriating it to empower your own particular brand of countering culture.

I puff out my chest and inflate the four vertical black bars while explaining that 80s punk had something the other punk scenes never managed. Not the Pistols or the Ramones before us, not the Green Days or Bouncing Souls that followed. The 80s mastered a sense of the sigil, an emotionally charged symbol that within itself contained the j'nais se quois of the band's sound. The retro B-movie Crimson Skull of the Misfits, The sharp angles of a D/K combined into one singular rune that instantly conveyed the Dead Kennedy's surf-punk anti-agitprop, four black bars instantly showing across a million t-shirts the black flag of anarchy or even the Moebius loop of a cross that feeds into both circle that binds it along with the slash that negates it telling the subconscious mind with a glance that the process of denying the system is perpetual and without end.

The kid blinks at me - once, twice, three times - and speaks:

"Your total's $19.85."

"A very good year." I laugh pulling out my debit card and rolling my eyes, "It was all Crisis on Infinite Earths and In My Head at the same time."

The kid swipes my card and I punch in my PIN snorting at a joke no one gets anymore.

But it's alright. The next night, I sit at the Yacht enjoying a Jameson's along with the company of the Princess and Nurse Feisty. The bar's got something old on, something fast, angry and filled with a promise as eternal as it is impossible. I close my eyes enjoying the cigarette and the buzz and for a moment I'm exactly where I promised I would be at this age some 29 years ago.

Well fuck it, just another dispatch from an old man biding his time on the corner of Nostalgia and Oblivion.

Scenes from my Real Life:

So there I am, off work early and cruising down Clairmont Road while grooving to One Step Beyond on 88.5 FM. I'm rolling up to a red light when the DJ drops 'Monkey Man' by The Specials. Oh hell yeah, I think cranking the volume up. The windows open. A cigarette lit. The crisp sunlight muted film noir grey by the wrap around shades. But then the music off the radio starts to kick in with a tinny reverb, like all of a sudden a hitherto unknown speaker in the car just kicked in for this song and this song only.

But no. Look over. There's a blood red sports car to my left, it's blasting the same song off the same station and in the passenger seat, banging a tattooed hand against the door to the beat sits some dude in a Heisenberg hat, with thick bushy sideburns and also wearing wrap around shades. He's skanking as hard as a man can skank in the passenger seat and he looks over at me all of a sudden as if just realizing I'm there and catching the same song off the same station gives me a knowing nod.

I nod back with a subtle crank of the dial and take a slow drag off the Camel.

The light turns green.

The blood red sports car zooms left and I fire straight down the avenue. Two graying monkey men cruising into the Friday afternoon where who knows what shenanigans await.

Ready for the Weekend:

The Continuing Crisis: