(no subject)
i'm reading this book by a guy called aaron cometbus. he's published a zine for the last twenty-five years, largely based in the East Bay SF punk community. this book is partially a compendium of some of the stories from that zine, but linked together to form a continuous narrative of when he and a rotating cast of drop outs, drug addicts, thieves and punks lived in a house called Double Duce.
it's really great. the book is written like his zine was - hand-written, all in capitals. lots of stories about him and his friends getting drunk, getting arrested, living in squalour, stealing, generally being punks. him living in the attic, writing his zine by candlelight on a desk made from empty milk bottles.
makes me want to break my computer, stave in my tv, sell my dvd player and just live on records and books from charity shops. steal food, buy second-hand clothes. because the whole thing about it, how he romanticises or at least renders idyllic what may sound like a harsh and difficult way of life, is the freedom it gives you. the whole idea of the zine, and the book, and the culture, is being able to take part in it and form it from the bottom-up rather than having to accept anything as given. he makes a speech to his various room-mates at one point, about how they should stop singing along to all those punk records like they really mean anything to them, but make their own songs instead and sing those. write their own culture and give it back to punk what they took out of it, by changing it and modifying it in line with their own lives.
that's what the book inspires me to do, and if getting rid of all the excess that makes it easy to sit here day after day and refresh facebook, dowload interchangeable mp3 files, mindlessly absorb television programmes, whatever, then maybe it's worthwhile. i know that the internet and television and so on can be worthwhile, but i also know myself, and how lazy and apathetic i am. so maybe i need to stop giving myself a choice.
hey, i can still get drunk and watch films at other people's houses, right? the library has internet. there's plenty of charity shops selling old scratchy records i haven't heard.
it's tempting.
it's really great. the book is written like his zine was - hand-written, all in capitals. lots of stories about him and his friends getting drunk, getting arrested, living in squalour, stealing, generally being punks. him living in the attic, writing his zine by candlelight on a desk made from empty milk bottles.
makes me want to break my computer, stave in my tv, sell my dvd player and just live on records and books from charity shops. steal food, buy second-hand clothes. because the whole thing about it, how he romanticises or at least renders idyllic what may sound like a harsh and difficult way of life, is the freedom it gives you. the whole idea of the zine, and the book, and the culture, is being able to take part in it and form it from the bottom-up rather than having to accept anything as given. he makes a speech to his various room-mates at one point, about how they should stop singing along to all those punk records like they really mean anything to them, but make their own songs instead and sing those. write their own culture and give it back to punk what they took out of it, by changing it and modifying it in line with their own lives.
that's what the book inspires me to do, and if getting rid of all the excess that makes it easy to sit here day after day and refresh facebook, dowload interchangeable mp3 files, mindlessly absorb television programmes, whatever, then maybe it's worthwhile. i know that the internet and television and so on can be worthwhile, but i also know myself, and how lazy and apathetic i am. so maybe i need to stop giving myself a choice.
hey, i can still get drunk and watch films at other people's houses, right? the library has internet. there's plenty of charity shops selling old scratchy records i haven't heard.
it's tempting.