Joe's blog is essentially a forum in which intelligent and dumb Internet-rovers alike inquire whether random entities, issues, modes, affairs, situations, phenomena (I just Thesaurus'd the word "thing," btw), etc. could/would be considered "punk." What gives Briggs the right to determine, with absolute verity, what would merit the approval of such a contentious classification? Basically, because he is brilliant. But also, because he clearly fucking loves punk rock. Fact: this is the best combination of traits a human being can possess.
A case in point of his wonderfulness is his answer to a request from an anonymous reader to "Tell me how to punk." This is something everyone should read, punk-lovin' or not: it's a heroically true account, at once stunningly personal and thoroughly universal, that gets at the heart of what it means to love this silly, loud, ugly/beautiful music. If you're a punk fan, you might cry. If you're not, you might wanna become one.
Tell me how to punk.
Anonymous asked
Argue about who would win in a fight between Kathleen Hanna and Wendy O. Williams. Buy a copy of Aaron Cometbus’ Double Duce and love it then lend it to all your friends who don’t get it and think it’s depressing they live in a shithole and destroy themselves rather than energising and inspiring. Feel weird. Feel alone. Do a weird manic shuffle around your room to World/Inferno until the people downstairs think you’re having an epileptic fit. Start a zine, never put out an issue. Wear dumb shitty clothes and pretend it’s a statement. Make statements and pretend you’re just being dumb and shitty. Learn how to play a bunch of pop-punk songs and forget the words even though there’s only four lines. Give yourself a name like Johnny Fucknuts or Joanie Nutfuck and have no-one call you it. Read Cometbus some more, drill Punk Rock Love is… into your head convinced it’s the most perfect piece of writing ever and then actually fall in love and it’s nothing like that at all but it’s still pretty goddamn amazing even if she doesn’t share your appreciation for the finer subtleties of mid-90s chicago punk. Connect with a bunch of sarcastic oddballs on the internet who live hundreds or thousands of miles away. Fuck your throat up when you’re drunk trying to sound like the guy from Dangers. Sound like an idiot when you’re down and trying to sound like Billy Bragg. Know exactly where punk started and where it started for you. Self-mythologise, self-deprecate, get bored and write songs about getting bored. Like Black Flag. Spend money you don’t have on vinyl. Get irked by metalheads. Crush on someone who’s dead now. Learn what anarcho-syndicalism is. Whisper ‘me’ to yourself when Jello Biafra ask “Who’s that kid at the back of the room?” in In-Sight. Be cynical. Get angry. Get wasted at a boring sXe hardcore show. Stand sober at the back of a Beerzone show because you just can’t get into it right now and you take the bus home worried that maybe you’re falling out of love with punk rock and what the fuck are you gonna do now. Hear a BTMI! song 12 hours later and laugh because it still means so so fucking much. Know what BTMI stands for. And CBGBs. And ACAB. And KARP. And you. Get jealous that you’re too broke to go to Fest. Dance in the backrooms of pubs and in house shows and fall over and get picked back up. Misalign your headbanging and crack heads with the guy in front of you by accident so later you’re not sure if the sheer fucking awesomeness of the band blew you away or if you’re just mildly concussed. Start a band. Start another zine. Start a stupid fucking blog. Get annoyed by hippies. Get annoyed by punks. Love them all anyway. Be stupid. Be smart. Be a cunt. Scour blogs for new bands. Throw them at people until a couple stick. Have a favourite Japanese hardcore band. Have a favourite European neocrust band. Have a favourite Jawbreaker album. Have a favourite Clash song. Fetishise duct-tape. Have a favourite Ramone. Have it be Dee Dee. Lament that you were born too late, be happy you were born right when you were. Build something. Burn it down. Stomp through the ashes until they billow up and get caught in your throat like a Cock Sparrer song so you fall to your knees retching and coughing and tears streaming from your face and all your friends laugh at you, drink a glass of water. Feel a little better. Feel a little better. Feel a little better. Do none of this shit apart from maybe the last one every time you play one of those songs, those songs, the ones written by the same sort of twat that you are.
Or you know, just spike your hair and listen to The Casualties and tell your parents and/or guardians to fuck off.
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