Hello, reader. How are you doing? Have you ever identified as punk? I’ve been a zinester for a long time. Punk is part of that whole worldview.
If no one else is making the media you need, make it yourself. There’s no need to wait for experts. What’s an expert anyway? You can become one. No need for a degree or profession. Knowledge is free. No one needs to give you permission–form community and do it yourself. That’s the DIY life. Ming and I live that, with radical mental health, street medics, Food Not Bombs, activism, zines.
realness
I’m a lover, not a fighter. Love is for me and everyone. I work hard to feel grateful and love what I love.
That realness is such an important part of being alive. The flip side is to hate what I hate. And punk is like that. When I was a teenager, punk helped me hate capitalism, injustice, elitism, gross privilege, police violence, rich people who pay huge sums of money to maintain their comfort at the expense of everyone else.
I was the only kid at my school that I knew of, listening to the Dead Kennedys. Just the name alone–so irreverent. I’m all about love. But there’s a “fuck you” deep inside me, and that’s real too. I need all of that. Punk always nurtured the truth of that angry fuck you.
punk
I’m thinking about this because I was just interviewed by a scholar who’s doing an oral history about punk. We talked about zines and how punk plays out today.
Yes, I see punk in the work we do now. Its energy is a fire that still lights everything for me. The art I make, fat liberation, disability justice–all the ways I resist. No one gives me permission to love my fat, queer body. I do it myself.
I make art of naked fat women mostly–people with bodies like my own. How can I see myself reflected in the media, if by not making my own media? The world tells me I’m not valid, so I work hard to communicate that I am valid, and so are you.
The world may or may not be ready for this large tummy and wide thighs. Ready or not, here I come. I never would have become brave enough to make the art I need to make today, if not for seeds that were planted decades ago by punk.
we are seeds
Speaking of seeds, I was thinking about Chencho, this amazing folk punk band out of Los Angeles. They made one of my favorite songs Borders Crossed Us. The name of their album is We Are Seeds. They try to bury is, but we come up times a hundred, us and our babies, sprouting up from the earth, stronger than ever.
I asked my musician housemate if we could reverse engineer that song Borders Crosses Us, and I’m so happy because I think we can.
fest
Also, Dear Diary Zine Fest is coming up soon. That’s a special zine fest for perzines. I attended, years ago.
This time there’s a virtual component, and in person too. That was one of the best zine fests I’ve ever been to. What a beautiful job, bringing together so many brilliant per-zinesters. It was like heaven.
But I’m still crazy, awkward, socially overloaded, and sensory overloaded in about half an hour. Oops. My senses are weird. Sorry about that. I almost never go to punk shows for that reason. But I’m punk noneth less.
