Saturday, February 21, 2009

This is my (extended) take on an alternate version of the 'choose life...' monologue from trainspotting.

The sad punk

Say fuck you.

Get pissed off.

Use all the swear words you know and make up some new ones. Roll them off your tongue and into the ears of the girlboymanwomanpersonsocietysocialmovement that’s pissing you off. Give them the peace sign to their back, but put your index finger down first. Say yes, no, give them the contrary answers to what they’re looking for. Don’t be someone’s salvation, be their destruction. Be someone’s pathos, ruin lives. Break things, cause a disturbance; wear Doc Martens and studs. Defy societal expectations; drink ethanol instead of vodka, meths instead of gin. Go nowhere in life, maintain a vegan lifestyle, be an active member of a society for the protection of something or the other.

Wear a leather jacket the entire time and pretend you’re not a hypocrite. Have a smart mouth, better yet have a foul one. Choose to be different, choose to stand out. Choose to live up to the clichés of society's perception of you. Be unique, be like all your unique friends; remember to talk about the differences between you and the mainstream (you’re not sheep like them; that gives you the rights to mock). Listen to metal, punk, and oi! Listen to nothing but Oi Polloi and The Exploited. Get high (take acid, mushrooms, weed or e) and think impressive thoughts that could solve the worlds problems if someone only put them into action (though that person sure as hell isn’t going to be you). Ignore the inevitable frustration of being seen as a second class joke, doomed to never be taken seriously. Get drunk every weekend and throw up on girls while you’re fucking them, let the sweat and vomit wash over both of your bodies. Be disgusting.

Go to university to learn better ways to say ‘screw you’ to the man. Laugh at the corporate shills who make passive aggressive threats when you get their coffee orders wrong at the machine your dad got you a job at. Realise that the best way to bring it down is to take stabs from the inside, internal bleeding has always killed our best and brightest. Let a few years go by. Start wearing chucks, act like you never claimed they made from the souls (soles?) of exploited Chinese children. they're only shoes, fuck off you're still cool (or anti-cool, pick which ever one validates your self esteem problems more). Get a degree, first in class. Doing well in school is punk, it's whatever you want it to be at this point. make a five year plan even though the only plans you used to make were to get drunk and dumpster dive.

Get a job at a big firm where no one cares what your agenda is, tell everyone that you're still going to bring corporate New Zealand (now there's an oxymoron for you) down to its knees. Hide the fact that you love the health benefits, Christmas bonuses and communal coffee. Not to mention Amy from Human Resources who always signs her name off with a little love heart and a smiley face. But she only likes Menchildren who wear ties, she hates tattoos, punk and boys who wear the scars in their hearts on their faces. So the plan for the back piece go on hold for now, but when things don't work out you can always still get it later.

Your first date you feel like an asshole as you try to think of polite conversation to make, but you feel like a Goddamn king when she lets you kiss her at the door. Let the decades speed by, stretching out your skin like the torn insides of a rabbit that couldn't make it across the road in time. You know, the one that's slowly leaving a trail of blood down highway 74 on the wheels of exhausted cars. Support the wife so she can stay at home and raise your family, watch the kids at Wednesday sport and place an disproportionate amount of importance on insignificant details; like when that punk kid at work got your coffee order wrong.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ok it is offical you write really good i love all the work that you do and i hope you write more to each of these stories on this page and as soon as you do i would love to read them.