Rage inside the mansion

I'm going tonight to hear a punk rocker expound upon his views on atheism. Usually, I love it when people self-identify as punk rockers. It actually seems to fly in the face of punk to self-identify as a punk, at least after 1973 or so. But punk itself flies in the face of everything, does it not? So I give punk rockers the benefit of the doubt when they identify themselves as such. And whenever I see a mohawk or a tartan flannel, I view it totally without irony, as surely the wearer intended.

Sometimes, when I listen to "punk" music, it sounds more like New Jersey hardcore to me, but maybe it's just my untrained ear. I was always into sad music than angry music, and thus I rock out to people like Paula Frazer. When I met Paula Frazer once, we were having such a nice conversation, downstairs at the Knitting Factory, but then she mentioned that her guitarist was playing a gig upstairs from us. "Oh," I said, "the guy with the big head?" She frowned. "Yes, the guy with the big head." To frown at a mean statement is not punk rock in my book! But I still love you, Paula Frazer. Or Tarnation. Or whatever you are calling yourself today.

I decided to make a punk rock statement with my outfit to hear this lecture tonight. So I am wearing my "punk rock pants," a green, utilitarian number that wouldn't really be out of place on St. Mark's Place. But I paired it with pastels! To me, fruiting an outfit up makes it even more punk - as what is more punk rock than those rock 'n' roll gays, and their alley-dwelling, crotch-diving, lady-evading ways? But, again, I have an untrained ear. And perhaps I did take this outfit too far, with the purple shoes.

Punk rockers apply their principles, I find, unevenly in their own lives. For example, the rocker I am going to hear tonight certainly has a punk personality, but he insists on staying at the Taj. What do you call that? "Rage inside the mansion?" Whatever, I will be dressed for the occasion, in my own way, and, believe it or not, on the inside, I will be rocking out, just a little.