I’m not too proud to admit that lately I’ve been going through an existential crisis of sorts- nothing to make me lose my mind, but still enough to keep me pre-occupied and often times paralyzed with apprehension and, in momentary but terrible flashes, outright fear.
I think it may have to do more with identity than anything- the age I’m at and the station in life I find myself seems to be pulling me in an infinite number of directions. I actively live a life of contradiction: I run, lift weights and commit to an hour of cardio exercise at least three times a week, but I find myself three nights out of the week (ok, sometimes five) in a smoky bar with a Wild Turkey in hand, stumbling home sloshed at 3 AM and barely making it in to work on time. Several times a day I’ll feel nostalgic, bordering on homesick for the place and people I grew up with, wanting to return to them and have my life coincide with theirs, yet several more times a day I’ll catch myself daydreaming about drinking wine and running with the bulls in Pamplona, or hiking ancient Mayan ruins in South America, fantasizing about hunting wild boar on the plains of Africa or riding out into the Outback on top of a fast horse, pushing it to see how far it can take me. I enjoy reading Hemmingway, his literal, choppy , coy and under explained prose challenging and rewarding me with his experiences and ideas, and at the same time I can read back issues of Iron Man comics never realizing six hours have passed by. I love TV and obsess over “Lost” and “The Wire”, yet I have periodic urges to sell all my possessions, build a cabin in the middle of the woods and live out my own Henry David Thoreau experience. I work an office job, I care about my work and success there, yet every time I think of living the rest of my life sitting at a desk with a tie around my neck bile rises in my throat. I want to move somewhere where it’s warm and all the people are happy and tan, but I enjoy ice fishing and the epic snowstorms that the Midwest brings. I’m being pulled in a million different directions, and I constantly have a feeling I’m missing out on something, missing out on great times and quasi-religious experiences I can’t quite seem to locate. I’m a man and a boy at the same time, and nothing has caused me to grow up, but nothing is preventing me, either.
Case in point: last Thursday I went to a NOFX concert. For those of you unaware, NOFX are the greatest punk band of all time, touring for over 20 years and have almost as rabid a fan base as you’ll find on planet Earth. They’re crass, loud, hilarious and unapologetic. Their music is filled with tales of twisted sexual deviants and junkies and politics and epic benders. One thing I love about them is how they can make the most disturbing, scary and anti-establishment ideas seem downright friendly, even fun.
On my way to meet a friend at the concert, I was listening to their album “So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes”. I’ve heard this album so many times singing along to it is second nature, but at one point I found myself singing along to the song “It’s My Job to Keep Punk Rock Elite”. The lead singer, Fat Mike, has made a point to mention this phrase several times in interviews in the past, and he means this literally, that he sees himself as a guardian of not only the music but the way of life, keeping it uncorrupted and as pure as possible. NOFX lives this in their careers- their videos don’t play on MTV, they’re not on a major record label, they don’t get much of any sort of mainstream radio airplay. Yet they’re probably the most popular punk rock band in the last 20 years, constantly selling out shows and selling very respectable amounts of albums.
It’s this dichotomy that I started to think about, and for the first time I honestly started to wonder if Fat Mike was talking about me in that song: a late-twenties office drone working a 9-5 job who golfs and is really into baseball with a 401(K) and a cat. Am I the type of person he’s trying to keep out of his shows, have I been singing along to songs and going to concerts where the joke has been on me?
This question was on my mind as I parked and got out of my car. In walking the few crowded city blocks toward the theater to meet my friend, these feelings were only reinforced. Groups of four and five kids would pass me by, almost skipping with anticipation and excitement to see the show. Punks who wore their lifestyle literally on their sleeves were abound- giant ironed green mohawks, shredded stained jeans, Doc Martens and Chuck Taylors, safety pins through cheeks and studs and chains hanging from every available spot. Leather jackets with Propaghandi and Op Ivy and Social Distortion patches pinned on, and even the occasional chick with the shaved head. Walking by a storefront window, I snuck a glance at myself: baseball hat with the brim pulled down low, a red hooded sweatshirt I probably got at Target, blue jeans and dirty shell-toed Adidas. No tats, no piercing, no blue hair or shit-kickers on my feet. In high school, I dressed like some of them, but I always kind of thought that was all a bunch of bullshit anyway. I was stone sober having just gotten off work, and I would be willing to wager that 90% of the people at that concert were either drunk or on some kind of narcotic. To say I was self-conscious walking into that theater among the Disillusioned and Tragically Punk would be an understatement.
Getting into the doors and meeting up with my friend, we got our hands on a couple cold tallboys and shot the shit for a few minutes, waiting for the opening act to come on. We chatted about nothing, but we were both thinking the same thing: Look how fucking young these kids are! What appeared to be fourteen and fifteen year-old kids stood huddled in the semi-darkness, smoking cigarettes and scheming on how to get their hands on some of the tallboys we sipped on. A kind of nervous anticipation floated about, everybody sizing each other up but careful not to stare, and it was at that moment that I realized one of my worst fears may have become true: I might be the old guy at the concert. You know that guy, hair a little thinning, second chin just creeping down, a little thick around the edges, out of place and making everybody uncomfortable.
The show finally starts and the opening act is what appears to be teenagers from Canada. Decent songs, nothing really jumps out. We stand towards the back, sipping our beers. Next up, No Use for a Name starts, and the tone of the concert changes. People rush to the front, the crush of bodies to the front intensifies, and I remember why I came. No Use are a solid band, and they play some of their older songs. When I hear “Justified”, I sing along and start to feel a little less self-conscious.
After about a half-hour, NOFX finally comes on. The crowd is on the verge of bloodlust, and they deliver. They seem to be in a good mood and drunk, and sound great. At one point, they give the crowd the option of picking their next set of songs: they could play seven consecutive songs from “So Long and Thanks for all the Shoes”, or they could play “The Decline”. The crowd overwhelmingly chanted for the Decline. They obliged.
“The Decline” is NOFX’s masterpiece- an 18-minute open rumination on, as a collective people, the lack of intellectual curiosity, corruption and indifference we suffer- the path that leads to ultimate acceptance of the situations we find ourselves in. It’s my favorite song, and what I believe to be their ultimate manifesto. I’m standing with my friend, finishing up my third tallboy, singing along, and Fat Mike steps up to the mic and trades off the last two verses with Melvin:
The human existence is failing resistance
Essential. The future written off. The odds are
Astronomically against us only moron and genius
Would fight a losing battle against the super ego.
When giving in is so damn comforting
And so we go on with our lives
We know the truth but prefer lies
Lies are simple. Simple is bliss.
Why go against tradition when we can
Admit defeat. Live in decline.
Be their victim of our own design
With status quo built on suspect.
Why would anyone stick out their neck
Fellow members of club. We've got ours.
I'd like to introduce you to our host.
He's got his and I've got mine.
Meet The Decline.
These last words hung in the air as El Hefe jumped up with his trombone and they came together to finish up the rest. Standing there watching them play, I suddenly became aware of where I was and what was happening. I scanned the crowd, watching the punks and the losers and the addicts and the drunks and the kids, happily jumping into each other and enjoying the moment.
I smiled to myself, because then I knew. And come to think of it, I already knew, but I had forgotten. The joke wasn’t on me- the joke was everything and everyone, and it only wasn’t funny if you forgot to look for the humor and the absurdity. This is why I grew to love their music- they had a singular ability to capture the absurd, exploit it for what it is and enjoy it. This is what I realized- it’s all one big fucking decline, we’re all headed down the same slippery slope, picking up speed as we go, and if you don’t enjoy the ride then you might as well be at the end already.
Here's video of the end of that performance:
The things I had been worrying about- the bullshit that kept me awake at night and distracted me from my work and the people I love- was all part of it. There is no separation, and the seemingly contradictory life I’d been leading up to that point was my slow decline. I had stopped enjoying it, enjoying the ride, and I think this is where I went wrong. It’s ok to forget sometimes- it’s easy as hell to do, but once it happens, things become unclear. Decisions seem harder to make, lines of morality and conscience seem to blur, and the world seems to take on a muddled, opaque tint. But if you can occasionally find ways to cut through that bullshit, whether it be through a hobby, a hike, rough sex, or balls-out Punk Fucking Rock- it’s quite grand.
Fat Mike wasn’t trying to keep me out- he was inviting me in, but he’s making sure it remains a safe place- a place for a bunch of people who think just a little too much for their own good to go to make fun of themselves, to enjoy getting drunk and sweating and slamming into each other without having to worry about all of the other bullshit seeping in.
I think the same thing was going through my friend’s mind, because pretty soon he was dragging me down into the crush of people in front of the stage, a swirling mass of unadulterated physical expression and symbiotic celebration. There’s no talking down there, just people crashing into each other, lifting each other in the air and passing them along, jumping and pulling and elbowing and bracing and sweating, enjoying the camaraderie of knowing that we’re all headed down hill, that the sled is picking up speed but look at us, by accepting it we’re able to celebrate the slide for what it is.
Meet my decline.
