I SEE STRAW MEN everywhere. Behold, I am assailed by their crumb-dusty wagging fingers; lo, I am embraced by their scratchy arms. I think about punk rock, and what it is or was, and what it means or meant, and they close in, the straw men. “We don’t like punk rock!” they say on the one hand, and “We have misconceptions about punk rock!” they cry on the other. “Green Day counts as punk rock!” say some, while others, clad in Offspring T-shirts, holler about how punk has changed. Some of my straw men form an ideological grounding committee, scribbling post-its that read “change=growth” and “stagnation=death.” |