Plight of the Pussy

Art by Lance White (lancewhite_cit on IG)

We were the Pussiest bunch of Punk Rockers you ever saw as we piled into Kelly Gillin’s wood-paneled Dodge Caravan with our dyed hair and ironic thrift-shop T-shirts. Growing up, Punks in movies had always looked so intimidating with their mohawks, leather jackets and safety pins stabbing through their noses. We were not of this variety. We were all pacifists, vegan or vegetarian, Straight Edge for the most part, with a high bar of moral standards to uphold. Our spiked bracelets were feaux and some of us even came from unbroken homes. Still, we felt like we were bad asses—we were on the way to see the greatest, most legendary Punk band of all time—

THE MISFITS.

Yet this show presented an ethical quandary for Pussies like us. It was 1999 and the Misfits were no longer in their prime. The real band had broken up years before and Glenn Danzig, the bands iconic mastermind, had been replaced by an imposter who—as legend had it—had never even listened to the original records before joining: Michale Graves. If we were Pussies, then Graves was King Cunt as far as we were concerned. But supporting him wasn’t that much of a strain on our principles; we were confident that if we sang loud enough, we could overpower Graves—though he was the one with the microphone—and keep our Pussy-like virtues intact.

Our main conflict with the show was the openers: Earth Crisis. How the hell were they playing with the Misfits?! E.C. was the band responsible for perverting everything we held dear about Punk and Hardcore. Going to the show meant we had to inadvertently give them money, so to us, this was like funding a terrorist organization! Something had to be done. We had to confront them… nonviolently, of course. It was the only way to justify going to the show, though it went against our Pussy-like natures.

Why did we feel this way? What sense did this make? Why couldn’t we just keep our stupid mouths shut and enjoy the show?

Earth Crisis were also Straight Edge and vegan, hated mainstream society and were pretty much into all the same stuff that we were, but they weren’t like us. While we were pacifists into nonviolent protest, their lyrics took the violent Hardline stance. To our ears, the song “Firestorm” was fascist propaganda instructing kids to round up drug-users for a Nazi-style extermination.

Also, it was pretty cool to not like them. My friends in the Tampa band Reversal of Man had gone as far as to parody “Firestorm” on a track called “Get the Kid with the Sideburns” in response to an altercation some of the members had with E.C. and their cronies in South Florida. ROM’s song called out Earth Crisis and their label Victory Records for all their hypocrisy and we thought it was awesome. Reversal received multiple death threats from the Hardline community, who warned them to never play the song again.

So, with all this in mind, I decided it would be a good idea for my Pussy Punk friends and I to bring a copy of the ROM record along for Earth Crisis to autograph. What could go wrong? Since our world view was as black and white as Marilyn Monroe’s final film, this could be like a Punk Rock version of an Old West showdown between good guys and bad guys, Punks against the jocks. With peaceful protest on our side, I was confident there was no way these guys would dare lay hands on me or my friends, especially if we weren’t violent first. Perhaps even a mature dialogue could be struck up on a few subjects as there was a rumor floating around that they didn’t even play “Firestorm” anymore. Maybe these guys had amended their ways? The open-minded Punk thing for me to do was to give them the “benefit of the doubt,” right?

The show was out in Daytona, an hour away from us in Orlando. We headed out early to scope out the beach. I didn’t bring a bathing suit, so I had no choice but to barrel out into the ocean in only my Hanes briefs. What kind of Punk wears whitey-tighties? A Pussy Punk for sure. I probably could have passed for another one of the town’s local perverts except for the pink dye streaking off my scalp and down my shoulders. Disgusted families shook their heads as I oozed up onto the shore like some kind of Punk Rock jellyfish… So much for their beach day.

Once this no longer amused us, I realized I also had no way to dry off, so Kelly—the smartest and ballsiest of our bunch—suggested that I walk into a souvenir shop and rub up against the beach towels on display. Ingenious! Once I’d completed this and had my soggy undies secured, we decided to head over to the only appropriate place to wait out the day for the mighty Misfits—a cemetery.

Surrounded by death, some of our other pussy Punk friends met up and we recounted the day thus far. A police chopper had followed Alex and Darren to Interstate 4, where they were headed off by a fleet of squad cars. Apparently, the pair thought it would be funny to point squirt-guns at people while driving. Squirt-guns! I told you we were lame. They miraculously got away with just a warning even though Columbine had only happened three months before. Somehow to us those victims at Columbine only felt like TV casualties, though we would know real physical violence soon enough.

We pumped ourselves up as we wandered through the gravestones, wondering what songs the Misfits were going to play, imagining how those Earth Crisis guys were going to react when we handed them the ROM record. One would think that a bunch of kids hanging out in a graveyard would’ve wanted some beers or weed on hand, but none of that shit was necessary… yet. We hadn’t hit the “Adult Crash” that Ian Mackaye of Minor Threat describes in their eponymous song.

After we’d ghouled it up—not long enough for my underpants to dry—we headed over to the venue in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Misfits before the show. We crept around the side of their tour bus only to see… their roadies. Well, that was something, at least. It looked like they were carrying in some heavy-duty equipment—perhaps guitar-player Doyle’s stacks of amps stenciled with the bands iconic Crimson Ghost skull logo?

Uuuuh—NO! It was workout benches and barbells!

So, instead of getting to hear our favorite band sound-check, we got to hear them grunt and scream in triumph as metal clanged on metal and the occasional weight dropped on the ground.

“Are they really lifting before a show?” we asked one of the roadies.

“Oh, yeah—they do this before every one.”

“Wow…” What the Misfits lacked in the form of Glenn Danzig, their estranged singer and songwriter, they made up for in… pumping iron?

Anyway, after a seemingly eternal stretch, we were finally admitted into the club. It was apparent from the start why the place was called Orbit 3000… Take me to your leader. The rave scene had just wound down, but somebody thought it was still a good idea to adorn the place with items from the bargain bin at Spencer’s Gifts. Black lights hung from every wall, poised over fuzzy posters portraying mushrooms and marijuana leaves. Careful around the corners, lest you step into a puddle of goo originating from a glow-stick or something worse. Ecstasy wasn’t as in as it was a couple years before, but that didn’t stop Daytona from hanging out after the party ended.

“Isn’t it weird Earth Crisis is playing this place?” It was fuckin’ hilarious—the world’s premier Vegan-Straight Edge band was practically playing in a head shop. Maybe it was all part of their genocidal plan to get all the douche-bags with Jnco’s and alien shirts in the same room for annihilation?I began to grow worried, but it was finally time for the show.

Earth Crisis took the stage. I stood close enough to read their set-list and “Firestorm” was in-fact nowhere to be seen… Maybe the rumors were true—perhaps they had amended their ways. I wasn’t into Earth Crisis’s set by any means, but, to either their credit or the shady contractors who built Orbit 3000, E.C. broke right through the stage! That was pretty intense. The sound-guys came out to make a haphazard reparation as impatience stewed among E.C.’s frenetic fanbase. After a miniature forever, Earth Crisis came back out to pound the place.

The crowd had maintained a consistent degree of insanity during E.C.’s set, but it was still manageable for a Pussy like me so close to the pit. I never felt like I was in any trouble I couldn’t maneuver myself out of—until the last song dropped—the one that wasn’t on their setlist. Those sneaky fuckers. They started playing their signature tune “Firestorm” and the whole place ERRUPTED. Bastards, I thought. So much for all that “benefit of the doubt” bullshit—they were still the same ‘ol human pieces of garbage, after all.

I looked back at my friends Bryan and Richard who stood stoic, their forearms drawn into Straight Edge X’s with middle fingers extended, lit cigarettes hanging from their mouths as they blew smoke up at the stage. Pussies that we all were, this was nonviolent protest at its finest. “Violence begets violence”—so said MLK and Ian MacKaye. That’s always true. Earth Crisis insisted to go the opposite way with their beliefs: “Violence against violence.” I tried to push my own Pussy-ish peaceful protest to the next level—we needed to make our position known. “FUCK YOU!” I screamed as I edged closer to the stage with my own middle finger masted. “FUCK YOU!!!” I continued to yell while their meathead fans screamed along.

Well, I wanted some attention and that’s exactly what I got. The bass player took notice of me and wasn’t bothered by the fact that I wasn’t enjoying the show—he was happy, grinning like a gleeful prick. He walked over to me, stopped playing his bass, and swung out at me, narrowly missing. I redoubled my middle-finger-isms and the malicious bastard swung out again—this time he made contact. Ow! Still, he saw I wasn’t going anywhere… that’s when he got really happy.

“Keep your fucking arm down!” he mouthed at me over the hateful din.

I defied my own Pussy-like-ways and stuck my middle finger right back up into his face. He swung again, but this time he smacked me right in the head, knocking the shit out of me. Holy fuck, I thought, flabbergasted—the dude had effectively put me in my place. The set ended and the assholes walked off stage.

Attacking anyone who’s opposed to them—that’s what Earth Crisis was all about. They should have quit music and joined the police force. I was in definite shock from what had just happened, but I vowed to have some fun during the Misfits set despite the glimpse I’d gotten of who we were really up against.

It took another eternity for the Misfits to appear. After the bozo stagehands were content that their perfunctory repairs were at least lawsuit-safe, the Misfits drummer, Dr. Chud, climbed his monolithic drum kit that stretched to the ceiling and started pounding away to a symphony of screams. Jerry Only and his brother Doyle, the only original Misfits present, stood illuminated at the side of the stage waiting to come out—each stood about eight hundred feet tall and looked amazingwith their signature Devilock hairdos and makeup. So what if they weren’t writing any good songs anymore? Lifting those weights had certainly paid off!

The brothers Caiafa marched on-stage to Dr. Chud’s epic introduction with their custom guitars and proceeded wreak havoc upon Orbit 3000. It was a blast—so awesome, in fact, that I’d almost forgotten about the bullshit that had ensued only a little while before.I was right in front facing Jerry, so from where we were standing, we didn’t have to see or hear Michale Graves—the poorly positioned P.A. actually helped the “real” fans instead of hindering them! We all sang along, belting out our best Danzig imitations for the classic tunes (“One Last Caressssssss!”), while somehow passing the time and ignoring the new, shitty ones. The band didn’t delve that deep into my favorite album, Earth A.D., but they did play their Metallica-style versions of “Green Hell” and “Die, Die, My Darling.” Then, at last, they got to one of the songs off the album which epitomizes what people love about the Misfits—“Death Comes Ripping.”

Death is the ultimate adversary of us all, especially Pussies like me, for whom it looms—or gapes—larger than life.

It’s easy to grow obsessed with this opponent. When I was a teenager, I was more interested in death than with its nemesis, life. That’s why records with skulls on them sell well—the Crimson Ghost or any other variant. Morbidity has its own currency, especially in young sexually frustrated minds. Everyone on this side of the ground wants to master this enemy known as death—dominate it, bend it to our will—so we try to trick it, make it believe we’re on its side. We party in its cemeteries, slap its face on T-shirts, buttons, badges, back-patches, butt-flaps. We try to entertain ourselves with the idea that if you can’t beat it, join it. Create your own death cult, fiend club or some other esoteric system of belief and use a skull as the logo—I guarantee you’ll get some followers. And why not? Skulls are just… cool.

For me, I never felt more in control of this inevitable foe as when I was hauling ass in my stepdad’s Toyota Corolla, blasting the unholy hell out of the Misfits’ Earth A.D. In that window-rattling volume which shook me by the collarbone, I found a life-affirming surge of survivalist supremacy that gave me the power to hold death at bay.

Living loud is the supreme defiance of death. This is and has always been the ultimate goal of Rock ‘n Roll since its inception in the Atomic Age: saying “Fuck You” to annihilation, itself.

That’s why Rock ‘n Roll is the greatest.

We need this volume. We need to feel tough, even if we are gigantic Pussies. Forget about Toyota Corollas—we’re all kamikaze pilots strapped to a planet zooming around the sun at breakneck speed in an expanding universe that’s eventually going to snap and implode on itself. With this in mind, it’s important to grasp some sense of power—to clasp a clamp on the chaos of existence. Hence:

“I want your skull—I need your skuuuuuuuul!”

At first it was baffling that these two disparate bands were playing the same show, but now I think I understand: it was the law of attraction. It’s why we were all there. These guys were all Pussies, too. Death defying and wishing we were tough is what brought all of us together.

Regardless of all that, the Misfits played a great set. The show was over, and it was time to take a stand against our enemies, Earth Crisis…

I addressed my friends, all clitoral nerves. “Okay—who’s gonna bring the record up to them?”

Nobody said a word, but then—

“I’ll do it!” Kelly, who once again had way more balls than any of us, yelled as she grabbed the ROM record and sauntered up to Earth Crisis to ask for the autograph. She had absolutely no fear as we hung back on the peripherals. 

“Hey, Mr. Earth Crisis—” She approached Karl, the singer, feigning star-struck awe. “—will you please sign this?”

It was amazing to watch the transformation on Karl’s face as Kelly handed him the record sleeve. At first, he was grinning, but as soon as recognition dawned, his stage-shattering smugness twisted into mortified hatred. “What the fuck is this shit!?!?” he screamed, beckoning the attention of his goons. He began to tear the record sleeve to pieces (with some effort, as I recall) while Kelly wisely backed off, a smile plastered to her face.

We completely lost our shit.

“You think this is funny, you fuckin’ pricks?” It was my friend again—the bass player.

“Yeah, it’s funny,” Sam, who was soPunk he didn’t need any product in his hair to spike it up, spoke up.

The bass player gave Sam a shove—always the mark of someone who hopes they can just intimidate their foes away. Then the bastard picked up a stack of bundled newspapers and hurled it at Sam, but Sam jumped out of the way just in time—the papers only clipped his shoulder as they sailed past and nailed me instead. One of the other members was starting shit with Darren who was, like, four-feet tall, and that took away any doubt that these guys weren’t fellow Pussies.

The situation was amping up—people were screaming and yelling. It was apparent that we were about to get our asses kicked. Pacifism hadn’t prepared us for anything like this; trying to prove our point—whatever that was—was about to get us stomped.

It was then that every Pussy’s savior showed up. Flashes of red and blue pierced through the parking lot, alternating with my thoughts: GODDAMMIT!/THANK GOD!/FUCKING COPS!/WE’RE SAVED! The pigs had compounded the chaos and cracked open a narrow window of opportunity for us to escape with our asses intact. I hated all cops at the time, but because of them, at least we weren’t going to get our teeth kicked in. It was another moral dilemma, but such is the plight of the pussy…

Amid the pandemonium, I grabbed up the scattered remains of the ROM record cover to give each of my friends as a keepsake, then we bolted back to Kelly’s van. My blood boiled all the way home to Orlando. Impotent rage and unrequited adrenaline pulsed through my body as I wished absolute death unto mine enemies known as Earth Crisis. Pacifism had begat violence, but now pacifism was dead. I had succumbed to the violence cycle, become an active participant in the Legacy of Brutality, if only in my mind. Did I really think I could just Mephisto-waltz into a trippy black-lit room full of tough-guys and expect to be immune from their martial law?

Glenn Danzig was a kid with an artistic streak—a Pussy in other words—who defied his own Pussyism and shaped the world to his will. Legions of people have joined his crusade against death by joining his bands, growing a Devilock, or tattooing the face of Death right on them in the form of the Crimson Ghost. He’s an inspiration to all of us, though you can see where going too far with the tough-guy image landed him after the entire world witnessed him getting knocked out with one punch on Youtube. So maybe it’s good to admit when you’re a little bit of a Pussy?

Glenn has stated that his band after the Misfits, Samhain, was a “darker, blacker understanding of the world—why it works the way it does… and has for endless centuries.” That show was my own equivalent, an apocalypse of my idealism. Later, I would realize that Earth Crisis had actually covered my favorite song “Earth A.D.” on a tribute album to the Misfits entitled Violent World, which it definitely is, alright. Still, I walked away with one good takeaway from the night besides my piece of the Reversal of Man record cover: the exterior part of my Pussy-like persona—which is called the vulva, I just found out—got a liiiiittle bit tougher.