I was standing backstage while the Descendents were playing and a woman who looked to be in her mid 50’s slid up beside me and asked, “do you know this song?” I replied that I did not. With her fore finger pushed into an assumed dimple she offered, “Milo wrote it about me.” Then she sort-of swayed backward, still looking at me, and I with furrowed brow, went back over to watch the show. I have no idea what song was playing, and I have made less than zero efforts to figure out what she meant. I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with a suburban home because I do know that song and I joined the cheers when Stephen shouted into the microphone that he wanted to be stereotyped. I cheered because that song is great.

Gregg kept introducing me as his “best white friend”, which most people found amusing, or at least surprising, which was enough to keep Gregg encouraged. I didn’t mind because being introduced to Fletcher Dragge, the Bivona brothers, and Andrew Neufeld was too surreal for any sort of protest or even push-back. Surreal moments are, in my experience, lived out of body without much capacity for anything other than observation. This was all so very Dali-esque, but I kept my cool, mostly  thanks to ignorance. Because not only do I not know, Fletcher, the Bivonas, or Andrew, but I only sorta know of them.

Google them. They are famous.

Gregg is sorta famous. I say sorta in the sense that he has been featured full page in National Geographic, given two TED talks, has shown his art in the Smithsonian, and just this year his band Dead Pioneers opened for Pearl Jam, all of which should qualify him as solidly famous, yet I know him personally, and when I picked him up from the airport, no one else noticed. So that’s makes it sorta.

Gregg’s band was sharing the same bill as The Descendents, Bad Religion, Stiff Little Fingers, and as referenced by the introductions, Pennywise, The Interrupters, and Comeback Kid. I was on the entry sheet as “crew” which translates to “regular person who is a friend”. I didn’t really care how I was designated because I had an all access pass and fully intended to use it.

If you haven’t been to a large-scale punk show before, or haven’t been to one in the past 20 years, the thing that is the most striking is the average age. I’m guessing it’s 45. It would be older, but a surprising number of people brought very small children. I am not sure I have seen purer joy than what I saw on the face of a 6 year old girl as she rode her father’s shoulders while he swirled around the mosh pit and the Bronx screamed onstage. It was as if this old man’s knees were siphoning her cartilage and together they Voltroned into a 25 year old having the time of his angsty life. Not all the pits that weekend were child friendly, and there were elsewhere the expected display of people throwing kicks and punches at the air in too-close proximity to other people who were doing the same. Such always feel to me like siblings up past bedtime who simultaneously want to fight each other, but don’t want to get in trouble. Lots of acting out but no real depth of sincerity. Violence in a safe space. Faux danger.

I suppose there is a little bit of danger, but then again so much of this genre, this scene, is based around conjuring up stuff, or presenting things, that is only scary to those who don’t get “it”. Like satanism. There are lots of devil horns and Satan stuff, but the point isn’t Satan, it is that there are people who find Satan, a demon no one here has claimed to have ever met, scary. Scaring “them”, and we presume they are old white people, most likely our parents or even more likely anyone in charge, is the point. It amuses me. I feel it is a little bit like me making claw hands and saying, “rawr”, and somehow it scares people. Because punk does scare some people, and punks like that. It is in large part, the point.

Point.

Like spikes. Spikey hair, spiked collars, spiked pants. Lots of spikes. Points. All of the best punk music makes some sort of point, but far too often it is missed. Just like I missed the point that woman was making when she let me know she inspired Milo. There would be a rich irony there if I was also in charge of something, though I am a parent which puts me in the position to ponder something every punk of a certain age should consider, “Am I the they here?” Because at 45 you might be.

Any time this music moves beyond the backyard or dingy club, there is an inherent irony that needs to be confronted, but can’t, without deflating the whole balloon, when the point of all those spikes is to pop it. Such is evidenced by watching security. Once a crowd really gets going they rush the pit, or that little buffer space created by the metal fencing between the stage and crowd, not to quell any of the action, but to catch all the crowd surfers as they are passed forward. What I mean is that here, in this situation, rowdy people do something dangerous (jumping up on top of a crowd who then passes the person around up above their heads), and the system adjusts to make sure they land safely. When they act out they don’t crack their head on the pavement or get in trouble, they get helped back to their feet by beefy arms in uniforms so that they can run off side stage and go back for another dive. So is that still punk?

As I typed that, me, a parent, a middle aged cis-gendered straight white man, questioning what is or is not punk, I smirk. I should be mocked, or threatened, or punched, for simply asking that, let alone presuming to forward some sort of answer. But then again, I saw The Ramones perform in a back yard show in person. I have seen Stiff Little Fingers, Descendents, the Specials, all live. The Slits have been on my playlist for decades. This one time I swapped jokes with Jello Biafara. I filmed a mini Operation Ivy reunion on my iPhone and thanks to Gregg, I have spent time in the Interrupters trailer. Which trailer might have been the scene of the most contemporary punk act of the whole event.

We were all crammed in said trailer after Aimee and Gregg had sung one of those lead singer-guy in front row duets. By “We” I mean the Interrupters, which is a lot of people, Gregg, Josh (one of Gregg’s guitarists), the Bivona parents, and about 50 old friends and relatives, and also me. The trailer could comfortably fit 5 people. Only moments ago, during the set, if Aimee had held the microphone just two feet to the left, she would have exposed the only person in this crowd of ten thousand who did not know the chorus. That was me. And “this guy” is crammed into a trailer with actual fans and family, so I did the respectful thing and quietly slipped out of the oddly unsupervised door.

Once outside I sort of settled in next to some guy wearing a kilt who was on smoko and resolved to just wait till my friends came back out. After some time a  friendly guy I had not noticed before complimented my shirt. I was wearing all of my merit badges and actual Eagle Scout award sewn on a short along with a Black Lives Matter patch, the conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and patch sporting a covered wagon engulfed in flames below the words “Dead Pioneers”. I thanked him for the compliment and we chatted a bit. His wife was nearby entertaining a baby in a stroller and holding his hand was a little red headed girl who looked to be about 8. I asked what they were up to and he said they were just sort of waiting to see if the band might come outside and then his girl could say hello. It was her first ever concert and the Interrupters, and especially Aimee, was this little girl’s favorite. With a shrug of the shoulders I knowingly nodded back to the trailer and said, “ya know, no one is policing that door.” Dad smiled and responded that he was also teaching his daughter that rushing the trailer isn’t really good form. I pushed back a bit and said, “Is it good form to maybe get a guy who just came out of that trailer to personally take you back inside and introduce you directly to Aimee? Perhaps the lesson is to use the resources at hand?” To which he responded by looking down at the little girl and saying “Did you hear that honey? Always take advantage of the resources available to you.” I stepped back, opened the trailer door, and pulled the little girl and her Dad inside. Aimee was mid-story with a crowd of people, and I, with all my middle aged white man authority, interrupted, and introduced this little girl. Aimee obviously knew the drill and engaged the kid directly with her full attention. My job being done, and I having not been authorized in the first place, I slipped back outside. Ten minutes later Daddy and daughter came back outside faces beaming. She was holding a set list from the stage and he was beyond gracious.

That is what happens when punks get old, get jobs, and have kids. And I, with not a single tattoo or spike, loudly do things without permission or authority- though I am in fact riddled with privilege. So perhaps, or maybe, I shouldn’t be questioning all this. I am the very epitome.