KHCP Track #2: “Punk Life”
The punk life / it keeps me goin’
Not too long after that night, I threw myself into punk with the fervor only a fifteen year old can achieve. I rid myself of the clothes I still had from my bizarre grunge-hippie phase, such as my flared jeans. (Because, as Joe Strummer once said: “Like trousers, like brain.”) I bought an Exploited “Punks Not Dead” poster at the record store downtown, and taped it to my bedroom wall. (This caused some hilarious arguments between myself and my mom, but that’s a story for another time.) And I wrote in my journal: “I wanna start hanging out in Kenosha. All the cool punk rock guys are there.”
I wrote that because of the show I’d gone to, and also because every time I went to Kenosha, I saw some punk rock boy, all chains and dirty, ripped-up pants, loitering on the steps of some building or other. There were lots of rude boys there, too, decked out in two-tone creepers and porkpie hats, plus the skinheads in boots and braces. There were punks and rudies in Racine, but I didn’t know any of them yet, and for the most part it seemed like our coffeehouses and YMCA shows were overrun by emokids. Don’t get me wrong — I liked much of the music known as emo at the time (when I was being self-deprecating, I referred to myself as an emokid). I still hadn’t gotten over my crush on the emo boy. But I had grown tired of the Emo as a Thing. When you boiled down the complex noise and poetic lyrics, they were about how brokenhearted the poor, sensitive straight-white-boy singer was. At least punks have the tendency to be somewhat aware of the world and its ills, and the music reflects that. It’s more “fuck racism, fuck poverty, fuck religion, fuck you,” whereas emo is more “my girlfriend dumped me and I’m really, really hurt.” And at least in the punk scene it is somewhat acceptable for girls to be just as dirty, loud, and angry as the boys are.
And, well, I was more drawn to punk — to its aesthetics, its sound, its trappings. Crushboy notwithstanding, I found punk boys more attractive than emo boys. Black leather jackets covered in studs, tight black jeans with the knees all worn-out and shiny, and mohawks dyed unnatural colors, were sexier to me than ill-fitting thriftstore clothes, Mr. Spock haircuts, and striped Ernie shirts. Not to mention the punk rock girls; spiky hair that I wanted to run my fingers through, patched-up hoodies, little plaid skirts worn with fishnet stockings and big stompy boots and all that jewelry like armor… (Every time I saw a punk rock girl, I thought: “Do I want to be her or make out with her?” Usually, it was both.) I was drawn to the sound of punk, which had, to quote Rebecca Solnit, “a tempo and an insurrectionary intensity that matched the explosive pressure in my psyche.” And its trappings, the things that punks did when they weren’t playing music, those appealed to me, too — getting wasted, smashing shit. I know, those are some of the more boneheaded aspects of punk, but god, they were great outlets for the explosive pressure in my psyche.
I spent years trying to figure out why Kenosha had more of a punk scene and Racine had more of an emo/indie rock contingent. When you look at the towns, they don’t seem like they should be that disparate. They’re only ten minutes apart. They’re both medium-sized cities in southeastern Wisconsin, on the shore of Lake Michigan. They were both once company towns — Kenosha belonged to the American Motors Corporation (later Daimler-Chrysler-Jeep), Racine to Case and Johnson’s Wax. They’ve always had a rivalry — each town claiming that the other is worse — which seems silly to outsiders. Once, while I was riding the Metra train from Chicago back to Wisconsin, someone across the aisle from me asked if I was from Kenosha. “No,” I said, “Racine.” “Eh, not much difference, is there? They’re both dirty old towns.” In recent years, Kenosha has been revitalized in a way Racine hasn’t, but back in the ’90s, they were both rundown. I eventually came up with a theory to explain the Kenosha punk vs. Racine emo thing. It was that Racine, being closer to Milwaukee, was more influenced by the Milwaukee scene (which, in the ’90s, leaned more toward the indie/emo end of the spectrum). And Kenosha, being closer to Chicago — as well as being one of the stops on the Union Pacific North Line of the Metra (Chicago’s commuter train system) — was more influenced by the Chicago scene (which leaned more toward the punk/hardcore end).
But in 1997, when I wrote that journal entry, I didn’t care why Kenosha had the punk scene. I only knew I had to start hanging out there. And I did. I convinced my parents to drive me, or I took the bus. By 1998, I was driving there by myself. Over time, Kenosha began to feel more like home than Racine did. I felt at home in the half-dead downtown, walking the grey streets, gazing into empty storefronts. I felt comfortable sitting forever in one of the many 24-hour diners, where I drank coffee until I was twitchy and hyper; often, a punk showed up and talked to me, or at least gave me the punk rock nod — that silent gesture that acknowledged “you’re one of us!” In Kenosha, I felt like I was one of the punks, part of the scene. I felt more at home there because I didn’t live there, because I had no history, yet, with the people there. I could be who I wanted to be, rather than the person I was expected to be. I went to as many shows as I could. Sometimes, Chicago bands came up to play shows in Kenosha, and that was awesome. 1998 was also the year I fell in love with Chicago and the Chicago scene, and I couldn’t always make it to Chicago for shows, but I could usually find a way to Kenosha. I saw Chicago bands like The Arrivals and Deal’s Gone Bad, and local bands, raging hardcore acts like URBN DK, Pistofficer, and Despite. I lost myself in the pit. I flirted with yummy yummy punk rock girls and boys. I found the secret places to get wasted, and the older punks who didn’t mind buying a teenage grrl a 40 oz. bottle of malt liquor in exchange for some conversation. I gave them money, they stepped into a corner store and procured booze, then we ducked into alleys or sat on park benches. We drank and smoked cigarettes, and talked. I told them about my favorite bands, the ones that weren’t from Kenosha or Chicago, and they affectionately teased me for being so into pop punk. And they told me stories. Stories about how much wilder the Kenocore shows were back in their day, or stories about their brushes with the legends of Kenosha punk. There were two names I heard so often, they got burned into my brain: Dean Dirt, and Beautiful Bert.
Jessie Lynn McMains is a writer and zine-maker currently based in southeastern Wisconsin. She writes about nostalgia, desire, identity, music, wild girls, and her misspent youth.
