Buzzcocks - Live at The Longhorn, Minneapolis, MN (9/10/79) Part 1
Buzzcocks - Live at The Longhorn, Minneapolis, MN (9/10/79) Part 2
I'm not a Democrat. But I am an athiest. And an anarchist. And some kind of whacked out old punk rocker, too, probably. And...what else? Husband, father...teacher.
Okay, I've said it, I'm a teacher. Hide your young from the subversive weirdo under the bridge with a ruler in one hand and
Das Kapital in the other!* Or maybe that's a copy of
Never Mind the Bollocks? Stoop yer head, get a closer look, but watch the teeth.
What's the point of all this sharing? Why, that punk rock can change the world, of course. If it weren't for the Buzzcocks, I never would have made an important connection with a new student - a girl all pissed and scared and defensive as hell, using her punk rawk persona to try and intimidate the new teacher and keep the world away from her. But noting the Buzzcocks button on her lapel, I just said "You like the Buzzcocks? Me too. I've seen them live - twice." And, lo, the clouds did part! After she picked her jaw up off the floor, I mean.
There is, of course, some (read as "a great deal of") exaggeration and inference in the above. I can't really know how this girl felt, I can only surmise. She may just have been nervous about the first day in a new school, not pissed at all. But the reality is that the world changed slightly for the better for her in all of two seconds when she found an adult who could connect with her. That's probably all she wanted. She turned into one of the best students I've ever had. I don't know where she is now, but I wish her the best and this one is for Angel.
Buzzshit!
*Probably should be
The Collected Works of Emma Goldman, but that doesn't have the same zing, does it? Me, I blame Monty Python. If it weren't for Michael Palin's cryptically seductive line "We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune," I'd probably be a Republican. Mothers, never let your children watch public television is the moral here.
