Keeping up with School with a Hangover
When being a punk and taking classes, attitude is everything
You’re drifting off in math class. When you showed up late for PoliSci 101, the professor gave you a stern lecture that to your overpartied head sounded like a booming announcement of the rapture. The final crept up on you, and instead of studying you got in a fight at the local punk show after fucking in the bathroom. Now you’ve got a night of memories and an F in your English class. What do you do now?
A higher education is important, and it’s difficult to argue with that. Being an unskilled laborer is not going to make ends meet in this new, jobless economy. If you want to still be living the punk rock lifestyle in ten or twenty years, you’re going to need a college degree. With a diploma and a job you can buy a lot more beer, records, and guitars. The trouble isn’t having the diploma, though. It’s getting it. I’m currently working on getting my Bachelor’s degree, playing shows, and writing for this website. If I can do it, so can you, and here’s how.
School has got to be your first priority.
This could be you if you drop out of school
There is no easy way to keep partying, ignore school, and still get a degree. Getting good grades is important, or else you’ll just be flushing money and time down the toilet. The more classes you fail, the more time you have to spend in school before getting that sheepskin. And the more time it takes the quicker the financial aide dries up and you’ll have to start footing even more of the bill. If you’re in high school still, remember that not graduating is still a possibility. Unless you want to be a 19-year-old senior or a high school dropout (which increases your chances of living in poverty and dying prematurely) graduate high school on schedule. Some people say punk is dead, but you don’t have to be dead to be punk.
If there is a show on a school night, skip it. I don’t say this because I hate bands trying to make a living – I am a struggling musician myself. But even I have told friends of mine to stay home on school nights instead of coming to see my show. There will always be another show, but school has to be top priority if it’s going to be worth doing in the first place.
Get a scheduler.
Spontaneity is fun. Not knowing what’s going to happen next is exciting. But it’s no way to live, because it eventually gives way to boredom, lethargy, depression, and missed opportunities.
My punk rock planner, hand made by wonderful girlfriend
When I was living at the Devil Duck (see: Tales of the Devil Duck) we lived on “rockstar time”, getting out of bed around noon and staying up until 3am or so. Living without plans had its moments of brilliance, like the many spontaneous trips we made out into the woods behind the house where we walked for hours and hours just talking. But it wasn’t the norm. Without a scheduler and things to keep up busy we became layabouts who didn’t get much done, hardly talked to each other, and were constantly forgetting about shows or parties and not going in favor of sitting at home and watching TV.
Now that I’m back in school it’s been extremely difficult readjusting to a schedule. Luckily my girlfriend had the forethought to make me a home-made planner out of scrap cardboard, printer paper, and electrical tape. This scheduler has saved my life. I can keep track of when homework is due, co-ordinate hang out time with my other busy friends, and never miss a show. It’s only a few inches on each side, making it extremely portable, and it cost next to nothing. A smaller one could easily be made so that it could even fit in a wallet. And it’s just a hole punch and glued-on washer away from staying on a chain.
Realistically a little scheduler, even if you use it infrequently, can save you a lot of trouble and keep you ready to face all new challenges.
Think outside the box.
Online courses can be a great alternative for hard-working punk rockers
Washington State has just introduced a new kind of state-run high school provided for entirely online. The state will even send you out a laptop to attend classes on the internet. Four year universities like the University of Phoenix and Washington State University have distance learning programs now for a variety of degrees. Like correspondence courses, these online programs will actually provide you with a diploma without you ever having to step foot on campus.
There are a lot of opportunities like these all across the country and world for high schoolers, undergrads, and graduate students. I myself am using WSU’s distance degree program for my BA. I’ve found that it is a great asset because I can basically take the classes on my own time. There are due dates for assignments, online exams, and discussion boards to participate in, but I can do work at two in the morning or five in the afternoon with no problem. School works around my schedule instead of the other way around. This isn’t an easy program by any means. It becomes extremely easy to forget, put off, or ignore work because no one is harassing you or reminding you. But it is rewarding if you have the self-discipline to pull it off.
What did we learn today?
School is one of those necessary evils, like bills or taxes. Anarchy is a philosophy attached to punk rock because of the Sex Pistols, but it’s not at the core of the punk philosophy. Other seminal punk rockers like the Ramones, the Clash, and the Misfits were no anarchists (Johnny Ramone was actually a registered member of the GOP) so don’t tell me that you have to be a dropout to be punk because you have to be a dropout to be an anarchist. You want to change the system? You gotta know it first. And you’ve got to able to keep putting food in your mouth to stay alive long enough to make a difference. With a little work, patience, and sacrifice you can ensure your own long-term survival.
How To Run A Band Without Running It Into The Ground
The Rat City Ruckus, a Seattle punk staple, rocks out. From personal experience I know that these guys are great at staying cohesive - they all get drunk at once!
This is not an article that’s going to help you get shows, and it’s not about getting your stuff heard. This article is about how to manage those bizarre creatures known as musicians from killing each other, smoking pot all day, and/or getting wasted at a show and ruining it for everyone. Managing any group of people is a living hell. You want to know why your boss at work is a douchebag? Because he has to deal with morons all damn day, each one wanting to serve their own agenda instead of his. And those are just average employees – with a band it’s much harder because you’re dealing with maniacs, geniuses, jagoffs, and rockers each with a special kind of crazy. I’ve been in enough bands and screwed up enough times that I can at least tell you what not to do – across the board. I hope that this short list of Do and Do Nots can help talented people keep making music together instead of wasting their skills or smashing in one another’s faces.
You son of a bitch! You used to be nice to me!
Be consistent with your band mates.
I once had a drummer I had never met before come over and jam with me as an audition. I helped him move in his gear and was very courteous. He turned out to be a good drummer and I wanted him to come back and play with us some more. After the second practice, though, I stopped helping him with his gear because I had stopped caring. He called me on it after the first show we played together, and it turned out to be the last show we played together.
What did I do wrong in this situation? It wasn’t that I stopped helping him in with his gear, it was that I helped him move his stuff in the first time. I had no intention of helping him move gear every time, but I did the first time because I wanted him to like me and be in my band. It was unsustainable, though, and he probably would have been my drummer even if I hadn’t. But since I changed gears on him, he became resentful.
... fuck you, I'm not dragging that three miles to practice.
Practice at your drummer’s pad.
Not everyone can afford to rent a practice space, and in this economy it’s doubtful that anyone can afford the gas to be hauling equipment around everywhere. If you can get a practice space, that’s great, but don’t count on it – especially when your band is just starting up. Drummers generally need a space big enough to practice in just to house their drums, and because you can’t turn down drums they’ve probably already got the place soundproofed. The things that make a place good to play drums in are the same things that make it a good band practice spot.
Also, I know it’s a stereotype and generalization, but in my experience having practices at a drummer’s place is usually better because they are the most likely to forget about band practice. If you just show up on their front door they are more likely to throw pants on and play instead of flaking.
Hilarie Sidney left her husband for a new band, the High Water Marks. And they're better than the Apples in Stereo. Choose between your music and your relationship; it's what it always comes down to.
Do not have band romances.
I know that there are lots of famous intraband romances: Rob Schneider and Hilarie Sidney of the Apples in Stereo, Patricia Day and Kim Nekroman of HorrorPops, Kepi and Roach of the Groovie Ghoulies, and Reverend Peyton and Breezy Peyton of the Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band just to name a few. But when two people are able to maintain a relationship and keep working together in a band it’s usually because they were in a healthy and long-term relationship before working together. Although Schnieder and Sidney of the Apples in Stereo did marry after being in the band together for years, also remember that they recently divorced and the Apples have sucked since then.
The bottom line is that if you begin a relationship with a band mate after you’ve begun playing together, you will eventually have to choose between the music or your relationship – a choice no one should ever have to face. Because your dynamic together will change, it will alter the balance of the band and harvest resentment from the other band members.
Also, remember, do you really want to date another musician? We’re a crazy bunch! Find a nice poet, or painter or something. Maybe someone with a steady job?
Talk to band mates equally.
It’s a simple fact that not everyone in the band is going to get along with everyone else at the same level. Two best friends often emerge from a group of four or so, and the strength of this kind of bond often overshadows and strains all other friendships in the band. Be very careful to maintain friendships with everyone in the band, not just the ones you get along with.
Every time there is something important to talk about, like planning a tour, deciding the track list for recording, or getting ready for a show, wait until everyone is in one place to begin so you can make sure everyone is on the same page at the same time. Sometimes this is just impossible because of scheduling or timing, but it’s still worth striving for.
And if one of you seems to have a specific issue that needs to be addressed so that you can keep cranking out the tunes, you really should take them aside and have a one-on-one with them so that you know for sure that they’re getting what they need to keep playing. A lot of times people who are able performers but not great composers or arrangers will find themselves elbowed out of band business conversation because they don’t speak up when arranging the songs. Everyone expects them to be as silent for one conversation as the next, although that’s not always fair. Sometimes the best solution is to take them out of the potentially stressful context of having to talk over other, more forceful personalities. Get them alone and let them speak their piece. They probably have an idea worth hearing if they’re worth playing music with.
Can you name anyone else in the Doors besides Jim Morrison? Oliver Stone's film "The Doors" could have just as easily been called "Morrison" for all the attention paid to the other band members.
Be in a band or have a band, but don’t try and do both.
Many front men in bands have had their egos explode. Jim Morrison of the Doors quickly overshadowed his band mates in the press and public conversation, as did Kurt Cobain with Nirvana. Billy Corgan was famously dictatorial with the Smashing Pumpkins, which was cited as one of the reasons the band broke up.
If you want to be in a band, be prepared to share all credit, attention, money, and control evenly because that is the dynamic that keeps a band going and functional. Many groups have been successful with domineering and controlling personalities piloting the ship, with backing musicians rotating in and out. Generally these bands are driven by serious talent and genius in the music, not skilled planning or band management. These kinds of bands also would probably be even more successful if they could maintain greater cohesiveness. If you want to just be in a band, a monolithic and overpowering personality is not going to work well.
It’s not bad to want to do solo work or really have control over the music. In fact it often works really well. You jut have to make sure that your dominion over the songs and sound is clear from the get-go. Having a band name like “A and the Bs” (for example Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards; Richard Hell and the Voidoids; Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers) makes it clear who’s boss, but also gives the band a name instead of just yours.
Love your music.
If you don’t like the music you’re playing, it’s going to show. So when someone in the band really doesn’t like a song, it doesn’t matter if the rest of you do – it’s not a good fit. Make sure they have a chance to warm up to it – and don’t forget to give every song time to grow on you before you dismiss it. But just don’t force a song on the group. Unhappy musicians make for mediocre music.
What did we learn today?
Communication is they key to any relationship. You don’t have to be touchy-feely and you don’t have to open your hearts to each other, but being in a band is hard and if you’re not able to tell each other what you need and want from the experience it’s going to get even harder.
How To Look Like A Punk Vol. 4 – The Early Years
Looking like a punk rocker isn’t easy. The whole premise of punk philosophy is to be yourself and to hell with what people think of you. Expressing yourself, no matter how, is what’s important. But you want people to know what that philosophy is, and you want people to know you’re a punk. Being punk is part of who you are! So let’s take a look back at the beginnings of the genre to see how the first punks made themselves stand out from the crowd.
The Sonics: 1960-1968
In this promotional picture we can see the Sonics wearing leather jackets and heavy coats - not the approachable, honest look most bands of the time went for.
They weren’t the dapper young lads that people expected a band to be in the 1960s. Predating the actual punk scene, the Sonics were loud, crashing, abrasive rock and roll that repulsed the masses. They sang songs about the devil, drinking poison, and cruising for chicks in their hometown of Tacoma, Washington. Almost every punk band in existence has listed the Sonics as a primary influence in their sound. But how about their look? At the time it was common for bands to take promotional photographs while wearing slick suits and humble clothing. It had worked for the Beatles when they crossed the pond, so record labels thought it could work for anyone. Rather than wear what they were told the Sonics preferred to wear high collars, sweater vests, plastic sunglasses, and leather jackets. Very few pictures were taken and circulated of the band because the label thought they would be rejected as vulgar by the American public. The Sonics never gained much mainstream success, but their style set off a chain of events.
The New York Dolls show off their wild hair, brightly colored one-piece suits, and leather bands.
The New York Dolls: 1971 – 1977
They laid the path for punk rockers. Dee Dee Ramone and Joey Ramone developed their friendship by dressing up in glam and going to New York Dolls shows. Glam Rock like Gary Glitter and David Bowie had been around, but the Dolls were the first to use the glitz and glam to shock the crowd instead of woo them. The Dolls wore way too much make-up and bent their gender to the max. Many 80s metal bands and the entirety of the hairmetal genre tried to rip off the Dolls’ style – teasing their long hair, slipping into shiny one-piece skintight suits, and bashing together other recognizable styles – like a one-piece white suit with tails. Other aspects of their outrageous style got adopted into other parts of punk. British goth-punk band Specimen adopted the heavy makeup and outrageous hair. Seattle-based turn-of-the-century punk band The Briefs shares the Dolls’ love of pink. Leather was a big part of the New York Dolls look. At the time their leather bands and studded belts were not common or popular. The 70s were a time of repression and persecution for people who were gay and/or kinky (the distinction between the two was not made clear for years) and the leather was shocking and considered inherently sexual, adding to their lusty and edgy appeal. Perhaps the biggest contribution to fashion from the New York Dolls was their refusal to be pigeonholed. Throughout their career they were constantly innovating new subtleties to their attire, and creating more depth to their look while still working within their obvious draw: glam, glitter, androgyny, and skintight suits.
Leather jackets and jeans combined with big silver chains and zippers.
The Ramones: 1974 – 1996
Big, bad, and terrifying – that’s what most people thought of the Ramones. When they toured Europe, people were afraid of violence because the leather jackets and denim jeans they wore were the uniforms of gangsters in the media. Since the 1950s people had been wearing what is now the classic Ramones look – white tee shirt, blue denim jeans, and black leather jacket. They were called “greasers”, like the main characters from the hit Broadway musical “Grease”, who were renowned for getting into fights, starting gang turf wars, racing customized cars at high speeds, and to a lesser extent doing stimulant drugs like amphetamines. None of the Ramones did much of these things (except getting in fights on occasion, and Dee Dee was a big drug user) but the image was vivid. The Ramones were not terrifying people, and for the most part they were genuinely nice guys, but they put on the image of a tough group of people because it was the image they wanted to convey. And it worked. The combination of fast, loud, raucous music and an outfit to kill in fused the images together and now they are inextricable. For more on the Ramones and the history of leather jackets, visit How To Look Like A Punk Vol. 1 – History of Leather Jackets
On the left we can see guitarist Steve Jones wearing the famous "Destroy Swastika" shirt. To the right we can see a photograph taken months later with Rotten wearing the shirt - with some modifications.
The Sex Pistols: 1975 – 1978
Lights that burn bright burn quicker. The Sex Pistols were only around for a measly three years, but their impact on music, philosophy, politics, and society is incalculable. Lyrically they were edgier than their mainstream peers, and although they neither invented nor perfected punk rock, they made it accessible and consumable for the average listener. There was no uniform or image from the Sex Pistols in their clothes. What they did manage to do for fashion was popularize the look of poverty. They made it okay to look like you don’t make very much money, because very few people do. Sid Vicious was famous for his leather jacket not because leather jackets were expensive – which they were – but because it was an old beat-up and heavily modified piece of clothing he’d found in the trash. Looking at photographs from the time it’s obvious Johnny Rotten and Steve Jones would frequently wear one another’s clothing. Both Vicious and Johnny Rotten would wear jeans with the holes in the knees because they couldn’t afford patches, which at the time was a major taboo even for people who worked very hard for their paychecks. Now, however, you have to pay extra for jeans that are already worn down in the right places. The irony is that the Sex Pistols, in their attempt to promote poverty as a lifestyle, have made it very expensive to look poor by making it fashionable.
Taken at the Winterland Ballroom, January 1978. Vicious to the left is shirtless while Rotten (center) is decked out trying to upstage Jones (right).
At their last show ever, in San Fransisco, the Sex Pistols were frayed and dissonant. They had split ideologically, with Rotten and Vicious wanting to maintain the band’s independence from the influence of manager Malcolm McLaren versus Paul Cook and Steve Jones’ desire to make money from their music. Most interestingly this dissonance was expressed in the form of clothing. Vicious wore only leather pants, going shirtless as was common. He was not going to compromise just because they had sold out a show in the States – he was going to dress like it was a pub in London. Rotten came on stage wearing a leather vest and button-down shirt mimicking artists from more mainstream bands like the Runaways and Cheap Trick. Why the sudden interest in high-price fashion? He looked ridiculous, and he wanted his band mates to see, because guitarist Steve Jones had come on stage wearing an extremely expensive red crushed velvet suit jacket and slacks. Jones’ decision to spend a lot of money on clothing had irritated Rotten, and Rotten decided the only thing to do was try to upstage Jones’ silly outfit. Did he succeed? It’s up to you to say. Click here for a YouTube video of that performance.
What did we learn today?
Recap. What do all of these people have in common? The Sonics pioneered a whole new way of thinking about fashion by using it to intimidate and intrigue the audience. The New York Dolls used glam and flashy androgynous outfits to shock the population while remaining non-threatening and fun. Conversely the Ramones used the association between violence and leather jackets to foster an image they had designed. And for the Sex Pistols clothing was a symbol of status, and they (at least in the classical notion of their philosophy) reveled in their poverty.
There is a throughline: no uniform. Punk rock fashion is about taking what’s around you, how you know people react to certain things, and what you like to do and wear and creating something no one else would think of nor have the guts to wear. So if you want to look like a punk, take a page from the original punk rockers – be original.
How To Look Like A Punk Vol. 3 – Styling a Mohawk
For the history of the mohawk see How To Look Punk Volume Vol. 3 – History of Mohawks
Giving yourself a mohawk is a little difficult. It’s a lot of hair in very certain places. Here’s a quick breakdown of how to style your hair so you can look punk rock.
Special thanks to Hollie Joy for her help with this article!
Basic mohawks.
This is a fairly standard mohawk. The sides are completely shaved, and the hair is worn straight up.
All mohawks require shaving the sides of your head (except for fauxhawks, see below) and if you already have a lot of hair this can be a bit tricky. Try using clippers to reduce the majority of the length. This is usually enough for most people, unless you’re trying to get it completely hairless on either side in which case a straight razor is your best bet.
You’re going to want to keep your hair parted on either side. The part will define the edge of the mohawk to the left and right. Keeping straight lines while cutting the hair is perhaps the most difficult part of making one in the first place. The mohawk doesn’t have to be limited to going just straight down your head. It can zig-zag, curve, or even curl. But if it’s uneven or lumpy, it’s going to look bad.
Hair doesn’t grow evenly on anyone’s head. Some parts grow faster than others. So once you’ve got the excess to either side shorn away, you’ll need to put your hair up. Hairspray, gel, mousse- whatever’s handy. You’ll notice the top of your ‘hawk may be jagged, or have way too much length in one spot. Be conservative when cutting away from the top. It takes less than second to remove a foot of hair with a single snip, but you’ll only grow about a half an inch of hair a month. To be sure, do this once every week or so to keep growth in check.
Here Jonny Slut shows off his DeathHawk, which requires a lot of teasing - a method which became popular in the 1980s.
DeathHawks.
Popularized by Jonny Slut of English goth-punk band Specimen, this is basically just a thoroughly teased-out mohawk. To tease a mohawk first separate a layer of hair, usually an inch or two on the scalp, and lift it up. Start from the front and work your way back. Once the layer is lifted up, take a comb and start at the top towards the tips and run the teeth downwards quickly and rapidly while applying hair spray or tick gel. Continue until the section stands up on its own. Then move on to the next section. Continue from the hairline to the nape of the neck until fully teased. Remember, teasing will increase hair volume, but it will also decrease length.
Bihawks and Trihawks.
Tori from the Casualties sports a trihawk. Her version doesn't require any shaving - just a lot of product!
This is essentially the same thing as a regular mohawk except that there is two or three ridges. When doing this it’s important to part the hair first, and keep it parted the same way the whole time you are cutting the hair. If you don’t keep it parted you run the risk of getting the lines uneven, which is going to look terrible. Don’t do this drunk. And don’t let someone who is drunk do this to you. Bihawks and Trihawks are best when completely even and symmetrical.
DreadHawks.
With the collision of Northwest style and punk that was grunge, it was inevitable that people began dreadlocking their mohawks. The best way to do it is with beeswax – any kind will do, even a beeswax candle or hand creams as long as it’s malleable with heat. Take a section of hair and separate it. At this point each section should be twice the volume that you eventually want once it’s dreadlocked. Smaller volumes of hair means it’s easier to clean your scalp and style the hair, and the easier it will be to dry which helps prevent it from rotting.
Dreadhawks have the big benefit of requiring the least amount of day-to-day maintenance. Once they've become dreaded, of course.
With one hand pull a section of hair away from you and make small twisting motions, teasing the whole section of hair with your fingertips. After teasing, roll the section between your hands like you’re rolling a playdough snake. Roll it all the way around from the tips to the scalp smoothing it and compacting it. Finally rub in the beeswax in the same way, and roll the section again. Repeat all the way down the mohawk from back to front. It won’t look perfect when you start, and this is because in order to fully become dreadlocks your hair will need to be teased and treated with beeswax regularly while being allowed to dread and compact on its own. How often and how thoroughly you need to tease and matte the hair is dependent on your hair. Tightly coiled hair will do this with hardly any effort, while straight hair without much natural oil will require the most attention to get it to dread properly.
Keep in mind that during the teasing process your hair’s length will be reduced, so however long you want it to be after it’s done being dreadlocked try to get it twice as long before.
FauxHawks aka “Hoxton fins”.
The fauxhawk is by far the most popular version of the mohawk currently. This is because it is easy to do up while you put on your leather and chains for a show, but also easy to keep down when going to have tea at grandma’s; or a job interview. Essentially the fauxhawk is just shearing the sides of your hair down while keeping the top long. Make sure to trim the sides first, so you know how long your fin should be. This part is pretty much the same as any other haircut – shave the nape of the neck to uniformity, get behind the ears, etc. The trick is in getting the fin to be uniform and symmetrical. Most peoples hair tries to part a little to the left or a little to the right, so make sure to be constantly combing and using small amounts of product when shaping and cutting the fin.
Tips and Tricks:
Here the fauxhawk has been dyed, keeping it noticable and abrasive.
Lots of products will keep your hair up, but you don’t need to shell out big bucks to corporations to get a ‘hawk to stand on end. White and clear glue both work wonders, and there are many recipes for hair gel using colored and flavored Jell-O.
- People with curly hair don’t have to have curly ‘hawks. Using a straightener is easy, but don’t burn yourself. For a regular mohawk take a section of hair that is easily separable and straighten it perpendicular to the line of the mohawk running down your head. Each section should then be flattened and forward when you’re done going down from the hairline to the nape of the neck. Once that’s done add a dash of product, style it up, and straighten it again – this time into its final fin-like shape. Using a straightener on hair that has product in it is harsh on the straightener, and clumps of product can flake off, so be careful and watch for any tool malfunction.
- Be aware of what your mohawk looks like when it’s not up with product. You might want to re-think your new look if you need to add product before you become presentable.
- Having a short mohawk that you don’t style up can look cool, take a lot less time, and a lot less money.
- Don’t be afraid to get asymmetrical as long as it’s intentional. A friend of mine had me style his mohawk asymmetrically. What I ended up doing was shaving the left side completely smooth and leaving the right side with about a quarter inch of hair while the central fin was on the order of seven to eight inches long. To top it off my girlfriend added three “racing stripes” with the clippers to the right side. Being ballsy and creative can only reward you, so if you’ve got an idea try it out! Hair always grows back.
Curanto – The Chilean Indian Barbeque
The American Indians of Chile and Argentina are famous for their resistance to Colonial influence. Unlike other parts of the Americas, the people of southwestern South America have managed to keep their population high and their culture thriving. These are people who have learned to do a whole lot with very little, and their complex traditions and ways are what has kept them independent and highly productive.
The curanto was invented in the Los Lagos Region in southern Chile. The people native to the Chiloé Archipelago invented it to cook their seafood and bountiful potatoes.
One of the inventions of this area is the curanto. Originally from the Chiloé Archipelago in the Los Lagos Region of southern Chile, this way of cooking foods is incredibly inexpensive, can feed a large amount of people for nearly nothing. The ease with which a tremendous amount of food can be prepared with a curanto has made this kind of barbecue incredibly popular throughout southern South America.
In the modern urban setting a curanto is a great DIY alternative to buying a big grill or spending a lot of time and money preparing a large amount of food for a group of people. The components for making a curanto are usually free, or dirt cheap.
What a curanto is.
In essence a curanto is a hole filled with hot stones which are covered with leaves. Then you place the ingredients you want to cook in layers separated by leaves. Finally you cover the whole thing with a final layer of leaves, some burlap or cloth, and bury it. That’s it! Symbolically the idea of pulling all of your food from the ground appeals to the American Indians of South America because of their keen sense of kinship with the Earth.
The specifics of making one.
The first step is to dig a hole. You’ll likely want to make it circular. One foot deep and five feet wide is about right. You won’t want to
These South American women are pulling sausages out from the middle layer while some potatoes cook on the top to one side.
make too many layers, or else the heat will diffuse improperly.
Start a bonfire in the middle of the hole. Because of this step you’re going to want to make sure the hole and fire are far away from low-hanging brush or dry grass. And always have water and sand handy to douse the flames if they get out of control. Once the bonfire has burned for a while you should have a good amount of wood coals to spread evenly on the bottom of the hole. You don’t want to use charcoal briquettes because they burn too hot and for too long.
Once the wood coals have been spread you’ll want to put smooth, round stones on top of them evenly. Make sure both of these things – the coals and stones – are as homogeneous as possible. If things are uneven, they’ll cook unevenly. You can’t put anything but the stones directly on the coals or else they’ll just burn.
Now that the stones are laid down cover them with leaves. The best leaves to use are rhubarb leaves. Rhubarb is a plant whose sour but flavorful stems are often used in desserts, and the leaves are commonly thrown away. A variety of rhubarb native to South America is traditionally used, but any variety of rhubarb with large, thick leaves will work. In lieu of rhubarb you can also use white cabbage or thick fig leaves. Again these need to be put down evenly in order for everything to cook properly.
The three types of food traditionally used in curanto are seafood, meat, and vegetables. Seafood is generally shellfish or crustaceans such as mussles, clams, and crabs. Sometimes fish is used, but cooking this can be tricky. The seafood is not always used, and often bypassed entirely, but if you are going to throw in seafood it’s best to put it on the bottom layer because they require the most heat. Meats take the next layer, as beef, pork, and chicken also require high temperatures in order to be considered safe to eat. Vegetables are always put on the layer furthest from the coals because they require the lowest temperature for proper preparation.
Between each layer of ingredients you should lay down another covering of leaves. This is important so that you don’t burn food or have the juices of one group of foods seep into the other. Infusion will happen from the steam, giving them all each others flavor – you really don’t need to spread juices around. Also, if too much moisture trickles down to the bottom it can extinguish the coals.
The curanto pictured here is exclusively seafood like mussles and edible barnacles. For this type of "clambake" style curanto you don't need to get the hole very deep, and can cook the shellfish very quickly.
You should have several people putting down food at once, because if you take too long all the heat will dissipate before anything is cooked. Time is of the essence once you’ve laid down the stones. Now that all the layers of food are in the curanto, cover it with one last layer of leaves before laying down burlap or thick cloth like denim over the top of it all. You do this because you’re about to cover it all with dirt, and you don’t want dirt in your food. Make sure you’ve got the cloth completely covering the hole before you start shoveling dirt on top of it.
How long do you cook it for? Well that really depends on what you’ve put in it and how much of it. Because you’re using wood coal and not charcoal briquettes the embers will burn themselves out before they burn your food – if you did it right. So you’ll need to experiment with and test hole depths, amounts of food, amounts of fuel, and time spent cooking.
Having a curanto event.
Because making curanto requires a number of people and can feed even more, doing this can become the centerpiece of a gathering. Crank up the Misfits, make sure to keep your mohawks out of the fire, and kick back with some beers as you light up the evening with a bonfire. People will often be excited to help cook a meal like this because it requires very few directions but is exotic and fun. And everyone will want to help dig up the food when it’s done and eat right out of the ground. It can turn a run-of-the-mill backyard barbecue into a one-of-a-kind event for less money and in far less time.
How To Look Like A Punk Vol. 2 – History of Mohawks
We call them mohawks. In essence it’s any time you shave part of your head and leave only a strip of hair. You can wear them down, you can wear them up; they can be curly and short or straight and long; they can reach from the nape of your neck to your forehead or just the crown to above the hairline. Bleached blond, dyed red green and blue, or just a natural black or brown, mohawks have gone from outrageously shocking to incredibly popular. You don’t need a mohawk to look like a punk, but it sure doesn’t hurt. And nowadays you don’t need to be a punk to sport the fan-like hairdo. So where did they come from
The Mohawk People
Joseph Brant, also known by his Indian name Thayendanegea, was the most famous Mohawk of the Revolutionary War era. He originally worked for the British as a soldier and translator, given his Christian name while being educated by the English. Eventually he became a tribal chief and led the Iroqouis into battle against the American Rebellion with the British Empire as their ally.
In the eighteenth century Europeans first landed on the American continent and began colonizing. Key to all of their colonization efforts – the French, Dutch, and English alike – was either allying with or destroying native populations. Genocide was a favorite for the Spanish as their territories were inhabited by peoples who had low levels of technology and virtually no ability to defend themselves. Those who settled northern lands were not so lucky.
What is now upstate New York and southern Quebec was once the home of the Mohawk Nation. As part of the Iroquois League, the Mohawks were one of two warrior cultures in the larger confederacy. The Iroquois League was a federalized government of independent Indian tribes, and its organization was a large inspiration to America’s founding fathers. The Mohawks called themselves the “Keepers of the Eastern Door” because they were the easternmost of the tribes in the League. Their warriors protected the Iroquois from eastern invasion, which included the pale-faced men who were stealing their land.
The white man fought many wars with the Iroquois League, and for many years it looked like the Indians might have been able to successfully defend their territory with their tenacious combat tactics and ferocious culture. The Mohawk warriors would wear their hair in a small strip atop their head so that they could identify one another in combat, and also so that their hair could not become caught or pulled while fighting. This, combined with their howling battle cry and legendary war paint made them a terrifying sight for Dutch, French, and English colonists. They were not trying to look punk. In the eyes of early American settlers, they looked like terrifying demons. To each other, they were proud warriors defending their home from a foreign invader.
Eventually the colonial powers would destroy the Iroquois League with superior technology and underhanded tactics. One of the last Iroquois chiefs was assassinated, shot in the back, by an Englishman that had been asked to come for peace talks. Although the Mohawks continued to resist White imperialism for years, the League never recovered. The Mohawk people and their style of hair dress fell into the annals of history as first American culture demonized the Indian as a savage, and later as they tried to hide the shame of the blood America was built on.
The sight of these 101st Airborne Division soldiers running at German infantry with mohawk haircuts and war paint would freeze their blood.
Revival 1942
Just like most punk rock fashions, the mohawk haircut has its modern popularity based in World War II’s fighting men. The legendary 101st Airborne, the US Army’s premiere fighting force in the European Theater, gained renowned for their participation in the Battle of the Bulge in which Americans advanced through a German forest in the middle of a frozen winter while being heavily shelled by German artillery. The bravery and tenacity of these soldiers was depicted in the Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks joint venture “Band of Brothers”.
What is not as popularly known is that one of the squads in the 101st Airborne began wearing the mohawk haircut during their advancement from France to Germany. Images of American Indians were exotic and terrifying to Europeans at the time, who had little understanding of the Mohawk people other than their fierce reputation. As such American soldiers used this image to intimidate and terrify Axis soldiers, who spread rumors of Americans using Indian “war chiefs” to fight in Europe. This instilled fear into Nazi hearts.
When the men of the 101st returned home from the war they left the haircuts behind with them. The haircut would not become popular again in its home country for a while, and it would take Brits to repopularize it.
1977 in London
This punk art photo from 1977 depicts Soo Catwoman with her signature interpretation of the mohawk haircut.
Without a doubt the single person who most influenced punk hairstyle in all of history is the famous – or infamous – Soo Catwoman. Her image is emblazoned in every visual history of punk. A friend of the Sex Pistols, she was a central player in the first days of punk rock, defining the punk look.
The “Catwoman” haircut is a mohawk, though not the kind we’ve become accustomed to. The sides, except for the temples, are shaved. The hair from the temples is spiked up while the top is short-cropped and bleached. Citing her “skill, style, and bravery” Johnny Rotten singled her out as one of the most influential people in the early London punk scene. She quickly had many admirers, and almost as many imitators.
It wasn’t long after Soo Catwoman debuted her haircut that people began experimenting with their own hair. Who was the first punk rocker to wear their hair up in a single strip in the fashion we now associate with the word “mohawk”? No one agrees, but it almost certainly originated in England. After a few years, though, the clothing and styles of both East Coast American punk and English punk were being traded at lightning speed over the Atlantic. By 1979 the style was widespread throughout the US, England, and parts of continental Europe.
Modern Times
Nowadays the mohawk is a common sight. The different variations of it that have been established through time have opened up the style and made it accessible to people from all different factions or sub-cultures.
In the 1980s, when teased hair became extremely popular, Jonny Slut of English goth punk band Specimen sported the first deathhawk, a version of a mohawk that is extremely long and stays up through excessive back combing. American punks began styling their mohawks into long straight points, calling them liberty spikes as they resembled the points of the Statue of Liberty’s crown. Many people have begun doing bihawks or trihawks where there is two or three (respectively) mohawks on the same head. Originating in the Hoxton neighborhood of London, the fauxhawk or Hoxton fin is a version of a mohawk where the sides are between a half inch to an inch long while the top ridge is up to a foot long (though commonly much shorter). English soccer star David Beckham famously wore a fauxhawk, as did Angelina Jolie’s adopted son Maddox.
Metrosexual English athlete David Beckham ruins the "Hoxton fin" for everyone.
But how do I look punk?
With so many people from such diverse backgrounds sporting the look, how do you know if your haircut is conveying the message you want it to? After all, your appearance is personal expression – it’s how everyone sees you. And after all, using symbols invented by other people isn’t necessarily bad. The fact that mohawks are associated with Iroquois Indians, US soldiers, first-wave punk rockers, and now almost everyone else doesn’t limit you if you’re willing to be creative.
There is always something that someone hasn’t tried, and that’s what punk is – being on the cutting edge. Take a look at what people are doing to their hair these days, and try to draw some inspiration. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your hair in all kinds of ways, or have friends experiment on your hair for you. Hair always grows back. The great thing about being a punk rocker is that there is no uniform except originality.
Eire Go Bragh – Irish Bog Mummy Mohawk
In 2006 Irish anthropologists discovered the oldest mohawk ever recorded – on a murdered Irishman that had been mummified in a peat moss bog for the last 2300 years. Does this make the Mohawk people posers? No. It just makes the mohawk one of the most popular hair cuts in all of human history.
For more on the Irish bog mummy with the mohawk, check out the article Conyclavan man proves Irish were first punk rockers.
Punk Rock Diet: How To Eat Well On A Budget
Have it your way, bitch!
We’ve all tried to survive on nothing but ramen noodles or Kraft Easy Mac at one point or another. Perhaps you’ve tried the tuna and water diet. Or maybe you took the line about liquid bread from Joss Whedon’s Firefly a little too seriously and think beer is actually a good meal. But no one thing can give you everything you need in a balanced diet, and it’s not one of those things the government just made up to control our minds (wholly unlike the Backstreet Boys whose success can only be explained by a secret government attempt to brainwash an entire generation of girls that backfired and made Lance Bass gay. Trust me, it makes sense in my mind. And I’m a genius.)
Human beings are made up of lots of different kinds of things. There are different chemicals that make up fingernails, skin, blood, bones, etc. that give each of these things their unique properties. Because we’re the most complex life form on Earth – and that’s only above the shoulders – we need lots of different things in our diets to keep all of our parts working.
Punk rock life is often one of poverty, and usually by choice. But poverty doesn’t instantly translate to famine. You can eat like a king with just a few simple rules.
Start thinking about unit price:
Don't let the corporations fool you. This is not worth a dollar! You are getting gouged!
Those McDonalds hamburgers look pretty tasty for ninety-nine cents, huh? But think about this. If you made them at home, burgers twice as big as that cost you a measly thirty cents. The rub? You have to buy in bulk. Big warehouse outlets like Costco and Sam’s Club can sell you food at incredibly low prices. I know what you’re thinking – those fascist corporations! Well think of it this way. The less money you spend, the less money in the system. And you will be spending money on food somewhere, why not spend less?
Learn to cook:
You don’t have to be a master chef. Learn the basic principles behind cooking beef, how to season it, what temperature to cook it at, how to tell when it’s done cooking, etc. Same with chicken and pork. You can also do fish, too, but if you live in a landlocked area you might want to stick to the land animals. Vegetables are also important to diets, but that doesn’t mean you have to have some fancy salad or something. Learn to bake a potato – a simple skill that appears to be getting lost as generations progress. It will fill you up for cents. A simple dish that has always delivered for me is throwing cut-up beets, red potatoes, sweet onions, and yams into a glass dish with some olive oil and baking it at 400 degrees until they’re soft. Salt it and you’ve got a stomach full of high-fiber, high vitamin food too keep you energized. Best of all since it’s rich in iron and copper, it actually helps you heal faster by allowing your red blood cells to carry more oxygen. Root vegetables are a good cure for hangovers and mosh pit injuries.
Only get what you can eat:
Dude, you paid eight bucks for those pickles. Why did you think you were going to eat all of those?
Why let food go bad? You paid for it! Or even if you didn’t pay for it – free food, dammit! You will always periodically need food, and it’s one of the few things on this planet with intrinsic value. So when you are going out to buy food, make sure you’re not buying things that you’re going to let go to waste. Planning out your meals is a good way to make sure of this, or if you’re more finicky buy things that can be prepared lots of different ways. If you get two types of pasta, three types of pasta sauce, beef, chicken, bread, and garlic butter, you’ve got enough food to have a different meal every night for a week.
If letting food go bad happens a lot to you, figure out why. What types of food do you buy too much of? Why do you buy too much of it? Can you get it in a more appropriate size? Remember that you can go broke saving money. Getting twice as much for only ten dollars isn’t much of a deal if you’re not even going to finish half of it before it goes bad.
Have the right tools:
You do not need anything fancier than this. At all. Ever. This is the perfect cooking machine.
When I was running a house of punks, stoners, and hippies I found that the best gift I had ever been given was a black spice rack fully stocked with every seasoning I could possibly want – everything from coriander to rosemary; saffron to salt; cumin to poultry seasoning. By changing the flavors on top of it, chicken and pasta becomes taco chicken salad; or Italian chicken Alfredo; or spicy Asian stir-fry. There’s a reason they call it “spicing it up”.
Also, invest in cookware. You can usually get decent pots and pans from second hand stores like Value Village or Goodwill, but stay away from Teflon. It breaks up after a while and flakes into your food. Instead, look for cast iron or stainless steel. Cast iron is the best, as stainless steel tends to get black crap on it whenever you cook something a little too long. They are really difficult to clean. But they’re both better than Teflon because Teflon will give you cancer.
A barbeque is also a major asset. Commonly you can find classic Weber grills that are in perfect working condition for free or cheap on Craigslist, yard sales, or just left out on the side of the road. The second best gift I was ever given during my tenure at the Devil Duck House was a grill. It wasn’t one of the UFO-shaped Weber charcoal barbeques, but some terrible old propane grill. The propane nozzle was clogged and broken, so we just threw charcoals in the bottom and it worked fine. Constructing a grill isn’t difficult, as it has very few components.
There are a variety of things you might need to cook at home on a budget depending on your style. If you end up being good with Asian food, a wok is a good investment. For those who like to grill sausages and onions, a good set of tongs and grill cleaning tools will be in orders. And if you become a fan of roasting, a good chicken stand is only a few bucks and really worth it.
Eat for free when you can:
Go to the grocery stores like Trader Joe’s or wholesalers like Costco for lunch. The employees don’t care if you take a bunch of samples for free. They don’t get paid enough to care.
These Escherichia coli bacteria (commonly known as E. coli) are native to your lower digestive tract. It's when they get in your stomach via food that they become a problem. But keeping them happy in your lower intestine will keep you happy!
And keep an eye on corporate bakeries. A lot of the chain cafes that sell pastries will have a corporate policy that they have to throw out food rather than give it out for free, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get it for free. If there’s a place like this near you, just watch them at the end of the day to see when and where they go to throw out the food. Often they will go into a building and through a bunch of hallways before ending up at a dumpster just around the corner outside. This is because the companies don’t want to attract homeless people to ruin their image. But if you just follow up after the employees leave and snag the goods out of the dumpster first, you’ve got perfectly good bread or doughnuts or cupcakes, a little smooshed, tied up in a garbage bag ready to be eaten. They aren’t thrown into bags with actual garbage – they’re wrapped up separately!
Being a human in and of itself is hard. It takes hundreds of calories a day just to grow new skin, and if our iron levels drop we risk not carrying enough oxygen to our vital organs. Different kinds of salts regulate different brain functions and muscular contraction. Not to mention the complex processes of life forms that live inside us symbiotically, like E. coli bacteria that live in our large intestines. They help break down our food, and your farts are actually your E. coli’s poop.
So don’t make it any harder on your billions of cells and trillions of chemical processes – remember to take care of your body. Just because you live fast doesn’t mean you have to die young.
How To Look Like A Punk Vol. 1 – History of Leather Jackets
The Ramones didn't know they were starting a whole fashion trend.
In 1977 the Ramones released their first album, a self-titled LP that revolutionized music, that depicted them all wearing matching leather jackets on the cover. Since then the black leather and massive steel zippers have defined the image of punk in the public opinion. But there were leather jackets before the Ramones. And they were not the only punks to wear them. So you want to look like a punk? You had better know a thing or two about what you’re wearing. So I’m going to tell you how.
Originally people began making clothing out of leather as armor. Cows hides are already nearly impossible to damage without using excessive force, so tanning and treating that hide can make a comfortable and durable piece of clothing. Leather armor was the forefront of military technology in the bronze age, and was the Kevlar of its time.
American war pilot, Bud Fortier, shows off his leather jacket for the camera. It protects the pilot from shrapnel if something goes wrong, and it's warm and toasty even at 20,000 feet.
In World War II the leather jacket dominated the images and iconography of the American war effort. Aviators were heroes of the public eye, strapping themselves to lawn chairs that flew and risking life and limb to protect their country from the airborne menace of both Tojo and Hitler. Pilots like Norman “Bud” Fortier, who is pictured to the left, were the toughest, bravest Americans at the time, and saying otherwise was likely to get your face bashed in anywhere in the country.
By now the leather jacket had accumulated both the implication of being armor for barbarians, and uniforms for the tough-as-nails servicemen who returned from war victorious.
The next people to proudly display the jacket in front of the world were James Dean and Marlon Brando. Both pristine example of American masculinity, James Dean wore his brown leather jacket off screen because of his of racing cars- a habit that eventually killed him. Brando instead wore his leather exclusively on the silver screen in the legendary film “The Wild One”. Both contributed to the ascending popularity of the article of clothing.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s leather jackets became associated with greasers, a subculture in the US and UK that was focused on rock and roll music, powerful cars, girls, and violence. As a precursor to punk, greaser subculture was heavily emulated in the early days of punk rock. The beginning of leather jackets as a symbol of rock stardom, though, was actually the Beatles. Before they came to the United States with matching haircuts and neat suits they were rocking the working-class pubs of Liverpool wearing leather.
In the 1970s punk was born. The ragingly popular TV show “Happy Days” depicted Henry Winkler as tough-as-nails smooth-talking Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli, and perennially popular John Travolta sported one all through the Hollywood blockbuster “Grease”. This all happened around the first bursts of punk.
Joan Jett sporting her signature leather vest.
For a while the Ramones had a monopoly on leather jackets in punk rock. The Sex Pistols, the only other punk band making headlines around the world at the time, had actively avoided the look. Thus, during the 1970s wearing a leather jacket was still retro, and that retro aspect is what gave the Ramones a distinctive look. But then Sid Vicious joined the Sex Pistols, and his iconic overly-studded jacket became integral to the aesthetic of the genre. With the leather jacket a central theme in the look of both of the titans of punk rock in the late 1970s, it was not difficult to see the next logical step in the progression of punk fashion. Leather jackets were everywhere, modified with railroad spikes, patches, or safety pins. For more on how the Ramones and Sex Pistols effected punk fashion, check out How To Look Like A Punk Vol. 4 – The Early Years
Nowadays, though, it’s not so much the jacket as the leather. If you want to look like a punk, don’t just emulate what other people have been wearing. That’s a real good way to look like a poser. Instead, try thinking up new ways to wear leather that evokes the same kind of imagery, without looking like just another jerk wearing a cliche. Joan Jett, for example, popularized the leather vest, an awesome variation on the leather jacket trend. There are lots of attributes to leather jackets that convey different images. Wearing one with a sheepskin collar will remind people of pilots and Indiana Jones, whereas one covered with studs is more reminiscent of the Los Angeles punk scene. Long leather tassels are distinctly American biker. Larger padding and thicker material is typical of leather jackets designed for utility whereas fashion designers prefer the slimmer, sleeker models.
Overall if you want to look punk come up with your own style. That doesn’t mean you can’t borrow ideas from other people or build off of other peoples looks, but make sure that the end product is one hundred percent you.
Punk Furniture: The Streets Are My Ikea
Real Ikea furniture is just horrible. It’s cheap in every sense of the word except the part about being affordable. And no self-respecting punk rocker is about to lounge around in a Swedish piece of crap like that. But that doesn’t mean your house can’t be fun, expressive, and nice. One of the greatest assets to the modern urban punk is stuff that other people just throw away. Here are a few handy tips on furnishing your home for free.
Couches.
Nothing a little patching can't take care of.
It is absolutely bewildering how many perfectly good couches get tossed every day. It looks dingy, beat up, or frayed. But look closer. Unless it’s got mold in it, it’s ready to go. A brand-new couch costs upwards of hundreds of dollars, but you can get a crappy free couch you find on the side of the road up to snuff with less than thirty dollars worth of fabric cleaner.
A lot of couches have made enemies with a cat at one point or another in their lives. Frayed edges are worth patching because the more people bump into or run against that end of the couch the more stuffing will fall out. Plus big gaping holes tend to get mold and mildew deep inside the cushion. All you need to remedy something like this is an old tee shirt or old pair of jeans you don’t want anymore, a needle, and some thread. Just cut a square of fabric big enough to cover the hole and sew it on. It doesn’t have to look professional or perfect, just patch that fucker. Anyone can do it. If you don’t know how to sew, you probably know someone who does. Ask around.
Alternatively there are various fabric bonding agents available on the commercial market. These polymers are usually just like glue except they’re designed for putting patches on fabric. It’s a bit more pricey, but usually more permanent, than sewing one on. Don’t forget to follow the instructions to the letter – products like this will occasionally emit toxic fumes. That will NOT get you high.
When you’re cruising around for couches, you’ll want to do it in a pickup truck. While I’ve had the semi-fun experience of hauling a couch across town with a buddy and nothing but the sweat of your brow, I wouldn’t recommend it. On a good day, in a major city, you can find several couches for free in one day.
Chairs.
If only part of the chair is busted... replace it!
The most essential part of any living space is a place to sit. Couches are good for communal activities or a stationary place to kick up your feet, but people will find they need to sit places that you don’t want to put a huge couch or Lay-Z-Boy. You also might find yourself short a few seats if too many people come over.
Folding chairs are a tremendous asset. They can take up very little room when you don’t want them, and they’re just comfortable enough to keep butts happy. Finding them is less easy than finding couches, because folding chairs are valuable no matter where you go. But keep an eye out for places that might have an excess. Often schools, colleges, churches, etc will throw out folding chairs that have gotten dented, scratched, or had their cushions removed. These chairs are still perfectly good, and if you hammer out dents, nail on some new cushions, and give it a good coat of spray pain these can become brand-new chairs!
Other kinds of chairs have the major downside of taking up a lot of space. They also have the upshot of usually being free. Just like folding chairs, regular chairs are often tossed out when something as superficial as the cushion has been damaged. One style of chairs sports a wood frame and a single cushion topped with leather bolted to the seat of it. When the leather breaks and stuffing comes out, most people take this as a cue to toss it. That’s when you come in, pick up the chair, rip off the all the leather and stuffing, nail a cheap-o piece of foam wrapped in some old jeans to the seat of it, throw on some spray paint and fabric paint, and call it a masterpiece! With a little work, that chair is more ready for use and better looking than ever before.
Also you’ll find chair pieces are extremely replaceable. With some nails and some wood glue you can combine a three legged chair and a two-by-four and make a four legged chair with one funny leg. That same two-by-four can replace an arm, or if you have more than one chunk of wood you can turn a stool into a chair with a back.
Tables.
An example of a wood plank put over two wooden horses
For the love of all that is holy do not buy or even put in your home a table made of glass or tiles. They are incredibly heavy, and unjustifiably delicate. Drunk people put feet right through them, which causes bits of sharp covered in blood to spray everywhere. Yes, I know, it’s a cool image. But trust me when I say you really don’t want to clean it up. And you really don’t want to deal with the drunkie who just broke your table and his foot.
The best kind of table for a punk rocker is just one contiguous hunk of material. If you can get just one tremendous piece of wood, that is one of the best tables you can have because it’s next to impossible to break. The downside is that this makes the table nearly impossible to move. They are also pretty hard to find.
A cheap – and potentially free – alternative is the tried and true combination of two wooden horses under a plank of wood. You take any old piece of wood that’s relatively flat and paint it however you’d like. Then you take two wooden horses – and I don’t mean little rocking horses, I mean the four-legged two-by-fours that you use to prop up wood while you’re cutting it – and put them underneath the wood. It’s as simple as that. It’s not very stable, and is highly prone to flipping over, but it works. For maximum stability jab some nails into that bitch and keep the plank right where you want it. The beauty of keeping it three separate parts, however, is that it can be broken down and put back up in seconds flat.
Containers.
This is a whole shelf unit made entirely out of milk crates
Milk crates are your best friend. They overflow around garbage cans, and usually you can get all you can handle as long as you look. If you look around downtown dumpsters you can usually find a few, and they’re a common sight in the back alleys behind restaurants. They’re designed to last forever but are so cheap to make many companies will pack their goods in them, send them off, and never expect to see them again. The people who receive the crates have nothing to do with them, and if you go to a grocery store in the wee hours of the morning you can usually find someone who will hand you a fat stack of them.
Using milk crates requires a little creativity. Obviously you can just fill them with stuff and stack them on top of each other like Lego bricks, but this makes getting to the bottom of the stack pretty difficult. Also, remember that they are not designed to take a lot of weight when they’re overturned, so sitting on them or using them as support structures is just begging for disaster. Instead, try to find some way to hang them on the wall, or fuse them together into a larger structure. If you’ve got the lumber and nails to spare, you can even try making a large wall of shelves from the crates.
Crates are also great for decorating. They take very well to spray paint, so feel free to splash them with color and patterns to your heart’s content. This is a great way to personalize and customize the furniture.
The long and short of it is this. You don’t need to go out and get new furniture, and you don’t need to live without comfort. All that new furniture is just shit that people nailed and glued together anyway, and all you’re paying for is the labor. If you’re willing to scrounge together the materials and put in the hours, you can live any way you want for pennies.
Tales of the Devil Duck Vol. 4: The House is Trashed… Now What?
“Tales of the Devil Duck is a series about the author, Bijhan’s, real-life experiences managing the day-to-day operation of the Devil Duck House, where he and other lived and put on regular shows and parties. One of the only Punk Houses in West Seattle, the Devil Duck no longer exists. But if you want to start doing something similar and keep the dream going, take a moment to learn from someone who’s been there.”
Alright, who the hell put the lounge chair in the damn kitchen?!
There is a ring of pink and brown in the bathtub, but no one knows why. A broken bottle has somehow migrated from the floor to the stove top. A whole beer is lodged in the kitty litter. Black streaks from dinge unknown have found their way onto ceilings and floorboards alike. The idiot who brought red wine to the party has left the permanent image of the crest of wine in mid-air in a spectacular purple stain on an otherwise white wall. And someone I’ve never met before is sleeping under my desk, nursing an empty bottle of Jägermeister and sporting a big black eye.
None of this is unusual after you host a double kegger at your house, with enough intoxicants to kill a whale, four of the hardest rocking punk bands in West Seattle, and over three hundred people through the course of a night.
With a five alarm hangover it’s very easy to just… not clean up. But this is a critical error. A spot where someone spilled beer just seems wet, or smelly. Fast forward two weeks and the combination of beer, carpet, and time has made little pockets of disgusting bread in the fabric and it’s attracting ants. A dent in the door is just annoying until the structure weakens enough that it just plain falls off the hinges.
Both of these catastrophes can easily be avoided if you’re willing to pick up the morning after a party and do some light repairs. Without regular and necessary maintenance a house can completely fall apart and become a hellhole to live in. Being lazy will not pay off.
The first course of action is to pick up the litter. And there will be lots. Be sure that everyone on your cleaning crew – and you will need at least one person per room – picks up all the litter before they do anything else. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by a mess of epic proportions, but it’s even easier if you don’t have a solid plan to attack the problem. Picking up litter is always the best place to start because you get everything out of the way and you can go around identifying what else needs to be done.
After everything’s cleaned up you’ll need to take care of the big three: walls, floors, and furniture. Don’t worry about the bathroom yet – that’s a whole other can of worms. Just scrub down the surfaces and lift stains. Carpets you just vacuum, but don’t forget to regularly get it steam cleaned. Steam cleaners can often be rented, or borrowed, if you don’t want to buy one. Grocery stores often rent them. But steam cleaning is a job to be done when no one is going to be home, like the middle of a day on a Wednesday. After a show a vacuuming will do just fine. Lineoleum and tile should be swept and mopped. Walls you should be a little careful of. You can’t just scrub them with any old soap. Think ahead and go to the store and ask someone what kind of soaps are good for you walls. Make note of whether they are painted, or have wallpaper. If there’s something different about the paint, like maybe they’re mottled or it’s two different types of paint side-by-side, you probably want to bring that up.
Furniture is always a specific issue. Getting free and expendable furniture is easy, so make sure all of your shitty shit is out and in use when the show starts. If you’ve got a nice couch, put it somewhere tucked away and safe. Just like your mother would put out the nice china for guests, you should put out your worst furniture for the occasion. Cleaning crappy furniture is always easy – just wipe it down. If something nice gets stained or damaged, fix it ASAP, because it will only get worse.
Great story. So there's a party, and one of our guests gets ragingly drunk and falls asleep in the bathtub. I try to warn Guest #2, who desperately needs to use the toilet, but he does not heed my advice. When Guest #3 hears about the two sharing a bathroom, he immediately gets excited about the prospect of seeing one man peeing while another is passed out. As Guest #3 barged in on a startled Guests #'s 1&2, I snapped this picture with my cellphone.
Make sure to keep everyone busy – if someone finishes a task early, have another one lined up. But also remember that people need breaks. Take a moment after each major task is completed, gather everyone together, and reward them for a job well done. Everyone cracking open a drink, taking a drag off a cigarette, or hitting a bowl at once can seriously diffuse stress and empower people. When you get the feeling people are beginning to really relax and unwind, though, that’s your cue to get them moving again. Don’t let people get too comfortable, or they’ll be unwilling to get back up again.
Cleaning the bathroom is always a hassle. It’s gross, we all know that. The easiest way to go about it is to get antibiotic wipes and wipe down the floor, sink, and the surfaces people tend to get dirty. Then put some bleach in the toilet and tub. After it’s had a while to sit, attack it with a sponge and scrub it all off. All you have to do after that is flush the toilet, spray down the tub with the shower head, and make sure all the bleach is gone. You’ve now got a sanitary place to pee.
And don’t forget to give everyone a big reward for a job well done when everything is finished. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money, just having a movie and some popcorn can turn a day of work into an exceedingly fond memory. Even though I spent many days with my elbow in the toilet and dirty sweat running down my face, I remember the friends, the movies, and the breaks more than anything else.
You don’t need to let a trashed house run you! With a little elbow grease and some help from your friends, cleaning up after a major party can be just as much fun as the party itself.
SEE ALSO:
Tales of the Devil Duck Vol. 1: How I Became King of a Punk House
Tales of the Devil Duck Vol. 2: The Daily Punk Grind
Tales of the Devil Duck Vol. 3: Punk Shows in the Living Room
>> Tales of the Devil Duck Vol. 4: The House is Trashed… Now What?
