SOUNDTRACK: AGNOSTIC FRONT-Victim in Pain (1984).
In yesterday’s post, Rebecca Kushner mentions a bunch of punk band members that she either knew or hung out with. I was amazed at how many of them I’d heard of but didn’t really know. So this seemed like a good opportunity to go punk surfing.
Agnostic Front is a band I’ve known about forever–they are pretty well acknowledged as the godfathers of punk. And yet somehow I never really listened to them.
Victim in Pain is their debut album. It’s got 11 songs in just over 15 minutes.
The longest song on the record is just over two minutes long =. It’s called “Fascist Attitude” and in addition to being sadly appropriate still, it fits a lot of content into just two minutes
Why should you go around bashing one another
If they look or think different, why let it bother
Everyone’s got their own style, their own thoughts
Don’t let it bother you, don’t let it get caught
Your fascist attitudes – we need the least
With a scene that’s fighting for unity peace
Don’t need more anger; no more danger
Stop now before it’s too late
Learning how to respect each other is a must
So why start a war of anger danger among us
It’s time to grow out of your nazi hypocrism
When you really don’t want part of a fucked up system
Agnostic Front are still going, with a bit more of a thrash sound (and a wicked rumbling bass). And their albums (and songs) are still really short.
[READ: February 8, 2021] “A Wrinkle in the Realm”
This is an interesting story about masks, but not about the masks that we have been wearing all this time (or maybe it is).
The narrator notices that a woman crossed the street as he walked by. Then he noticed on the subway that a woman moved her purse to the other side of her when he sat down.
He looked at himself in the mirror and thought he looked normal. But he wondered what other people swa in him.
I assumed that this story was about racism (although no one’s race is given), but it goes in a different direction. Although it’s also clearly about racism, make no mistake.
He was unable to stop worrying about what people saw in him to make them afraid. He tried changing the way he walked, but this new style seemed to make people cross the street even sooner.
One day he was walking behind someone tall and bowlegged. The man walked past a woman who didn’t do anything. But when she saw the narrator, she looked startled and immediately crossed the street. He was so surprised that he followed her. She crossed back. When he crossed back, she crossed one more time, but he met her in the middle. As they walked past each other he said, “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m not going to eat you.” She turned and fled.
That night he felt that he looked a little different as if the encounter with the woman had changed him. He asked people at work if he looked different. They felt something was different about him, but they weren’t sure what.
Soon he began avoiding the gazes of others. He seemed to actively be hiding from people. This was especially odd at work when he would avoid people all day. He also avoided all photos.
Then one day he decided he should wear a mask. A local stall sold masks on Sunday morning. He wanted a mask that looked as much like a normal face as possible. The shop owner sold him several and he tried one every day. At work he was immediately summoned to his boss’ office.
His boss asked what he hell he was doing, that the mask was really frightening–how were people supposed to know who was under the mask? He told his boss he liked the mask and finally didn’t mind being looked at.
His boss told him to get help or be fired.
But he asked if he could experiment with it for one week.
Every day he wore a different mask. No one fled from him, they all just looked at him with every growing curiosity.
He wondered why people were not bothered by the mask so he asked the mask seller.
The man said he wished he’d known why the narrator was wearing the masks. He had the perfect mask for him. He wound up giving the narrator the mask because he said that the narrator had inspired so many new customers to come to his store.
When he walked down the street now a woman stopped him and asked for directions. It was wonderful.
There’s a nice twist at the end of the story.
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