Redneck Punk

He was maybe in his early twenties, thin and about 5'10" tall. He dressed in skinny jeans, rolled up just above his worn Docs (14-hole, I believe). He wore a worn T-shirt and a faded denim jacket without sleeves and messy frays along the borders. He sewed and stuck dozens of patches down the back in a rebel's mosaic proclaiming his loyalty to the anarchist artists who yell loudly in his ears. He (unwittingly yet) proudly wore his hair in a dirty, reddish-orange Mohawk that protruded at least 12 in. from his scalp in a blatant, but silent scream of his defiance to the world. "Lots of glue, cheap hairspray, over processing, and days of unwashed grime must keep that 'Hawk looking that good," I thought as I (impatiently) waited in my car for the traffic light to change and allow me passage to my mundane job. The long chain from his wallet gently swayed against his left thigh as he crossed the street in front of me and I realized time was standing still while I admired this young, Redneck Punk in Raleigh, NC who wore the standard rebel anarchist's uniform. Then it hit me . . . PUNKS IN RALEIGH, WTF?

Having grown up in Los Angeles and having lived there for 28 years desensitized me from any outlandish modes of self-expression and the numerous members of the sub-cultures who parade daily down the streets of that urban jungle. My sense of normality ecclectically included Punks, Metal-Heads, Cholos, Gangsters, Chachas, Hood Rats, Kogals, etc. But I never realized how much I took that motley familiarity for granted until I moved to North Carolina over three years ago. Though there is a fair share of football-loving-beer-guzzling-pork BBQ-eating rednecks in their over-compensating 4WD trucks rumbling down the winding roads of the Bible Belt, Raleigh is a great place to work, live and raise a family. The median houshold income is $47,744/yr, the median home price is $186,500, and of the total 356,321 residents 41% have college degrees (http://www.usnews.com/listings/retirement/north_carolina/Raleigh). But nowhere in that demographic did Punks fit in when I mainly see things in standard "black and white" with little to no extremism of any kind. And then this young Punk strolls in front of my car at 8:25 AM to completely throw my ordinary world off kilter!

I walked into my office a little after 8:30 and still could not believe what I had seen. I was thrilled and mesmerized by the site of that social insurgent. Not only did he help me remember my youth (I often formed part of the audience at LA punk rock shows, thus attributing to my hearing loss now), but it also helped me to realize there is much hidden in Raleigh's underground (and I'm getting EFFING OLD, but I'm not discussing that right now). I feverishly began researching what I could find about Raleigh's Punk culture and I found this article title (http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A160993):

The end of three punk houses in Raleigh

"Wow!," I said to myself. I read it and my jaw dropped. "This is AWESOME!," I thought. So deeply underground, so excitingly disobedient, so completely PUNK! Though the article itself points out the oppression of the young punk scene in conservative Raleigh, but the fact that punk shows occurred in various basements throughout Raleigh completely thrills me. In LA, the punk scene has almost become mundane. Being punk in Hollywood isn't based on youthful rebellion, but has become a mainstream fashion statement, thus pretty much vomitting on the original concept and questioning what really is punk? But Raleigh's Redneck Punks have embraced the original concept of carefree defiance and artistic expression against society's norms. They've opened their doors to the world (literally) but have suffered the heavy iron-fist of public policy and order. Despite the setbacks, they struggle, they create, they invite, they rebel and they continue to persevere. How do I know this? My Redneck Punk-boy "told" me so.