Who knows if the guy who made this video is on the right track, but at least he’s taking action. Let’s just hope he had permission to use the much talked about song  Friday by Rebecca Black.

Amazon doesn’t sell REAL machine
guns, but you can at least ANNOY
THE HELL out of enemy invaders
with this realistic BB gun replica.

These are strange and troubling times. Global economic collapse, which was only prevented (or just delayed) by the nationalization of banks and industry. Border skirmishes in Korea. Continued war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Riots and revolution in the Mideast, massive civilian protests in Wisconsin. Earthquakes in Haiti, New Zealand, and Japan, where tsunamis and nuclear reactor meltdowns were added for extra apocalyptic horror. And in the most telling sign of all, America elects a black man as president. Who could ignore these obvious signs of the coming Armageddon? Well, not us; we started talking about preparations for the econopocalypse back in 2008  and have revisited the theme regularly since then. But with the official end of the world less than 650 days away, we thought maybe it’s time to take a more serious look at finally assembling those essential tools for surviving the apocalypse. We’re so frightened by recent events ourselves that we’re afraid to leave the office, so we decided to see if a person could secure all the supplies they need on Amazon. Aside from automatic weapons, water tanker, and razor wire, we think we did pretty well. See below.

Echo1 Full Size Airsoft Mini-Gun	Like my uncle Clem from Appalachia always said: “Them’s what got stuff, got stuff. Them’s what got guns, kin take it from ‘em“. Unfortunately, you can’t buy guns on Amazon. That image at left is an Echo1 USA Full Size Airsoft Mini-Gun. Yes, for a mere $3,500.00, you too can have your very own precise replica of a machine gun that fires several thousand rounds per minute. The only difference? It doesn’t. It does shoot real live BB’s though, if your only objective is to PISS OFF the rugged survivalist that is about to steal all your supplies before raping and murdering your family.
Ten Point® Phantom CLS™ Crossbow Package	Interestingly, although Amazon seems to have some weird issue with things that go “bang” and can kill from a considerable distance, they don’t seem to have a problem with devices that do the same thing in near total silence. Although there’s no mention of the fact in the product descriptions, the Trophy Room page of the company’s web site shows people posing with deer that have been killed with the Ten Point® Phantom CLS™ Crossbow Package. We assume that means it will also work on (wink wink, nudge nudge) other large mammals.
Sorry, not available on Amazon	Water is essential to survival, and while it would be nice to have a 9,000 gallon tanker like the one pictured, they don’t sell them on Amazon. They also don’t sell those five gallon jobbies either, but that’s okay; for one thing the shipping costs would kill you before dehydration would, and who wants to lug around five gallon jugs of water as you pillage for supplies? The fact is, if you can’t commandeer all the water you need by menacing other survivors with your awesome BB gun, you can convert any water into drinkable water with enough Military Water Purification Tablets Just ignore the fact that they’re actually poisonous when not completely dissolved. I’m sure that if the US military uses them, they’re safe. Right? Right?
Leather wear	Now that the apocalypse has finally arrived, you’re not going to be wasting precious water on silly things like LAUNDRY, right? Besides, nothing makes you look more badass than some Leather wear. Didn’t you see Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome ? Quality leather gear will indeed make you Master. Blaster not included.
Emergency Survival Food Supply 275 Meal Pack	There are lots of food products for survival, but the Emergency Survival Food Supply 275 Meal Pack comes in a BUCKET. And you know you’ll need one after eating 275 packs of survival food.
Megaphone With Siren Law Enforcement Bullhorn	This may seem like a flippant inclusion, but the fact is, with your band of thugs armed with annoying rapid fire BB guns and lethal crossbows, you’ll quickly be taking charge of any other survivors in the area, and what better way to start dictating the laws of the land than with a Megaphone With Siren Law Enforcement Bullhorn. I mean, it says LAW ENFORCEMENT right in the product name.
Solar/Self Powered AM/FM/Weatherband Radio with Flashlight and Cell Phone Charger	Hell. I’m gonna buy one of these things, apocalypse or not. And when the world DOES end, it’ll be cool to be able to charge your cell phone while you listen to Glenn Beck and make scary faces in the dark with a Solar-Powered, Self-Powered AM/FM/Weatherband Portable Radio with Flashlight and Cell Phone Charger
Honda Portable Generator	I don’t know why everyone doesn’t own one of these things anyway. A Honda Portable Generator is sort of a must-have for post-apocalypse scenarios, but they’re also great for powering backyard Raves or for those of us who hate camping without a microwave and a 42″ TV.
Deluxe 2-Person by Survival Kit	I’m not sure what the Deluxe 2-Person by Survival Kit is intended to help you survive. A weekend at Lollapalooza? If so, they forgot the ecstasy. It sure LOOKS like it has everything though. This would be great for spreading out on your living room floor to convince yourself that you’re prepared.
Coopers Brewery Micro-Brew Beer Kit	Your popularity in the end of days is assured if you have some beer on hand, so get that bar open ASAP with a Coopers Brewery Micro-Brew Beer Kit.Remember: for many, the absence of beer IS the end of the world.
Do You Like Pina Coladas?	This was sort of an afterthought. You may want to drive enemy survivors out of their encampment without killing them, so you can enslave them. Normal humans can usually be driven to the point of unconditional surrender with less than three hours of Do You Like Pina Coladas played over your megaphone at 120 decibels.

The Borg	Facebook
The Borg is a collective of mindless drones managed by a self-directed queen.	Facebook is a collective of self-directed queens created by a drone.
The borg central base (called the “unicomplex”) is located in an unknown area of the Delta Quadrant.	The Facebook central base (called a “data center”) is located in an unknown area near Palo Alto, CA.
Individual Borg rarely speak. Instead, they repeatedly transmit an audio message to their targets stating that “resistance is futile”.	Facebook users rarely speak. Instead, they repeatedly transmit a simple data message that says “I like this”.
The Borg “unicomplex” is a patchwork-like collection of thousands of cubes, connected by assorted conduits and transportation hubs.	Facebook is a patchwork-like collection of millions of “friends”, connected by assorted apps and membership hubs.
“Assimilation” is the process by which the Borg absorb beings and cultures into their collective.	“Friend whoring” and “Liking” are the processes by which Facebook absorbs beings and subcultures into their collective.
Once assimilated, it is nearly impossible to escape the collective alive.	Once assimilated, it is nearly impossible to escape the collective alive.

Trying To De-Activate Your Facebook Account

(View as single image here)

First, they assault you with pictures of all the hot chicks you know, your best friend, and your wildest party pics, with an almost audible “But so-and-so is going to *sniff sniff* MISS YOU, *sob sob*.

Then, they freakin’ interrogate you like a goddamn used car salesman or relentless pickup artist at the bar: “But why? What did we do wrong? You’ll be back some time, right?”

And what finally got me was that I didn’t want to take the time to explain to a friend how to take over the stupid app I never really use, but is live on several of the sites I manage. Bastards.

And tell me this image from inside the Facebook data center doesn’t look like the inside of a Borg cube:

Maybe we all just need a night on the Holodeck…

Can you guess who said “I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have”? It was Leonardo da Vinci. Can you imagine? What a miserably unhappy fellow he must have been. And a perfect example of one of the pitfalls of being a perfectionist. We often think of a perfectionist as someone who meticulously demands that everything around them be “just so”, imposing their will on others. But I speak from firsthand experience when I say that more commonly, perfectionism manifests itself as a self-defeating, sometime paralyzing life approach that leads to procrastination, disappointment, and an ongoing, low-key dissatisfaction with life in general. I personally didn’t realize that I had this problem until a few years ago. It was brought to my attention in an unexpected way; I had quit drinking, because although I wasn’t having more obvious, “dramatic” problems with alcohol, I recognized that it was significantly diminishing my quality of life. It was a long-time struggling alcoholic that mentioned it. It was a simple, but shocking revelation for me. Prior to that point, I knew that I tended to be extremely organized, a little particular about fine points, and punctual. That sort of thing. But what had never occurred to me was how many things I hadn’t done in life, because unconsciously, I felt I wouldn’t excel at them. On the other hand, I’ve done very daring things in a mediocre way, like skydiving and hang gliding. With hindsight I realize that I secretly thought that things like this somehow made up for all the other things I hadn’t done. Because who can question your willingness to do things when you can inject that kind of experience into a conversation? If you’re not sure if you’re a perfectionist, maybe you you should take this test provided by Discovery Health. If, like me, you get annoyed with the obviousness of the test questions and quit after the first page, you probably have a problem with perfectionism. There are hundreds of articles on perfectionism out there, but one of the more concise summaries I found just now was this one on the University of Texas web site. It defines a lot of the key characteristics and the problems they create in a simple, summarized format. So assuming you’re deciding that maybe you have a problem with perfectionism, how do you fix it? My asking that question is kind of a joke; that’s probably one of the first things you have to get used to. Life is not a state, or a series of states, it’s a process. If you even pause and say “Damn, I think I have a problem with perfectionism”, you’ve begun to fix it. And you may never actually “fix” it. That’s the real secret. Part of dealing with self-defeating perfectionism is simple acceptance of who you are. And accepting that you’re not perfect, may never be, and probably you’re the only one who expects you to be. This piece on Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong.com takes a rather in-depth look at the problem, and offers a ton of ideas for working on it. But I have three simple suggestions below. You’ll be surprised that not only will you like you more when you learn to let go of some of your negative perfectionist traits, but other people will too. Life’s too short to mope about lamenting its imperfections. Learn to enjoy its consistently successful chaos.

Do Things You Don’t Do

This sounds ridiculously simple, but it did wonders for me, and continues to do so whenever I remember to do it. It can also be just plain fun. If I were going to be a perfectionist about this, I’d make a list of a hundred things you could do, but the basic idea is to do things you’ve never or rarely done, and I have no idea what you’ve done or not done, or why. In my case it was simple things, like bowling, going to a driving range to see if I could develop a decent swing, indoor rock climbing, and running. The objective is to just do something different, and not care if you do it badly. For me, almost all of these things seemed like really dumb things to do, and in each case I learned a ton about myself. Like, I’m a horrible bowler, for instance. If you have trouble getting this idea in motion, try watching the movie Yes Man, and then try saying “yes” all day one day. You’ll be surprised where you end up.

The Serenity Prayer

You may be familiar with the “serenity prayer” that’s commonly recited by people in twelve-step programs. You also may find it trite, irrelevant, or meaningless. Let’s re-frame it though. And you can even leave the “God” part out if that suits your needs. The commonly recited version is “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”. So what is it really saying? Especially if you already rely on the prayer, break it down and put it to work. It’s remarkably practical. First, relax. The majority of the universe is beyond your control. Get used to it. Look at whatever problem confronts you at the moment, and ask “can I really do anything about this RIGHT NOW?” If not, let it go, knowing you can get back to it if necessary. Second, if it IS something you can take care of, well, buck up and do it. And third, if you’ve done the first two parts, you’ve already implemented the fact that you’re wise enough to know the difference. You don’t have to say it in its original form, but it’s a fantastic tool for slowing down and assessing frustrating moments.

Mind Reading

It’s amazing how good a perfectionist is at reading others’ minds, while failing to read their own. By reading others’ minds, I mean the tendency of the perfectionist to load themselves with anxiety about the expectations of bosses, house-guests, members of the opposite sex, whoever. Chill out. You really don’t know what other people are thinking, and you can always ask. You’ll be surprised in many cases that they’ll be glad that you did. And you’ll slowly find that maybe you’re addicted to the discomfort that these silent assumptions provide you, but in fact feel better when you’re not engaging in that particular addiction. On the other hand, few of us pause to realize that we engage in a lot of “self talk”, because it’s so seamlessly integrated into our thought processes. For just one day, listen carefully to see if there’s an almost-discernible voice in your head that’s muttering negativity. If you discover it is in fact present, listen to it. Identify what it’s “saying”. For me, this voice was a constant over-anticipation of all the possible outcomes of almost every activity that faced me on a given day. Which is absurd, because on many days, half of the events of the day still managed to play out in a manner that was not included in one of my “battle plan” scenarios. This kind of thinking can keep us from the place where we do in fact often take the “perfect” action. Spontaneously, and in the present.

A couple of things got me thinking recently about the concept of legalized state lottos that operate with the public assumption that they fund education. The first was that I fell into a rather amusing obsessive-compulsive trap a little over a year ago. My mother – bless her soul, she passed away this year – suggested we pick a few lotto numbers and play them regularly. It was a little moment of fun once a week, checking to see if we were multimillionaires, and we even had a couple of $150.00 winners. But now I’m left with a sick compulsion – and I’ve talked to a few other people that do the same – to keep playing the numbers, because I’m DEAD POSITIVE that the day that I don’t play is the day that the numbers will be the multimillion dollar winners. I mean I’ve “invested” around three hundred dollars in that year and a half, so I’m at about break-even, right? No harm going on, correct? And so goes the thinking of a potential gambling addict. The other thing that got me pondering these state lottos was observing the demographic that seems to support the system. I’m doing work on location with a client who owns several lotto/liquor stores, and couldn’t help noticing that the vast majority of lotto customers seemed to be lower income, and non-white. This is obviously a local and anecdotal observation, and as you might imagine, there are very few large-scale scientific surveys to reference. However, surveys like this one from Georgia (2.6MB PDF) and this one from Texas (221KB PDF) make it clear that although the percentage of each racial demographic that has at some time played is almost the same, the high-frequency players who spend the largest percentage of their income are in fact black, in the lowest income bracket, and have the lowest “educational attainment”, in this case a high school degree or less. Well, perhaps the government knowingly supporting the gambling fixations of the hardworking poor is acceptable. In a free market economy, it’s “buyer beware”, right? Besides, it’s all for a good cause. We’re supporting education, remember? Well, not so much, as it turns out. This Illinois School Board brochure (180KB PDF) points out that lotto revenue provides less than .03% of total funding for schools in Illinois, and as this NBC News affiliate article points out, many states take money away from education to match the lotto revenue. And in the case of Michigan, which boasts in press releases about the efficiency of their lotto commission, the former governor shuffled $208 million of the school money into the general budget to reduce the state’s deficit figures this past fall. Well, at least once in awhile some poor cuss will win and live the good life right? Well, someone has to win, but one of the commonly used examples of how absurdly unlikely that it will be you is that if you spent a million dollars a year on tickets, it would be 146 years before you’d be sure to win. And when people do win, it often doesn’t turn out so well.
Get your child on the stupid track early with the My First Lotto game!

Smoking Marijuana

Although we’re not condoning the use of marijuana or anything, it certainly is a powerful tool for feeling like you’re doing something when you’re not. And often when you actually end up doing something while high, it comes pretty close to not doing anything at all. Like the girl in this video, for instance:

In all fairness, this video is the reason this girl is laughing

Wikipedia

This is a no brainer. I use the word wikiphilia a lot in my writing here on Dissociated Press, because the fact is, most of the time I’m not really doing any writing, I’m just finding stuff on the web and linking to Wikipedia entries about it. This is in fact what the internet was made for. Taking massive amounts of useless information and linking it to itself has probably done more to advance the cause of procrastination than FreeCell. If you want to take this to the next level though, you can put off actually avoiding things you need to by wasting time on Wikipedia by making a video about how to do it:

YouTube

You know that old expression I’d rather watch paint drying? Well, thanks to YouTube, now you can. Also in HD.

Reading A Book

This is way over-rated, and far too much like actually doing something. Especially depending on what you read. I mean, if you’re not careful, you might read some book about the history of empires or something, and suddenly realize you’re living in one that’s dying just like all the others. Then you’d have to go vote or something. That’s a lot of work. Below are some suggestions for what to read or not read to maintain your state of non-doing-ness.

	For obvious reasons, you should under NO CIRCUMSTANCES read this book
	If you really MUST read a book, this one is safe. It’s a day to day narrative of nothing. Great reading for when you’re putting off writing that screenplay you mean to write.
	Which is okay, Nora. Because unfortunately, I bet nobody remembers YOU either. In any case, don’t read this book. You’ll probably get inspired to write that screenplay after all.

I miss the good old days, when polite people had a silent agreement that there were certain things you just didn’t talk about except amongst close friends. The lists vary, but amongst the affluent, it was generally religion, income, and personal health. For hairdressers, it was religion and politics. For British friends of mine, the rule was no jokes about the Queen, the Pope, or Jesus. Well, ever since someone opened that whole can, I’ve given up and been gleefully pulling out more worms whenever I’m able, in the hope that the conversations will burn themselves up so we can get back to talking about fun stuff, like sports and movies and food and books. Or advanced lovemaking techniques. Or whatever. So prepare to be offended here. But a little preface, lest you think you have any insight into the details of my stance on various topics as a result of reading my capricious trolling. I love science, and I believe in a consciousness greater than the individual mind. And those frameworks are compatible in my world. But in spite of my confidence in science, I feel we should add it to the “off-limits” list, should we ever return to old-school conversational etiquette, because thanks to rabid creationists, a lot of atheist scientists were goaded outside their legitimate territory, and into trying to apply science to topics it knows nothing about. Like the origin of the universe. Or lots of other things that are more like philosophy than science. So. On with the trolling! First up: religion. I had a belly laugh yesterday when I read that the Pope said that religion was being marginalized around the world. Yes, Mr God’s Representative on Earth, it is. Maybe it would help if the cost of one of your papal robes weren’t equal to the GDP of many starving countries, or if you’d be a little more proactive about addressing that whole pedophile priest business. Apologies are nice, but many think that maybe you should look into your own church’s history for a more fitting punishment for your errant and perverted clerics. Because you really should have your terrestrial affairs in order before you start baptizing aliens, right? And Islam? Although I find myself defending you a lot lately, I’m not too fond of the bits where you stone people (this article blames the practice on the Torah), subjugate women in a nearly neanderthal fashion, and generally let your heavily paternal secular culture poison any hope of popular spiritual enlightenment. I hesitate to mention Judaism, because there’s danger of talking about Palestine, and to discuss this topic in certain circles will certainly lead down a really bad rabbit hole. Oops. I just did it. But did I leave anybody out? Of course I did, the “big three” are Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. I’m too ignorant to talk about Hinduism, I only mentioned Judaism because in spite of comprising less than 1% of the world’s population, it gets a tremendous amount of press, and Buddhists not only by nature aren’t an organization, but their estimated number varies from 100 million to 1 billion, largely because political oppression in the countries that might be most Buddhist prevents accurate information gathering. So we don’t even know who the big three really are. I imagine if there were more oil where there are people of other faiths, we’d know all about them, so we could irrationally fear them. But there isn’t, so we don’t. So, on to science. I’ve been amused for a while about about the whole “Intelligent Design” debate. Somehow, modern people have taken one of the central mysteries of our existence – one that has little hope of being explained with absolute certainty with any system – and decided that one side or the other (i.e.: atheist scientists or religious creationists) has the answer. Which is why I’ve decided I’m a little at odds with both when it comes to the creation of the universe and evolution. I mean, face it. No one can say with certainty what was going on in the universe in early human history (say, ten thousand years ago), let alone FOURTEEN BILLION YEARS AGO. And all the fun and usefulness of Darwinian thought is shot to hell as soon as it becomes DOGMA. So for some real fun in these areas, one of my favorite points of view to toss into casual philosophical conversation is Geocentrism. Because in the anthropocentric universe in which we live, how could the Earth be anything BUT the center of the universe, right? Read some interesting (if a bit carelessly assembled) points of view here. One of my faves is the one in which astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis points out that science relies on philosophical criteria to select its models for astrophysics, which makes the arguments intrinsically undisprovable. Just ignore the vintage web design if you can. And Darwin? That’s like shootin’ fish in a barrel. Just start with the simple factual statement that IT’S ONLY A THEORY. That gives the creationists fodder, and puts the hardcore science types immediately on the defensive. If things get off to a slow start, just mention nuts who write stuff like The Origin of Specious Nonsense. My apologies in advance for that site if you visit it, but the guy’s material is excellent fodder. Just watch him talk about sperm for 5 minutes in the clip below if you have any doubts. So “what”, you may ask, “is the purpose of this trolling?” I find that in most social settings, this is the easiest way to ferret out the know-it-alls and extremists so I can have a good time with the normal people. Plus, it generates page views. Any suggestions of your own for trolling topics?

Listen to nutjob John J May talk about “tousands of sparm” for five minutes.

Before I get to the precious links that I know you really come here for, I’m going to preface things with an interesting experience that I had recently. Early in the morning the other day, I walked out of my house to head to what I knew was going to be a long meeting. I lit a cigarette, and as I rounded the corner was confronted by a woman who asked if I had another. I said “sorry” and kept walking. I live in a town that even in bad economic times has service jobs going wanting, which makes it easy for me to pompously justify to myself my reluctance to give things away to the 5-15 people that ask me for something each day. As I walked on, she muttered something incomprehensible, which I assumed was some Gypsy curse to punish me for being such a selfish bastard. About a half block further along, I remembered how my recently deceased mom ALWAYS gave things to strangers, and thought “Great. That lady was probably Jesus in disguise or something, and now I’m going to hell”. I resolved to try to be just a little bit nicer. Just for that day. So a few hours later, I walked out of the meeting, and headed to a nearby alley to indulge in my shameful nicotine addiction. Guess who was sitting at the entrance to the alley. I was on the phone as I passed her and she asked for a dollar. I ignored her because, well, I was ON THE PHONE dammit, so DON’T BE SO RUDE. When I headed back I wasn’t on the phone, and because she had been SO RUDE while I was on the phone, I ignored her as she asked for “just a few” dollars. I walked about 20 feet further and thought to myself “Damn. I planned to try to be just a little nicer, just for one day.” I walked back and asked her exactly what she needed, and she said “oh please mister, just five dollars would really help out.” I explained that I wasn’t likely to just give her five dollars, but would gladly go with her to the nearby store and buy her a bunch of food or other basics she might need, or even take her to a cafe or something for a bite to eat. To which she replied, almost sobbing, “can’t you please just help out with twenty dollars?” I’m not sure how we got from a cigarette that morning to 20 dollars just now, but I explained that there was no way I was just going to give her a bunch of money. I walked away, actually more angry than anything. I was reminded of this little set of interactions today as I read a fascinating article called Westerners vs. the World: We are the WEIRD ones. It explains how we WEIRD people (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) are in fact quite weird in our perception in many ways. It tells the story of how researchers used something called The Ultimatum Game, in which you are given money and asked to share it with someone else. You can offer that person any amount, and if he accepts the offer, you each get to keep your share. If he rejects your offer, you both walk away empty-handed. The results in various parts of the world were quite telling. Along the same lines, a Toronto Star reporter tried a little experiment recently to see how panhandlers would use free credit cards. The actual results were interesting, but not all that surprising. And frankly raises a small question of the ethics of “charity experiments” to create news content, when this sort of thing occurs naturally and probably gets about as much readership. This kind of experimenting is something that can be taken to incredible extremes, as in the case of doing A-B testing to see if a homeless guy can generate more revenue by refining his sign design. I’m not sure if that’s even a true story, but all of these stories reminded me that I’ve been struggling for a long time with how to deal with the people in my everyday life who ask for money on the streets and how I might do something positive that doesn’t involve simply giving away money. To that end, I already have a project in the works to teach computer skills to the disadvantaged, as I think computer illiteracy is a common obstacle to job-hunting confidence, even for homeless people. But I long for a simpler, practical solution to helping those that are struggling, and I think I’ve hit on a clever idea that may have some sense in it. I’d love input on the idea; I’m not sure if in reality it would be pointless or seem condescending. I explain it a little below.

The idea is that aside from people who have made hustling and panhandling a committed lifestyle choice, there are people who are really just down on their luck and floundering. And in tough times like this, there are plenty of us who are fairly broke ourselves, and can’t afford to pull twenty bucks out of our pockets daily to help these people that are worse off than ourselves. In many communities – especially the one that I live in – there are probably more than enough resources available to help out those in need. Once a person is living with the anxiety of simply eating that day, it becomes hard to think clearly about anything. I know. I’ve been there. I’m fairly confident that very few people who start reluctantly panhandling even know where all these resources are. So I’m going to try my own little “charity experiment’, and print up “dollars” that fit in my wallet, and start passing them out in lieu of cash. They could include all sorts of information, like where to get substance abuse treatment, shelter from physical abuse, temp work; the possibilities are endless. Above is a simple mockup of the idea. What do you think?

Here’s that A-B testing mentioned in the article:

That’s not only a song by The Tubes that I really don’t care for, it’s also a simple truth. It was all kind of an accident really. In 1977 I didn’t mean to be a teenage punk. I just had the misfortune of having a British hairdresser and a predilection for buying my clothes at resale shops at the same time that bands like the Sex Pistols were first making a splash. Suddenly, and for almost a decade, I was “punk”. Which was annoying, because the fact was that in spite of my appearances in the early eighties, I HATED most punk bands, and just about everything else that was officially punk. My friends and I were just arty types who liked drugs, had weird haircuts, wore a lot of black clothes and makeup, and didn’t want to be Ronald Reagan’s suggested version of a young adult, i.e.: a YUPPY. All of which is why I have a sort of anthropological fascination with contrived American urban tribes and subcultures like Gore Lolitas and Juggalo Furries, body modders, self-cutting emos, and most recently “Gutter Punks”. You may have noticed more of these kids lately; while they’ve been annoying people in hipster havens like Williamsburg or the Haight in San Francisco for quite a while, they’ve more recently been invading more middle American towns as well. I was actually spending time with a few of them recently to write an in-depth piece, but got tired of being stood up by them over and over, so have shelved the idea for a while. Which was kind of a relief in a way. Because although some of the kids I talked to were witty, reasonably intelligent, and had some interesting things to say, they really, REALLY smelled awful. And I’m not the kind of person that needs everybody to smell “Zestfully Clean” or anything; I’ve been around all kinds of people who don’t have the same hygiene standards as an urban American. The natural smell of a healthy human really isn’t unpleasant. But almost every crowd of these kids I’ve spent time with smells like some horrible collision of urban grime, petrol, beer, patchouli, urine, feta cheese, and Cool Ranch Doritos™. Not necessarily in that order. That may sound superficial, but try spending an hour with it. In any case, what I really find intriguing about this kind of “tribe” is that these kids have made a serious lifestyle choice, and usually possess refined hoboing, trainhopping, and grifting skills that are all wrapped up in a hybridized cookie-cutter countercultural brand that borrows from beats, hippies, punks, and rastas to create a new lifestyle that is “off the grid” and seems rebellious, but is ultimately based on conformity. It’s like “anarchy as a brand”. Which is why I cracked up when I learned that there was a The Decline Of Western Civilization: Part III for sale on Amazon for 200 bucks . The first film in that series was considered a little shocking by the mainstream when it came out in the eighties, but Part III? How long is this decline going to take? I’m still going to try to meet up with some of these kids to explore their attitudes firsthand, but if you want to learn more about these roving packs of dreadlocked punks and their dogs, they’re often referred to as Gutter Punks or Crusties, and have been around long enough as a definable subculture that you can find references like this 1998 Phoenix NewTimes piece which goes into considerable depth. The kids themselves may prefer terms like “traveler” or no label at all, and although sources like Wikipedia will suggest they often have some link to Anarcho-punk culture, I quite often find that they simply don’t think much farther than the next drink or where to hang out. Which IS pretty punk, but c’mon. How punk are you REALLY if your band Capitalist Casualties is on iTunes?

FreeWilliamsburg.com even has a Gutter Punk Foldable Crusty Bank: