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All Alone Together
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Doc Johnson
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All Alone Together
I thought I had posted this a while back, but guess not. This is a piece I wrote about the film I'm working on. Looking at how old punks like me think about what being a punk has meant to our lives, and how the scene persists today, with us, with new kids, and so forth.
Quote:All Alone Together
We thought we’d seen it all
We danced the dance
And sang the songs
That filled our hearts
To breaking
And deafened our ears
Like a shout of joy
Like a scream of despair
And we were there
Together
Alone
Listening in our rooms
Refuges, fortresses, prisons
Crypt-dark treasure houses
Of vinyl and third generation cassettes
Where nobody noticed us hiding
Right there in plain sight
Hearing sounds from somewhere
Out on the borders of the known
Where no one else wanted to be
A Promised Land
With no guarantees
No warranties
Claimed or implicit
We found a place to be together
Alone
In our Utopian Scene
In the cracks in between
We hid in plain sight
There and gone all at once
In the company of friends
In a place of our own
In the streets and the alleys
In the parking lots and the malls
In the used record stores
In Goodwill and Salvation
We found places
Where we could be right
Where we could be righteous
At least for today
It was our day
Those days became months
Then years
Then decades, and
One day I woke up
And wondered where it all had gone
Where were the outposts
The bastions and shaded groves
And walled gardens?
It was like a dream
But I never slept
And never woke up
Still in the dream
Staring at the sun
Always rising
Never setting
The show’s not over yet
But you never really know
How many encores you’ll get
There will always be gardens
In between the walls and fences
That separate us
One from the other
Fertile spaces
Between this and that
And the other
Places that still persist
With room for the living
And the long line of our glorious dead
The endless whispers of stories
And echoes of song
Haunting and proud
Still fast
Still loud
We listen together
Separated
And still there are places
Out on the borders of town
Islands in space, not only in thought
Where the wild things grow
Like we never left
But they are not our ghosts
Not shades of our past
They shine like small suns
Our brothers, our sisters
Persistent kindred spirits
Sharing that song
Eager in life
Forgetting about death
Just waiting for the next big show.
It’ll be epic.
I swear.
They still come
From near and far
To sing the old songs
And learn the new ones
To strive, to sweat,
Loving and hating and living
Watching and listening and playing
Hoping
They stand fast
As we did
All alone
Together
I got nothin'.
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10-08-2009 07:31 AM |
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IllusoryDeath
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Re: All Alone Together
I quite like it, truly.
It's a nice rhyme scheme that you have going for it.
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10-08-2009 08:28 AM |
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Doc Johnson
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Re: All Alone Together
Thanks. It's a lot longer than I thought it would be. But then again, I'm a lot older than I used to be. There's a lot to talk about at this point. I was trying to distill the meaning of what we intend for this film. It's so easy for adults to see kids doing things like they used to and then try to make it about them and what they used to do. That's just a pose. What I've discovered in making this, is that although we like similar things (music, etc.), the kids I've interviewed are doing it with and for their friends and their scenes. And themselves, of course. They're not doing it for me or for us when we were teens back in the 80s.
Nostalgia is a danger, and a dodge. It's how we tend to, eventually, deal with the fact of our own mortality. A lot of people, though, do a lot of work to keep their mortality out of the picture. Denial, rather than acceptance. I will die one day. If I don't my old friends will precede me, and I will be alone... but only if I insist on living in the past instead of the present. I love my old things and ways, but i refuse to turn them into a fetish to protect me from my mortality.
Does that make sense at all?
I got nothin'.
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10-08-2009 10:48 PM |
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IllusoryDeath
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Given 8 thank(s) in 8 post(s)
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Re: All Alone Together
Yes, it does. At least to me. That was very well spoken.
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10-09-2009 07:52 AM |
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Loxor
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Re: All Alone Together
That was moving, great job.
Anything that ever happened or will... one condition, it has to be amazing.
I gave her wings but she don't wanna fly no more.
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time
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10-09-2009 01:01 PM |
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