Punk Fan

What a long strange trip it’s been. I discovered Punk as a freshman at Northwestern University in 1979 via some groovy kids in my dorm. I came across a few punk disciples then (granted it was a couple years after the beginning of the movement) and later sang at the infamous CBGB’s with the band Urge Overkill. I could scream it with the best of ’em. I was too young to be a hippie though I recall watching wistfully the barefoot freaks walking around my hometown and my older cousins with their huge Afros and Black Power when I was a child. Always a rocker and always a closet rebel, the lure of a true counter-culture was too alluring to resist. Often the lone Black kid in the fray but never caring – I’d attended predominantly White schools since age 8 and I was comfortable in my skin – I loved it. The chaos of Punk was appealing to me as both a fan of the music and an appreciative observer of the scene. It was after all only Rock and Roll and I liked it. And now a show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Vanity Fair article about Punk Nostalgia and “CBGB – The Movie.” Nostalgia indeed.