Friends Don't Let Friends Whine Punk

How well do you know your punk-teen?

I know, its a scary question. Time was when you wouldn't even have to think about it. When you asked your punk-teen just where she thought she was going at this hour, you could be sure that her response of "Away from your Fascism, Helen!" meant the Social Distortion show at CBGB (OMFUG), where she'd spend her hours in a 120 decibel catharsis before emotionally enslaving the Bassist from Jones Crusher and brutally stopping his advance from Second to Third.

But in these trying times, can you be sure even of this? Every day--in the paper, on the evening news, at your dinner parties--there are new stories about punk teens trading in their mohawks for faux-hawks, piercings for clip ons, filthy for "vintage". Why, I'd be as wealthy as Good Charlotte if I had a nickel for every time I heard about a parent accidentally walking in on an embarrassed punk-teen scrambling to cover up his iPod or to change the channel from MTV2.

It wasn't long ago that you'd see cheap, basement-made EP cassettes and vinyl lining your punk-teen's bedroom floor, those days when your intrusions would meet with screaming and door slamming and even the occasional wish for your death. But sadly, this is no more.

The vaguely directed rage has turned to Meloncholy (sans, even, The Infinite Sadness); the mood-swings of emotional breadth have turned to brood-swings of emotional depth. I'm afraid to say that our children have lost the Parental Advisories on their music, and with it, their innocence. There is a growing underbelly of archy out there; of well-organized, well-funded music shows at big venues, complete with sound engineers and lighting technicians, tickets to which are available only from Ticketmaster (R). Indeed it seems that the only constants in this age of uncertainty are the amorphous angst and the black eyeliner. That's right, friends:

Your children are so fucking Emo that it literally hurts.

But its not too late. Talk to your kids, tell them that its ok to be effectual again. Tell them its ok to want to get laid for its own sake, and not just for the post-coital longing. Tell them that its ok to turn up the volume and the gain on their Marshall Stacks; or, if your youngsters have already unplugged, that its ok to play major progressions again. Tell your son that the number of tattoos he has should be proportional to his chances of winning a fight, not inversely proportional to it. Tell your daughter that there will be plenty of time for unexplained emotional distance once she's married, and that its possible not to fall in love with every sickly sixteen year old who sort of looks like Chris from Dashboard Confessional. And most of all tell them that sometimes, just sometimes, the sigh and the thousand-mile-gaze are inappropriate responses to external stimuli.

All this and more in my forthcoming educational video: Blood on the Frets.