A few weeks ago I went on a rant after a silly blog comment accusing mean old me of encouraging poor little “Hispanic Teens” to gamble because I’d embedded a link to an online casino in a blog post. See the post/rant HERE
I hit the roof. It’s punk rock, not Sesame Street. Punk rock is ugly… very ugly sometimes. People have gone to jail and even died over this music. Of course that comment was insanely off base. This blog is clearly not targeted to teens or kids and even if it were, I doubt a link on a website would lead them to become degenerate gamblers. My rant was profane, so don’t read it if your under 18. Maybe I should put Parental Guidance guidelines on each post?
Then as if to counteract all the negativity comes this nice letter in the actual postal mail from a couple of very young fans from South Florida, brothers actually. Their names are Jacob & Gavin. They are definitely minors, not even in junior high but they are also definitely solid punk rock fans. They have their own band, the “Javins’ (Get it? Jacob + Gavin= Javins). I love it!
We’ve seen kids from time to time at punk festivals and concerts with their parents all into punk rock, maybe even sporting a mohawk or a punk band t-shirts, or stud necklace (no tattoos yet thank God!) but I always wondered if they’d be punk when they grew up because it was pretty obvious that as a kid, they were just mirroring their parent(s)’ love of the lifestyle/genre. And as we all know, a mohawk or cool T does not a punk rocker make.
Artwork by Jacob T.
Well, having never met them, I can’t say for sure what motivates Jacob & Gavin and maybe this is just a phase, but I seriously doubt it. Jacob drew a very cool picture for us with the caption “Punk Rock Is Not A Crime”.
You know what Jacob, you are so right. “Punk Rock Is Not A Crime”. So simple, that I think we sometimes we forget to remind people like Fidel Castro in Cuba or the Muslim extremist in Indonesia of this fact.
Here’s hoping you guys never grow out of this “phase”.
Fighting injustice should never go out of style and I can tell you we’re going to need fired up guys like the “Javins” to remind the world what punk rock is all about.
Just like Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day did at the I Heart Radio concert in Las Vegas recently! (warning parent, it too is profane)
Thanks for the letter guys, thanks for the picture you crafted and thanks for being punk fans and giving us faith that there is a new generation insuring that punk will never die no matter how much corporations like Clear Channel or governments like Putin’s Russia try to kill it.
Good luck with the Javins and I hope you’ll let Punk Outlaw Records know when your first release is ready to roll. Heck, thanks to Jacob, we already have the album artwork!