Back In Black

Today I realized I was wearing all black: shoes, socks, jeans, jacket, gloves, helmet... It was weird. And I was riding an all-black bike. I usually don't wear much black, if any at all.

In a moment I traced that feeling of weirdness back to high school.

I had striven so hard to be different. That is, different from mainstream Pop culture. Skater, punk, goth, whatever. Ska for a second. Skin/street-punk after that. You know the pattern. Punk, crust, politi-punk, emo-core, hardcore, straight-edge, metal-core... I think I explained this once. Long story short, black clothing was a dominant motif throughout all those sub-culture stages.

Anyways, at some point, I decided that the scene of each of those subcultures tended to be its own mono-culture. While we pitted ourselves against the Pop Culture drones that all wore Abercrombie and... whatever... I found that we all looked alike to others [Others being anyone who cared about stereotypes, scenesters]. Well, I was tired of seeing so much depressing black clothing. It started to embody negativity and depression. I realized a lot of the metal-core music tended to be just as negative and depressing. At the same time, I was getting into a bunch of hippie shit, like farming and sustainability. I started trying to blend the different worlds by bringing color into my wardrobe--as I had determined it might make a difference to others. I was pretty sure I was a trail-blazer.

Ok, so let us fast forward to today. I think I am reverting a little bit to try to reclaim a bit of my own history; set myself apart in the suburbs. At the same time I always hope to be an example to young skater kids and punks who are searching for themselves--the same lost kids who smash a glass bottle on the bike path because they think rebellion is mindless destruction because they don't realize they could be instigating real rebellion by riding a bike...