Bangs, Converses, and Blink

In 6th grade I was a jock, but a part of me didn't quite feel like I belonged. I was attracted to weird clothing, which included a studded belt I wore everyday and two different colored converses. I chopped my bangs late one night and dyed the tips of them bright pink with some semi-permanent dye I bought at a hot topic. I would show up at practice and I wasn't made fun of but it was very well aware I was different. While most of the girls on my soccer team ran after football and baseball players, I longingly crushed on a boy who was in the town's punk band. One morning I opened my locker to find a CD mixtape left inside. The first few songs were from the Blink 182 album "Take off your pants and jacket", the rest of the list included songs from bands I wasn't too familiar with. The bands were Boston pop punk bands like Four Year Strong, Vanna, and others more known like A Day to Remember and Taking Back Sunday. I excitedly entered the bus and put the CD into my walk-man, while I longingly stared out of the window and felt like our two punk souls were connected. That mix was the playlist to middle school for me, through fights with my parents and my heartbreak with that boy. What it really was- was a door through a culture in Massachusetts that led me through rebellion and underground scenes in my teenage years. The first time I drank alcohol, smoked a cigarette, losing my virginity and self exploration came post my blink 182 days. A local venue in a historic run down theater on the other side of town called the Palladium was my weekend hangout spot. Bands that were on their way to becoming big, to nobodies played there. With a musty smoky atmosphere you walked through run down hand crafted doors on a velvet floor. Bathroom graffiti, band merchandise tables, and colorful arrays of Mohawks, bangs, spiked hair, chokers, tattoos, facial piercings, would hide this theater's past. The ceiling was muraled with some kind of biblical scene of angels and large Greek columns fell down the sides of the interior. It was taken over by creatures who lurked around Central Massachusetts from broken families and lost souls to create some kind of community. When I didn't feel like I had a home that original punk mixtape led me to a community of misfits that had more heart than your church mom.

The classic lyrics “Let’s go, don’t wait, this night’s almost over. Honest, Let’s make, This night last forever.” from blink 182 tended to be a pre game song before a night out, and I would feel a rush through my veins to be alive. There’s something about that music that made me feel invincible. Racing down highways with your head out the window or jumping into a neighbor's pool in the middle of the night, my teenage soul felt something with blink playing on the radio. I remember distinctly meeting who I thought was the cutest guy I’ve ever seen at a concert in Providence RI, he grabbed my hand and had me follow him out of the venue. His small Volkswagen golf reeked of tobacco, and he had a massive cd album case full of some of my favorite bands. I put on “Heroes get remembered, Legends never die” by Four Year Strong, and he took me to his favorite spot in town. We climbed on top of a dumpster to reach an old escape ladder that hung down the backside of a factory building. We climbed to the roof of the building and sat overlooking the city. The full moon was sinking and the sky started to turn into bubblegum colors with the rising sun, as we let the night swift us away talking endlessly about music, hopes, dreams, and our future. We both knew we didn’t belong in New England and shouted from the rooftop we’d escape what we thought was our personal hell. Punk music lyrics and the community had this sense of freedom from the blue collar society we were raised in. It was recognized things weren’t easy, but the tempo of the music created a tempo to move forward in life, creating a life outside the status quo.