Don't Try and Change My Mind Monday, June 28, 2004

All right already! I'm getting chided for slow posting. A friend supplies a ready-made idea (from the RNC Web site):

Conservative Punk Team Leader

Despite its reputation as a genre bred from anarchy and an "anti-establishment" mind-set, the punk rock community has always held on to
its core beliefs. However, for too long, punk has strayed from its roots as
a language and lifestyle of intelligence and independent thought--having
once relished its role as an alternative form to the "uninformed mainstream." The Republican National Committee’s Conservative Punk outreach group intends to bring back independent thought and offer an outlet for the promotion of conservatism and support of President Bush's agenda within the punk rock community--both new punks and old--through an open discussion of the issues and concerns of punks nationwide.

To which I say: Balls to you, big daddy. There might be some oblique libertarian angle where the philosophies intersect; but the aesthetics are going to be insurmountable, I think. (Although somebody else told me Iggy Pop backed Reagan in 1980; anybody know the story with that?)

As I said earlier, part of the point of this blog is to show that art and politics can move independently of each other. But I think the RNC reaching out to punks, whoever they may be, will come off as deeply condescending, deeply phony or deeply weird. If the RNC has any appeal to the punk crowd, I think it would be the wary esteem of tough guys on opposing teams. Not much crossover.

In fact, just writing about this at such length makes me feel a little silly, so let me get back to my favorite topic: aesthetics. Tonight's theme: The roots of fascism run deep! The follow is excertped from a 5th-grade report on Winslow Homer by your correspondent (unearthed by Mother WTJ):

Call me traditional. But the reason I chose him was that I simply cannot adjust to 'today's' art. A few strokes of paint, it is passed off as 'expressions' or 'feelings.' No. Homer was an artist who, I believe, was one of the last of his kind. I enjoy 'classic' art, not today's splatches of purple and pink.

I can't remember how much of that was bullshit--probably most of it; the essay was for a DAR contest--but just on style alone I deserved a good cock-punch. I may be redeemed, however, by an entry in my eighth-grade autograph book under HERO: Al Frankin. Now there's a splatch of purple...

@ 8:57:00 PM,

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