Time flies
I was 17 when I was hopping trains regularly to make shows in Northern NJ or to go up the Northeast Extension to Sea Seas. I’d gone all over the East Coast by the time I was 18, seeing every kind of hardcore/punk/Oi! band we could find/catch a ride to/Sneak into..
I was living house to house, couch to couch, staying up all night and drinking 40’s and smoking dust for the first time in my life. I was late to the drinking and getting high and it was all to suppress my depression, to give the rage somewhere to bleed out into aside from when trouble could be found or created. I was not who I wanted to be, I was living a life that I’d never thought I could come to and I felt like I had nothing at all to keep me from falling directly into hell.
When I started drinking I would meet up with Carmen at the El and steal a 2 pack of generic cough syrup and he’d find a “runner” because he wasn’t 21 yet and we’d sit in the cemetary drinking whatever 40 we could get someone to get us and down our lil bottle of cough syrup and head downtown on the EL.
Some nights was easy and it was just south street or a house party with the fellas and maybe some late night messing around with a girl, but alot of the time I’d end up walking around alone and forgetting where we were, where I was and it was uplifting because I wasn’t dealing with the weight that slipped from my shoulders and I could breathe without doubt or hesitation.
That fall my mom offered me back into the house and I was able to get a job working with some Irish cement masons.
I’d lost the taste of dust and just wanted to get through the day and back into my bed. The blur of Monday to Friday was only broken up by shows and the drama in my house. I could work as hard as I wanted, get as drunk as I could, smash anyone and feel fine, but knowing that there wasn’t much ahead was killing me.
By the end of 1998 my jaw was wired shut from a nazi fight at the trocadero and I was going through more life drama in my house then ever before. I was barely 165 pounds and still managed to lose 20 lbs with my jaw wired and eventually rebroke in another fight less then 30 days after the first time it was broke. I’d spend almost 100 days with a jaw wired shut.
The day job kept my mom happy and got me out of my house but I was losing my mind and could barely keep my sanity going. Poor Robby had to deal with all of our bullshit. The fights with nazis had gone from fists to bats to knives and guns. Stabbings and shootings were a regular thing at that time and it felt like we had to kill them all or they were going to put us in our graves.
I don’t know why Chris and Dysphoria asked me to go on tour with them but it saved my life. I wouldn’t have made the same decision and I don’t know why he picked me but I’ll never repay him for it.
By the end of my first U.S tour I saw the country, met more people and saw old friends and made a pact with Mike Brown to tour the world and say fuck what was behind us.
I laid off the drinking and by the time Carmen shot himself we were practicing and I was just trying to count the pennies and wait for us to be ready to get out into the world.
I remember NYE ‘99 we had the band ready to go and the pain of Carmen wasn’t stinging every day. It was one of the most fun nights of my life. Sober and no girlfriend but surrounded with some kind of hope for the first time in forever.
I saw all these pictures of Punishment’s first US tour in the summer of 2000 tonight and I was so happy that I didn’t dig a deeper hole for myself and that I managed to stop looking at what I wasn’t going to do, wasn’t able to afford and who I wasn’t going to be with and focused on what I wanted to do and how far I could took my broke white ass.
Its been a long road and shit definitely got easier and there have been some serious rough times as well, but there is always something to look forward to and always good people around to make the journey that much easier.
Keep your heads up and stop stressing what didn’t happen in 2011, 2012 will be better if you want it to be.
Much love to everyone
