October 25th - Be a Punk For a Day

Today is National "Be a Punk for a Day" Day.

So all you kids rip your t-shirts, spike your hair and get out there and say things like "I like 'The Blitzkreiging Boppers' by Jerry Ramone" and "I saw Avril Lavigne at CDBG!"

"I din't like jazz, I din't like funk, I turned out a punk..."

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Shave your head except for a goatee, smear shit all over yourself, then stand naked in a corporate lobby chanting I hate you motherfucker, I hate you motherfucker a la GG Allin. This goes for men and women.

Back in my day a punk was something you burned to keep away the bugs while outdoors in summer. Now it's smearing shit on yourself?? My Lord.

In my childhood years, a punk was something you would use to light the fuses on fireworks.

At the beginning of my college years, a punk was a person (usually a guy) who got gawked at, whispered nervously about, and generally shunned at parties ... or, on a bad night, dragged out behind the building and beaten up by three or four of the other party attendees. (If the punk was a girl, she wouldn't get beaten up. If she was halfway attractive, though, she'd invariably get hit upon by the non-punk male attendees, on the assumption that any girl who did her hair, makeup and clothes that way must have so little self-esteem that she'd be quite promiscuous as well.)

By the end of my college years, a punk didn't usually get shunned or beaten up at parties (unless he was just plain an asshole). Such a person was a bit more understood, or at least tolerated.

Now it's a person whom you can emulate with impunity, at least visually, for one day of the year? Seriously? Who comes up with such weird-ass holidays as this?