STC Punk!

Day 2,071, 01:04 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by The Irish William Wallace

Hello, I am EmperorPalpatine, or better known as MikeBane. This is a short story about growing up in the Midwest, in the United States, which for those who don't know is the second most conservative/cookie-cutter region in the States. About an hour north from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St.Paul), is where I live: Saint Cloud. We are known infamously for Somalian gangs, methamphetamine, homeless, and in more recent years violent crime. In the horror film called 1408 (2007), the main character says that St.Cloud is one of the scariest places he's ever visited. There was a notable traveler who also labeled as St.Cloud as a "culture-less wasteland", which is slightly true.




The town is filled with suburbanites who are oblivious to the world outside their narrowminded socially constructed reality, kids who pretend they are "country boys", and then actual country boys who more often than not are pseudo-Christian racist-sexist-homophobic bigots. The rest of the population, outside of the elderly, are groups of minorities: refugees (Somalian/Vietnamese), gangsters who have brought the drug trade here from the Twin Cities and Chicago, a small mixed scene of punks/crusties/metalheads/goth-death rock kids, and lastly most 'alternative' young adults are hipsters.





I was young when I moved here, but around age 13-14 I got into some bands that my cousin showed me. They were: ASS (local band), A Global Threat, and The Unseen! I was an angry, individualistic, discontented youth with a mind too smart for his own good. This music expressed exactly what I had felt growing up in such a dull-minded city, it rocked! A year or two later I got into "street punk" along with 80's hardcore and 2-tone punk (ska-punk). This was during the time the kids around the school were dressing up in clothes they got with their daddy's credit cards at Hot Topic while I got clothes from the thrift store or whatever I got for free. I wasn't popular in school, I called out the popular kid's b/s and laughed at them when they'd pretend like they wanted to fight me. They were frightened, I got detained twice in school for "intimidating" my classmates...cuz I didn't f'ing smile and I was hostile to b/s?



Anyway, I went to a few shows and without knowing it, ran into a man who would become my closest friend. He basically was the older brother I never had. I was 15, him and his friends were all 18, but that didn't matter. I was mature enough for my age, had an interest in politics and philosophy, and was into good music - at least according to us it is good music. Haha

Once the venue Cheap Thrills closed, there wasn't a punk/metal/alternative venue in St.Cloud again. There were house shows a few times a year, but that's all you could look forward to. In between that time, I left public school two years early and attended the local college. Moving out with my girlfriend at the time, she used to be the one all the guys wish they could get with in the scene (but besides her beauty, we connected on a much deeper level), it gave me a lot of time to get into misadventures with my other half and my good mates. Drinking, smoking, snorting, promiscuity, tagging buildings (spray painting), breaking into abandon buildings and squatting in them, exchanging zines and books, making anti-war/capitalist propaganda, you know - that typical adolescent stuff.




This venue called the Wreck Center, a punkhouse near downtown, opened up when I was 17. I was the youngest one there, but looking at me you would guess I was 20. You know as they say, "this scene takes the piss out of you". The Wreck was the last hope for a punk scene in St.Cloud because they kept the punk spirit alive by:
1) All age shows
2) No rules on drugs and alcohol
3) No discrimination

All these created a freeing environment and I gotta say I met some really fun and interesting people while going to those shows. Bands would come from everywhere and we'd party with them, play music on the rooftops, sing Johnny Hobo and Choking Victim songs on the rooftops while passing bottles of whiskey and smoking bowls, that good old time. I even tried getting a band together, being influenced by The Germs and Dystopia - so imagine 80's hardcore and sludgy-crust punk together. We practiced a few times and recorded a few demos, but never played more than one show or put out any albums/EP's. St.Cloud wasn't big into the edgier punk rock, we mostly had Ramonescore/pop-punk bands. We used to have a big crust/hardcore scene, the band Bad Conduct were the best! *Quits reminiscing about the older -better- scene*

After 2-3 years of this, completing my 2 years in college and graduating high school, I began to spend more time with my other half - until she grew too poor and had to move back in with her mother and sisters who lived in the Twin Cities. I lost my best friend, my girl friend, and the apartment then. I was homeless for a while, sleeping on friend's couches and floors. I ate one meal a day, sometimes none, and I worked really hard for 8 months to find a job. There were no jobs for 18 year olds with little work experience. Life was hard in St.Cloud. Not to mention I had to worry about Somalian gangs carrying bats with nails in them. At one point I always had a machete handy, not because I wanted to use it, but just so I had some protection.



People forget that you're a person when you're homeless. They always blame it on drugs or "too lazy to find a job". Try finding a job when it is already hard enough for someone with a car and a home to find one. Do you have a cell phone? No. Do you have a permanent residence? No. Never had a real chance at getting a job. Some nights I had to sleep in the bum camps by the train tracks. I did this for a matter of months, until my cousin from a state over offered me a place to stay. I ended up getting a job at a library and doing a year of schooling. I got a lot of help for my depression, started to slow down on the drugs and alcohol, and got more serious about my intellectual pursuits. I found that my experimental phase slowly passed, I still partake just not nearly as often, and once I moved back to St.Cloud (about 3 months now) I found a job within a month and since I've been working 35-40 hours a week...yeah for minimum wage but it's a hell of a lot better than being homeless!



This journey, this transitional stage into who I have and will become, has been an eventful one. Through my hardships and struggles, I am grateful for them for they have shaped me into who I am today. Punk rock does not shape my life like it once did, though I am still affiliated and listen to punk music often. I don't really dress like a "punk" anymore, I don't have that F-U attitude, and I am comfortably living with some of my old mates making enough to still enjoy life a little. Punk got me through my adolescent years. It stimulated not only my nerdy-intellectual side but also my wild and violent one. It was an outlet which I could funnel my expression, thoughts, and creativity into without fear or worry about what other people would think. I think it can be a rewarding experience to get involved in the punk community. Heed my warning: there are a lot of "punks" out there who are egotistical a-holes who do mindless self-destructive behaviors and can be as narrow-minded as those we collectively are rebelling against. It certainly can be an exclusive social scene and trendy, so beware the poseurs who will probably call you a "poseur" if you don't wear your full-on punk uniform like they did.



We who walk down this path, who sought something more than being 'popular' or going along with what we were expected to do, tread the path of danger and by losing ourselves in this chaos - we find out who we really are, treading water with other lost souls in a "cultureless wasteland" called St.Cloud.

Thanks for reading my story.

RIP to my following mates that I've lost over the years:
Kim Subee - One of my best friends from my early punk years, she ended up train hopping to the west coast. After 2 years of trying to find her, I saw a report she was found dead by the tracks. She died at age 16.

Adam Rott - My friend from Los Angeles (LA), shot at age 18.

Marco Chairez - Drug overdose about a year ago, mixed painkillers and alcohol. I miss partying with this kid, you can still see his tags in downtown St.Cloud.

"Pat" - Killed by a drunk driver, he was 22 at the time.



“There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.” - Hunter S. Thompson