The New "Punk"

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Bonnaroo and Jayber Crow

My final days are upon me here in Lawrence County, KY. Each day this week will include one chapter of Jayber Crow, and then he too, will be finished. His reflections have become my own in many ways, especially when sitting on a bench beneath the awning of Café Louisa, or sitting at one of their rod iron tables under an umbrella.

I do believe that since we came out of that “awful” economic depression of the 1930s, we have been in an ever increasing emotional, spiritual, and relational depression since. This, however, has been noted a worthy sacrifice in the name of progress and economic securities. That’s too bad.

At Bonnaroo, I was struck (or enlightened) when I sleep-walked over to “the other tent” to hear a few bands, just so I could get as close as possible to David Rawlings. The band (Uncle Earl-see below) that was playing as I arrived was actually one of the reasons John Paul Jones came to Bonnaroo in the first place. He produced their first album. The four or five women in the band were already fantastic musicians on their own (mostly bluegrass), and he apparently brought them together to record an album. Well, I really liked them, especially so when JPJ came out and played the mandolin with them (just as he did with David and Gillian). What struck me was, when one of the women said something to the effect of, “The old time has become the new ‘punk’”. I couldn’t believe how much that defines my current perspective. The Carter Family, Woody Guthrie, Wendell Berry, Bob Dylan, Flannery O’Connor, Gillian Welch, Robert Johnson, Conor Oberst, etc., have all pointed in the same backward direction.



Old Crow Medicine Show furthered this newly defined enlightened state I was in, so much so, that it was difficult to re-engage with many of the other performers I had been excited to see (Regina Spektor, Damien Rice, Wilco, etc).



Jim Jarmusch also spoke so much about being a filmmaker on the “fringe”, by choice, and how important that was to the process of creativity, and the process of collaboration with the medium. I really appreciated his full understanding of his art and expression, and maybe even more so his understanding of other’s art and expression (ie, Neil Young, RZA, Tom Waits).



So I have begun to consider real thoughts like “how can I replace strongholds of modernism with people?” The first big one is, of course, leaving my computer in Ironton. It takes up too much time, and it is certainly my primary source of non-monetary consumerism, which needs to be drastically reduced. I should be with my family and friends, or be reading Berry and Tolstoy, or playing chess.

I do not need to drive all over Columbus to meet people for coffee at coffee shops, but rather brew coffee in the kitchen, and open up our porch in which to drink our coffee together and share it with others.

My current hour and a half round trip drive to and from work will be replaced with a 20 minute round-trip walk to LLM. We only need one car.

That seems fairly punk-rock to me, although the true old-time looks more like farms, animals, mountains, rivers, dependence on rain, the sun, and God. We must, at least, live in and live out the symbolism of the urban gardens, front porches, libraries, abandoned churches and homes, and continue to learn how we can most sustain our own living within a genuine community without depending on Wal-Mart, but rather on each other.

...or I could lead a Neo-Guerrilla Army of Nazarenes, and we could call ourselves Emergent.



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