This is an embellished non-fiction memory. I am always open to comments that differ from my memories. The 80s went by fast and so much happened; besides there were countless bands we dealt with on a constant basis… my mind does play tricks on me.
(based on my memory…some of it may be embellished by events that are merged together… Fugazi guys…. kind of like Twinkies or potato chips)
02/6/22
A lot of talk about the Beatles these days. I walk around it because I am not interested. Yet occasionally I get drawn in and that is OK. This is the last eventful experience I had about the Beatles.
Before the 1970s in Middle School when my boyfriend spray painted on a bungalow wall near my locker… these lyrics.
“Black, white, green, red, Can I take my friend to bed? Pink, brown, yellow, orange, and blue, I love you.”
Humongous as it was on the wall and in my life…
All this is my way of indirectly sharing currently in this strange Beatles narrative. At the time in the 1980s the Beatles seemed so far away from my lived experience.
Now both Ian and the Beatles seem so far away from my lived experience. I can patronize them both now and so be it. I am older, wiser, and forward moving now… yet I still enjoy their eternally youthful songs, every now and then, and all together now!
When I think about the few times the Minor Threat/ Dischord boys came to visit the Flipside house, I think about how they were, such as the color of Ian’s eyes while waiting in their traveling Van. The waves crashing as we sat there not speaking. Everyone else was surfing and yes, they are a beautiful blue.
The boys, wanted to go surf with Al. Maybe I smile at the debates we had over being Straight Edge. Yes, they were Straight Edge, but the van was filled with wrappers from terrible sweets like Twinkies and cans from drinking soda. Salty potatoes chips too. I was not Straight Edge because I like to drink beer.
I stressed that this did not stop me from my goals or my path but eating sweets and drinking soda would kill me. We debated about crazy stuff like that.
So much time has passed, and memories come and go but what I am sharing today is a funny piece of punk rock history.
I knew that Ian MacKaye liked the Beatles. I sent him some stationary that I made up just for him. I forgot about it. A year or so later he sent me this letter with this check. I kept it all these years in a journal.
I wonder if Dischord Records or Al would mind if I cash it now?
I wish all of us old punks stood by each other.. sadly this is not always the case..
The Seminary of Praying Mantis Publishing 