Kurt Vonnegut – The Seminary of Praying Mantis Publishing

Punk Rock Historian and Professional Consultant

Hudley Flipside

That’s one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones.
~ Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut

As an older earthling, at least I believe I am one, in these rather ‘awful times’ I find it easy to ‘concentrate on the good ones!’ Today when the car radio played the song Come As You Are by Nirvana for the millionth time, I had a strange flash back to a similar punk anthem.

Amoeba was the song. One day I drove out to Troy High School in Orange County all by myself. Adolescents and Agent Orange played that day.

The song that I superimposed in my mind over Come As You Are is the song Amoeba. It was so clean, powerful, and moving. The songs feel the same in intensity too. Both knocked my socks off.

I include the live review below from Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine # 20. (The Circle Jerks, Halloween Issue. October 1990.)

I have other good times too like the days I gave birth to my two sons, riding Sony, the white mustang, freely over the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains on a foggy morning, and the first time I had sex at 15 in my parents’ downstairs bathroom. All new and interesting adventures.

So again, I have posted about life being like a “Slaughterhouse-Five” experience. And though times are very crazy I hope we all can find comfort in our good memories.

**Hudley Live Review. Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine # 20. (The Circle Jerks, Halloween Issue. October 1990.)**

Punk Rock Historian & Colleague and Professional Consultant

Hudley Flipside

“And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Today is a day of going back and falling into another time of my life. It happens a lot at the age of 56. I was thinking about older age and youth. I have much more experience at being young then being older. Each day I wonder about what to do next.

With all the experience I have this is amazing to me. I can open the many doors from my past and jump in. I get pulled in like gravity too. I am closer to the stillness of my center now. As in a maṇḍala, which is basically a round image with the center within. Me.

Time seems slow and reflective. I don’t feel the need to grasp the ring from the merry-go-round. I feel like I am in Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969). Like Billy Pilgrim I am in a place where I time travel back and forth.

Though my Tralfamadorians are silent and the only time I have a view of the future is by insight or in some vague dream. My punk rock life is on the same track.

Diving into each back issue of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine brings up memories and I find that I need to share these images with others.

A affirmation of reality and fun.

The picture below is of Dee and Hilda who are on either side of a police officer in China Town at the Hong Kong Café. Lower right girl looking straight on is me.

I think it is Punk Rock humor about Los Angeles Coppers.