"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
About the author.
I normally would not do this, but for the importance of this article, I must.
I am not you, and you are not me. I am certain some of you are like me, and you may even look like me, but you are not me.
If you were to see me on the street, you would call me a punk, and I would be happy you did. My foot-long mohawk and leather jacket likely give that away, as do my tattoo and ripped up jeans. What I need to express is if I was in a suit, I'd still be punk. My punk-ness, it's in my mind. I am nearly thirty. I don't dress or act the way I do to piss off my parents. I was not raised in the suburbs, and this ain't my way of pissing off daddy.
Let us take a moment to take a look at the word punk.
Punk: noun
1. any prepared substance, usually in stick form, that will smolder and can be used to light fireworks, fuses, etc.
2. a. a youth movement of the late 1970s, characterized by anti-establishment slogans and outrageous clothes and hairstyles
b. an adherent of punk
c. short for punk rock
d. ( as modifier ): a punk record
3. an inferior, rotten, or worthless person or thing
4. worthless articles collectively
5. a petty criminal or hoodlum
6. obsolete. a young male homosexual; catamite
7. obsolete. a prostitute
There are two of those definitions that always mattered to me. The first one, a substance used to set off fireworks. Man, did I love that. I felt that my actions and my words would set off the fireworks that would open everyone's eyes to the world. I still feel that way, I'm just less vocal about it. The third...that was the one that used to anger me: inferior, rotten, worthless. I was never any of those things, but as time went on, I learned I was. I was not white. Yeah I may look white to most people, but I am not; my race is nearly impossible to pin point. Mostly Native American, little Scottish, little Irish, a little African, and possibly some South American, too. I really don't know at this point, and I really don't care. I'm a mutt, a mongrel, always have been and I do not give a fuck about it either. I'm not Christian, I'm not Jewish, and I'm not Muslim. I'm not Taoist, Buddhist, Wiccan, Mormon, or anything else. I am an atheist and have been since I was ten.
I am fairly quiet about it too, until someone will not let it go. I played football in high school, and Dungeons and Dragons. Most of my school's defensive records are still mine. I tell people I am a certified Wizards of the Coast Dungeon Master before anything else. Needless to say, I am a nerd, not one of the cool kids.
I am in a poly relationship: one woman, two men. We all live together, eat together, and all that good stuff. I am bi-sexual, and I am an anarchist. If you're all those things congrats...if not let me tell you what all that leads up to.
See, I am quite smart, always have been. I know everyone says that these days, but they tested my brains in the third grade, 153 IQ, just under genius. I don't care, because a genius wouldn't have had 42 jobs in their lifetime. Too smart for my own good they say...very helpful. I have a very bad habit (picked up from southern living) of not putting up with anyone's crap, not my bosses, not my teachers, and not police either. See, smart people know when to shut up. I don't.
These days I make BDSM sex toys in my garage for a living, specifically marketed to geeks and nerds. Oh right, I'm in that lifestyle, as well. While I make enough money to survive, I am not rich. I cook almost all my food from scratch, not for health reasons, but because it's cheaper. I can fix my car because I have to, not because I want to. A few months ago I put a tire on a rim the hard way not because I could, but because it saved me fifteen bucks. That is just the way my life is. What I can do is wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and be happy with the person who looks back. I can smile and laugh all day long because in the end, I am my own person, and no one tells me what to do.
That is who I am. I could go on like this for days. I need to get to the reason I wrote this article, but knowing who I am is important for the rest of this, so now you have a basic idea.
Look up a song called Love Ire and Song, by Frank Turner, that will help you understand my mentality these days.
A Bachelor Party.
Every once in a great while, I start to wonder if I should cut my damn hair and go get a desk job like everyone else. It does happen. I was in this head space for awhile when my metamour's bachelor party was approaching.
Metamour is my partner's partner. He is marrying my partner. It's a little more detailed than that but I would need to write a whole article on that. Oh wait! I did. So I am there with him and one of our friends, and his brother and two of his friends. Oh yeah we party hard. Anyway, his brother, who I'll call Bill, is of the upper class, six figure income bracket, as were his friends. White upper class males. They are all married to their high school sweethearts, clean cut, and well off. The people I am supposed to want to be.
Bill knows how our relationship works, and some of his friends (we will call them Don and Alex) start asking questions about our lives. This is fine. We are used to it and they are being fairly respectful about it as well. I want to point out that Don and Alex showed up at this event already drunk, and Bill has been getting there very quickly. The three nerds are not drunk, one of which is the bachelor mind you. The punk guy -- that's me -- is the designated driver...anyways. They learn as much about our relationship as they can while completely wasted, and they are fairly cool about it.
As the night goes on, there's more drinking, and a stripper. It's a bachelor party, you need at least one. The stripper takes these idiots for another six hundred dollars, on top of the five hundred it cost for her to just show the hell up. As the testosterone and booze flow, so do the honest opinions about my lifestyle. The how and why of me being wrong starts to come out hard, and honestly I don't care. I've been a bartender before, I can handle drunk. What I couldn't handle is that after the many failed attempts to get the stripper to sell herself sexually, these members of the U.M.C (Upper Middle Class. It's a Bob Seger song. Look it up) happily decide that driving to Reno to get the bachelor and themselves a hooker is a great idea. I'd like to make it clear I have nothing against hookers. Anyways the bachelor, the other "nerd" and I convince these morons that the idea is a terrible one. Reno is easily four hours away, and they are vastly too drunk for that.
So we go to a dive bar so these idiots can try and get laid. When that blows up because there is a fight when we get there, we go to a meat market for people in their seventies, cause, "Hey old pussy is still pussy right?" At this point, Don is so damn drunk that all his bigotry and racism is pouring out with every word he says, Alex can barely stand up for five minutes, and Bill is now the world's foremost leading authority on literally everything.
After that goes tits up, we settle on a strip club where the designated driver is left at the door unable to pay to get in, and is now fairly pissed. Bill is convinced by the doorman that all the girls inside are whores and will do anything. Bill doesn't realize he is being led as easily as a blind dog, cause hey, the place can make $120 bucks off idiots. They get a few dances while the bachelor and I sit and talk to one of the strippers the whole night while they try to convince the other girls to sleep with them for money.
While the three nerds got numbers, we rather quickly got lost. Alex and Don have taken a cab home without telling anyone, and we finally get to go home. That was the bachelor party. What a blast.
Why this all bothered me.
Look, I don't need to tell you stupid shit happens at bachelor parties. They made two movies about it. Well, they made one movie and then the same movie (see the Hangover or Hangover 2, it's the same thing). Everyone has a bachelor party horror story. This isn't my first, it won't be my last. What bothered me the most about this one wasn't what happened, it's who I was with.
So all night long I got to sit and be judged by my "superiors," the cream of society, while I sat and watched how quick they were to try and cheat on their wives. I watched a man who makes more money in a month than I do in almost a whole year hide money from his wife. I had a stripper honestly tell me she was enjoying my conversation because it was apparent I've read a book and I wasn't a douchebag. Meanwhile, I watched three men who I was not good enough to be one of pointed to as the douchebags. I had an argument with a man about how hard it was to get laid, informing him I'd had sex three times already before the party.
As all of this went on, it stewed and dripped and seethed over in my mind. Here I was going, "Maybe, maybe you should be these people."
It was a wonderful eye opener. Why would I ever want to be these people? They are not happy. Happy people don't need to cheat on their wives. They can talk to them like I can with my girlfriend about adding more people to their relationship. Happy people don't get so shit faced they can't stand up, because it's the only way to escape the hell hole they have dug themselves that they call life. I was so gracefully reminded that, you know what Allen, you like who you are, and you don't need to be these people to be happy. I was amazed at how well the cool, popular people were incapable of the basic necessity of a relationship: communication. All these guys just assumed their wives would never be okay with these sort of things, never thinking to...I don't know. Ask?
I will be a leading man at my girlfriend's wedding. On that day she will be marrying a man I respect and love very much. That day I will put on a suit, hole-less pants, and a tie. I think I'll be keeping my mohawk. I'll remind myself that even when I'm on my third night of Ramen noddles, I am happy. So very happy. Even with their steak dinner, those people go to bed at night hoping their wives will touch them, and all I need do is ask. Money can't buy you happiness, but it can sure cause you a lot of grief.
I'd rather be an inferior, rotten, or worthless person. You can keep your six figure salary. I like being covered in saw dust at the end of the day from making a paddle for someone who will appreciate it, even if I only made five dollars. I love that my girlfriend and I can talk, and I never need to hide money from her or my sexual desires. She thinks my mohawk is sexy, anyway.