(c) February 1987
In 1987 I spent some time living in the alternative art gallery, 11 East Ashland, in Phoenix, Arizona. During my residency, I organized poetry readings to coincide with art openings and other events. In February of that year, 11 E. Ashland hosted a benefit concert to "Stop Police Brutality." The event included music by a variety of bands, a show by a "hair artist" and artists in various media as well as a poetry reading. In addition to poetry, I read the following speech. It was a declaration of selfhood; a treatise of belief. And so it is.
There's absolutely nothing different between us and punk-thrash-metal-glam-reggae-art-poetry-nude modeling. All we do is knock down the barriers built around our freedom of expression. We are all in it to share the same fears-hates-loves-desires and leather and lace and a made up face could say it as well to some as black widow weeds and a death mask. The new '80's movement is just a re-generation of the 60's anti-war rap, and peace-love-day glo smiles and flowers won't work anymore so we punctuate with black-white-death-skulls-weaponry and angry sounds colored here and there with glam glitter neon, like the last glimmers of hope in a doomed existance.
So, if we're gonna die a nuclear death anyway, we might as well destroy the fuckin' world as we know it first and create a new one. It is through our own forms of expression that this revolution occurs, and it will occur only as fast as we have the guts to punch the world in the stomach with their own realities.
So, whatever your reality is -- whatever your medium of expression is, be it music, words, fashion, art, whatever - don't be afraid to shock the world with it. Only those who risk their security, their comfort, and their reputation ever actually hurdle those barriers that were placed in the pathway to individuality.
