My Punk Rock phase ; )
In Punk parlance, I was, for the most part, “a poseur.” This is me before my college education, before marriage, before I became a writer. It’s from a time when fun was measured by how many risks were taken, how much alcohol was consumed, and how many laws were broken. It was taken almost 30 years ago.
I was a D-list Punk Rocker. The real, A-list Punks were way more extreme than I ever was. I saw the real ones as extremely lawless but also extremely intelligent. They screamed lyrics concerning social and political matters with supreme confidence and a brazen disregard for conventional musicality. They seemed fully versed in both historic and current world affairs. Their humor was brilliantly sardonic. Their visual aesthetic, from head to toe, was wildly original. They challenged the status quo not with peace signs and flower-power but with leather, spikes, chains, and the threat of anarchy.
Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Dead Kennedys, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones: these were my role models. They made an art form of Do It Yourself (DIY) recordings. No apologies. No excuses. They didn’t ask for permission, and they didn’t care if you liked it. But we liked it.
Those iconoclasts, if not paved the way, they at least cleared the path that makes my going a little easier. As a self-published author, it’s that early Punk spirit that gives me the pluck to persevere. Agents, publishers, editors, marketing departments, manufacturers, accountants, lawyers, reviewer, and booksellers can all get between the writer and the reader. Or, I can do it myself. For those in the know, the establishment, my efforts may appear a bit on the raw side, but I remind myself that I dig the raw side; it’s in my roots. So I’m good.
Tomorrow, I’ll be at The Sonoma County Book Festival in Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square talking-up Pearls My Mother Wore. My fellow self-published author, Tami Casais, and I will be in our booth from 10:00-4:00. It’ll be interesting to me if there’s much of a difference between our presentation and that of authors who are under the care of well-known publishers. I’ll be sure to post pictures in next Friday’s blog.
Oh, and on the sidebar to the right, where my web address link is, you can go to my website and click on “Press Release/Reviews” to see some of the great reviews I got on Amazon. You can post your own review by going to Amazon.com, search “Pearls My Mother Wore,” then click on the gold stars and proceed. The more reviews and gold stars the better it is for the book. Because of the recent review activity, I now see that the search box is feeding in my title before it’s all the way typed in, that’s new. Thanks to everybody for your efforts.
Have a great week, and embrace your inner Punk.
Comments are always appreciated.