The punk band Descendents just breezed through Jacksonville for the first time since the mid-80s and my ears are still ringing.
Growing up I went to punk shows with my mom as part of an inseparable tatted-punk duo, so we suited up in our finest ripped jeans and band tees and went together.
It’s been a number of years since we went to a real proper punk show and boy are we getting old for it. I’m 25 and my mom is 43, and my body is still sore from being on the outer rim of the mosh pit. I can’t imagine how my mom feels, but she’s totally metal, she’ll be fine.
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It’s a good kind of sore, and a good sort of tired that comes from being in a room full of people who are all supposedly on the outer fringes of society but come together to scream the same words back at a group of dudes who are now in their 50s but can still throw down.
But it reminded me, as I looked around at the crowd, a lot of which was older than me, including my totally metal ma, that punk culture is a place for people to find refuge, it’s a pierced and tatted family of absolute nerds. They pick each other up when they fall down, literally and metaphorically.
Lead singer of the Descendents, Milo Aukerman, is possibly the king nerd himself. He split his time between punk and being a molecular biologist at DuPont. Milo, the band’s mascot, is modeled after him and is always seen with Aukerman’s nerdy glasses on. Punk culture and nerd culture has always held hands, “There’s a stereotype of a punk being this tough, tattoo-laden meathead,” said Aukerman in a 2014 ASBMB article. “But in fact, many nerds ended up turning to punk, because it was a way of releasing some of that frustration that they had for being nerds.”
And if that ain’t the truth.
I was a straight-A student with tattoos with hair that couldn’t pick a color. I found refuge in punk music and nerd culture. I still do. I don’t think the need to fit in ever really goes away and trust me, the nerd-punks are waiting with open arms, or an open pit at least.
You don’t have to have tattoos, you don’t have to be pierced, you don’t have to be tough, you just have to love music and promise to pick up your brothers and sisters when they slip in the pit.
A lot of my formative years were spent in mosh pits, sweating at festival shows and standing in impossibly long lines waiting for people with merch to notice you and ask you what you want. Now in the corporate world I shake hands and refer to people as Mr. and Mrs. and answer phones but a good few hours of being knocked around at a show reminded me that I miss that culture and I love it.
So to all the punks I saw out there that night who were screaming, moshing, and picking each other up, then went to their corporate jobs the very next day, I see you, I respect you, and boy did I miss you.
Destiny Johnson is a digital reporter at First Coast News who is self-described as a nerdy punk. You can follow her on Twitter @hello_Destiny
