The Hazards of the Mosh Pit for the Elderly

My son and I have been attending local bands’ gigs for a while now. While not always impressed with the level of musical ability I have been impressed with the fact that the original nature of the punk scene seems to have made a come back. These kids these days do put a value on integrity and there is the old feeling of appreciating where everyone is coming from. I have seen bands of all ages and varying styules and ethnicities on the same venue. Most of all they understand that they are continuing something that was started by old folks like myself.

My son has never been embarrassed to have his Mom along and I have always been greeted warmly and often with the kind of manners that would impress June Cleaver.  I admire anyone with the guts to express themselves artistically and some of these kids are pretty darned good. My son’s favorites tend to be mine as well, we do lean towards the same taste. He smells hypocrisy immediately as well as commercial hype, always has. That's my boy. One band, Chemi-kill has a song that I think is pure genius. It’s called Glass Jaw and it’s so simple and perfect angry anthem. Now I know it’s a teenage tradition to offend you mother with your music and since we have such similar taste I have deprived my son of much of that fun. Nevertheless he will find truly suck ass bands and play them loudly. It takes a lot to offend me but bands like Anal Cunt do the trick.

So when Chemi-kill announced their CD release party, Mike and I wanted to go. I decided to invite my friend, Elliot too. Elliot and I met in high school; he was a pioneer of the punk scene in Los Angeles back in the day. He even has the spoon that Germs singer, Darby Crash, used to O.D. with.  I wanted Elliot to see how the scene is today. So Elliot joined us saying that he couldn’t think of a better way to spend this “holiest of days” (4/20)

Elliot has let his hair grown long and it is white so he has the look of an ancient sage. Needless to say we looked quite different from the rest of the crowd.  Mike always says “Please Mom get in the mosh pit with me!” I protest that I’m too old, I’ll break a hip and I don’t have health insurance to cover it. I never liked moshing anyway or as we used to call it: slam dancing. But on this night I did not go to the mosh pit, the mosh pit came to me.

Maybe I was having a senior moment and stumbled too close to the pit but before I knew what was happening I was down.  My son claims he wanted to gently push me but somebody fell into him and I went over like a bowling pin with him on top of me. I’m sure the kids were thinking “Oh look the old lady fell over!” but all were sweet in picking me up off the ground and handing me my bent glasses. Mike apologized profusely. 

For the rest of the weekend I was fund raising for Precious Paws at an autograph show with a black eye and painful (possibly fractured) rib.  Other Bradys (Chris Knight, Mike Lookinland and Robbie Rist) were there as well as celebs I hadn’t seen in years like the Hudson Brothers; so there was a lot of hugging going on. Ouch! Of course everyone thought it was great fun that I was suffering from mosh pit injuries. I must admit I agree.