Social Distortion's Delicious Pie

Social Distortion just saved my life!

Last night I was ripped out of the gaping, hollow abyss of war and bombing and hopelessness. Standing at seat 113, row 30, overlooking the beautiful city lights below, I thought to myself, "At least we have this. They may be bombing the hell out of Lebanon, but we can stand here, 9,000 strong, screaming along to the best rendition of "Ring of Fire" ever produced, hopping up and down together!"

Civilization is still intact!

All hail rock and roll!

Yesterday I went to the Social Distortion show at Red Rocks with my friend Cookie. There were three other bands playing, so we got there early to hear them all. We had reserved seats. It was 100F. I, of course, was in black. There was a gentle puff of breeze every once in a while. I didn't start drinking beer until the sun was almost down. Up in row 30 we were pretty much the only folks around for most of the day. The place didn't start filling up until around 7:30 or 8:00. Below us, the general admission seats were filled with the die-hards. It was a sea of delicious pie!

Rockabilly boys are the sexiest men in the world. Chain wallets and tattoos and slicky back hair. Wife beaters and Levi's. They have the confident manliness of an old Cadillac. Big and powerful, with an elegant presence. They eat red meat they grill themselves and know the unassuming glory of American beer out of a can. These men can fix things. These men swagger with a sexiness known to them -- studied and mastered early. These men know how to pull their friends out of a bar fight. These men know how to look at a woman when she's talking.

And last night -- there were thousands of them! Thousands! Everywhere. Like hope. Like some kind of evidence that all is not lost in the sniveling victimhood of minivans and pastel golf shirts. Here stood the men of my America. The America I want to live in. Here stood the godless, the thinking, the drunk and disorderly Rockabilly men of motorcycles and body shops and animation and whatever else they do for a living. Here stood the shamelessly tattooed, each paired with their own Bettie Page. Many with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. Some with their children, small and be-mohawked, wearing earplugs, dancing to the gospel as told by Mike Ness!

These are the songs of the middle-man, not the high and not the low. For fuck sake, they're from Orange County. How truly oppressed could they be? But the songs are about small triumph and grabbing life by the balls and throwing it to the ground and stomping it to death. These songs are about feeling other and embracing it like a gift. These songs are about going forward anyway, even if you are a royal fuck up.

I love this band. I love the Rockabilly boys who follow them. I have decided to lose a bunch of weight, cut a short, straight row of bangs in my hair, and get way more tattoos! A whole arm of them! I'll need surgery for the FULL Bettie Page. Can plastic surgery make you taller? That may have to come later. And, even so, I may never be as cool as Them. But now I remember they are out there -- like a raw, bold, bloody ray of good old American hope. Hope in the face of all that would crush us and tell us we're nothing.

These people live in the America I want. These people live in the America I will help make.

Godless heathens bless us, every one!