Father's Day

We took my father to Governor's Island for father's day to have a picnic. It was a surprise, so my dad, who likes to be in charge and to know what's happening, was sulking for a while, but he picked up when it came time to march onto the ferry and the secret came out. That was when we started seeing the punk kids. One of them held up the boat for a while getting kicked off for having an open container of alcohol. I think punk kids are pretty rarely better rewarded for their alternative clothes and lifestyles than when i look at them, because i'm mystified and revolted by everything they do, which i think is all they want. I have too much faith in the simple beauty of an individual human being to believe a punk kid could happily exist alone in front of a mirror; it's got to be a choice built on toxic feedback, on their prodding each other in their hideous vacuum.

We arrived a couple minutes later. When we started heading down a path to find a grassy knoll to start making memories there were more punk kids, and then we started hearing the punk music. Governor's Island is a really old fashioned place. Enormous American Elms have been growing there for more than 150 years, as erect and majestic as government monuments. Until the 1960s, the biggest house was the home of the highest ranking military official on the island; the grass is all perfectly mowed. Hearing this punk music was wonderfully discordant. My parents were really unhappy about it. It was too loud, and they also wandered over to take derisive note of the paltry audiences, if passionate.

Father's day is an amusing occasion for a punk show, and one on Father's day amidst the martial charm of Governor's island is truly hilarious. For a subculture that I think has a lot to do with hating The Man, this was a rich occasion for an especially passionate exorcism of the establishment. While we were eating, my mom told a story about living in Williamsburg in the 80s with my dad, who owned a building there at the time. A couple blocks away from the building a punk band had taken up practicing and made a lot of noise. My father, thinking like the truly mischievous landlord he was, suggested sneaking into the building to steal the fuses for the band's apartment, and so they did.

My father, now 74, has slowed down from his days as a punk-silencing secret operative. Still, after lunch, he spent half an hour on the phone with 311 trying to file a noise complaint. It's sort of wack to realize that my youthful distaste may age into short circuiting the parties of the young and fun and loud, but it probably will.

On the ferry back, there was a young man with filthy green hair wearing the standard patchwork of blustery anger. "Nihilist" blared across his back and "fuck" and "you" were written down his respective pant-legs. He was also holding doggedly onto the pinky finger of a young woman who was dressed in a similar style. The punks aren't inhuman, just tasteless. There's hope yet for reconciliation with The Good Old Dad.