Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Hello everyone,
About a month ago I actually went out with Letty.
I haven't been out on a weekend for a year since I work at a night club, which is actually my 3rd job.

Letty took me to the Latino Punk Fest, and I hadn't been to a punk show for a year. I was excited to meet this guy who Letty was
dating. She told me he is in his 30's and was once a straight edge and knows me from awhile back.
( I took this photo of Letty when she was driving me to the Latino Punk
Fest.. Letty is 31 years old looks very young.  She is a school teacher
and she is very beautiful -if you see her wear your sun glasses
because her eyes glows and you might faint )
I was especially looking VERY forward to seeing Iconoclast! They are an old Peace Punk band from the 80's (not the hardcore
Iconoclast). This band started in 1982 and did their last show in 1985. I never saw the original line up of this band because it was way
before my time; however, I loved the 1984 line up because they all stopped spiking up their hair and wearing leather boots or leather
jackets. I used to read about these guys in Flipside magazine and even had their Ep(vinyl) that was released on Flipside records. Their
music was getting progressive and slower, and their guitarist was putting out this Anarchist Pacifist zine (HUMANITY WORLDPOOL?)
with a lot of writings. In 80's, a lot of the Peace Punks used to hang out at the Grateful Dead shows. We would not go into the shows
but would just hang out with the hippies and Deadheads at the parking lot and eat falafels, watch drum circles, and buy peace buttons
and bumper stickers. At my first Iconoclast show, the parking lot was cars bumper to bumper with peace and vegetarian stickers, and
the singer had a big white headband with a peace symbol on the front. The guitarist had a tie dye shirt and looked like a hippy from the
60's . They would tell the people in the crowd to sit down and start off with reading a poem.
I loved it. Many beautiful people met each other, and at that time peace punks actually looked like hippies with the smell of patchouli oil.
No mohawks or spiked hairs were visible because there were no cruelty-free products available at the time - they all had long hairs.
Hairspray was tested on animals, and the only place you could get cruelty-free products was through a mail-order service called
Beauty without Cruelty, but it was expensive. After the show, people would talk about an upcoming protest against Nuclear Weapons,
pass out flyers made by Shock Battalion (now called Art for Change), and give each other hugs as I smelled the strong marijuana odor
all around me.
This was in the 80's, and I was very young. I'm guessing the older Anarchist and Peace Punks should be at least 3 to 5 years older
than me.

Now back to the Latino Punk Fest. Well, I was nervous and excited and wondered how these folks would look now. I lost touch with
many beautiful people from the 80's.
When we got there, I think there were about 300 people, but it kind of looked empty since it was a big space.
It was mostly young kids and felt like a rock n roll show.
The bands were all boring. They all sounded the same, and I wanted to go home but had to wait 'til Iconoclast.
I was looking around for any folks from 80's, but I couldn't find anyone. There were vendor tables with people selling records, cd's,
patches and shirts but no literature or talking about social change. However, I ran into Joaquin from Cop Watch who had a small table
set up with info.
I also ran into Gino from Subsistencia and he came over to me and said, "Can you sing the Iconoclast songs?" and handed me his
cell phone! Next thing I knew, I was on the phone with one of the members of Iconoclast who told me the singer got scared and flaked
out.
That was the original singer of Iconoclast and not the latest singer, which is when they were just fast Discharge style. However, I told
them I couldn't do that since I loved the latest stuff and I didn't know the earlier lyrics, so they ended up going up on stage without the
vocalist. I told Rene (aka Yaotl) , the original bass player, to please talk between songs and explain how things were in the 80's, and
wow! His speech was really awesome, and it gave me goose bumps! He started off with a poem, and then he sang couple of the
songs.
When it was over, I asked him, "What happened to all the Peace Punks from the 80's?" He said, "I guess it's just you showed up."
Seriously, if Iconoclast was not playing that night, I would have left the place right away.
(Iconoclast re-union)
Letty was driving me back and told me that her sister Lina is a school teacher and has a kid now. She used to sing for
Subsistencia.
Even the guitarist from Subsistencia is a school teacher.
They were a really great band that I admired a lot in the 90's and even went to Arizona with them.
Letty is a school teacher as well.
(Gino from Subsistencia and Martin from Los Crudos both teachers.  
What is up with all the old punk rockers becoming school teacher?)