What have I done to keep punk alive? admittedly, not a thing. We were named "punks" by the media. It wasn't something we chose for ourselves.  In fact, when we started calling ourselves punk, it was a sort of self-deprecating, poking fun at ourselves, and disempowering the media at the same time; we were just making art/music/writing/fashion/etc, that didn't seem to fit into any previously created genre, and the media gave us the flag of "punk" to rally around, so, it was killed by those who tried to define and name it. 

As for some kid listening to "...some pretty damn good music, picking up a guitar," etc, more power to him/her, but the second someone comes along and calls it "punk", or "new wave", or "blancmange" for that matter, they minimalize it and lessen any potential impact, and you'd better believe, they know exactly what they're doing! 

 As for harping on about the glory days, well, certainly, it may seem I'm doing just that, because yes, they were glorious in that we had so much potential, and so much room to do something new that hadn't been done before, but that's no reason that something new and exciting can't be done today, it's just going to be a bit more challenging to find that "shock" factor in any effective way, since so much of that's old hat now.

 And, to that, I issue a challenge; bring on the revolution. This world's gone to shit, but rehashing some archaic corporate mimicry of disenfranchisement will hardly make a difference to anyone. If you want to carry the flag of nihilism, (so trendy, that anthem of "fuck the world",) then this corporate sponsored, castrated and declawed version of "punk" is just the perfect trend to identify yourself with. if however, you give a shit, be your stance anarchist, socialist, or pink-balloonist... (whatever you happen to care about,) get off your stovepipe or bondage trousered bottom and do something, create something, change someone's paradigm.  

 ------------------------

That was the end of the email I sent to craig_bastard, but having just read my own words, I realized, the exact moment punk died, was when people started caring about being identified as punk; punk died, when people started caring more about who had the highest mohawk, the most studs in their leather, the most "fuck you" or "hardcore" attitude, than simply being absolutely and uncompromisingly true to themselves and their beliefs.  John Lydon was absolutely right, when he dubbed the whole debacle, "The Great Rock-n-Roll Swindle"; the corporate media took a dynamic, creative and threatening movement that had immense potential to infiltrate society and change the status quo, and disempowered it, compartmentalized it, and finally killed it, leaving nothing but a pretty corpse, dancing  on corporate strings like a marionette.