Esteban Says "Go Die!"

Title: Esteban Says "Go Die!" Address: http://www.myspace.com/estesketch Author: Esteban From: La Mesa Blogging since: 2004

Post Date: November 17, 2006

Post Title: Another Straight Edge Rant by Another Straight Edge Asshole: Dirt-e Chris xROTx Don't worry about other people selling out. Last time I checked, it's their life, and they can do what they want. As long as a sell out doesn't blow smoke in my face, I don't give a fuck what they do. Punk rock and hardcore is about living for one's self. Are you worried about the image of Straight Edge? Are you going to leave it behind if it gets a bad rap? I know I'm not. If it was called XshitlessX instead of Straight Edge, and everyone hated it, I doubt a lot of these kids would have gotten into it. Now it seems it is -- for the most part -- just a place for a lot of lost ones to be accepted, and they will move on when their life hits a different path. That's fine, be confused, it's a part of life. But it does expose your weakness as a person when you show you just wanted to belong to something all along.

What are the "rules" of Straight Edge? Don't drink, don't smoke, don't fuck...

Straight Edge is actually just a term to describe one's personal choice to abstain from mind- and body-altering substances. It's using all of your mind and body instead of killing off some of it.

Post Date: January 31, 2006

Post Title: Straight Edge -- From the Roots to the Future Let's go back to the early '80s, a time of punk rock and its death in the public eye. Here in North America, punk moved underground. The early punk scene was filled with kids who felt betrayed by society. Naturally, there was a sense of nihilism that came with such a scene. Among some of the punks, this nihilistic view seemed like pantomime. Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson were two of these punks. They were in a band named Minor Threat, based out of Washington, D.C. One day, while making a flyer for a show their band was to play, Jeff made a comparison between the lifestyle they lived and the ruler, or "straight edge," they were using to make the flyer. A movement was born. The tenets of the movement were very basic. People who called themselves Straight Edge abstained from drugs, drinking, and smoking, so as to keep their minds clean and grow apart from this nihilism that was plaguing their scene. At the time, shows were usually held in bars that would mark the hands of underage kids with an "X" to show they were not to be served alcohol. Eventually, the Straight Edge kids began to show up at the shows already "X'd up," regardless of age, so as to say, "I'm Straight Edge; don't bother offering me alcohol."

The scene these kids (both Straight Edge and not) were involved in was called "hardcore." Hardcore was more aggressive than typical punk; bands that were disillusioned with the society offered to them. Hardcore localities were also abbreviated with an "X," such as "NXY" for New York Hardcore. Straight Edge Hardcore became abbreviated as "XXX" and was later adopted by the Straight Edge community as its insignia of sorts.

Ray Cappo of Youth of Today was a man who preached the tenets of Straight Edge as well as that of veganism, and this was one of the first times that the two were put together. Abstinence from casual sex was added on as one of the accepted tenets of Straight Edge when Christian and Krishna movements became involved. Because so many kids who claimed Straight Edge were also vegetarians and vegans, it became inevitably linked to Straight Edge.

Now we get to the kids that make the best of lifestyles look like an angry militant mob and the ones that make us all look like hippie tree-huggers. There will always be kids that go to parties, knock over people's drinks, and look for fights; these kids were undoubtedly assholes long before they ever put an "X" on their hands. Yet at the other end of the spectrum, there are kids that are so caught up in being "positive" that the movement never progresses. Ideally, it takes being slightly positive and slightly militant, and the knowledge to know when to be which.

Hard-line is something that I will touch on very briefly, only to separate it from Straight Edge. Hard-line is an extreme form of veganism, which includes beliefs in use of sex as a means of procreation only. They are anti-porn and anti-masturbation. They are environmentalists and naturalists. They are not all Straight Edge, though many are.

Although Straight Edge is something that is said to be taken to the grave once claimed, many people fall off, or "break edge." For those that do, the scene is unforgiving at best. Many of these "edge breakers" do so when they come of age to drink, enter college, or break up with a significant other that was Straight Edge. Sometimes, kids "break edge" when they realize that Straight Edge is not a way to win friends, or that it is "cooler" to smoke and listen to indie rock. Not all is lost, because there are some that hold true to what they believe and remain Straight Edge their entire lives; they remain as an example to the younger kids to stay strong and never sell out.