Punk Rock

Last night, I watched the movie "Sid and Nancy" for the first time.  Now I will be the first to admit that I know very little about the punk "movement", and perhaps my first sign that I shouldn't be talking about it.  I don't even particularly like punk music with the exception of a few bands.  There are things I like about the punk mindset as a whole.  I like the big middle finger to the law and just people in general.  Now, I'm not an anarchist, and I love people, I don't hate them.  I just enjoy the idea that you can be and are an island of yourself, and the comments and ideas of society don't affect you.  Everyone, to a certain extent, likes the idea that caring about nothing is cool.  Now, I don't believe that and I believe like every fashion or pop culture movement is hollow at it's core.  No one is completely alien to what people think, except for children really, and only very young children at that.
Back to the movie, the whole thing was drug-addled and the woman who was chose to play Nancy Spungen was outrageously annoying, and downright ugly.  It made me glad I wasn't born in New York with a horrible Bronx accent.  The real Nancy Spungen was much prettier.  Though aside from that, I would've loved to have been raised there.  Anyways, it was pathetic.  The 80's were a narcisstic, materialistic, drug-infused period of time.  That being said most things about the 80's I love.  Hello, oversized sweaters, legwarmers, and 80's music.  However, the drug aspects of 80's movies I've seen have never seemed glamorous, and this movie was no exception.
While obviously I had heard of Sid Vicious, and Sid & Nancy, I didn't know that much about it.  I had heard people describe love affairs as a "Sid & Nancy" type of ordeal, and I think I thought of it as romantic.  I've always found love stories of famous influential people interesting to say the least.  However, the entire movie was Sid and Nancy stumbling around because they were so fucked up, or Nancy crying about Sid not loving her, or them basically beating the you know what out of each other.  There were a couple of things done within the movie that I enjoyed.  One was the scene where Sid is performing in front of an audience of really old wealthy people, and one of the later scenes where Sid has just gotten out of prison and goes to a pizza place.  When he leaves, he dances to 70's disco with a three little black kids.  I don't know why I enjoyed this, as every scene after Nancy's murder was creepy to say the least.  It also shocked me that anyone would willingly admit their relationship was anything like theirs.  It was sad and pathetic.  After seeing him hit her, and her hit him, and their constant struggle to obtain drugs, because this is all they did it ruined forever my image of liking or admiring anything about punk.
The murdering of Nancy was downright creepy.  He stabs her in an argument they were having because Sid had promised Nancy they would go out together in a blaze of glory because they were so tired of the drugs, but Sid doesn't want to anymore because he wants to get straight.  So she's hysterical and saying she wants to die, and Sid says, "You want to die?"  And they're both crazy high on speed so he stabs her, and she's crying and laying on the floor.  The next scene shows them cuddling in bed together with Nancy's massive stomach wound.  In the night, she gets up and goes to the bathroom because her stomach is hurting so bad, dripping blood everywhere, and passes out on the bathroom floor.  She's trying to get Sid's attention but he is fast asleep.  The next morning, he just sits there on this massively blood stained bed watching cartoons staring straight ahead, while Nancy is carried out in a body bag and apparently didn't think she was dead.  The real story is a little different, but he apparently told the cops he thought she was alive when he left in the morning and went to the methadone clinic to get her methadone when he realized she was dead.  He then phoned either the cops or the hotel front that: "Someone is sick.  Need help."  I believe those were the actual words.  SO unbelievably creepy.
But anyways, the entire point of this post that reminded me of my first impression of SLC Punk, was the scene where Nancy and Sid are in a phone booth calling Nancy's mom to send them money, which she said she wouldn't because they'd spend it on drugs.  Reportedly, the real story, she demanded $2,000.  It's only 200 in the movie.  However, it reminded me of the ending scenes of SLC Punk where he becomes a lawyer and decides to actually care about something.  There's something so naive in this mindset where you don't care about anything.  It's all bull.  Both movies were just about people getting fucked up, and pretending not to care.  Was that what the punk movement was?  A numbing? 
The biggest impression SLC Punk left on me about punk was how pathetic it is.  We don't feel like working for anything, and we need more money for drugs and booze, so we depend on mommy and daddy for our money.  You can't be punk and get a job.  I still like SLC Punk quite a bit.  I like the way it "grows up", and how naive it is to think you don't have to work for anything or care about anything.  All drugs do for you is kill you.  I think it's sad that he killed her and killed himself four months later from an overdose.  It's so interesting how "teenage" punk is at it's core, and the maturation that it goes through in SLC Punk.  It's this impossible ideal to be an island, to not care about anything, to never get a job, or work for anything.  But I like the rebellion in it.