Punk is dead. Bold statement I know. The punk lifestyle lives in each individual, so when I say that it's dead I don't mean that in the sense that punk in itself is dead. I mean that punk to me is dead. I had my heroes, the people that I thought would do great things in the world, that could change the world with their radical ideas, and take no shit attitude. It's a lie. All of it.

As an example let us use Tom Gabel. Tom Gabel started the band Against Me! when he was about 15 years old. At the age of 15 (we all remember what we were like when we were fifteen) Tom was homeless. Playing a beat up old acoustic guitar for change in a laundromat. One day, but chance a man from a small local record label went to do his laundry and heard Tom performing. He signed him to the label and bought him an electric guitar and found him a band.

Tom spent his youth touring with the band often playing shows for people in their homes just for a place to sleep and some food to eat. Thats right, if you could get in contact with the band, they would drive to your home and play a show for you if you offered to feed them and a bed to sleep in. Tom wrote songs about anarchism, and love.

Fifteen years later Tom is still playing music and is still in the band Against Me!. They still play shows, but not for a place to sleep, and not for free meals. Tom no longer writes songs about anarchism, or being poor. Tom now writes songs about how the record labels have broken him. How he used to be when he was young.

A few years ago someone asked me what are the two things in life that I believe in the most. My answer at the time was music, and love. I truly believed that music was absolute. That when you find someone whose heart is truly in it, they are in it for good. That when you have a band that sings and writes songs about what they are passionate about you will get good music. That these people could start a revolution. Well, they can't, and they aren't.

People always say about young kids that punk is a phase.

People always say that punk isn't about how you dress.

People always say that punk is about how you act.

Well, let me tell you this, being a punk is in fact a phase, and is in fact about how you dress, and is not about how you act. Punk is a fashion style. Sure it used to mean something, back when people cared about things. No body cares anymore. People care about problems across the world, after all it is easier to deal with something when you don't have to stare into it's dead eyes. It's easier to be passionate about something abstract, something you don't have to see, something you don't have to hear, something you don't have to touch.

A few years ago someone asked me what are the two things in life that I believe in the most. I wish I had a better answer. I believe in love. I truly believed that if you find something you love that nothing can take that away. But I was wrong. I loved music, and it just turned it's back on me. You can't love something that doesn't love you back.

In the end you just end up heartbroken and cheated. You get to sit on the curb and watch everything you believed in fall apart around you. You get to come to the realization that your entire way of life, of being, your identity was wrong. You get to learn that one day, eventually, you just get to become the very heart of the exact same unfair and biased system you fought so hard to stay out of. Then what happens you ask? You get to watch the next group try to do the same thing, and you get to watch them fail. You get to hand them that pen and hand them a fruit basket like a good neighbor welcoming a stranger to the neighborhood.

First Post.

So I made a blog. A serious one to boot. Sure I've had one of these blogspot things before, and once even a Livejournal, but never did I really take any of those overly serious. Most of the time I just created them so I could read the entries of friends and leave comments. But this time, I suppose I will actually write in it.

But Mat, what could you possibly have to say that is interesting enough to keep a blog about? My answer, nothing, I have nothing overly interesting to say. So that is why I am going to give you my opinion on whatever is on my mind at the time of writing. There will be no set post dates, I will post new entries whenever I feel like it. The more you people pressure me to post the less likely I will be to post. Odds are most of the posts are just going to be incoherent ramblings that are quite cynical. Other times I may write a small story for you fine people to enjoy. Now because I said that I write stories most of you will take that to mean I am some tortured soul who's only outlet is to write his pain on a page. Thats horseshit. I'm not a tortured soul, I'm not an emo kid, and I'm no where near artistic, nor do I consider myself to be a writer so the stories usually suck. But you people are going to read them. You know why? Because you typed this web address into your computer and if you didn't want to read them you wouldn't have come here. So stop denying it and just read the freakin post.

I guess I should let you people know a little about myself. Some background info so you can form an opinion of me if you haven't already. If you have, well then maybe you can refine it so in your mind (if I haven't met you) I just end up kicking more ass than ever before. First, I'm a twenty-two year old male that was born and raised on the prairies of Manitoba. Exciting already I know. Nothing like a flat piece of land. I have spent the majority of my life in some form of educational system, elementary and junior high were in public schools, while high school was a private institution.

After high school I attended the University of Winnipeg for some good ol' fashioned post secondary education. I was enrolled for two years, I don't remember anything I was taught in the 6 or maybe 7 classes I took, and after the second year I bailed on the U of W. Instead I took up a trade.

So flash forward to today, and I'm a Canadian Welding Bureau certified welder. I have no intentions on being a welder for the rest of my life because quite frankly welding sucks. It's hot, it's heavy, and it's loud (not that that will matter in a few years (I'm going deaf you see)). Now that's enough about me.

To start things off, blogs are lame. Blogs are super lame, no body cares what goes on your blog unless you are a celebrity and even then most people only care if you post provocative/explicit photos of yourself. At that point it is just sad really, I mean if you have to degrade yourself to posting nude photographs of you in the internet why not just go out into the straight and stand on a corner naked? You get the same effect but it is a lot more humorous and less tragic. You get people to interact with you, and if you are real lucky you get to see what the inside of the police station looks like.

So my first post was a nothing post, there wasn't really any substance to it, but it was just an introduction. FACT: If everyone stopped reading after the introduction then the planet would be full of stupid people. Anyways, I'm going to have a shower.

Quote of the day: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable." J.F.K.

Song of the Day: Flobots ft. Tim McIlrath - White Flag Warriors