I used to be the lead singer for a band called Drunken Firework Mishap. Our logo was a stylized pair of polyurethane testicles.

Travelling from town to town in a broken down van, earning just enough money for beer and McDonald’s and guitar strings. We didn’t have much, but we got more ass than a toilet seat. In fact, that’s why Rock and Roll was invented: to get laid. Why develop an interesting personality or a physically phit physique, or even be blessed with good looks or height, when you can just stand there with a microphone or a guitar or a drumstick and scream about how no one understands you?

Nowadays, I look back fondly on those days, but at the time we weren’t very happy. Like most people, we were convinced that the present sucked, the future would be better “if only” or “once this or that happened”, and that the past was a golden age oozing with utter (imagined) awesomeness.

The human being is quite adept at cheating himself out of his own happiness.

The problem, basically, for us was that we didn’t want to be a punk rock band. What we really wanted to do was play polka music. Not just any polka music, but serious polka music about serious issues, like the patriarchy and how white people are evil and suck and should die, especially white men, and about how capitalism was a giant world-devouring monster that was evil and sucked and should die, even though we were all overweight and had iPods. Stuff like that.

If there was one thing we cared about as a band, it was the issues.

Every once in a while, toward the end of a show, we’d pull out our accordions, put on our lederhosen, and try out our true love right there in front of everybody. We’d launch into the the Patriarchal Privilege Polka or the Down With Whitey Waltz or the Genocidal Jew Jig, but invariably to resounding boos. Sometimes they even pelted us with rocks and garbage.

The rejection only fueled our punk shows, and the next time we got onstage and screamed about how no one understood us, we totally fucking meant it.