chet wrote:

kerble wrote:I was a teetotaler until I turned 18 and picked up all of my vices, but I've never had a problem with those "nailed to the X" unless they spouted the same brand of self-righteous bullshit that I lump in with militant vegans and republicans.

My friends were in a Bold tribute band called "XNailedToTheAwesomeX".

Thats the kind of stuff you come up with when your brain's on drugs!

Isn't "Bold" a laundry detergent?

As a personal ethos - Not Crap
The way it was enacted by most - Crap

I haven't had a drink or done drugs since '83 and I'm not afraid to take shit from others and admit it. Does that make me SE? Not in my mind. I'm appalled when people preach from on high and say that everyone should be SE and you are a dick if you aren't. Personal reasons for personal choices. The golden rule is the only thing that I think everyone should aspire to. As long as you aren't hurting anyone else, do whatever you want.

I'm going to agree with everyone that it is Not Crap to not do drugs and stuff, but it is Crap to beat someone up for having a cigarette. (Tempting, at times, but Crap).

However, I think sxe gets an extra Crap point for being so ill-defined. I did a bit of research on this a couple years ago because I wanted to know whether I was Straight Edge or not. All I found was that there was little agreement on what it meant. Alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs are obviously verboten, but that's about the only thing that was clear.

Also, it's weird, but maybe not Crap, that a whole movement encouraging purity of mind and body would encourage tattooing.

I remember reading somewhere that the drummer of Minor Threat was actually a pot smoker.

I say crap.

connor wrote:

Noah wrote:

connor wrote:Plus, I think the last thing most people need in their lives is celibacy.

And here I was thinking I would be congratulated in the afterlife.

No, but God will call you a pussy.

Connor

With a couple of years of hindsight, this exchange is unfortunate.

Colonel Panic wrote:I remember reading somewhere that the drummer of Minor Threat was actually a pot smoker.

As far as I know, they weren't a straight-edge band - MacKaye was the only one.

When I was sixteen, this one eighteen year old straight edger was one of the most inspiring people I'd ever met at the time. Amongst many young people holding to this thing for grim death, he seemed to really enjoy being straight, having a snappy mind... at that time in this town it was thrash-heads and hardcore kids together, so there was a lot of good humour thrown around at each other for each other's choices. The lad in question was one of the funniest, driest, wittiest people I'd ever met. One time when I couldn't get into a venue because I was obviously under age, he talked the door people into letting me in, and even though he wasn't drinking he helped me get a drink! Because it was down to personal choices, not a set of rules. When I told him I was going vegetarian he gave me real support with it. When I failed to be vegetarian we laughed about it. As things went on, the hardcore crowd got more and more up their own arse, and weirdly enough, a lot of them all looked up to the lad I'm talking about as some kind of guru. I guess that's what happens when you are doing something for real and for yourself in a crowd full of insecure overly-serious kids. I don't think he stayed straight edge in the end, but now I'm 34 and have done all the drink and drugs that I'll ever need to do, and way more than I should have, I still think of how content that lad was at eighteen - not full of Youth of Today bullshit; just happy to be alive and clear-minded.

For the one person in however-many who manages to avoid getting sucked into stupidity, self-destruction, violence, prison, alcoholism, addiction, or just embarrassment, through coming into contact with the Straight Edge philosophy, I'll forego all the other tossers who acted like tossers and vote Not Crap.

Cheers for that story, John.

I started drinking and smoking weed when I was thirteen. Getting hipped to the concept of straight edge via Minor Threat's records helped to create a brief oasis of sobriety in an otherwise dissolute adolescence. I figure I was straight edge from around the ages of fifteen to seventeen.

What I bought into was not any kind of didacticism or puritanism--I couldn't have cared less what anyone else did, and my bandmates would consume anything placed in front of them--it was just the idea that everything I did should be an informed choice. It was pretty clear to me that lots of the people around me (and I'm not just talking about the punk rock scene) consumed loads of drugs and alcohol without even thinking about why they were doing it, and I did not want to be one of those people. The most useful thing I took away from being straight edge was the desire never to be controlled by anything, either from without or within.

When I began drinking and using drugs again, I did so out of an earnest desire to get my kicks and to cultivate new experiences. Yeah, I know I sound like a fucking hippie, but it was more in the sprit of bohemianism, of Rimbaud's "derangement of the senses," and it was probably, asa much as anything, a Romantic accoutrement of having decided to become a poet. I'm not saying I never went overboard--I drank tons in college and smoked about as much weed as every other Kentuckian, and then there was the question of meth. Still, no matter how far gone I got, I always tried to make sure I was using whatever substance I did rather than letting it use me. I would periodically stop drinking (but keep smoking pot) and vice versa, and I only did coke or crank in fairly moderate binges. Occasionally, I'd clean up entirely.

I have a super-addictive personality; my stamina is frightening, and I am a man of prodigious appetites. The only thing, I think, that kept me from going totally off the deep end and irreparably fucking up my life (or someone else's) was that notion in the back of my head planted there by straight edge. It probably kept me from getting anyone pregnant, too. I'm not saying I was abstinent, but I was very aware that sex was a big deal, and I wanted to honor its profundity.

When I took an existentialism seminar my freshman year of college and encountered Kierkegaard for the first time, I realized that the lesson I'd learned from straight edge was fairly similar to the Leap of Faith: a desire to choose willingly what one does (and what one believes) rather than merely going through the motions in obeisance to an older, no-longer-authentic self.

I also firmly believe that having been straight edge, however briefly, in my youth probably did wonders in terms of helping me to get clean for good in my late 20's. For me, straight edge is not crap--'cause I'm a person just like you, but I've got better things to do than sit around and fuck my head . . .

connor wrote:This brings up one of my biggest pet peaves: a group of people getting stoned together only to talk solely about marijuana. Botany. To me, this is akin to getting a pizza with some friends only to talk about different forms of dough-preparation.

I resisted smoking pot for so long because, although getting stoned was an appealing idea, I had no interest in doing it with these people. I still almost never do it for this reason, too. However, it shouldn't take much brains to decide whether you want to sit around and fuck your head, hanging out with the living dead.

I vote CRAP because I disdain the label of straight edge and the concept it instills that the ethos define yourself as a person. I did not drink or do drugs for most of my teen years, I don't binge drink, I barely ever smoke pot now, I never get into fights, and I take good care of my body. I'm not and shouldn't be proud of myself for these things.