Straight edge; 12,000 B.C.
by Carolinelast night, Beloit’s newest comedy troupe, 12,000 b.c., performed in the Moore Lounge. they’re staging the same performance tonight. the show was pretty funny, largely due to the presence of one particularly hilarious and performance-experienced student. they did a combination of sketch and stand-up comedy.
one stand-up routine involved a standard set of Beloity jokes — commons food, making eye-contact when you’re walking on the sidewalk, drug use — but he made one point that really struck a chord with me. he said that everyone has a vice, and everyone in turn has a vice that they choose to be judgmental about. he also pointed out that people decide which vices to judge based on which ones they themselves enjoy. that part isn’t particularly revelatory. but he said every person has a personal pyramid of vices.
so you might say, “I drink, but at least I don’t smoke weed.”
“I drink and smoke weed, but at least I don’t do blow.”
“I drink, smoke weed and do blow, but at least I don’t shoot up.”
and so on and so on until, the comedian said, you reach “I do all that shit but at least I don’t fuck animals.”
it was hilarious but he’s also spot-on. people’s standards for what they’ll rationalize to their friends is amazing. Beloit students are also remarkably deft at passing these kinds of judgments about other people’s habits.
a good friend and I talk about straight edge pretty frequently because we’re both nondrinkers. (“straight edge” is a subculture based on various subjective tenets but largely defined as people who don’t indulge in any mind-altering substances.) he identifies as straight edge and goes to straight-edge shows. I, on the other hand, usually tell people, “I don’t drink. but I’m not straight edge or anything.” in my mind, it’s as much a protective mechanism as a legitimate subculture — I don’t need a group of people to validate my decision to do what’s right for myself, do I? that seems silly to me. what i notice about nondrinkers, though, is that they often DO need this support. maybe if my friends weren’t so awesome and maybe if my parents hadn’t made me so comfortable with myself, I would want this kind of group mentality. as it stands, I’m always sad to see the divide between kids who drink and kids who don’t. it’s usually out of mutual fear of judgment. sober kids assume drinkers will think they’re squares, and drinkers assume sober kids will think they’re overindulgent.
one response
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this actually looks pretty darn interesting, though admittedly i’m biased. it looks like they’ve amassed a nice variety of talking heads(Kent McClard wrote one of the best articles about straight-edge i’ve ever read, and karl and ian and ray are no brainers, though now old enough to offer seasoned perspectives on this movement of theirs.)
i’m still not sure i ever articulated exactly why i chose a label to you, at least not to my satisfaction, and i’ve certainly changed my reasons/intensity over the past couple of years(living with an ex-heroin, current alcoholic will do that to you), but i don’t think the edge has steered me wrong yet. it’s more than a passive personal choice, it’s a fuck you to a society that uses substance abuse as a standard. it’s renouncing consumption as a lifestyle(something i strive for, though am not entirely successful at just yet), and as such, i’m comfortable with using it. i mean, it’s also what you make of it, much like punk rock, or diy, or anything tied up in this weird perma-underground nonsense.
anyway. i hope you’re well. also, alton brown is doing a signing at the michigan ave. borders, dunno if you’re interested in that at all.