“What the fuck you looking at, grandpa?” snaps the kid with a red mohawk, studded leather jacket and Sex Pistols t-shirt.

I’m looking at a mirror, reflecting my past. You look like I did sometime in the late 70’s. I was a punk rocker before you were even born, and before most people ever heard of it. I stumbled on to an obscure FM radio station that played raw, powerful music no other stations were playing. I connected with it immediately. It channeled the anger I kept bottled up.

The anger at the kids in my school. Who, when I showed up with spiked hair and a denim jacket covered with buttons of bands they never heard of, ridiculed me all day long and outright attacked me after school.

The anger at my parents. My father a hopeless alcoholic, not even brave enough to be an angry drunk, just a pathetic one. And my mother who made it her life’s work to be a victim.

After graduation, the prospect of living at home while attending community college filled me with dread. So I took off one night, leaving my parents a vague note. I knew they wouldn’t come after me.

L.A. bands like X, The Runaways and The Germs were a siren’s call guiding me to Hollywood. Redlands, California may have only been 70 miles from Hollywood, but it was like I’d fast forwarded through space and time. When I stepped off the bus on Hollywood Boulevard, I looked almost normal compared to the wild guys who loitered the streets.

The L.A. punks may have appeared scary to outsiders, but to a like soul, they were friendly. From my first day in town, they welcomed me in and quickly became my substitute family.

We’d hang on a random corner of Hollywood Boulevard talking about our favorite bands. Soon they invited me to hang out at record stores, grab a burger at In-N-Out or see their band play at some obscure club that never checked I.D.s. A few times they even asked me to fill in on guitar. Though I only knew a couple of chords, it didn’t matter. It was a fucking blast.

Somehow I survived living on the streets, sleeping in doorways or occasionally crashing at friends' pads. Being straight edge, I didn't need sex, drugs or alcohol to have fun. Just my friends and music. And the occasional meal that I sometimes had to beg for. Think I got more money because I terrified strangers; they hoped a donation would insure I wouldn’t mug them.

Friends helped me do all sorts of crazy things with my hair. We’d color it every hue imaginable. And style it into absurd shapes and forms. Yeah, Mr. Red Mohawk. I had one of those when I was your age.

I wore torn jeans and tattered band t-shirts. The Sex Pistols were almost too main stream for us, but I owned the same shirt you did. An original. A friend gave me a hand-me-down leather jacket. A few of the studs were missing, but it looked lived in, not fresh off the rack like yours. It was quickly covered with band buttons old and new.

I strung chains around my jeans and my jacket. Safety pins decorated my clothes as well as stuck through my nose and ears. But nothing was more painful than slicing band names into my arms and chest with razor blades. Yeah, that may have been the stupidest thing I did out of peer pressure. Wanna compare scars?

Passers-by gawked at us, or crossed to the other side of the street. People driving by locked their doors when they spotted us. Security guards followed us around “rock-n-roll” Ralphs (as the supermarket is still known to some today). Tourists asked to have pictures taken with us. I spat at them and growled: "Fuck off."

On a lark, I applied for a job at the Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard and actually got it. I was their punk rock expert, helping yuppies find punk albums they probably just listened to once. It helped me afford a studio apartment with a bunch of other punks in the outskirts of Hollywood. It wasn’t much, but nice to have a roof over my head during rainy season.

At first I thought I wanted to be in a band, but realized I was a better writer than musician. So I began writing angry, subversive poetry.

On a lark, I signed up for classes at L.A. City College. I took writing and literature classes. Though my poems were too crude for our college literary magazine to publish. Fine, I’d find an independent publisher and have a collection in Book Soup next to Allen Ginsberg.

An advisor suggested a business degree might help me find a job while I tried to sell my poems. At first I was offended, I planned to shake the world to pieces, but then I realized a little filthy lucre couldn’t hurt.

I got a job at a local beer company, helping to manage their club accounts. I thought this would be my gateway into managing a club and helping discover new punk bands. Maybe I’d become an A&R guy for an independent record label. Instead, I became a supervisor in food manufacturing.

I may have traded my Sex Pistols t-shirt for a suit and tie, but the punk attitude was still there. I didn't take any crap from my coworkers. I’d roll into work on a few hours sleep after hanging at some club seeing obscure bands, visiting friends at record stores, or filling notebooks with random words.

Can’t remember the last time I did any of that.

I barely even listen to my favorite punk albums anymore. I upgraded everything to CDs, and ripped those onto my computer to listen to on my iPod or iPhone. But haven’t bought new music in years.

Still, I’m more punk than you, kid. Hanging out at the lame Burbank mall. Wearing your brand name clothes that your mommy and daddy paid for. And probably driving a BMW and living in a luxurious Glendale home. Spending your nights getting stupidly stoned and trying to sleep with girls. Bet you have no idea what straight edge means.

You think you’re doing something new. But I was here first, poser.

I spit in your face and growl: "Fuck off."